Thanksgiving in Georgia

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Dear Husband, Part 38

On the phone with Wes last Friday.

Wes: G says he wants to go to Home Depot.
Liz: What for?
Wes: To get a Christmas tree.
Liz: I thought we were going this weekend.
Wes: I know, but he wants to go now.
Liz: So you've already picked him up?
Wes: No.
Liz: Then how do you know he wants to go to Home Depot and get a Christmas tree?
Wes: I can just tell these things.

Oliver's Thanksgiving, in food

The view from the top

Ollie has been playing recently on the bunk bed in the other upstairs bedroom. Wes and I let him crawl around on the lower bunk, and Wes puts him up on the top bunk (which doesn't have a mattress) to look down over the side. The bear plays, too. Oliver loves to try to climb up the ladder to the top bunk. Rest assured, he doesn't make any progress without our help -- but it doesn't stop him from trying.

The green blanket

My family has a kind of tradition with these green army poncho liners, aka "the green blanket." I think the first one came from my uncle who served in Vietnam. The outside fabric is really soft, especially when the blanket gets worn from use, and there's ties all around that make it lots of fun to tie to things and make a fort. I've started doing this recently will Ollie. He loves to hide under the blankets. Wes will get on our bed with him and pull the comforter over them and let Oliver crawl around. I made one this past weekend to give Oliver somewhere to play while I tried to work. He loves going in and out of. Ollie also likes going up the step ladder, too, though, which isn't ideal.

The walking man walks

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Oliver finally started walking. He took his first few steps on Sunday, November 22. I had taken his walking toy with us to my parents' house, and he spent Saturday pushing it up and down their steep driveway and cruising around the house. On Sunday, we had some definitive steps taken independent of the walker, and it was witnessed by multiple parties. His walking evolved over the course of the week, from a few steps between a person and a piece of furniture to a long haul from the pantry into the living room (for which my sister baited him with a goldfish cracker).

Wes and I had actually seen the first moves towards this at home the previous week. We had seen him stand independently, even standing up in the middle of the floor and, in some cases, hoisting large toys (like his big dump truck) while doing so. I guess he felt emboldened by this and decided to finally try out walking.

He's still pretty mixed in how he moves around the house. We try as much as possible to put him down in the middle of the floor so he'll walk some, and if he loses his balance he just stands back up and keeps going. He'll go into the living room in the morning after breakfast and get his walker down off the window seat. I've yet to get to see this happen. I've usually not noticed until I see him cruising around with the walking toy, and since I've yet to hear a crash, that must mean it's not too hard for him to do. He likes to try the stairs standing up when there are supports on the hand rail to hold on to. (He's currently trying to push the walker with one hand and carry the dump truck with the other.) He still crawls some, crabs some, occasionally walks on his knees. His walking is definitely slow and stiff-legged -- but it's there.