Firsts

I'm finally getting a moment to write about Keenan's many "firsts" which we've celebrated over the past few months. I love this age. This is the age when kids first start to act like little people - they start walking and talking and relating. It's so fun!

So let's see, I've already talked about Keenan's first birthday... Soon after that, we had to recognize that he was actually using his first word and it was an unassuming "Uh-Oh". We debated for a while about whether "Uh-Oh" counted as a first word, but finally arrived at the conclusion that, if he's using it regularly and in context, it's a word. Very quickly after that, he added "What's this?" (Wha-sis?) to his repertoire along with "Wow". These three phrases pretty well sum up the 1 year-old experience. Imagine it with me:
Keenan approaches something new. A piece of food he's been offered for dinner, for example.
Wo-w!
Pointing at it with his little chubby fingers and picking it up with a careful pincer grasp.
Wha-sis?
He puts the food in his mouth, makes a terrible crinkly face, pushes it out of his mouth with his tongue and then throws it on the floor. Leaning over the side of his chair he looks at it and says:
Uh-Oh!

The end of August brought several new firsts including his first real steps and his first haircut. Learning to walk is a bit of a process, but he seemed to start making the choice to walk instead of crawl on August 23 - a fun early birthday present for Mom. These pictures are from earlier that week, when we went to visit Kieran's new puppies and he had to stand up or be licked to death by little puppy tongues!
These are also the last pictures of Keenan's baby curls. I was sad to see them go!
Somehow it's become a tradition in our family to assemble the whole clan for the first haircut so this time we incorporated it into my birthday dinner out and had six adults and the two kids on hand for Keenan's first cut. He sat on Grampa's lap and was a bit tentative at first but settled in very nicely once we gave him a lollypop. Mmmm... Poor Grampa had sticky drool up to his elbow, I think!
Big brother Ethan led the way by getting his hair cut (or, as he would say, "hair-a-cut", just like "air-a-port" and "air-a-plane") too. He set a great example and my two boys looks awfully handsome when all was said and done.

As a special bonus treat we got to take a ride on the little electric train they have at the Dulles Town Center mall. Overall, a pretty fun birthday for everyone!