Is he not the cutest little boy you’ve ever seen?  We’re still waiting to get back all of his Christmas pictures (especially the ones with Santa), but I love his expression in this one as he thinks that he finally gets to chew on a power cord, but nope, it gets yanked away the second the camera snaps the shot…

This picture wasn’t quite as stressful to take, but Ian wasn’t as interested in posing for this one, either.  He couldn’t understand why we should just sit around doing nothing.

Since the holidays have ended, Ian’s been up to quite a bit.  He attended his first UT basketball game with his grandpa and watched the Vols beat Xavier.  He had a blast the first half of the game, particularly when the band would play “Rocky Top.”  Ian has been clapping his hands together for a few weeks, but was utterly fascinated with everyone around him clapping their hands together all at the same time.  My son is more of a joiner at 7 months old than I ever have been.

Before going into the game, we stopped by “the rock” for a quick photo-op.  Now we have documentation that Ian has truly begun enjoying campus traditions.  By the time he’s old enough to attend college, he’s going to be so steeped in traditions that it’s going to be hard for him to choose between UT and TTU.

Aside from grabbing for power cords and watching basketball games, Ian spends his time mastering independent mobility.  He army crawls quicker than any soldier possibly could, and tries repeatedly to get his feet up underneath him.  Now, he can dart behind furniture and hide if he thinks a mean grown-up is coming to take him away from his fun.  Sometimes  when Brinn’s reaching down to pick Ian up, Ian will start trying so hard to beat a hasty retreat that he gets a bit ahead of himself and he ends up going nowhere as he frantically moves his little legs.  It’s a little like watching car tires spin in the mud.

As efficiently as Ian’s crawling gets him around, he would still prefer to walk.  When he’s not after something, he puts a lot of effort into his attempts to stand.  He does his Yoga poses 10 and 12 times a day while working on walking.  With all this extra strength and mobility, Ian has also welcomed mayhem and chaos into the house.  One of his favorite rituals is to scuttle over to the dogs’ water bucket and dump it out over himself.  Then he likes to splash and roll around in the puddles.  The water bucket has spent a lot of time on the counter lately…

Since we’ve made the water bucket less accessible lately, Ian’s taken an interest in mastering cabinet doors.  After a week of failed attempts, this morning he finally opened the door to the fish tank’s cabinet.  I guess cabinet locks will be installed this evening.

Ian’s adventurous explorations are forcing Brinn and I to keep a close eye lately, but it’s so enjoyable to view his delight as he encounters all these new experiences.

Posing for the camera is becoming second nature for this happy little boy.