Amazing changes

In a time span of only two weeks, Alex has reached several major developmental milestones. He started crawling on July 14, he managed to stand up on his own a week later, and last weekend, on July 28, he started making his first careful steps along the fence in the living room, all by himself. Given that Alex accomplished these amazing feats exactly during Grandpa and Grammie's vacation, Cindy and Rob suspect that Alex has chosen the dates to show his new skills on purpose to surprise his grandparents upon their return.

Of course, Alex' new skills also bring with them new problems. For example, while Alex is awake, he needs to be exploring. The good old days of putting him down somewhere and knowing that he would be there until picked up again are over. Once he is put on the floor, he immediately starts moving to an interesting toy, anything that is made from paper, or to the fence in the living room. We have set up that fence to protect Alex from the dangers of the fireplace and the VCR/TV, and the other way around.

Another problem is that Alex likes to practice standing a lot, and his favorite time and place to stand is in his crib, when he is supposed to go to bed. And better yet is of course standing up in the middle of the night, holding the bars of his crib, and yelling out loud so that Rob or Cindy has to get up to put him back on his back to sleep.

A less fun first for Alex was his first fever. Fortunately, at 102 F/ 39 C it was only a mild one, but it caused some discomfort for him anyway. During the day and a half that the fever lasted, Alex was a little grumpy, and he slept more than usual, but apart from that he was still playful and eager to crawl and do things.

Wordplay

Alex is expanding his consonant vocabulary more and more. Over the past few weeks he has been saying bs, ds, gs, js, ks, and, since last Saturday, ps. He even said papa a few times, and even though him saying papa is not yet associated with Rob, it is still great fun to hear him say it. Now we are eagerly awaiting his first m's and mama.

Paper boy

Alex shows a remarkable love for paper. Whenever he sees a glimpse of paper, he needs to go get his hands on it, or better yet, his mouth on it. Whether it is a napkin, a magazine, a book, a single sheet or the newspaper, he must grab it, wrinkle it, pull it apart and wave it around. Ideally, he would like to put it in his mouth after that, but so usually Rob or Cindy intervenes before it comes to that. Because of his keen love for paper, it is a great means to get him to do something. The first time he crawled was to get hold of a big, tempting piece of paper.

A Day at the Beach

In the first weekend of August we had a family beach weekend in Ocean Grove. The weather was warm and muggy, but fortunately the water and the breeze provided the necessary cooling. Alex initially was not sure what to think of the beach, but with the help of Cindy, Rob, and the rest of the family he soon enjoyed the sounds and motions of the waves, the feeling of the water and sand under his feet, and playing with the sand. Below are some pictures of Alex at the beach.

Changes to this Website in the Past Month

Aug 22 Added a webpage devoted to Alex' Artwork.
Aug 5 Added A Day at the Beach to this homepage, and added one new picture.
Jul 31 Major update, with new homepage, new pictures, new movies, a new closeup, and new length, weight and head circumference.
Jul 25 Added Stand up by himself holding on to furniture under first things.
Jul 20 Added First steps under first things.
Jul 16 Added Crawling under first things.
Jul 13 Added Dada!!! under first things.
Jul 7 Added Alex can sit himself up under first things.
Jul 5 Added new sounds, and added KaGaKaGa and Footclappy to this homepage.

Next major update: Aug 31, 2002

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