And we're walking and climbing...

Maddox starting walking this weekend! He has been walking around furniture and pushing things around, but has only taken maybe 1 or 2 steps on his own. Well, all of a sudden, he took like 5 steps in a row, then 6, then 10 at one time! He is so fricking cute. I was stunned! I got very excited, which made him very excited, which only makes him fall down. Oopsy, sorry buddy! He seems to take the most steps when we are hardly paying attention, I'll look away and look back and he'll be halfway across the room! He is getting better every day, sometimes he just toddles all over the place, grabbing onto something along the way or falling down and climbing back up. Sometimes he will crawl everywhere as fast as he can, laughing along the way if you start chasing him. He loves being chased, it is so cute! He will practically run if Rudy or I hold one or both of his hands. I am predicting that by his birthday he will be walking nonstop! Wow, some things just happen so fast!

He has also figured out how to climb the stairs. He just started crawling up them one day, like he knew how to all along. It was pretty surprising! He can crawl all the way to the top in no time, which is no small feat because we have 16 steps to the second floor. Now we need to teach him to come down because right now he gets to the top, pulls himself to standing and then proceeds to stick one leg in the air, like he is trying to dip it into a pool like he wants to walk down. Yikes! We obviously don't let him anywhere near the stairs unless we are with him, so there is no danger of him falling, but he is getting faster and faster at crawling and walking, so we should probably gate off the top of the stairs. Ugh, I hate those stupid gates! We have had one at the top of the stairs to the basement since we moved in pretty much to keep the dog out. I have always hated that gate and now I need to get more? Ugh. I haven't really done much baby proofing around the house except for sticking those outlet plugs in the outlets that are visible. I am going to have to start locking some cabinets and have just been tying scarves on them so far. You could spend a fortune on all that babyproofing stuff! I am just putting it off as long as possible, but I realize that at some point he is going to be able to get into the next room and do something crazy before I can catch up with him, so need to lock up a couple of cabinets. Just add that to our list of one million things we need to do in the next couple of weeks leading up to Maddie's birthday party. More about that later!