Self-imposed deadlines and spontaneous developments...

So I've been slacking a wee bit lately on the blog. You see, I was invited recently to sell at an upcoming craft fair organized by another local Vancouver Etsyian and I decided to sign up for a table! I figured it would be good motivation to make stuff, and I can't wait to see the other folks. Since it's smaller than some of the larger fairs I find it (conceptually at least) a little less initimidating... Crazy though, maybe, since I have more ideas than finished stuff to sell, so I've been patiently crafting during all of Cole's naptimes lately. I prefer to spend my evenings being lazy (aka sleeping or watching tv), so it's just the naptimes that I have to work with. But I'm making progress - yay! I've got a few weeks left to get ready - if you're interested and local, do come on by:

Saturday, March 21st
11-5pm
Cambrian Welsch Hall
215 East 17th Avenue (just off Main Street)
Vancouver

Anyway, the whole raison d'être of this post is to bring the world (and the Grandma's!) up-to-date with Cole's recent activities, since I've not posted for more than a week.

He's walking!!! He started walking last Monday, the day before my birthday, when he decided it was time to let go of the sofa. He had been pacing like a little caged lion around the edge of his play area (our whole living room, barricaded off with tubs of fabric and rearranged coffee tables) holding the edges of things the whole time but just all of a sudden he decided it was ok to let go! He can now take a few steps all on his own and he can walk around the whole room holding on to just one of our fingers. He loves walking back and forth between us too. He's unstoppable! He can also stand up all on his own for quite a while without going anywhere at all.

He's also understanding so much more. We can ask him things like "where is your barn?" or "let's walk to your books" when he's doing something else and he'll stop, turn around, point to them and then go off on a mission to get them. It's an amazing feeling to know he can understand us.

And he just learned to clap on Friday! We clap for him all the time but we didn't really practice it or anything and then all of a sudden he started clapping. I wasn't even doing anything particularly clap-worthy, like getting up at 3 am or wiping up food off the floor... ;-) He is getting really good at it...

Oh, and he's really into initiating peek-a-boo. We'd been having fun with it for ages, but I think he's realized that he can start the game all on his own and he will hide behind random things and then pop out and laugh, laugh, laugh when we "find" him...

More pictures of all this new stuff soon. So much of it happens when you are least expecting it... Or when I'm not willing to grab my camera and trust that Cole won't take a face-first tumble into the floor while I'm documenting his advances! I just got a new external flash (and then had to temper my excitement by waiting to go buy a battery and then spend all day charging it!) and suddenly the dim lighting in here at least doesn't seem like such a problem... Hoorah! I used to have a ban on in-the-house photos (maybe since I'm usually in old sweatpants when at home) but of course with a wee one so many funny moments happen during the regular mundane activities. Must capture for posterity! Pointing! Teeth! Adorable bowl-licking...