Developmental Leaps

The past few weeks have brought huge changes to the Allen house. My babies are growing up! We're hitting developmental milestones so quickly that my head is spinning. Tristan is getting to be a little boy so quickly that I look at him and wonder where my baby went. Maura maintains that she is not a baby, she's a big girl! Brent with the kids when he came home from work the other day. They are so excited to see him each evening and mug him as soon as he sits down.
We started self feeding with Tristan last week. He's been feeding himself finger food for some time now, but today we gave him a feeding tool and let him just go for his yogurt. You can see the result! Photos can't adequately show how messy this child was! He's got to learn somehow, but I think we'll do something a little more solid next time.
This was Tristan's biggest milestone of the past few weeks. On the 20th of March Tristan finally started crawling! He's been military crawling for months, but things just clicked for him and he took off on all fours. He still resorts to military crawling when he wants to go really quickly, though! He's all over the place now! AND, here's the other new development! I walked in just a day or so later to see him standing up in his crib, crying for me. He's so pitiful! Thankfully, I had my camera handy. I could see that it was definitely time to lower the crib.
This was the last time time for my little man to be in his crib on the highest setting. I always feel sad when we lower the crib--it really feels like he's growing up! " I'm so funny Mommy! Aren't you proud of me??"
Pulling up has given him a new perspective on all of his toys. His new favorites are all standing toys. He loves crawling over and pulling up on the TV stand to mess with all the movies. On this occasion, he was watching the movie from the Baby Dedication at our church. That's my baby boy on the screen! "You caught me!" He giggles whenever I ask him what he's doing.
Our other big news is that MAURA IS POTTY TRAINED! We've worked on it for so long that it doesn't seem possible that we could be done! About a month ago at MOPS she told her teacher that she had to go to the bathroom and DID go and she's never had an accident since. I think she was influenced by the other kids using the potty and it all just clicked for her. This photo was taken when she put the very last sticker on the chart.
What a proud day for my baby girl, and what a happy day for her mommy! My big potty trained girl. Don't you love the bed head? A full chart meant it was reward time!!
That very day I took her to Wal-Mart for her reward. I told her that she could buy whatever she wanted(within reason) and I set her free in the toy isle. It was paradise for her! I've never even let her out of the cart in the toy isle before! She had lots of possibilities and she spent lots of time looking. It was a hard decision!
We looked at all sorts of expensive toys, but she eventually settled on this inexpensive fishing game! Great! Tristan was a patient boy while all these deliberations were going on!

Maura showed her completed chart to the cashier, who was sixteen and couldn't have cared less! She felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment at this monumental occasion and I gave a little sigh for the milestone that we'd just passed and the fact that she's just getting so darn big! I'm just so thankful that I can be home to witness all these special moments in my babies' lives. I wouldn't trade it for the world!