In threes, like a sneeze...

Alex had a very productive day today and managed to achieve 3, count 'em, 3 milestones in a single day!

I fear there will be doubters since I have no film footage to support my claim, but Alex officially said his first word today! And the chosen word is...drumroll please...BALL! I don't think that should really come as a surprise to anyone considering that I don't know a boy who doesn't love balls.

Anyhoo, it's pretty typical that half my day consists of pointing out objects and trying to get Alex to repeat me. But today, when I picked up a ball, held it out to him, and asked, "Alex, what's this?", he looked at it and said, "ball!" To be completely accurate, it was more like, "baw", but I knew what he meant. And seriously, this was completely unprompted. We hadn't "practiced" our "balls" yet this morning, and I didn't pluck that word out of a string of "ba-ba-ba's". I asked him a simple, straightforward question and he gave me a simple, straightforward answer. So as far as I'm concerned, that's it. It's official. His first word was ball, seven and a half months, in the baby book it goes.

And can we top that with milestone number 2? Naw, probably not. But he did pull himself up for the first time tonight, in the bathtub of all places! He has always kinda sorta been able to pull himself to standing, but usually the helping hands of a grown-up are in the equation somewhere. Lately, particularly in the last day or two, he has been desperately trying to pull himself up on anything he can get his hands on - his walker (no good cuz it moves), the wobbly metal poles of the jumperoo, his toy box, the couch, his crib, the coffee table (darn those Scandinavians and their sleek design sensibilities), the kitchen chairs...you get the point. Usually he makes it to his knees and occasionally, a foot, but that's where his luck runs out.

Apparently, tonight in the bathtub, the conditions were in his favor. He reached up and clung to the side of the tub, pulling himself to his knees. As I was giving him an enthusiastic "atta boy!" for making it to his knees, he just...stood up! Just like that. Knees, then standing. So there he stood, naked and dripping, in his tub within a tub, grinning ear to ear, basking in the glow of his accomplishment. We had already moved his bed down to its lowest position, knowing this day would come sooner than later. So now, it's just a matter of time before I walk in to get him out of bed and he's staring me dead in the eye...

And number 3? Okay, so number 3 isn't technically a milestone, but it's worth celebrating, nonetheless. A had his first taste of saltine crackers tonight, and he didn't barf on himself! Hallelujah, praise the Lord. And he loved them, to boot. He was super giddy while he was eating so I took a ton of pictures. And yes, I'm going to post them all because, well, they were all too good not to.