- Pulling himself to standing - this, according to Jake, is one of the funniest things that could ever happen to a baby. Either that, or he laughs when he's really proud of himself. In either case, this skill has taken a few weeks to perfect, but he's now confident enough to stand on the wobbly plastic chairs in the cafe in town, hold onto the back with one hand and gesticulate to his adoring public (aka shoppers walking by), giggling and babbling all the time. On one occasion last week, this did develop into cruising, and he happily used a semi circle of chairs to walk himself around. Since then, he's not shown a huge amount of interest in doing it again, but I'm sure that time will come.
- Getting to sitting from lying on his back - Jake has never liked to be prone on his back and still dislikes being on his stomach (although with his new rolling ability he now sleeps face down most of the time) and I think that this is why he woke up from all naps crying to be picked up. When he first got back from a short trip to the US (jet setting baby!), he woke up crying in the night and I went in to find him sitting up. I was sleepy myself, so didn't think anything of it.
- (added about a month after I started this post!) Climbing the stairs - the need to stand and move about is incredible to watch, and after many months of watching Jake try to backwards bum scoot up big obstacles, he's now able to combine standing up with some nifty leg action to get himself up our stairs. He sits at the top giggling to himself and then scoots back down ready for another ascent. The most terrifying part is when he gets halfway down, realises that he wants to go back up and swings up himself around, grabbing onto a stair for grim life as his legs flail to find purchase. I'm sure he'll work out a smoother motion but in the meantime there will always be someone ready to catch him.
- Standing up alone - this has only happened once or twice in the last couple of weeks and again is completed with a massive giggle and hand clapping, almost as if to say "look Dad, no hands!". I'm sure we'll see more of this as he continues on his journey towards being able to walk.
I'm sure that there are others that we just don't see because we're with him every day, and there are still more that are coming on (using a spoon correctly, using a toy on wheels to walk to name but two) which I'll cover in another post. In the meantime, we're enjoying watching all of these new tricks being learned and can't wait to see what his brain works out next!
