DA-dee!!!

This morning when Gabe came out of the bedroom, Jonathan turned around, grinned, and said “DA-dee!!!!!” I think he’s connected the word to the person. :)

In other news:

Jonathan can crawl awfully fast. And he increases his pace to match how badly he wants something.

He’s playing peek-a-boo consistently, and it is often self-initiated. He’ll peek around a corner at us, disappear, peek again, and laugh when we catch on to what he’s doing and say those magic words “peek a boo!!”

The vacuum cleaner used to be a big, scary, horrible monster. But it might be ok now. Yesterday I had to vacuum because company was coming over and it had been way too long since the floor was clean. I took the opportune moment when Jonathan was happily occupied outside on the patio to go get the vacuum cleaner. Of course, by the time I got it out of the closet, Jonathan was working on coming back inside. I turned it on at the other end of the room, warning Jonathan that it was about to be “noisy!” Well, it roared to life, and Jonathan scooted backward so fast! …it really was funny, although I tried not to laugh at the poor kid. His face crumpled and he really wailed. So I left the vacuum turned on, but came and picked him up and comforted him and talked to him about it. When he calmed down we walked over to the still-running vacuum, and he was ok if I held him and vacuumed at the same time. But it’s very hard to vacuum carpet with a 21 lb baby on your hip! So after awhile I took him back outside with some toys (vacuum cleaner still running!) and helped him get interested in them again. It worked! I went back and vacuumed the rest of the room, and Jonathan was ok! He even dared to come inside and follow me around a bit, although he was careful to leave quite a bit of space between himself and the noisy monster. I was proud of my brave boy. And glad that my floor was finally clean again. :)

Side note: This is why everything seems to take ten times as long to complete when you have a baby. It really does! Vacuuming the floor used to just be vacuuming the floor - now it is:

1) distract the baby
2) turn on vacuum cleaner
3) comfort the baby
4) vacuum part of the floor slowly with baby in arms
5) distract the baby
6) vacuum part of the floor
7) distract the baby
8) vacuum the rest of the floor
9) pick up the baby
10) put away the vacuum cleaner

Ok, now I just made myself laugh and I feel better for not vacuuming the whole house. :)

And last of all, I have grand new goals for work outs and weight loss. Check with me tomorrow to see if I still want to stick with them. Yesterday I tried out a “couch to 5K” running program that I heard of from Amber. It seems like it is actually do-able (and this from someone who HATES running!) And this morning I tried a new “baby dance” workout video, and Jonathan and I really enjoyed it! We only did the “warm-up/light exercise” routines this morning, because according to the running program today is a rest day, but it was lots of fun. The dance is very simple and intuitive, which is nice since I’m definitely not very coordinated when it comes to dance. Anyway, I’m feeling good (endorphins are great, aren’t they?) and hoping that with this new variety I’ll be more interested and inclined to stick with workouts. Jonathan is almost 1 year old and I’m sick and tired of being 8 lbs overweight. Wish me luck and keep me accountable, will you please?