First Steps

     On Tuesday, September 6th, Marcus took his first 5 unassisted steps!  He's been almost RUNNING while holding onto our fingers for over a month now.  In fact, I thought he'd be walking by August since he did it so easily.  Well, he showed us this week that it's not a matter of ability, but of will. 
     Mark was at work when he first did it, and when we tried that evening, he just wanted to plop down and crawl over to Mark.  So on Wednesday, the following morning, Marcus and I were playing in his room when Mark woke up.  As soon as he saw his daddy he wanted to get to him, so I said, "walk to him" and sure enough, he did!  We cheered and kissed him as we sent him back and forth between the two of us for a number of minutes.  It was a big game to him. 
     Later that morning, when Mark and I went to pick him up at the gym nursery, we wanted to try to show Miss Ashley his new skills.  He did even BETTER this time, walking clear across the room once (as he was walking to me, I kept backing up and he kept coming!).  He probably took close to 20 steps that time!  Since then, we've tried it a little each day and if it's not in the right room, he's NOT interested.  He'll bend and bounce his legs as he refuses, so we don't push the issue.  He'll be all out running soon enough, so we'll let him walk at his own pace. :) 
     In other news, this past Wednesday started our church's annual AWANA program.  This year, I'm in charge of teaching the Puggles class (birth-3 years old).  I was excited to flex my teaching muscle again, but was quickly introduced to a new age group as we had 2 children with "accidents" and Marcus cried 3/4 of the time, whether that was because he thought I was going to leave or because he didn't like me loving on the other children.  It was GREAT FUN, but exhausting, nonetheless.  Hopefully he'll get more used to it and I'll be better rested before next week's Puggles.
     Finally, next week's blog will probably be on Sunday since that'll be Marcus' FIRST birthday.  We're having a small party with close friends and family on Saturday and I want to post pictures from that, too.  Have a great week, everyone! :)

Here are our Puggles!

From the top going counterclockwise, we have Isabella, Dane, Mariclaire, Nicholas, and Lily

Mrs. Gerry got to feed sweet little Davis (3 weeks old).

We had to contain him while we did the lesson since he kept trying to grab things off the table.

He joined the crew for snack time.

We still make Marcus' baby food, but he's eating less of it and more table foods by the day.

It turns out, he is Mark's child after all.  He LOVED sloppy joes.

He had a red face for days (just kidding).