Whoa, busy times!

I haven't really had time to update lately, but I feel that I ought to make the time, otherwise there's no point in blogging to document Oren's life and recovery!

So, Oren has started CRAWLING! Commando crawling, to be exact. It started off surprisingly fast. I was folding his blankets one morning, and hadn't really thought to not leave a cereal bowl within his reach, because it had never been an issue in an almost-year! So I had it, mostly empty, on a book on the floor, across the room. Oren was playing with his stuffed blocks, and all was well. About fifteen seconds after turning my back to smooth his blankets in his crib, I hear the clinking of a spoon in a bowl. Oh no! I whirled around only to see Oren, giggling and patting his hand in the pool of milk he'd knocked out of the cereal bowl.

Since then, he's getting better and better! He army crawls pretty fast, and when he can't get there quick enough like that, he starts rolling. He's even using his right arm and leg! His right arm used to get pinned under him when he'd roll and inch around, like he'd just forget it was there. Now he always pulls it forward and uses his elbow to move himself along. I couldn't be more proud! :)

He took his first (forward) steps in his walker on Sunday. He's been pretty good at scooting around backwards in it, but discovered forward out of nowhere while I was frosting a birthday cake for my mother. Suddenly, I look over and he's moving straight ahead, trying to get at the dachshund. It was very exciting! Since then, he's been zooming around and getting into everything in sight whenever he's in it. Which, admittedly, isn't very often - we don't want him to develop some muscles too early, when there's others that need strengthening. But when he's in it, it's amazing!

He's been making new sounds, and doing adorable new smiles, points, and shoulder-scrunches when he's super happy. He even points at things and ba-bas curiously, so we'll tell him what it is. And he points out/grabs things when we ask him to find them!

He had his first year of therapy evaluation, and he did AMAZING. He is only a couple of months behind on his physical developement, and scored at or above his age level for other things. I am most proud of his scores for cognitive thinking (17 months!) and social/emotional understanding (16 months!). Everybody thinks their baby is super smart and awesome, but it is nice to have experts agree. ;)

I am going to try and keep this updated a little better. Oren is making lots of exciting new changes, and it'd be a shame not to keep it all documented!