Tall, Crawl, Ball

>

Please, no pictures.

A couple of observations about our little hero:

• It's taken 11 1/2 months, but Martin's officially more intelligent than The Beets, his four-legged big sister. Beets has always been able to push open a door, but she's never figured out how to pull one open. She goes into the bathroom to get a cool drink from the toilet (she's a very classy dog), but the door shuts behind her (like I said, she's a very classy dog) and can't get out. Beets traps herself in the bathroom at least once a week. Martin, on the other hand, has figured out how to push and pull a door open. You'll never trap him in the bathroom.
• Martin seems to show a definite preference for his left hand. He sucks his left fingers, tends to reach for things with his left hand, and does most of his eating with his left hand. In fact, his right hand's primary role seems to be The Swatter. I hold a spoonful of food up to his mouth and the right hand swoops in a swats it away. I come from the left, SWAT!, I come from the right, SWAT! It's making it difficult to stuff his rotund belly.
• Today Dad lowered the mattress on Martin's crib to prevent him from launching himself out. He's started pulling up on the bars and is finally tall enough to run the risk of ejecting himself. Such a big boy.
  

Martin's crawling is top notch now. He's surprisingly quick but has an exaggerrated hand slap so you can always hear him coming or going. Here's a little video of Martin showing off his speed and finesse. Be sure to turn on the sound so you get all his hand-slappiness.


Martin's absolute favorite activity is chasing a ball around the room. He'll do this for minutes at a time, which, given his minute attention span, is roughly equivalent to 4.25 hours of adult time. Check him out. I apologize for the total amateur video quality. I'm still a video rookie. Oh, and turn off the sound on this one unless you want to hear my horrible shreak.