ABM progress and some cuteness

Gus is making some great progress in his ABM lessons lately. We've been seeing lots of Jon up in Fort Wayne, IN, and also recently saw Marcy in Chicago. He is getting closer and closer to being able to get himself into a sitting position from the floor. He's doing pretty well prop sitting once he's in the sitting position, too. It takes some gentle guidance and verbal reminders for Gus to get himself into sitting but he's doing so well pushing himself up with his right hand and arm. This video is dark but I'm just barely touching him. He's doing all the work on this. 

We think he's just teasing us with how close to crawling he is. He'll get on his belly and push way up on his arms with his head nice and high. Then he'll partly roll to one side to get his right leg bent up under him and he'll rub his toes on the carpet. Sometimes he even pushes himself forward half an inch or so.

His language is blossoming. While he was in Chicago doing lessons with Marcy they worked for 4 lessons trying to get him to say, "I want Elmo" instead of just, "Elmo" and pointing. No luck. At the end of the 4th lesson he set Elmo down and got involved playing with something else so Patti picked Elmo up to disinfect him and put him away. All of the sudden Gus noticed Elmo was gone and said, clear as day, "Where'd Elmo go?" The whole room just busted up laughing. So the next morning in his lesson when the adults were talking and he wanted the attention back on him he said it again with a huge grin on his face. He's quite a character.

Grandma Carol and Gus are already thick as thieves co-conspirators. Maria noticed Gus's fingers were orange one day and she asked him, "Did Grandma give you a cheese ball?"

Gus shook his head and avoided Maria's eyes with a big, "No!"

Then he had been downstairs with Grandma and she'd been feeding him more cheese balls. When Maria came downstairs and sat down at the table then Grandma handed him another cheese ball. He looked at Maria and threw the cheese ball across the room really quickly like he'd never seen one in his life and certainly wasn't interested in eating them! I guess deception starts young. It's a good thing he has such obvious "tells" so we know when he's fibbing. With a name like Fergus O'Brien I guess we should have expected him to be full o' the blarney.

I wish I could say we were all healthier than my last frustrated post but we are really still struggling. Gus has been healthy. Maria is a bit better but then sometimes not. She just recently had another infection and the doctor thought she should be in the hospital but it was her birthday 2 days later and she said she wasn't spending it in the hospital. Fortunately her antibiotics seem to be clearing that up and I do think she's on an upswing.

I have no idea what is wrong with me. I have been fatigued beyond relief and then most afternoons I go from fine to feeling awful in no time flat. I'll have a good day or even several in a row and think, "Oh, I'm finally over this" and then I'm right back to having bad days again. It's getting to be my new normal now, I guess. My doctor just started me on antibiotics and a steroid pack on Friday so fingers crossed the worst is behind me. He thinks maybe I have acute or chronic sinusitis. This is going on 2 months of not feeling good for me and I'm over it! I'm supposed to be the "healthy" one in this house! There really should be at least one, right?

Now, on to some general cuteness of our wonderful little man.

We dog sat for Kona back in October. Kona wasn't quite 1 year old at the time and she and Gus were great playmates. He giggled through the whole several days. If you listen to this video you can hear him saying, "Ready, Go!" to encourage her on.

 

He's getting to be such a big boy and is very proud of himself, too. He can take his PBJ in his hand, take bites from it, and is drinking milk from his sippy cup.

Maria, Gingerbread Man, Christi, and Gus at Festival of Lights at Cincinnati Zoo

Gus bundled from the cold

Wearing his new Thomas and Friends engineer hat while passed out in a milk coma

Would you like to play "Find the baby"?

Before you holler, "Child Abuse!" he willingly continued to put the lemon in his mouth and he asks for them!

We were all so sick at Halloween this was the only pic we got of the 3 of us. Gus was his favorite, Elmo. So we were Elmo's Goldfish, Dorothy, and Elmo's Crayon. 

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I'm withholding all the pics with Santa for now until we select the Christmas card shot.