Thirteen Steps

This morning, we went to the mall to play in the kids' play area. When we arrived, no one was there. We had the run of the place to ourselves for the first 20 minutes. It was kind of nice from our perspective, but Henry got bored and kept trying to crawl out into the open mall. It wasn't crowded, but I didn't want Henry touching the floor.

The place filled in quickly with children four years old (I'm guessing) and younger. There was a boy around three years old who came near Henry and hit him in the face. I wasn't too thrilled about that, but at least the mother took the child to the other side of the play area. There was a 10-month old boy who looked physically about how Henry did at that age. And there was a 10-month old girl who was pretty big and was tottering around. Not walking well, but pretty darn good for a 10-month old. I was impressed. Henry must have been impressed too. After watching her walk, he took five steps on his own. Then, he tried again and took seven. There is certainly something to be said about learning through social comparison.

We went to a crepe place for breakfast. It was by far the best mall dining experience that we've ever had. The food was fantastic (and being in a mall, it didn't cost much). Henry didn't eat much. He started getting very fussy, so we decided it was time to go home.

When we got home, Henry took a 2.5 hour nap with me. He got up before I did and played with his papa. I was exhausted.

In the early evening, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to celebrate Erin's birthday. In attendance were Grandma, Grandpa, Erin, Brian, Uncle Jim, Jeff, Henry, and me (and the pups Ramses, Indiana, Winston, and Wembly). We were happy to have Uncle Jim with us, although we had hoped that he would have his new kidney by now. He was in the hospital on Friday night because it looked like he was going to get a new one (his current one was transplanted 19 years ago...10 years beyond the average life-expectancy of a transplanted kidney). The match wasn't as good as they hoped, so they send Jim home. At least it is clear that the hospital has him at the top of the transplant list, so he'll be getting new one soon. And he did get to spend Erin's celebration with us.

Henry's walking keeps getting better and better. By the end of the evening, I counted thirteen steps in his trek across the room. Pretty darn good. Jeff and I have borrowed my mom's digital camera to capture Henry's walking (at least until our camera gets fixed).