Finley is officially walking and not crawling too much anymore. He can stand himself up without having to pull up on any furniture or our legs and when he falls, he gets up pretty quickly. He can bend over and pick up things without toppling over, unless he's going for something like a giant board book. He seems to prefer walking on his own to having any help (hand holding) or resorting to crawling. He can walk laps around the house and if he's motivated enough, he can move fast though it certainly wouldn't qualify as running. Here's a short video from this morning, I just love footie PJs--even though they are hard to walk in on the hard wood floors we've got.
We don't have stairs at our house, except up from the basement, so Finley isn't too sure about scaling them. However, at Thanksgiving in New York, Finley fell in love with climbing the stairs at his grandparents' house. With a little spotting from Dan, he can go up with ease. His desire to go down head first is concerning, but for now we'll focus on going up and getting carried down.
While no official words have escaped his lips, Finley is talking more each week. He will talk back to you if you say or ask him something and he is trying to mimic the sounds we make. If I say "da da da" he'll return a "da" most often. He's also learned how to growl in the past month or so and it's pretty funny to hear him to do it in the midst of fits of laughter. We're certainly eager for his first word to appear and it seems like he's making progress towards it!
A great trick that Finley's learned is that he has found a way (without asking) to get us to read him a book. Just in the past week, he's been going over to his bookshelf, picking one of his favorite books (usually Hop on Pop), and then tossing onto my lap. I'll grab it and start reading it to him, which causes a HUGE smile to come across his face and if he's standing, he'll start jumping (without lifting his feet off the ground) with excitement. After I'm done, he'll either pick up the book and toss it at me again or go pick another one. It's very cute and makes me happy that he loves books so much! He's got a short list of favorite books that we're trying to lengthen, but the fact that he LOVES those five or six is pretty neat to see. Tumble Bumble and Hop on Pop are certainly his favorites, though The Very Hungry Caterpillar is getting more attention these days. He's gotten pretty good at turning pages while we read and opening the flaps of one book called Open the Barn Door. The flaps on that book are really getting a workout so it is probably time for another book with flaps, good thing Hanukkah is just around the corner!
Finley continues to be a strong napper, though every once and while he'll catch us off guard (i.e. laying around watching TV) and wake up after only 45 minutes. More impressively though, he's been sleeping much later the last few mornings. On Thursday (Thanksgiving), he woke up at 5:30 and nursed and then slept until 8:45!! We laughed that most mornings, by 8:45 he's already been up, had breakfast, played, and it sleeping for his morning nap! The next several mornings, he slept past 7 without being nursed! Unreal! We're glad he took advantage of the long weekend. It'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow when it's back to school.
On the food front, Finley's continues to be a bit picky about vegetables, but has been trying other new foods left and right. He's been enjoying turkey and gravy at Wilson Farms (gotta love free samples!) and butternut squash, too. Against my better judgment, he's also had some fish sticks. This morning, Dan made him an egg and he ate the first eight to ten pieces before deciding he'd had enough. Pretty good for his first time! He still LOVES fruit, with mangoes and blueberries topping the list. His grandpa remarked this weekend that watching Finley inhale huge, whole blackberries might be one of the cutest things he does and we agree! He's had enough cake (and sugar) to last him until his next birthday, but we have been sharing our pumpkin bread and sweet potato muffins with him. Finley's quite good at not putting too much food in his mouth, but he does like to hold his next couple of bites in his fists while he waits. Next up, trying to drink from a straw and perhaps me getting creative in the kitchen to move past this finger food vegetable strike. Stay tuned!
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