Holding on

Caleb and I went for a walk today to check the mail. Caleb absolutely loves being outside and seeing all the wonderful sights. But because it's so hot and humid in Texas, we don't get to enjoy being outside nearly enough. I try to wait till later in the evening to take him outside and even then we have to keep our adventures short. Otherwise he gets heat rashes.

Well, the mail boxes are up in the front of the complex, so it's a good little walk for us. Before we left, we had been playing with these linking letters -- cutely connected to spell out Caleb. We've been practicing getting him to reach for things. He's getting better. He'll grab anything that comes in his range, but still doesn't reach for most things outside his immediate area. He will play with the toys on his bouncy chair, but if I dangle something for him, he just thinks I'm silly. Anyway, we were playing with the letters. He got a hold of them and held on tight. Then after a little while I decided we ought to go check the mail, since I hadn't checked it since sometime last week.

Out the door we went. I didn't even notice at first that Caleb still had a hold of his little toys. He carried them all the way to the mail room without letting go. Held on tight while I sorted through the junk and tossed the worst of it away. Didn't even think about dropping them as we sweated our way back to the apartment. I was so impressed. Yes, I get excited at the littlest things these days. But you have to admit, that's a long time for little fingers to carry a toy. At least, for Caleb's little fingers. He usually doesn't care about something enough to hold it for that long. He probably would have kept going too if I didn't take it out of his hand when it was time to feed him.

Oh, and more exciting baby news that's probably only exciting to me. So, as I was saying just a paragraph or two before, he doesn't really reach for things yet. Well, I was talking on the phone today and he started to fuss, so I tossed him a little soft book for him to chew on. It landed gently on his tummy and so he easily picked it up and stuck it in his mouth. But then later tonight, he was laying on his blanket on the floor again while I went to cycle the laundry and when I came back, he had the book in his hands. I was so excited. It's the first time he's ever picked up a toy that I didn't hand him in the first place. It was just lying there beside him and he saw it and must have thought "the horse on that book looks like fun to chew" and picked it right on up.

I bet to others, this seems like a rather boring day. But to me, these were the highlights.