Being April

DJ loves his baths. He gets a bath most every night. When he was little I used to hold him down in the water on his back and he would flail his arms and legs and splash around and squeal in excitement. When he got a bit bigger I sat him up and he splashed around then too. I had to be sure to hold him up because he kept falling over in excitement. When he got better at sitting I didn't have to have a constant hand on him anymore, and I could just sit back and relax and watch him having a lot of fun in his bath, occasionally I would have to hand him a toy that floated out of his reach. Eventually he learned to scoot along on his bum and he could travel from one end of the bathtub to another. Then he learned to pull himself into a standing position. He kept trying to pull himself up to play with the faucet and the knobs, or reach up for his shampoo, or just the side of the tub. It was pretty easy to keep him down though because it was still difficult for him to get ...

DJ is nine months old now. He is learning new things all the time. Most of which are better ways to get into everything. He now climbs on things, pulls things off of shelves, opens cupboards, pulls himself up on everything and cruises around. It kind of reminds me of when we were little and we used to play don't touch the ground, how we would jump from furniture to furniture. He pulls himself up on one thing, walks the length of it, then precariously transfers himself to the next available piece of furniture, walks along that, then moves on to the next piece of furniture. He can get clear across the living room like that. He does however need a hand getting from the coffee table over to the TV stand, and that's literally all he needs. I offer him one hand which he uses to stabilize himself as he takes the two steps it takes to get across, then he lets go and continues on his way. He likes to chase things around on the ground. He'll push a ball, or one of his p...