After a bit of a lull at work, everything is happening at once. We're booked up for the rest of the year and are already working on filling January. We launched our new site on Halloween and have been slowly passing it around. We couldn't possibly take on more work this year, so there's no use in promoting it too much. We're going to hire another motion designer because we have a lot of video work coming up. I'm going to be working full time for most of the rest of the year just to keep up. I'm feeling very grateful in this economy. I hope it continues. Next year will surely be different, but we're small and nimble enough to weather the storms ahead.
We bought our airline tickets to fly home for the Christmas holiday. All I can say is that they were ridiculously expensive; equal to a month of San Francisco rent. We are flying directly home instead of flying to the nearest decent sized airport and then driving another couple of hours. This means we won't need to rent a car or have to have someone drive all day to take us to the airport. I'm nervous about flying on a tiny plane. You can feel so much more turbulence, it's noisier, and rough landings bump you all over the place. It will be interesting to see how Dexter handles flying this year. Last year we took a red-eye out and he slept 90% of the way. This year, I timed it around his nap schedule, so he'll be able to sleep about half of the time in the air. He has his own seat though, so I don't have to have him jumping on my lap for hours. Next year, I'm sure I'll STILL be freaking out about how he'll behave on the plane.
He just went through another growth spurt. Sometimes it's so very apparent when it is happening because he'll stop sleeping well at night, eat nearly double what he normally does, and just be in a foul mood for no apparent reason. Then he'll have a big nap one day and "POOF!" It's over as quick as it began. It's very weird how that happens, but then some part of his development is put on warp-speed. Mr. Cobra senses it even though I don't say a word about it. He always says "something changed in him".
This week I think it was his speech development. He's been repeating some pretty complex words. It's one thing to just mimic and not say it again which he's done for a couple months now. That's now evolved into shouting a garbled "peanut butter" over and over again when he sees the jar of peanut butter. "Jello" is a good example. That's a two syllable word with a "j" that he can't sound. It's obvious what it is though, and he asks for it EVERY time he eats.
It's really neat to see how he gets concepts too. He gets his shoes and coat when he wants to go. He knows that if he pushes the button on the remote, that the computer will do something. He's getting much better with the spoon while eating and he even stopped throwing his sippy cup on the floor after taking a drink. He puts it right back where it was before. It's like he's a kid now and not so much of a baby. He wants to do things by himself, like going down the stairs. He puts his hand up for help, but he likes to go down them like a "big" kid.
He can officially climb onto the sofa, the coffee table and the chairs this week without a problem. I can't turn my back on him for a second because he ends up sitting on the coffee table. He's almost fallen off a few times already. I feel like I need to put an air mattress on the floor to catch his inevitable tumble. Unfortunately, that's just the way kids learn. He had to slam his fingers in the dresser drawers a couple times before he figured out to move them when closing it. He's pinched his fingers in the doors too, but not too bad yet. He still hasn't learned that lesson entirely.
What now? I'm beginning to ask myself what the next big milestone is. It seems likes he's got all the physical ones covered. He just needs longer legs to do the stairs by himself. He hasn't really jumped up and down yet, but he does stomp his feet. "Happy Feet" is what I call it. He's working on words of course, but that's a slow process that will take a many more months before we can have a simple conversation. He sleeps well and eats by himself. If he could open the refrigerator, I'm sure he'd probably make his own meals too! It feels like we're now officially out to sea. Nw there isn't a marker to aim for. I'm feeling a little lost on what to work toward. More books, reading, singing, playing, swimming, tumbling? I just want him to be the best he can be and give him opportunities to explore.
