Babies in Good Standing

James has started pulling himself up to a standing position. Hooray for James! Unfortunately, his favorite thing to pull up on is the exersaucer, which is not a very stable support (since it's designed to rock). He also will just let go of whatever he's holding onto when standing, and while I appreciate his trust in the basic goodness of the universe, that's not exactly the best strategy for getting down! Hopefully he'll figure that out without learning the hard way (so far, I've been behind him to catch him). I'm pretty sure he's just on his knees in this picture; we haven't captured a standing-up photo yet.

Mattie has gotten quite good at pulling himself up, and he also seems to have the idea of sitting back down again (though we still follow close behind him, too!) The picture of him with Grandma is from a couple of days ago; she left on Sunday.

James has been initiating games of peek-a-boo. He'll pull a towel over his face and then back down again. So cute! (Mike has been playing lots of peek-a-boo with Matthew because we read somewhere that it helps them get over the separation anxiety by teaching them that things can disappear and reappear again.) James also likes the "sound effect game" -- when we're sitting in the easy chair, he'll tap on the arm of the chair, and I'll say "boom boom" every time he hits it -- he turns around with a huge grin and then starts tapping again.

Mattie was funny this morning. We have a big cardboard box in our entryway that a baby gate came in, and it has an orange circle on it with some text. Matthew crawled over to it, tapped right on the circle, and then when nothing happened, he banged on it again harder. He was clearly disappointed that this toy was broken; nothing happened when he pushed the button!