At just under ten months, Louis finally has one of his little bottom front toothies, and I believe he's working on another. He can crawl on his hands and knees, but mostly he likes to locomote on his belly, by army crawling using his elbows, or even rolling back and forth diagonally until he reaches his desired object. He is really good at moving from seated to a crawling position and back again.
He can say, "Mama," "Dada," and "Hi."
Clara and I did a horrible, terrible thing to him this morning. We moved all his toys into a large semi-circle formation around him, so that he would be forced to crawl to them. He looked at us like, "What's this shit?" Then he maneuvered on his bottom to the sofa, which was very close, and fished under it with his pudgy little hand until he found a toy.
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A few days ago he played on the bathroom floor while I scrubbed the bathroom sink. He took apart the training potty and banged the seat against the side of the tub, over and over.
I looked down at him.
"Yes," he seemed to say. "I know you can't believe I just made that magnificent sound. But believe it. And behold THIS." And he dropped the potty seat and held up his hand, twisting it around so the shadows on his fist changed shaped. "I am the first of all mankind to have discovered how to twirl my hand..AND SPLAY MY FINGERS! Go. Go now and summon the television crews."
"Very cool," I said wryly.
"A-ya! A-ya!" he shrieked, flapping his arms wildly. Sometimes he flaps so hard I think his little diaper bottom will levitate off the carpet.
After awhile I moved him to the bedroom. I finished up washing the toilet and stuck my head in the bedroom door to check on him. He was nowhere to be seen. But then I noticed the laundry basket was turned upside down and, looking closer, I saw little pink toes sticking out one of the decorative holes in the side.
He made a little worried sound.
"Did you get trapped?" I said. "Don't worry, Mama will rescue you."
He chuckled with relief.
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Yesterday I took him swimming. The young lifeguard assigned to the kiddie pool had half her head shaved and wore a complacent look that bordered on boredom. Louis grinned and grinned at her until she finally noticed. Then he waved hello to her, opening and closing his fist inwards. The sight of his thumb so close to his face could not be ignored, and he quickly popped it in his mouth, while the rest of his hand kept flapping along. The lifeguard smiled, her face unexpectedly breaking into dimples.
