Dance Dance Ollie Revolution

High knees, up and down as fast as possible. This is the newest Ollie dancing craze, just like the video game Dance Dance Revolution. He'll stand in one place (usually on top of an air vent) and pick up his legs and put them down as fast as possible. If you prompt him by doing the action yourself, he'll usually repeat unless he is doing something really important like chasing down a kitty for "petting". I guess the rump shaker is next.

Tumble

Speed is Ollie's best friend. He practically runs everywhere now. Fortunately for him, this gets him where he wants to go fast. Unfortunately for us, this led to his first tumble down our full flight of stairs this weekend. Tresa was waking up her brother-in-law to come help me outside. Ollie was there to help wake him. Except he took off and was able to reach the stairs before anyone noticed. He has to be told to turn around at the top of the stairs to go down backwards and doesn't always do that right. So he took a step off and down he went. He made it all the way down and landed on the oh so plush rug on top of the tile...NOT! He is fine, a bit sore, but fine. He was back to his normal self except for a little tender walking for awhile.



In other Ollie news, he now likes shoes. He wants to put them on and tries to walk around in them. He does pretty well with sandals. Regular shoes are a bit more difficult to get on him. 17 more years and thousands of things for him to learn and he'll be an adult. No big deal.

Thief

Ollie's sitter also babysits her grandson. He is only a month old and regularly gets fed. After feeding her grandson, she set his bottle down to burp him. A few minutes later she noticed that Ollie wasn't making any noise and was no where in sight. She went looking for him and found him hidden behind the chair with the bottle happily sucking away. He smiled and handed her the pilfered milk. He then took off his ski mask and black gloves and went back to playing with his toys.

His sitter is in trouble today. Her grandson's cousin is coming for the day as well. Now Ollie will have the opportunity to pilfer 2 bottles. He was eyeing them when the babies were brought in. The oldest one can only roll over and her grandson is only a month old. Ollie will be able to pick up the bottles and walk away with them and they won't be able to do a thing about it...yet.

Active

I don't think we are going to have a TV watcher for a child. Which is good that we won't have to pry his dead, cold hands from the remote when it is time for bed. To say Ollie is active is an understatement. He tries to run every where he goes. He always takes something with him along for the ride. Last night he continually drug an old hair dryer from the kitchen to the living room in a continuous circle. He's even gotten smart enough to get the hair dryer unstuck so he can continue going round and round. Round and round cause he won't sit down. All this activity used to cause him to throw up. Luckily at 9 months his gastric went away and now it is only occasionally. He even enjoys getting twirled around in chairs and getting dizzy. Swings are no longer a problem either.



He was in this one outside the zoo after our trip. He seemed to enjoy the wind rushing into his face more than the swing itself. Next time you want him to smile, just take a huge breath and blow in his face!

Aftermath

Here is the final result of Ollie's cake eating.



He definitely had a sugar rush after he was done with his cake. He ran around and screamed for at least a half an hour. He was so excited, too excited.

His walking has improved quite a bit. He doesn't seem to waddle as much. He still can't run very well, but the pace is picking up.

We also take pictures of Ollie in places that normal babies should not be. Such as the top of the fish tank.



He's also crawled back behind the bakers rack, inside the kitchen cabinets and is near fitting himself underneath the fish tank. I can't wait until we have to search for him and he's hidden himself under a bed. He'll be good at hide and seek.

Eggs

Scrambled, boiled and flat on a sidewalk, that's how Ollie likes his eggs. In reality, it is just scrambled and boiled, but I need a witty intro to the picture of Ollie falling out of his stroller head first. This is the best one I got out of the 4 pictures of the egg on his head that I took. His egg is above his left eye. Both of those bruises are the result of his dive.



It looked worse right after the accident. As you can see he was fine a few minutes later. He's been strapped in to his stroller ever since. Unfortunately, his wagon doesn't have a seat belt. He has gotten in trouble several times when we go on walks and he stands up. We don't go on long walks with the wagon anymore. He usually gets a quick ride around the block in that until he understands he has to sit down in the wagon. He's too curious for his own good.

Meet the Roos

Mama, Dada and Baby Roo

Table Dancing

Last night while Tresa was taking a shower, I took Ollie downstairs to finish dinner. I gave Ollie a piece of chalk and sat him next to his chalkboard table. He started drawing, so I turned around. When I turned back around he was standing on his table grinning from ear to ear. I didn't hear him climb up on the table. Now he does this with regular consistency. This morning, while he was table dancing he sat down on the edge and fell over the side backwards. I was able to catch him before his head cracked on the tile. He was still scared, but it didn't take long for him to want on top of our kitchen island. I can't wait for this stage to pass!

Furniture Climber

The 'baby climbs everything' stage has officially started. Ollie wants to climb everything he can. Chairs, tables, stairs and couches. All are fair game for the inexperienced climber. This morning he wanted on top of his chalkboard table so bad, he climbed on his little chair, which enabled him to climb on top of the table. Since he's not quite tall enough to get on the couch by himself, he'll stand next to the couch and bounce until he gets put on the couch. We are trying to teach him 'up' and 'down' when he wants either. He can get off the furniture by himself, by turning himself around, but he tries to go head first sometimes. Babies are definitely fearless.

Up and Down and Through

On the couch, off the couch. On the chair, off the chair. Through the legs of the chair, play in the legs of the chair. This was Ollie's favorite weekend activity. He was all over the furniture, constantly trying to get up on it. He's still not tall enough to get on the furniture by himself. He would stand at the edge of it and reach as far as he could. If he didn't get up fast enough, he'd start bouncing up and down and get agitated. When he did get up, he was all smiles climbing all over. Now if only he was a bit taller he could get himself on it. I'm sure the additional height with bring other challenges with it.