kellianne | Niko News

Niko's brain is exploding. Every day, he's doing something new. It's ridiculous. The whole learning to crawl thing really is a big brain BOOM.

He's crawling proper now, but he does often revert to his weird inch worm army crawl. He didn't even seem to realize that he was crawling proper that day that it first happened. Usually he looks SO PROUD when he learns something new, but not this time. It was just a natural thing for him that went by without a "check ME out" grin.

He's standing and cruising. It's a bit dangerous at this point because he really has NO sense of balance and NO fear, which is a rather bad combination. He's still the same unwieldy fat guy that he was when he was our swaddled Mondo Burrito in his newborn days, but this time he is dangerous to himself. He fell yesterday and bled from his mouth. I was literally standing rightthere! I have no idea how it happened and hope he learns some balance real soon. He's got a big bruise on his cheek right now from a totally different fall and looks like a boxer. He will pull himself up on anything and everything. My (engagement) eagle necklace has lately been his favorite thing to grab to attempt to balance himself (a testament to the durability of this particular Kimberly Baker piece).

He's eating a whole lot better. The guy loves sushi. Krab? Check. Eel? Check. I saw a link on my Baby Center email the other day that was all "Is my baby ready for fish?" and I thought, "the dude is Japanese! I didn't even think to beg the question!" He also loves oatmeal. Frozen blueberries that I stowed away from last summer's farmer's markets are a big hit (especially when his mouth is bleeding, I guess). He loves root vegetables. Broccoli is delicious. I am apparently not supposed to give him wheat, but whatevs, he loves crackers and crusts of bread and doesn't seem to have any problem with anything. Ditto for mozzarella. Any sort of goat dairy? Not so much. Something just clicked last week. He suddenly knew how to really chew and went nuts for food. It's pretty fun.

My favorite? Something clicked with books last week. He stopped just trying to eat them and suddenly realized that they were for reading. My heart just about melted a few days ago when he started reading books on his own! Which basically means that he sat by himself with a book and talked in a loud dramatic voice while opening it to random pages and gesticulating wildly! I guess that's what we sound like to him! I love that!!! His favorite book BY FAR is Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. If we are on a walk and I catch his eyes and whisper "Dum Ditty Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum" he laughs hilariously. In fact, he squeals every time I take that book out, and every time I flip the page.

He is applauding all the time. I took him to see The King's Speech yesterday at a Columbia City Theater cry baby feature. It was actually a good movie for him to see because there's all this applause at the end when the king is out on the balcony. Niko caught right on. He was like OMG I KNOW HOW TO DO THAT and clapped right along with all of England.

Also, we have WAVING! He waved to his first strangers yesterday (Sally and her daughter, Cookie). He's also POINTING at things in books. So adorable!

He's very bright and still a thinker more than a mover. He's a shy guy who likes to duck when people give him a lot of attention, but he's seeking the attention, all the same. He is a SUPER FLIRTER with woman when we are out and about. He makes eyes and then plays shy, over and over. It is such a balance between the behavior of his father (shy) and me (flirty flirt flirt) that I have to laugh.

Now that he is getting more sleep, the stranger danger that we were experiencing over the past two weeks or so has abated somewhat. He isn't totally whiny every time I go out of eyesight these days, thank goodness. He's a bright and sunny dude. Every day is a really good one lately! I am loving this age!