so much to say but too busy! edwin can stand if his back is supported!
he also has played his first piano! He has made the bells ring- but
usually prefers to eat them! he's just a riot!

Michael is showering w/Edwin, and the two of them are having a squealing fun time!  Apparently while Michael showered, Edwin was in his little chair- and was TOTALLY getting the idea of 'peekaboo'!!! Just to put it down here, I have to say he's almost at the opposable thumb stage but not totally.  If you place an item between his thumb and first finger, he will hold it, but he doesn't pick things up himself that way yet.  He totally loves hair, ribbons, and string ties/shoelaces of any sort!  Yesterday he began to make forward progress on crawling, but he still doesn't quite get it.  He's certainly developed enough, but he has to have a lightbulb come on.  He gets into crawling position and rocks.  He also rocks when sitting. (We have to put him in a sitting position.)

He may have finally eaten (rather than just tasted) his first food!  A cheerio!  He's able to hold small items between his thumb and first finger, but not consistently.  I gave him a cheerio and he managed to mutilate it inside his mouth to the point where I would assume he swallowed it.  What fun!!!  (But, every cheerio he eats is one cheerio I won't be eating ...  unfortunately...)

19 2.5

19 ;)

18 15

He's been starting to make some forward progress, slowly.  But, he still mainly goes backwards when he tries to go forwards.  This is incredibly frustrating for him.  Poor little guy. His graduation gown is now complete.  That took forever!  Oh well!

Michael says, "This handheld does nothing but encourage bad behavior.  Here I am in my pj's surfing the internet on my handheld!" (Meanwhile, I'm reading up on "Paris Syndrome" suffered by some Japanese tourists to France...  it's funny, look it up!!!)


Ok ok ok... here it is...

Edwin is actually making small amounts of forward progress rather than pushing himself only backwards!!!  This is new tonight!

So, Edwin has now tasted Yaki Soba.  He still hasn't swallowed anything that we can tell.. but he does love to taste our food.  If it's vegan (or close to it) we let him chop on it to see what things taste like.  He also enjoyed playing with a "Chinese" soup spoon.  He also apparently loves Mozart's #40 & #41.  Yesterday on the way home, #40 was playing on the radio, so I redirected the speakers so he could hear it, even though he was sleeping.  He awoke and looked around... then after the piece ended, I directed the speakers back up front and he went back to sleep.  We did this again for a Vivaldi piece.  He liked it. :)  At least, he didn't complain.  I know, he never complains, you say???  But he does let me know sometimes when he's terribly tired or unhappy.  :)

Edwin presented his first gift to somebody today!!! He gave Debbie her mug w/everyone's picture on it today.  She liked it.  :)

So, we had a fun afternoon/evening!

Heh, but first let me say a few things... I've taken to responding to Edwin when he 'whines' by saying, "Waaah Waaah Waah, what do you think you are? A Baby? Are you a Baby???" When he gets a bit older, of course, I'll stop doing that. But it's only funny now b/c he is one.

Second, Michael has this new toy...
Here...
which is a wonderful thing for him, not having breasts and all. Ok... so here's why. :) I can nurse Edwin while playing online. Until now, Michael has not been able to snuggle Edwin and play/work online at the same time! But now with this device, he can be online anywhere at his school, my work, or any coffeeshop we would frequent, several nearby restaurants, and of course, our house and Robyn's. Basically, the vast majority of anywhere except while travelling in the car! He can even use it while in bed or on the sofa! So, he can now literally be lying on his back with Edwin facedown on his chest, and he can still be taking care of many little emergencies on the computer sysadmin side of things! In fact, as I type this, Michael is working on his homework by using his device as a dictation recording device! This device is far more useful than our old Visors! (Palm Pilots)

So, we finally went swimming again after all this time! See, we'd been going once a week, and that was our plan, but after Michael began studying for his A exam, that was kindof curtailed! Now that the exam's over, we want to get back into swimming w/the boy again! So, it's probably been 2 or 3 months since we really took him swimming! So, I was afraid he'd forgotted everything. It's not clear what he forgot, but he was rigid in the water at first. Also a bit of an issue was that he was cold and tired and perhaps even hungry. So, initially he wasn't too excited about the water. (Oh, plus it was crowded and noisy!) But eventually, after some dunking, Michael took over and dunked him differently. Edwin actually was happier being dunked, I think, because it was probably warmer that way! Michael let him down slowly rather than quickly, and he let him stay under awhile. So, when I was dunking him quickly, he had no trouble with it, but it did startle him a bit. Then, when Michael did it, he kept extending the underwater time. Eventually (I was not there for this, unfortunately) he let Edwin go for a second underwater. In this second, Edwin was actually bouyant and making forward motion on his own! Another father (with goggles) told Michael that Edwin had his tounge out and wrapped over his upper lip when he was under. Michael said Edwin was clearly having fun. (The reason I didn't see this is that I was changing. Since the locker rooms were very cold, I wanted to change myself, then come out and change Edwin in the warm pool area.)

When we got to the car, Edwin had already fallen asleep in Michael's arms, even thought it was cold and windy out! But upon placing him in the carseat, he reawoke briefly. I knew he'd be asleep again soon, so I got out the camera so I could capture him falling asleep! He wouldn't sleep while the car was parked, but as soon as Michael started driving off, he was zonked out within 90 seconds. I have a 26 second clip in which he begins w/open eyes and ends w/closed eyes. I did keep watching him and he didn't open them again until we got home and I took him out of his seat. So, it shows that this kid can fall asleep in 26 seconds when he's exhausted. :) What a kid! As he falls asleep, he goes through a very short period where he closes and then squeezes his eyes shut. It's really cute!

Happy December!  Edwin is learning to play with this toy my friend bought for him.  It's the first time he's managed to get the monkey to pop up on his own, w/o my help!  He's also standing at home for about half a minute with assistance from a low "table".  I'm trying to figure out what this "table" thing is called, but I found a link for Edwin's toy!

http://www.specialtybaby.com/lagrwibadiis.html