Finally, finally, FINALLY!

James FINALLY did many things for the first time yesterday:

• had his teeth brushed (of course we should have been doing this since that first tooth appeared many months ago, but I was lazy about it until his first set of molars started erupting about a week and half ago and then I just forgot to do it until last night)
• had his before bed formula in a sippy cup-  no more baby, no more bottles (and as soon as this can of formula is used up he'll be strictly on whole milk)
• stood up on his own and was completely stable
• AND walked his first confident, stable steps

We had just come in from doing some weeding in the front yard (though James is actually the anti-weeder as he thought his job was to take a weed from out of the pile I was collecting to put in the yard waste and put the weed back into the lawn- I think he thought it was some kind of neat outdoor puzzle).  When James wasn't "helping" me weed he was busy climbing into our raized garden bed and figuring out how to stand up on his own- not my ideal location for his to try to hone this skill as it is a bed raised about 16 inches above the lawn with the retaining wall made of cement blocks, so he was basically standing up and falling repeatedly above cement...sigh).  In that garden bed we have woodchip mulch and James brought some into the house with him as his new-found treasure- and apparently his afternoon snack.