A Big Day for Gavin

This week, on Wednesday, Gavin had a BIG day. It was such a momentus day, I kept him up a half hour past bedtime so that he could show off his new talents to his Papa after he came home from youth group.

Here is what Gavin added to his repetoire on Wednesday:

1. Sitting Up-- Yes. He is sitting up. I decided earlier in the day to prop him up and see what happened. He fell backwards pretty quickly, but with each try, he was able to stay up longer and longer. By the end of the day, he was holding his hands out at his side to balance himself, sitting for long periods, and even leaning forward to reach for toys. The falling backwards still happens occasionally when he gets excited, but it won't be long before we can rid ourselves of the safety pillows behind him.

2. New Sounds-- I was in the other room when I first heard Gavin's new sound and thought he was choking or gasping for air. Turns out he had learned that if he sucked in his breath he could make a different sort of screeching sound (which still sounds like gasping to me). He finds many ways to incorporate this new sound into his conversations.

Here is a video of these first two new skills...


3. Arms extended/butt up-- This is what I would consider the "crawling position" and Gavin has begun practicing doing his baby push up and getting his bum up in the air. It's a bit before he crawls, but he's getting the idea. I'm more convinced than ever that Gavin will mostly skip the rolling and go straight to crawling.

4. Laughter has been unleashed!-- We don't have a video of this yet, but Gavin is finally laughing-- more than a few giggles at a time. I discovered this when I was holding him on my hip and let his body hang backwards a bit. He had to work hard to hold himself up and for some reason found this as the occasion to finally laugh. Since then, we've found other ways to make him laugh and now have laughing sessions as we tickle or gobble him up. This is where the real fun is. We knew he would be the laughing type-- his laughing gene just had to be unlocked.