"No"

Ian is now quite mobile. He now navigates at will through 3/4 of the bottom floor of our house. It's really a lot of fun to watch this kid! Bless his little heart. He's quite a little explorer. We love that about him! However, with absolutely NO safety awareness, we have to keep a close eye. Of course this has forced us to quickly ready up our "baby proofing". We've purchased baby gates, plug covers, electrical applicance cord covers, and cabinet door thingys. We don't have it all done, but have the most crutial spots covered. (At least we THink.) In spite of this, there are some things you can't just make unavailable such as the border where the tile and the carpet meet. He's figured out that he can pull that up all by himself about a week ago.

You know, I'm impressed though. I was terrified when I saw him start that. I thought this was something that would take months to teach. (Not to compare him to our ferrets, but we still have to keep an eye on them after all of this time and dilligent training.) Amazingly enough though, he's figured it out already. It took about 20-30 "no"s, about 4 relatively-gentle hand slaps, and 10-12 glooming over the shoulders, but the kid now just halts slightly and moves onward. What a sweet kid. We sure like him.

The first of a million lessons. I don't mind a bit. I like him. And I like to watch him learn. What a sweet little guy.