Walking, Cats and Crying

Ollie has ventured, albeit tentatively, into walking. He has gotten up to 2 hurried steps from a standing position. He even did it without any encouragement from his parents. He was standing and holding himself up on an ottoman. He took 2 steps forward and reached the couch without falling. Of course he was coming after a cat.

Speaking of cats, Splatter finally got fed up with his 'petting' this weekend. Instead of leaving, like most of the other cats, she got in his face, growled and pawed at his head. I'm really happy we had her declawed! He wasn't hurt just scared. He cried for awhile, but was fine.

Mostly this weekend, he played by himself. He's getting better at that and seems to be playing with a single toy for awhile and then moving onto another one. He used to get distracted by other toys rather easily, I guess he is investigating them a bit more now. Guess we should call him Sherlock Ollie.

Playing

Ollie's newest trick for getting his toys out of the ottomans is to put his belly on the open edge of the ottoman, lean all the way in, lift and balance himself on the edge to get a toy. So far he hasn't gone in head first! He has 4 teeth out now, not fully out, but they've all pushed through the gums. I can't get him to smile big enough to get a decent picture of them.

Yes, all of his pajama sleeves look like that by bed time.


I'm this Big!

Going to Work

We've needed more income lately, so we've decided to put Ollie to work. He is qualified for many positions. Mainly fur grabbing, collar grabber, high-pitched screaming, ear grabbing, smacking and cruising. His next promotion should include walking, running, door opener, destruction of parental property, loser of things he shouldn't have to begin with and kitty wrangler. Eventually, he'll become the Chairman of the house. When he's about 18, he'll have to make the difficult decision to fire his parents. But for now, he'll just have to pretend and wait for that day to come.


You're Fired!

Hats

Hats are something Ollie dislikes. He dislikes wearing them, he dislikes me wearing them. Everytime I wear a hat, he has to take it off my head. I put it on his head, he takes it off, then my head, he takes it off. We go round and round with this game for awhile. We found a bucket hat that he wore for several hours on Saturday while we were out around town. He eventually figured out it was there and took it off. Of course, there is always this type of hat that doesn't stay on long.

Wiggle Worm

Ollie has become a major wiggle worm when it comes to changing his diaper. If we are lucky he'll sit still for a few seconds without moving and we can get one on him. Bath time, however, is another story. Usually his momma gives him his bath and if she's lucky, can get a diaper started on him. She's devised several distraction tactics to keep him in one position. This ranges from standing him up to play with his toys or distracting him while he's on the ground with toys. Sometimes, it takes both of us to wrangle him into his diaper an jammies. More often than not, it turns into play time with the following results.

Stand

Ollie has become very good at standing by himself. I caught this picture on his way down.



He has taken 1 step on his own without support. We keep prodding him by setting him between us and trying to coax him into walking. He usually lunges (actually leans far forward) and falls. We are always close enough to catch him. He does better when he stands on his own with a wide base and takes baby steps. He cruises like crazy, sometimes going from one object to another. He is not too far off from walking. We are not too far off from running around after him.

Yet Again

This picture displays the kind of activity Ollie was doing last night between 3 and 4 AM! Of course the whole scenario started a few hours earlier at 1 AM. He started his eh eh mmmmm eh eh eh around then. He had been putting himself back to sleep earlier in the evening when this happened. We waited a 1/2 hr for him to go back to sleep. That didn't work so, I turned on his vacuum CD and tried to move him back into the middle of the bed. That made things worse and the banshee returned. So, I picked him up and gave him a bottle. He went to sleep, I went to put him back into bed and he woke up and wouldn't lay down. So, I repeated the cycle without the bottle with the same result.

So, he got medicine to help with his teething, put back to sleep on my shoulder. To which he promptly woke. Nothing was working, so we let him cry it out. We thought he had gone to sleep, I went in to shut off his CD. He was sitting up being quiet! Little stinker. Of course when I went into the room he started wailing. I attempted to lay him back down, but he would have none of it, so I let him cry it out again. His momma went and got him to try to put him to sleep in our bed. He wouldn't lay on her, he kept reaching for me. I tried putting him on my chest, but he kept lifting his head. We moved to the couch, so his momma could sleep, with the same results. About 3, I decided to just let him get up and play. His momma came in to watch him until 4, so I could sleep. If we were all lucky we got 5 hrs of sleep each. Here's to hoping it is a quieter night tonight.

Cupie Doll

It's still a bit hard to see his hair sticking up, but you get the idea. You can see it better if you increase your monitor brightness. No, we didn't win this cupie doll at the carnival.

Don't you just love his necklace? He loves playing in the bathroom, the office, our room and anywhere he can get into things he shouldn't. The toilet paper rolls and toilet handles have never had such a workout! At least he hasn't gone fishing in the toilet.

He is about 3-4 inches short of reaching door handles. He was on his tippy toes reaching for the handle and was just a bit shy luckily. Once he's tall enough, we are in trouble. At least his growth is supposed to slow down soon. Now only if his incoming teeth would hurry up and get here.

He keeps waking up from 7 to 10 pm occasionally. They push through, he screams like a banshee. Sometimes he goes back to sleep without intervention, other times we try to soothe him back to sleep for quite awhile. Then when we put him down he wakes and cries again! We need a good tooth fairy to make teething easier on him.

Trim

Ollie had his first trim this past weekend. I tried to get a good picture of the before, but this is the best I could do. His hair had grown over his ears and it makes him look like he's an old man. It bugged me. You can kind of see it over his right ear in the photo. He also has a bit of cupie doll look on the top of his head. His hair on top just isn't heavy enough to sit down on its own. I'll have a picture of it up tomorrow.

Onto the haircut. He sat, stood and wiggled in my lap while getting his hair trimmed above the ears. He was more interested in looking at the hairdresser and the shiny scissors she was using than what was going on. He never cried or got scared. He at least looks like he isn't a small old man any more. Just a cupie doll.

Vacuum

When Ollie is on the floor and we vacuum the carpet, he gets a bit scared. If he stands up, he's better. Usually he one of us has to hold him. When we are busy Ollie gets carried around with the person who is vacuuming. He was 22 lbs. a month ago, so he gets heavy fast. To placate him while we are vacuuming, he usually sits in a chair and watches us vacuum. That usually makes him happy as a clam.


Still a Ham for the Camera.

The seal in the picture is his favorite stuffed animal. Any time he is near his toy box, he gives the seal a kiss. Mickey is a bit jealous, all he gets from Ollie is a smack on his feet.