UP

The past two days Dexter has been working hard at going from this position:

To this position:

He's pretty well got it down now. Going the other way is still kind of a challenge, but he falls on his face, brushes himself off, and goes right back to the business at hand - figuring out how to MOVE.

He is really piss-poor at figuring out, however, how to fix this problem:
Basically he just lies there like a turtle on his back, waving his arms and legs around and lifting his head off the ground. It hasn't helped him sit up yet, but he still keeps trying like mad.

I must admit I am a little slow, because if never quite occurred to me that now he'd be sitting up in his crib. Which makes playing while he's supposed to be sleeping all that much more fun and entertaining.

And it REALLY never occurred to me that Dex would use his crib rails to pull himself up. But when I walked in this morning I looked, did a bit of a double take, might have muttered a "Holy Shit" under my breath, and went back out to the hall to yell down to John - "Honey, you really need to come up here."

And John walked in to see that same sight I saw - the baby, STANDING, in the corner of his crib. Just chillin. Dude. How'd you DO that?

I watched Dexter through the crack in the bedroom door this morning during the first part of his nap. Watched him sit up. Lean over and grab the side of the crib. Scoot his butt closer. Grab the top rail with both hands. Pull himself up to his knees. Smash his face on the rail. Cry. Focus. Pull himself up again. Fall down. Roll over to a new place in the crib. Sit up. Pull up to his knees. Get a foot under him. Try to stand. Fall down again. Land on his belly. Put his head down on the mattress. And... fall asleep.

This is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. Because right now the boy doesn't know how to gracefully sit back down after he's in a vertical position. Right now he's riding a train with a one way ticket to UP.

What? Who is standing up when he's supposed to be sleeping? Surely you're not implying it's ME. I would never do that. You must have me confused with another baby...

PS - Want to REALLY have your finger bitten off? Stick it in Dexter's mouth. Not only does he have some huge and wicked sharp bottom two teeth, but has also gotten a tooth in up top - on the right hand side, one over from the middle. Is that called an eye tooth? I dunno. I DO know that it is slowly and surely poking its way out of his gums. And its next-door neighbor is not far behind.