December Nights and Speed-Crawling

Last weekend we went to Balboa Park's December Nights event. The park was all lit up with Christmas lights and there were vendors and live music. It was pretty cold but the crowd of 150,000 people provided some much-needed body heat. That's right, it was CROWDED. And Paul and I are sooo not crowd people but I knew this might be our last Christmas in San Diego so I wanted us to take Wilder. We got some delicious kettle corn and walked around as best we could through the throngs of people and strollers. It really was beautiful and it was nice just to do something we wouldn't normally do together. Wilder loved looking at all the people and the Christmas lights and we got a precious picture of him with Santa Claus so that made braving the crowds worth it. 

Wilder has been walking more and more the past few days. I can get him to walk four or five steps to me from whatever he's pulled up on and I've seen him several times let go of what he's holding onto and start to take a step away from it before he realizes what he's doing and sits down. I absolutely love being able to watch him learning and practicing this new ability. It makes me so proud. I think by the time we go to Tennessee for Christmas he'll be all over the place. That's going to make for an interesting trip, especially the flights. Glad Paul will be with me for both flights this time. 

I'm also amazed at how much Wilder's comprehension has developed just in the last few weeks. When I'm talking to him I really feel like, most of the time, he understands what I'm saying. He follows commands and attempts to respond when I ask him something. He totally blew me away the other night. I was feeding him dinner and one of his hats was sitting on the kitchen table next to him. He kept pointing to it and a couple of times I said, Yeah, that's your hat. Then on a whim I said, Wilder, where does your hat go? and he put both hands on his head. I had never told him that or asked him that question before but he knew what I was saying. I almost fell on the floor. 

He amazes me and makes me smile so many times a day. He loves to peek around stuff at us or jump out at us or come up and "get us". He thinks he is so funny too. Several times I've heard him babbling, then stop to laugh, and then continue babbling like he told himself a joke. He can spot a motorcycle from across a parking lot and even when we hear one from inside our house he has to say Voomvoom! The boy is obsessed. He's also quite mischievous. If I say Let's go eat lunch or Time for a nap and he's not ready to do it he speed-crawls away from me laughing. It totally cracks me up. 

Helping Rider look for a ball

that went under the couch

 At the zoo with Lexi

 Quacking at the ducks and flamingos

 I walked in to find him throwing all

of his toys out of the basket and he

thought it was hilarious that I'd caught him