Ranger, Hunter, and I

8-23-07
Sorry it's been so long, it's like I don't have time to even take a breath!! Summer's are always busy for Brian and I and now they're even crazier.

A lot of things have been happening. Hunter is pulling himself up on things and taking very tottery steps around things. It's a little scary because he is always doing face dives into the floor. I hate it, but I know he has to practice to learn and go further he is getting better at it, he can get back down on the floor if he's careful and I've been trying to teach him to sit on his butt, not crash into his face. Every time he falls even if it's not bad he cries because it scares him and my first reaction is to gasp, which I'm sure doesn't help at all. So now it takes all my power to say "oopsie" and clap not jump up all frantic.

He's also discovered the wonders of screaming, not crying just all out screeches and man are they loud. He does it when he's excited and he does it when he's frustrated (which when you consider his lack of communication and all the things he's trying to do but can't is practically every other second) and of course when he's mad at me because I won't let him do something or grab something etc. Brian put it best when he said "I know we have to teach him no, but it so much easier just to give him what he wants" you may think that sounds weak but it's true and at the time we were both gulping pain killers because our heads were throbbing and I was seriously looking for some ear plugs. He has four teeth now (Hunter not Brian), two of which are just coming in. As you can see things are changing.

Most of the day it's me Hunter and the dog, one of them is usually whining at me, until I can't stand it any more and the dog has to go out (poor thing life is certainly not fair for him). But today something really funny happened. You have to know something about Ranger for this story to be amusing and that is he's a whiner but he's never really howled before. We were all sitting on the kitchen floor, Hunter crawling over my legs like they're giant cliffs to be scaled (they are chubby but come on) and I had a plastic ice cream cup and was talking and singing into it, because Hunter thinks it funny and will make his own noises when I hold it to his face. Ranger was sitting beside me begging to go outside when I started copying his whines into the cup (which drove him crazy) I kept doing it until I suddenly realized that Ranger has switched from whining at me to actually howling. He had his head thrown back and his lips in an o, it was so funny and cute, and Hunter was just starring at him like he'd lost his mind.

I think Ranger was feeling so left out that my making fun on him sent him over the edge and he began crying out into the wilderness of our subdivision for compassion.