Hello Mobility!

Argh, frustrated.  Somehow I lost the entire "Jude on the Move" blog I posted on May 11 about Jude's army crawl, falling down the steps, and walker accident.  If anyone happens to have an archived copy I'd love to get it back!  In the meantime, forgive me if I repeat any old mobility news!

There's something about turning 1 that changes everything! Sure there's the whole mobility thing, but there's something about Jude's personality that's changing too.  He's more curious, explorative.  He's more assertive.  He exercises his opinion ... and exercises his right to complain when he doesn't get his own way.  It just feels like everything has happened all at once.  Jon and I just look at each other and say, "Wow, he's not even the same kid he was last week!"

He's recently picked up the art of "pointing" and uses it forcefully all throughout the day.

I just realized that although I mentioned Jude's first few steps last week (which he has not repeated by the way), I neglected to write about his recent crawling.  Yes, just when we started to think that Jude would always be an army crawler, he figured real crawling out.  And now he does it all the time. 



And his legs and feet are a sad indication of how dirty the floors are.  Even after we mopped them Jude still had black streaks running down his shins and across the pudgy part of his feet.  The poor child just never looks clean anymore. 



And now that he's figured out his own mode of tranportation he's busy getting around the house.  He's figured out how to push open the screen door and make his way out to the backyard.  He loves to make a run for the garage when that door happens to open.  The front porch is a favorite place for him to sit and people-watch (okay, actually he likes to dig in the plants but people-watching sounds more sophisticated).  And, very much like his brother, he has a strange attraction to bathrooms.  More specifically - the toilet.  He insists on front row seats whenever Jack is going potty.  He loves to pull himelf up on the toilet rim... and throw things in the bowl.  Or splash around in the water.  Ew.  He's already thrown a few binkies in there.   

And just last week Jack, who just recently figured out that doors can lock, locked Jude in the downstairs bathroom.  It took Jon a while to pick the lock, and the entire time he was working at it we could hear Jude in their splashing and giggling over his good fortune.  Extra ew.

Toilets aren't the only germ-infested area Jude is attracted to.  He tends to head for the trash can too.  He likes that he can pull himself up on it, and then open the lid, and then shut it on his hands.  And then he cries because he can't figure out how to get himself free.

Or the dishwasher.  He always unloads whatever I'm loading.  And for a while I would just keep the drawers pushed back in so he couldn't reach them.  But now, now he's figured out how to crawl up into the dishwasher.  Just giving Mama a hand.

Jude is busy.  And he's keeping me busy.  I just keep telling myself we went through the same thing with Jack.  And that he won't always want to swim in the potty.  That someday he'll get tired of pulling the cheese grater and apple peeler out of the cupboard for me to trip over.  That eventually he'll get bored of pulling all the books off the shelf.  Then again, I also know that at that time he'll have new adventures.  And I'll have new anxieties.

But the good news, I have a girl coming right behind him.  And little girls would never, ever wash their hands in the toilet, right?