The Wonders of Growing Up

This friday will mark Nile's 10th month on this Earth. That's right, he is a scant 2 months away from the big year mark. I can hardly believe it. How can it be that a year has passed already. That doesn't seem humanly possible. Simple proof, I suppose, that I cannot stop the flow of time, however desperately I try.

Nile has made leaps and bounds developmentally speaking in the last few days and last month. Firstly, Nile has absolutely mastered the use of a sippy cup. He started using one about 2 months ago, but didn't grasp it all the way at first. The first few attempts, Nile expected us to hold the cup for him. After figuring out how to hold the cup himself, he had to master the principle that up meant more juice, down meant no juice. After one or two days of sucking on the cup without tipping it up, he finally figured it out. Occasionally Nile tries to be lazy and use his high chair to hold his cup, but that only works when the cup is really full. Otherwise, he just sucks air and we all know, air is nowhere near as tasty as juice.
Also, on Sunday the 27th of April (mark it, it's a big day) Nile crawled for the very first time! He started a bit later than most of his buddies but he was testing out different skills first. Starting at about 7 and 1/2 months old, Nile began figuring out how to sit up from kneeling and lying positions and then at around 8 and 1/2 months he figured out how to go from sitting to kneeling and would rock back and forth on his knees. At that point he wouldn't crawl as hard as I tried to entice him to. But while we were upstairs playing one night, Greg laid down the capo for his guitar and Nile was off to the races. He made pretty good time, I'm sure driven out of fear that Daddy would pick up the appealing goal. He's still a little shaky on his knees but is crawling more and more each day. He is turning into a real troublemaker. He only cruises for things he knows he can't play with, of course. I will try my hand at posting a video later.
All in all, Nile seems to be making excellent progress. He is still happy and healthy. Which I'm extremely blessed and very grateful for. I can only hope it continues.