::scootin' (backwards)::

(No chubby kids were harmed in the making of this blog post. Maybe they're weren't immediately picked up when they wanted to be, but that's a whole other story.)

My little little guy has started scooting a bit. But not forward, where he'd like to go. Backwards. Always backwards. It's because he's not bothering to do anything with his feet, just his arms. And every time he pushes against the floor with his arms he goes backwards, which really isn't what he means or wants to do.
But I think he's happy to be moving at all.

Yesterday he was hanging out on the floor of our big room--the carpeted floor that I wanted just for things like this--scooting crawling babies.
He's on the floor playing with toys, and suddenly I realize that he's halfway across the room, but still facing me. At that point he was having a good time with it.

And he scooted on. Suddenly he realized that he had scooted rather close to the guitar that was leaning against one of the walls. This was cool and exciting.

And actually rather captivating, really.

This is where things started to fall apart. I think he really really wanted to go for the guitar. So he started to try.








He was extremely annoyed with me for giggling and taking pictures instead of helping him go the right direction. What a mean mom.
I'll have you know though, that as soon as I was done being amused and taking pictures of his frustration, I picked him up and comforted him. I had too, he's too adorable. I can't help it.

And that's the scooting report for today.

::::

As the manager of the dental office, one of my official duties is picking out and ordering the little toy favors that kids get after their appointments. I really enjoy this. It's just a fun thing to do. And it reminds me of how I used to love going to the dentist because of the fun little toys they would give us. And that's really funny too because I had a darn lot of work done over the years. You'd think I would be traumatized. But no, the toys saved me. I think the only thing that was traumatized was my parents' pocketbook, unfortunately.

Anyway, picking the toys is fun. Sometimes I have Max help me go through the catalogues and tell me what he thinks other kids will like. Of course it usually ends up with him circling what HE would like, then us having a big long discussion about why I can't just GIVE him one of each toy we order, and how much he'll have to pay me for the ones he wants.

Anyway again, the other day I had him go through one of the catalogues at home. He stuck to the dask with diligence and dedication. When I went back through it to make my orders I was highly amused. I asked him to circle the toys that he thought would be good for us to get.

Sometimes he did just that, and nicely.


Sometimes there was just too much awesomeness on one page, and he ended up circling essentially everything.


It gets even better from here.
Sometimes the awesomeness of the page was just overwhelming and he had to use special means to express how cool it all was.

I mean, who wouldn't bust out with an "OH YA" when they see those sweet Sponge Bob tatoos?

And my ultimate favorite, the "silly band" page.

I laughed so hard when I found this: "Ah ya, OH ya, YES YES!!"

I hope you appreciate all that as much as I do, because it still cracks me up while I'm writing about it. Funny funny kids. They're worth all the hard work. Especially when they're in bed.

::bow to your sensai::

BOW TO YOUR SENSAI!!!!!

Max has been begging me for karate lessons for a long time. At least a year now. So when I saw that there was a little karate studio very close to our house (and believe me, there's not much very close to our house) we had to check it out.
And of course, checking it out led to signing up. The awesomeness of month-to-month membership didn't hurt.
He started yesterday. Today was his second class, and he felt very very cool.

I had nothing to do with these poses--I just held the camera. He's hilariously serious about this stuff.

Look out. His body is a lethal weapon. And once he develops some coordination, he might even figure out how to use it. In the meantime he's just concentrating on as many illegal ninja moves as he can.