Hooray for Chase! He took his first steps alone yesterday! It was so cute and exciting for us first time parents. At church Pace and I took the usual shifts of entertaining Chase out in the hallways during all of church (our little bundle of energy lasts about 2-9 minutes in each meeting and then one of us leaves the room with him for the rest of the hour so that the “Free Spirit”– as Uncle Ryan calls him–can crawl around and explore). But anyway, Pace told me that Chase had taken a step on his own during church, and I couldn’t believe it! Then later when we were at home, Pace motivated Chase with a chocolate cookie (something Chase loves but doesn’t get very often) and he walked a little! It was so funny. Later, Darin and Nada were over and he did it again, but mostly he just dives for the motivational food or sits down and starts crawling toward it. But he’s basically starting to WALK! So that’s exciting.
Chase is really cuter than ever! He is pretty expressive these days, and he says a few little words all the time (uh-oh, hi, bye-bye, bath, ma-ma, wy, eeee, etc.) He sat through an entire half hour movie today for the first time, a fun music DVD that Grandma McC gave him, and he barked and pointed every time he saw a dog in the movie. He also has recently starting signing the word “more” when he wants more food, thanks to Pace’s encouragement (we do a few baby sign language things with Chase to try to make communication easier in the near future). We love being with Chase and enjoying his personality (which is definitely more enjoyable in the daytime than it is in the middle of the night)… Sometimes I check on him when he’s sleeping and I look in that crib and think, “Whoa! He’s so big now!” I also have been exercising extra patience with him lately, mainly during those exhausting diaper changes and other situations that he doesn’t appreciate very much. But later in his life, he’ll THANK me for not letting him sit in a pile of poop all day… right?