Going backwards

Emmett and I have an afternoon routine going, especially when the weather is as nice as it has been, where we go for a run (I run, he rolls in the jogging stroller) and then we finish up at the playground in the panhandle. For a long time playground time consisted of putting him in the swing and, if I was feeling up to it, taking him over to the slide (I would have done this more if he seemed like he liked it---he has a look on his face when he gets to the bottom like something has happened, he is not sure what, and he is not sure how he feels about it). One day, I believe it was with Andrea, we let him crawl all around the place and he loved it. Now when we go to the playground he will ride the swings for about 2 minutes before he starts pointing to the play structure and then putting his arms up to be taken out of the swing. Now my afternoons are spent chasing after him as he crawls all over the place, and the panhandle playground has many leaves and nut-like droppings all over the place---all of which must be taste-tested by Emmett where he starts to put them into his mouth while turning to look at me to see if I am going to stop him.

The reason I bring all of this up is because Andrea has spent a lot of time teaching Emmett how to crawl backwards off of the bed and I had some trouble believing that he had actually figured it out. Well, yesterday he and I were in the play ground and he had crawled all the way up this multi-stepped structure and was on his way back down. For steps that are about 6 inches tall he will just crawl down the steps, but I was watching him as he approached larger drop-offs and he will reach down with his hand to see if he can touch the next step (if so, crawl down), and if he cannot then he will turn and crawl backwards until his legs slide off and reach the next step. I could not believe my eyes when I saw him do it the first time, but he seems to really have it down. OK, not REALLY have it down, as what sometimes happens is he will check the level, turn and start backing, but will have turned only 90-degrees so that he is backing parallel to the edge rather than perpendicular, will continue backing until he strikes a wall or when he has backed long enough that it seems he should have reached the edge by then, crawl forward and turn to face the edge once again, and repeat. I want so badly to help him out of this repetition of a non-solution, but I let him go hoping that it will make him stronger. We will see.

Emmett is getting ever so close to walking and has been taking strings of 2 or 3 steps in a row. He has a lot of lean while he walks, so maybe it will be a bit, but he is getting closer.

Today Jeff and I took Emmett to a big open field in the park so Jeff and I could throw disc golf discs back and forth. Emmett was pretty content playing in the grass but he is constantly eating the flowers and the grass. I was thinking that this probably wasn't too big of a deal, but he woke up after the nap he took whinier than I have seen him in a long time and I was afraid that he ate so much that he was sick. However, after consulting with the expert, Andrea, after she came home we came to the conclusion that it is probably his eighth tooth that is finally breaking through. There definitely appears to be a bump there, so good money says that he is sporting number eight in the next day or so.

Other important news: the doctor called with the blood test results and his lead levels do not register on the test so he is good there. The other test concerned his iron levels and she said that he was on the low end of the normal range. As he is vegetarian so far, there was some question about how these would be but he seems OK and we are just going to raise sources of iron (black beans, greens, eggs, etc.) to pull him up a little higher.

I have fallen in love with pancakes or waffles for breakfast recently. It is pretty nice to make a meal that we can all eat together and that he can eat without utensils. He is actually getting to the point that he can take the spoon from me, put it in his mouth, and return it to me, but he is a far way from feeding himself with a spoon. Hand-eatable foods are so great, but it is pretty tricky to get some things into this form (mainly vegetables and yogurt).

I will try to take a picture or video of something---these posts filled only with words are pretty dull.