Walkie Talkie

If life is a journey, then parenthood is the strangest path you will see. And that path early on is full of obviously treacherous parts that rise up like a thorn covered mountain side: Morning Sickness, Child Birth, No Sleep Exhaustion, then Moving and Shaking. The Moving and Shaking mountain is far more than just crawling. Gunner has been crawling for a couple months. It starts to become tricky as all the facets of movement progress; the crawling is at an expert level, standing and pulling up is at an expert level, walk around holding onto things is at an expert level, and full walking has begun. Once running and jumping commences, you official have the full force of your thorny mountain to climb and bear.

Gunner has started his walking and is getting pretty good. First documented walking...

Once again, he spends an afternoon with his buddy Maddox and decides to brave another physical development milestone.

Since the above videoed Sunday afternoon, Gunner is not only taking steps, but taking them often, crossing rooms, deciding to walk over crawl to cover certain distances. He wasn't walking by 1 year but he is wasting no time in perfecting the skill now. Next step: going from sitting to standing without pulling up on something.

Now as a 1 year old, there are some other nice new treats. He got his first swing.

He loves it. This is a much needed replacement for "tossing the heavy chunky baby in the air" game. My back and shoulders are grateful for the invention of the swing. In addition, my wife has started bringing him to classes during the week to prepare him for his day care adventure coming in August. We feel the need to make sure Gunner gets a little more social time with other kids to feel comfortable playing and interacting when he gets to day care.

Playtime with Maddox, perplexed in their collaboration in urban design with blocks....

Legos at class where he didn't rip that other kid's arm off....small victory!

My wife and I will start a betting pool over the summer with 2 pots....1) How long does it take before the day care calls us about Gunner? and 2) What will be the topic of that call? Stay tuned for details about the pool.

Another nice step this week, drinking out of a straw....

 But he is definitely his mother's son...In the wine aisle...or doing his best Risky Business impression

But he is still our same old chubby ginger boy...."I know they ain't gonna to try to take our quiche!" 

And while I feel the hardest part of parenthood is developing more patience than you ever thought you would need, the hardest part of the journey of life is saying goodbye to those we love and having to live without them, sharing good times and finding comfort in bad ones. We sadly have had to do that again this week in saying goodbye to a dear friend's father who was easily one of the best people to ever be in the company of; always so fun and delightful. He will be so missed and I feel bad Gunner will not be able to grow up with his jovial presence as I was so blessed to be able to. But that is life and we all have our mountains to scale if we want to see where the journey will take us....