where the boy is at

It seems that the onset of Walk Watch 2007 impressed Daniel so little that he decided to stick with his pre evolutionary crawl. Some insensitive git one at daycare though, told me that two weeks ago and moments before I collected my little cherub, he'd taken five steps, how fantastic! what a pity I missed it! Had there been a 4x2 handy, even one constructed from giant Lego, I would have hit her with it. What a pity I didn't! People, if you work in daycare with little ones who are bursting with a myriad of as yet unachieved milestones, parents don't want to know the ones they've missed. If we ask, think twice about telling us because I'm pretty sure I speak for us all when I say we don't mind when you lie. Daniel might even be walking now, for all I know, but if he isn't doing it at home, he isn't doing it at all, la la la la la.

While he isn't yet (as far as I know!) walking unaided, he is, on the other hand, pushing his little walking thingummyjig around pretty much all day. (I'd upload some video to YouTube if I wasn't so freaked about my camera having a cow in the process but I am so you can thank me now for not taking this opportunity to make you watch more minutes of something that's really only interesting to me) He knows how to change direction too, so fortunately for moi, he doesn't go over all precious and tantrummy when he runs out of space and into a wall. He just picks the whole thing up, turns it around and continues on his way, collecting toys, lint, scraps of newspaper, magnets he's plucked off the fridge door, the cat, and whatever else catches his eye, and puts in in the little basket in front. The other day, he took a box of oats out of the shopping bag and, while he tried and tried to get it to balance on top of the basket, lost his shit when it kept falling off, so I taped the box to his walking thingummy doover, and he was all smiles and squeals and ended up pushing that box of oats around for the rest of the day.

Hey, you know those cartoons where the car takes off and drags the driver with it, his hands disappearing off screen, followed by hands, then his head with the surprised "WHOooAaaA!!" look in his eyes, then his body and finally his legs? That's the gist of what happens when Daniel pushes this thing through a doorway. He'll stop, turns to see where I am, give me a gapey, toothy smile, then WHOA! the walker seems to lurch forward, surprising Daniel and whipping him through the doorway with his legs practically flying in the wind behind him. The boy is a hoot.

Although, are all kids this entertaining? Or am I just easily entertained?

His other favorite toy is the bedroom, all of it and particularly the bed, so you can imagine his unfettered joy when, after 'driving' into the bedroom and pushing the walker into the edge of the bed. And pushing. And pushing. And pushing while furrowing his brow and wondering why in fuck the damn thing won't get onto the bed, mama made what he wanted, happen. He stood on the bed and held onto his walker, and happily squealed for as long as I stood by and supervised. He couldn't move it anywhere, of course, what with all the quilty goodness he was standing on, but he didn't care. He'd combined his two loves and life was good. When I was all bored with standing by to catch him if he fell, I put him back on the floor and he took off out the room, cartoon style, collecting a book, a sock and one of his t-shirts on the way.

Books now take up a good portion of his interest too. He's not overly interested in being read to - my guess is he tolerates up with me doing it because when it means he doesn't have to turn the pages - but he will sit with his books and open and close them and point at the pictures while telling himself stories that only he can understand.

No words yet, and unlike a lot of mothers who recognise various gibberish as words when applied to various objects

Child: bah bo RAH!
Mother (proudly): My child can say "supercalafragalisticexpialadocious".

I tend more toward the other direction and don't understand anything. Daniel is probably talking up a storm and I'm probably completely missing it.

Daniel: ba da dah!
aibee (*sighs*) : no darling, it's a baNaNa.

He did, for a while, point to birds and call them, how in hell do you spell how the letter B is pronounced? Daniel would say the beginning of 'bird' but without the 'rd'. (Score!) I was all impressed and shit, until he started calling everything the same sound I can't spell, Nowadays though, in true evolutionary style *rolls eyes* a bird is a 'bo' which, unless that bird is sporting a bodacious rack and that's what he's pointing out for me, isn't even close. Also, pretty much the entire world is now called 'bo', if Daniel is to be believed. Given enough time, he works out that waving his hands in the air and making some kind of racket isn't going to get him shit, he'll get to saying 'UB!' when he wants out of his high chair. If he sees a picture of himself, he says Dah gnoo or Dah Boo, and every now and again, will say da or dah doo when you give him someething. There was this couple of days when he was all about saying 'wee wee weeee', but I don't think he was describing the contents of his pants. Mah mah is in his repertoire too, but again, I think it's just a sound he likes, particularly as I've been having speech therapy (and there it is, another topic I'll probably forget to write about), so have taken to wandering around chanting "mee mee mee mee, maa maa maa".

And for those of you who are still interested in the contents of his large intestine, he has, for some time now, seemed to be in control of its release. He's long been a strictly At Home Only pooper, and is apparently able to hold on with the strength of a titan until we get home because invariably as soono as we do, the thunder from down under resonates throughout the neighbourhood as Daniel fills his pants. I hope this bodes well for potty training.