Asa Walking!

Here is actual video of Asa taking steps!


It was taken today. Today was the first day I really saw him realize that walking was a method of getting around. He's started walking to things that are nearby instead of crawling.

Other advancements:

• He can be handed a whole peach to eat instead of little bits. Obviously, someone still has to remove the pit, but this is a great milestone for me!
• He can get the square Duplo Legos together about 1/2 the time. This is an important milestone to him, and he's spent hours on them.
• He's been moved into a booster seat instead of the highchair. I already have a target giveaway person for the highchair.
  
• He's moved officially from 2 naps to 1 afternoon nap. This means that he is very crabby a lot of the time, but is slowly beginning to adjust. It helps if we go out in the morning. He seems to be sleeping a little later in the AM (to around 7-7:30) and taking a longer afternoon nap to compensate for the sleep.
• He can identify his tummy and his feet when you ask him where they are.
• He can throw the ball for Jack.
  
• He will give you a hug or a kiss if you ask for one.
  

So, we've been spending a lot of time at a local farm in the mornings this week. Asa learned to say "chicken" this week. It sounds kind of like "ticken". He's also gotten to ride a tractor and met a whole host of other kinds of animals: sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, cows, etc. He got to pet most of them and also engage in other fun farm activities. He has been having a blast. The only drawback is that I won't let him crawl at all, so he either has to be held (oh, my aching back) or walk holding onto a finger.

In other excitement, Asa was in his first tornado! Okay, it might not have been a tornado, but definitely qualifies as a massive storm. Here's the deal: we had gone to visit friends for the weekend and they took us to the beach. When we arrived, it looked like rain, but we'd brought dinner, so we figured we'd have a quick dip and then go eat. We were in the water about 15 minutes or so, when we saw lightening and got out. We figured we'd eat instead of playing on the playground and opted to go under the shelter as the rain was appearing more imminent. We did think it might miss us entirely at that point though.

Once under the shelter, I sat down on the floor and started changing Asa out of his swimsuit. Our friends started getting out snack foods. I had just gotten the swimsuit off of Asa and his diaper about halfway on, when the sand started blowing off the beach toward us. And then things -- large things -- started flying past us. I turned leeward to shelter Asa and grabbed for as much as I could to keep it with me. Yes, I held tight to Asa. He was scared for the first part of the storm, but someone put a blanket over us about 2-3 minutes in and he thought that was funny. It was supposed to go over our shoulders, but the wind blew it over our heads and made a tent. Plus, I found him a relatively dry sweatshirt and managed to get that on him and found him a cookie. Life is always better with a cookie, right?

The whole thing lasted maybe 20 minutes or so, from beginning to end. We really had not been in the shelter for more than about 5 minutes when it started. When it finished, there were at least 5 trees within 500 yards that were completely down, plus any number of branches and other debris. I didn't hear any of them fall, because the wind was so loud. The wind had picked up a kayak from the water and blown it 500 yards before it was crushed by a falling tree. There was a puddle of rain that I was sitting in, that had just blown into the shelter; the rain had been horizontal for most of the storm. Everything was totally soaked (although my diaper bag actually did very well at repelling the water from its base). My friends had a tree narrowly miss their car and roads were closed. However no one was hurt, and in fact most people had already left the beach.

All in all we were absolutely stunned. We had not expected anything like that when we went to the beach!

Here is another video of Asa helping to do the dishes. You gotta start 'em early!