All About the Kids

Titus has a stuffed puppy on top of his bookshelf that is soft and squishy. When I’m holding him near that puppy, I like to softly pat it on the head and say “Nice puppy…”, then take Titus’ hand and do the same thing. After a few rounds of this, I let him try to do it himself. He does a pretty good job, considering…except that it’s more of a wind-up-and-clobber the poor toy so hard that it takes a couple of seconds to retain its former shape!

Titus also likes the sound he makes when someone pats his mouth while he’s making a noise. He likes this sound so much that he doesn’t need anyone else’s help anymore. Of course, it would be too easy for him to use his own hand…instead, he holds a note and plants his face repeatedly into whatever object is closest! This works just fine if the object he decides to use is my leg or the living room couch, but Titus is often surprised that bookshelves, kitchen chairs, and his mom’s teeth aren’t the best things to ram your face into!

Titus is now starting to learn to run! He’ll take a little gallop along the couch every now and then, which is both funny to watch and scary to think about. As if walking didn’t make him hard enough to follow around the house… He also likes to try running around if he has a hold of your fingers with both hands. The first time he tried that I wasn’t exactly prepared, and almost sent him shooting off towards his toy basket by himself! We have a video, but it’s sideways so I have to figure out how to rotate the thing before I post it.

Sarah is trying to convince me that Titus actually knows that the sound “da” refers to me. She says that he doesn’t say it much until I come home from work or walk into a room. I’m not so sure that this is true, even though there have been times that make me wonder…

The other day, Titus was quietly playing with his back towards me when I came home from work. Sarah said, “it’s da-da!” to him, he turned his head to look at me, smiled, then launched into a full string of “da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da…” while turning back to play with his toys again.

Maybe he just likes repeating his favorite sounds when he hears them (da, ba, and thbpppppt)!

Well I put up two new galleries up over the weekend, and it seems that people found them without the blog entry to go with them. But I think I’ll do an entry anyways, just because there’s so much new news!

Since my last post, Titus has started waving, clapping, and even walking! Plus I have a video to prove it! Of course, once he figured out that he could move without our help, he much prefers scooting along the couch or kitchen cupboards. Odd thing is, Titus only moves to his left.

No matter what sort of tempting toys, remote controls, paper, open cupboards, or radios you display for him on the right, all he can do is go faster to the left. In fact, now when you stand him up in the middle of a room to try walking, he typically gets so excited that he just takes steps with his left foot, and ends up pivoting in a circle.

Titus really likes throwing stuff. You give him a toy, he’ll look at it for a while, then he’ll chuck it as hard as he can, either at the floor in front of himself or the open space behind himself. I think he’s starting to like the floor in front, though, because then he can pick the toy up again and spike it repeatedly! This usually doesn’t bode too well for the toys that make noise, since he’s not exactly known for his gentleness, but I can’t really complain if a noisy toy all of a sudden becomes a little quieter…

The other morning, Titus and I were eating our Cheerios, and he accidentially dropped one on the floor. As I picked it up, he seemed quite interested in what was going on down there. When he picked up his next Cheerio, he held his hand out, leaned away from Sarah, and watched it fall when he opened his hand!

I guess this is an excellent time in his life to start understanding gravity!