Let the Games Begin

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? He's standing. On his own. Standing. He grabs the table/chair/pants leg/whatever is at hand, pulls up, straightens his little legs, and voila! Standing. Nobody helping, nobody stabilizing, nobody lifting him. He just decided this was the time, and suddenly, what you get is the photo below.
Every five minutes. You put him on the floor, he's back standing up before you can count to ten. He falls down, it doesn't matter, he has his Mother's stubbornness, so he cries for ten seconds, then he's back standing ten seconds after that. And almost always at the coffee table. See if you can figure out why by looking at the photo below...
Laptops. It was one thing to have the capacity to look at them and drool in their vicinity. But to stand up, and be able to actually grab them, well, can you see the motivation now? Now that he's standing, everything is in reach: laptops, cellphones, remote controls. Which, of course, means the Mommy and Daddy had to find new places to hide all of the forbidden stuff, since as you can see, the coffee table is no longer really an option.
Did we mention that we weren't exactly ready for this step?

Rapid Progress

As mentioned yesterday, Lautje is pulling up on everything. And, by that, I mean everything. As you can see in the first photo, even his play-mobile-thing is not immune to the phenomenon. He literally won't stay on the floor for 5 seconds, without scouting out possible things to grab to help him stand upright. Needless to say, he's like a crawling accident-waiting-to-happen.
Which brings us to last week. We've been letting Lautje fall asleep on his own lately (which generally involves leaving him alone in his crib and trying to ignore his pleas for someone to come rock him to sleep - otherwise known as grumping). Well, the other day, as the Daddy went in to check on him, there was Lautje as captured in the photo below.
Standing up. On his own (or, at least with a little help from the crib). Somewhat unexpected, truthfully. And, of course, the Daddy, being the irresponsible parent that he is, immediately fetched the camera and took a picture. Oh, and then made sure Lautje laid back down in bed. Needless to say, we dropped the level of the crib fairly soon thereafter...

Pulling up...

Have I mentioned lately that Lautje is pulling up on everything, trying to stand? I know, progress is good, but, it creates some problems. For instance, both the Mommy and Daddy frequently work on their computers at the coffee table, which, incidentally, is the perfect height for Lautje to pull up on. So, as the Daddy is sitting on the couch, he frequently has a visitor, as can be seen below. Naturally, given his strange attraction to cables, remote controls, and anything that he isn't allowed to have, he really, really, wants the laptops. So, as you can see in the next photo, he strategically places himself at the optimal troublemaking position.
And, as seen from the point of view of the Daddy and Mommy, it's all very disturbing. He used to just be able to balance for 2-3 minutes and then he'd fall down (only to get up and do it all over again, but at least you had a quiet 30 seconds in between), but now, he squats there for 15+ minutes, quietly starting at us. You can see the thought in his eyes: "Daddy, can I please, please, please drool on your laptop just this once?"

The Troublemaker - Part 2

Have a few photos built up, so I thought a double-post would be appropriate. As previously mentioned, Lautje has a knack for finding trouble. In the top photo, he decided to climb into the clean laundry the Mommy was folding, and came out with the Daddy's boxers on his head. In the bottom photo, he decided to see if the Mommy was wearing a wig.

The Troublemaker

Lautje, like all little boys his age (I assume...), gets into his fair share of trouble. Basically, if you turn your back on him for 5 seconds, he will have found something to chew on that he probably shouldn't have. We like him to explore and experience everything, and most importantly, learn on his own about the world, so we tend to be pretty indulgent about this sort of stuff. So long as he isn't going to hurt himself (too badly...), we generally let it go. But sometimes, he finds things that are most definitely off-limits, regardless of how benign they are. The photo below is one such moment, when Lautje discovered that the Mommy's soft leather purse was really quite tasty. You can see the mischievous look in his eye: he knows the Mommy won't be happy...
Shortly after moments like the one above, you get something resembling the moment in the photo below. Either the Mommy or the Daddy airlifts Lautje away from his latest chewtoy, as he looks on somewhat aggrieved, with his little face pleading, "What did I do?"

Sunset Boulevard

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Sorry, obscure movie reference. As for the photos, the Mommy and Daddy are collecting alot lately that look something like these. It used to be that when you got on the floor to take a photo of the boy, it would not only take him a little while to realize there was a camera to go check out, it would also take him awhile to drag his little body across the floor. You could easily get 3-4 pictures taken in that time. Not anymore. Aside from generally being more alert to the camera's presence, he also moves like greased lightning these days. So, if your lucky, you can take 1, maybe 2, photos, before he's right on top of you and grabbing the camera. Which leads to alot of extreme close-ups... They say the most dangerous place to stand in Washington, DC, is between a politician and a camera. I think you could say the same thing about our apartment and Lautje.

The Daddy and Food

It's not the best photo in the world, but if you can overlook the backlit-shadowy-blurry nature of the picture, you can clearly see the boy being fed his nighttime bottle by the Daddy. Which is not to say that the Daddy always does the nighttime feeding. Quite the contrary, actually. The Mommy is the de facto feeder in the family (both by practice and clever design from the Daddy...).
Though, when she gets tired and frustrated, she occasionally turns the chore over to the Daddy. Generally speaking, she tries to keep the Daddy's feedings to those that include a bottle. The reason for this can be well seen in the photo below. Even though both Lautje and the Daddy enjoyed that particular feeding of pears (and whatever they were mixed with...) and were both laughing and having a good time, it would be difficult to argue that Lautje actually ate very much. Though, as can be seen in the photo, he did manage to smear a substantial portion all over his face (and up his nose, and in his ear, and on the floor, and on the table...). So, generally speaking, the Mommy tends to prefer that the Daddy is limited to bottle feedings...