Long Overdue Samuel Update!

Oh My Goodness! Samuel is walking!! He took his first, what I would call, 'sequence' of steps the day after his birthday party on July 26th. He had been doing one or two wobbly steps the previous week or two, but that morning he actually walked between Daniel and me several times! I definitely still wouldn't have defined him as a "walker" per say, but he could do it when prompted.

  It took a couple weeks after that point for him to really feel comfortable initiating the steps on his own. He would walk if you stood him up and told him to go somewhere, but it always had to be prompted. The last couple weeks he really started doing it on his own, though. I took him down to Mammie and Grandaddy's at the lake for the weekend while Daniel and I were out of town (see next post for OUR updates :P) and  when we got him back he was really moving! They gave him a lot of practice at the lake and he came back a much stronger walker than when he left.

  He's still working on one last move, though. He's yet to stand up on his own without holding onto anything. He's been pulling up on anything and everything for a long time now, but we've never seen him sitting in the middle of a room and just stand up on his own. He came close yesterday, and Daniel and I both got excited for a minute, but then he did a little tumble back down. I don't think it will be long, though.

He still has just the 5 teeth - 2 top and bottom and the left top - but he has been a little cranky, drooling like CRAZY, and wanting to bite everything in site the last few days, so hopefully a new one will come in soon and end this mess for now. We've started brushing his teeth with the baby-safe tooth paste and he thinks it's great. For a long time, Daniel and I would hold him while we brush our teeth because he was so fascinated. He would stop whatever he was doing and scoot to the bathroom when he heard us start brushing. So he thinks it's very interesting to hold his own toothbrush and move it around in his mouth like he's seen us do for months.

Samuel has been saying Mama and Papa for a long time now and makes noises like "buh" for book, or "bir" for bird, or "bah" for ball - see a trend yet? But this past week he actually articulated what I would  consider his first real word. I was feeding him applesauce and was saying "apple" every time I gave him a bite, and he looks straight at me and says "a-puh" very clearly. He said it about 5 times and I was so excited. I called Daniel at work, but of course Samuel wouldn't say it on the phone...oh well.