Future MVP

Lately Tristan has developed a few new amazing "party tricks". Some of his new favorite toys require a ball be put in a hole or hoop in order for the toy to make sounds and light up, and he has become quite obsessed with making the toys come to life! He has three toys in particular that can keep his attention for quite some time, his dinosaur that has multiple openings for balls to be dropped in, his gumball machine that the balls have to be put in and the lever pulled to dispense them and his all-time favorite, his basketball hoop.

Victor bought him a Little Tikes basketball hoop a few weeks ago and once Tristan mastered putting the basketballs in, it was game over! Each time he puts a ball in the toy makes all kinds of sound and counts each point, up to 10. Tristan will put in 10 in a row, and then start over again...it so darn cute! Lately he has begun to put any ball that will go through the hoop, well, he actually trys to put ANYTHING that will drop through the hoop, like other small toys, sometimes they fit and sometimes they don't!

I can't believe how much he has developed in the last few months, even weeks. Some other new developments worth mentioning are, he's finally crawling like a "normal" baby, pulling up on any and everything, cruising on the furniture and starting to stand without holding on to anything.

So, the whole crawling thing...Tristan started "crawling" around 7 months, but he developed his own kind of crawl. We called it the snake crawl because he never used his knees, he would just drag himself around with his arms. For awhile I thought he would eventually get on his knees, but after he'd been doing it for about 2 months, I figured that was just going to be the way that he crawled and he was going to have the strongest arms of any baby ever. Then around 9 months he learned how to sit back up from being on his stomach, which required using his knees, and then I thought, now he'll get it, but again, nope, still the snake crawl. Even though the whole time from 7 months on he would get on his knees and rock and he knew to use his knees to sit back up, he just wouldn't use them to crawl. So, when I had finally given up hope that Tristan would stop reminding me how dirty our floor was (when he dragged himself he would pick up every piece of dirt), he surprised me! About 2 weeks ago he decided to finally start using his knees to crawl.

I think it had a lot to do with him wanting to stand up a lot more. In order for him to pull himself up he would get on his knees, grab up onto the couch or table and then pull up. Maybe after a month and half of trying to pull up from a laying stomach position he realized that it would be easier to start from his knees! Speaking of standing up, it's Tristan's favorite thing to do, other than basketball.

He has now figured out that he can use just about anything to get up on his feet, including the back of my legs when I'm standing! Each day he is getting a little braver and let's go to stand on his own more and more. I think the longest he's stood on his own is about 10 seconds, just long enough for me to take the first picture of him standing on his own. Before we know it he's going to be walking and I surely won't be able to keep up with him!

Here's a few pics of his new "party tricks", enjoy!