Crazy walking man!

I have lots of videos this week! Dargan has been very happy (mostly) and active, and with just one week since he took his first consecutive steps, he's now walking everywhere! Like, we went to the pool this afternoon and he had no interest in playing in the water. Just wanted to walk laps around the edge of the pool!

Monday, after our evening walk, Dargan made sure to do his rounds in the bike shop.

Making sure those bike wheels still spin!

Tuesday, we got my family's piano delivered - it lives with us now since my parents are down-sizing. Dargan was very intrigued.

Cool new toy!

On Wednesday, Scott left for a work trip - Dargan and I are flying solo for a while. He decided to do his part by helping to unload the dishwasher.

Helping!

Also practiced walking with his elephant push-popper. He's not quite got the hang of it yet.

On Thursday, Dargan didn't nap well at daycare so he was a bit grumpy and tired after I picked him up. Silver lining: means he's extra snuggly!

Grumpy snuggles

He had more energy after dinner and climbed the entire flight of stairs up to his room at bedtime. Unfortunately the video is too long to upload here!

Friday evening he was grumpy again, so I put him up in the wrap to make dinner. This is called a double hammock back carry. The chest pass takes some of the pressure off your shoulders, which makes it a good carry for lengthy periods of time.



Unfortunately, Dargan was clearly unhappy so it didn't last long. He was much better after we went on a walk with neighbor Aria.

"Oh hey girl, you wanna cruise?"

This little face and those curls.

Saying hi to Harley...

Saturday was a busy and productive day. We slept until 7:30 (!!!!), went for a nice long run on the Swamp Rabbit and through Furman, baked food for a new mama with a one-week-old baby, and attempted a pool trip which involved thunder and walking laps around the pool.

Good morning!

Practicing walking and talking - finally caught his jibberish on camera!

Belltower on our run

He's going to be sprinting through the house, running over cats very very soon.

Now we're really movin'

So those first two steps Dargan took a couple weeks ago didn't get repeated for a while. He took lots of opportunities to practice standing, but didn't have any interest in going from Point A to Point B without holding onto something.

Over the past two weeks, he's gotten really good at standing up without pulling up on anything. Then just this weekend, while we were in Virginia at a hotel, he decides to just let go of the table and wander across the room towards us! Real walking!

Took a few tries, but we eventually got some steps on video...

What a champ!

We took a trip up to the southwestern tip of Virginia this weekend to ride the Virginia Creeper rail trail. Drove up Friday after work, met with some friends in Bristol, VA for dinner, then stayed overnight in a hotel.

Ahhh, mountains.

Knife fights at dinner are funny!

Bathroom picnic after Dargan went to sleep

Our original plan was to ride from Alvarado (about 7 miles from the Abingdon trailhead) to the other end in Whitetop, then return (actually our original original plan was to ride the whole thing both ways).




We got to Alvarado on Saturday morning, and it was raining.

Car napping waiting for the rain

After waiting for a while, we decided to drive ahead to Damascus (the halfway mark on the trail) and meet up with our friends to ride up to Whitetop and back. This turned out to be a good change of plans, because the full ride took us about 3.5 hours and by the end I was tired! Yes, even being "just a rail trail" it was still a challenging ride.




Dargan did really well riding in the trailer for that long (and of course Scott amazingly pulled him the whole way!)

The afternoon was spent brewery touring (what else?). We visited The Damascus Brewery (Brewery #48)...




...and Wolf Hill Brewing (Brewery #49).





More pics from the last 2 weeks...

Dinner with neighbor Aria while mom was traveling 

Climbing stairs (heavily supervised)

Talking to Grammy & Grampy on the phone

Family walk

His new big boy pajamas (without feet, in size 18 month)... they say "Being this cool is a SCIENCE"




I've tried to do a little more wrapping lately, and have done some different carries - trying to practice since I've got a couple of visitor wraps on the way soon. :)

Basic ruck carry

Front Wrap Cross Carry (FWCC)

A good seat!

Taiwanese Back Carry

Ready to roll

He likes his wrap! :)

Standing, Walking, and Climbing!

Well this was certainly a milestone weekend for Mr. Dargan and his motor skills!

I've been saying for weeks that since I'm traveling for work starting Monday the 18th, I'm SURE he will pick that week to start walking. I mean, he started crawling when I went away for a weekend, so why break the trend? Sure enough, when we picked him up from daycare on Friday, Ms. Sandy said "Oh, Dargan stood without holding onto anything today! I bet he'll be walking soon!"

Saturday morning, we were just sitting around and he stands up holding onto the couch, then looks at us, grins, and lets go! He stood for a good 4-5 seconds before slowly squatting down to sit.

Caught him (blurry) on camera a few minutes later.

He kept doing it throughout the weekend - he knows he's doing something special because he gets really excited then grins SO big when he lets go, and stands there with his hands up in the air.

In the afternoon, he stood up next to the dishwasher and I coaxed him into taking 2 steps towards me! I'm counting it - I got to witness the first steps. I'm sure he'll get better while I'm gone this week, but I'm so happy I got to see it before I had to go.

Another exciting development (not caught on camera) was that he's now figured out how to climb stairs. He climbed ALL the way up to his room for bedtime last night! YIKES.

Other highlights from the week...

Dis is my truck.

Hungry man eating a whole hotdog (with the bun!) at the neighborhood cookout on Thursday.

Grins.

So hungry! Need snacks...

Just hanging around.

Silly time!

We also had neighbor Aria's 1st Birthday party on Saturday, and her gift from Dargan was a sweet car so they could cruise the neighborhood together. Dargan thought the car was pretty awesome and had to give it a try.

He also practiced his walking by pushing the trash can around the house.

On Sunday we went to Pleasant Ridge to bike, and took turns playing with Dargan on the picnic blanket.



Now it's time to head out and let the boys have a bachelor week!

Helping me pack