Some Older Shots for the Facebookless

This blog is normally our first stop for posting Zain pics, and I catch up later on Facebook.  But these are some shots I put on Facebook a few weeks ago and never got around to blogging.  So, this post is for those of you who are FBless.  And the rest of you can enjoy an encore.  Most of these were taken in April.

"Mommy, my Jolly Jumper isn't working."

Zain's revenge

When traveling.... whatever works!

 

Reading is serious business

 

Ohio Visit Pic-fest

I guess I gave away all the news in the last post.  Zain is crawling very well now.  Not super-fast yet, which is good (for us), but he really gets around.  He loves crawling to various upright objects and then pulling himself to a stand, and standing there squealing for awhile.  And, as I mentioned, thankfully he learned how to sit from a stand instead of falling and bonking his head (Shif's "sitting boot camp" helped).  

His other hobby right now is music.  He has always been a singer.  Now he's adding instruments.  He likes to knock toys together to make sounds.  The last couple days on the change table, he's been rubbing the tin of zinc butt cream along the wall to make new sounds.  He also likes to sing while he has a toy in his mouth and make different sounds with it.  He has one hollow block that is a favorite for this - it must have good acoustics.  Sometimes he'll also smack the toy with his hand for a little rhythm.  I think we've mentioned his head shake before?  For the last month or two, he's been shaking his head (the "no" shake).  He used to do it at people, seemingly trying to get them to shake back.  And he'd also shake at Binda and at characters in books.  Now it seems the shake is also some kind of dance move.  It happens frequently when music comes on.  And every now and then, the rest of the body gets in on the action, too; but he's generally more of a singer than a dancer.

We had a great two-week vacation in Ohio.  Got to see lots of family members, highlighted by Aunt Mary and Uncle Ryan's wedding.  Zain looked very dapper, dressed up with his posse of cousins.  Here are several gajillion pictures from our visit (And we've registered the complaints from Zain Nation about our blog slacking.  It's been a hectic recently.  We promise more frequent updates now!).

Two sharp-looking dudes at the wedding - Zain and Grandpa

With Great-Grandma W at the wedding

A cuddle for Lt Col Uncle Doug (Zain really liked all those toys on Doug's uniform)

With Aunt Lorna, in his Urkel pants

Luke, Zain, and Wyatt with the newlyweds

Ryan giving Zain advice on marriage

Aunt Mary is hilarious!

     

Giggling with Uncle Anthony

We loved the warm weather (but not the tornado warnings)!

 

Whoa!

Maya and I try to convince Zain it's cool to wear a hat

Not convinced

He LOVES the slide

 

How Zain spends most of his time these days

Tippy-toes!

Celebrating Mummy's birthday

We went to the butterfly show with Maya and Lorna

Hunting butterflies

Maya shared her old baby toys with Zain

These stayed on for about five seconds (Mummy is already thinking "that was $7 wasted")

He's crawling and nothing is stopping him

Out for dinner with Grammy

"What is that on your face, Uncle Barry?"

Loves food

Hey, Grandma!

Practicing his walking

Never too young to drive a tractor

Hiking in Glen Helen

 

Perplexed by his first Cheerio

Ohiatus

Yes, we've been missing in blog action for awhile again.  We're finishing up a two-week visit to Ohio, as per our usual action-packed Buckeye visits, and haven't had any time to blog.  We're headed back to (hopefully less hot) Canada tomorrow.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks for Mr. Zain.  He attended his first wedding, and looked very dapper.  And he is now a crawling machine.  He's also become an expert at pulling to stand and, much to his mommies' delight, he's finally figured out how to sit down from a stand (instead of crying his head off because he was stuck).  We'll have a pic-filled post for you in a few days!

The Latest in Locomotion

We've had some major happenings in the world of baby movement in the last couple weeks (fitting nicely with a bet Shif and I had on when he would do his first real crawl - I think someone owes me dinner!).  We went through about two weeks where Zain would get in crawl position, knowing that it was supposed to take him somewhere, but he had no idea what to do.  There were lots of planks and downward dogs during this phase, but the leg swing and knee movement escaped him.  Therefore, there was also a lot of grunting, whining, and frustration.  

But in the last week or so, he's made some progress.  He's perfecting his army crawl.  I think Uncle Doug would be proud.  And he has made a few full crawl cycles.  He's not full-out crawling (thank goodness) but he can get around a room pretty well through a variety of methods.  

A downward dog/plank (yes, we're enticing him with the iPhone)

A lot of his early attempts ended up moving him backward

This is getting frustrating

Getting closer - still not sure what to do with the legs

Why isn't this working??

This sucks!!!

And you're just sitting there with your camera?

Here's a good comparison that shows how quickly he's learning.  These videos were taken six days apart.

There are days, however, when crawling is "so baby" and all he wants to do is stand.  Life completely sucks if he's sitting or lying down.  Toys are only fun if they are played with while he's standing, songs can only be sung once he's reached his full height, etc.  He's pretty good at pulling to a stand now.  About half the time, he gets his feet so tangled up that he can't make it up without assistance, but the rest of the time he can do it himself.  

Serving the Public

We received an "official complaint" today that the blog had not been updated in two weeks. Zain's fans are getting restless!  We promise to have some good stuff up this weekend.  Pictures!  Videos!  Other amusements!  

:-)