Holden - the new walker

Here are the stats on the big boy:

At 15 months, he's now a full walker. He crawled a lot more than Thornton did. That made Holden much stronger when he actually started walking. Thornton was more shakey, but he took his first steps right before his first year's birthday. Holden took his first steps at about 14 months, but he is now practically running at 15 months. Just two weeks ago, he went from walking between furniture, to walking around the entire house unassisted. Amazing!

Holden is my super happy boy. He has such a naturally happy disposition. He always has a smile on his face and is almost always laughing or smiling. He can say "mama", "dada", "up" (which is really just "puh") and "dat"... we say "dat" while pointing at things quite a lot. He's curious about EVERYTHING and wants to see lots of stuff. While he is a generally very happy child, Holden is starting to develop quite the little temper! If you say "no", and he really wanted something, he'll throw his little body down on the ground (knees first), then drop down on his tummy with head to the floor and start crying. It's the most hysterical sight. You almost can hear the drama cry "WHYYYYY?????"

Holden has 5 teeth to his name now: 2 on top and 3 on bottom. The 5th just came in about 2-3 weeks ago. My happy boy went away for a bit thru that sad part.... so did my good sleeper. On average during a tooth cutting, we spend about 2-3 weeks with broken sleep, a snotty nose and a poor appetite. He makes up for it later in the eating department, though.

Holden is not a picky eater (neither is Thornton), but the boys do have different tastes. Holden is a huge egg lover, which his Grandaddy loves (Thornton has never liked them much), and one of Holden's favorites is smoked salmon. He'll eat an entire slice of smoked salmon before I can finish cutting it up. He loves most fruits, but isn't really into blueberries right now... not sure why. I think it may be the skin. For the most part, Holden doesn't like skin on his fruit. He also doesn't really like oranges or pineapple. I think that's the texture of those as well. He'll eat all veggies including kale, loves garbanzo beans (both boys eat them for snacks) and will down an entire piece of steak a la wonderful in less than a minute! He comes from good stock on that one!

My littlest boy is a sweet one. He's starting to love books - reading "Little Duck the Finger Puppet Book" is one that really makes him laugh. He loves turning the pages (best page turner around), and especially loves the last line "...little duck can play with YOU!" when little duck tickles him under his chin. His giggle is the best thing going!

Holden is also my dancer. He reacts so much more to music than his big brother did at the same age. Dance parties occur in the kitchen most nights, and Holden can really shake a tailfeather. His dance is mostly bouncing and clapping for onesself. Good to know he has great self esteem at this point!