June 10 - June 20 Adventures

This past week has been another timeless adventure, especially for Austin. One day, when I came home from work, Jason informed me that while he was sitting on the couch Austin stood up, grabbed each of Jason's hands, and walked away from Jason as if to request his help. Once Austin had taken a few steps and was leaning backwards significantly, Jason assisted him in his walking attempt. Since that incident we have found Austin to be a speedy little walker - he will go as fast as his little legs will take him provided that we are there to help keep his balance.

When we are not helping him to take steps, he continues practice standing for longer periods of time and has gotten up to around 10 seconds of free-standing. Luckily he is improving with his standing, because he seems to bonk his head far less on everything than before. He does enjoy for some reason, however, occasionally intentionally bonking his head against one of our heads or the wall. We're not sure why he does this, but he still looks pretty cute doing it.

Lately I have noticed a much higher occurrence of temper tantrums coming from our little man. Although I have noticed this more recently, Jason informs me that Austin has been throwing little tantrums for a while.  Each of Austin's tantrums is pretty hilarious to watch, especially since they don't last very long. After taking an item from him, his reactions will differ depending on who knows what. Sometimes after taking something away, he will slowly begin to frown which is then followed by crying. Other times after removing the item, immediately his face turns bright red and he begins to scream. In addition to not liking having things taken away, Austin also does not like being tickled and he will completely resist laughing. Occasionally we will get him in a giddy or a ticklish mood and he will laugh, otherwise he will hold his breath and make little grunting noises in order to avoid giving his parents any satisfaction.

At church on Sunday Austin was actually being pretty good during our meetings so we didn't have to spend very much time in the hall. He did, however, get stuck under chairs a couple of times, because he could not figure out how to lower his head enough. He also enjoyed taking his a wooden ball and tossing it on the floor so it would roll underneath other people's feet. He has been throwing a lot this week and will even play toss with me on the floor or with the stuffed animals in his crib. Sometimes when I am putting him to bed for a nap or in the evening I will lay on the floor so as to show him it is time to settle down and go to sleep. The last few nights he has taken the opportunity to throw his stuffed animals at me whenever I do this which sort of defeats the purpose of my intentions, but is funny all the same.

As for the rest of us... Izzy has been doing much better with her training and is now learning how to spin and shake. Jason and I have been doing the usual - he has been amazing with taking care of me when I didn't feel so great and with keeping our apartment looking great. I on the other hand have just been plugging away with my Masters at work. One thing I did find out recently, however, is that I was selected to receive a fellowship which will greatly help us with finances for this next year. Here is a link to the announcement if you're interested: http://www.nspe.org/InterestGroups/PEC/Resources/Awards/hightower_fellowship.html

Aside from that, we look forward to sharing our next week's adventures and in the mean time hope you have some of your own!