Tama-mama!: Growing, growing, growing!

Wow, look at that baby go! He is growing so much lately and so quickly, it's turning our world upside down a little bit. So, he figured out how to crawl at the end of last week, now he enjoys crawling all over the place. Sometimes following me around the house, sometimes off to explore new places, always away from a diaper change. We have discovered Jace does not like his diaper to be changed. Last night, Rod pulled out the wipes and a new diaper to change Jace's diaper. Jace saw this and took off crawling in the opposite direction. He hid behind the door frame in the bathroom. This was so funny, I decided to join in on the action and watched him crawl to the door frame. He saw me and peeked out behind the frame. When he saw who it was, he started crawling back towards me. He was almost to me when he saw daddy just behind me. Then he abruptly changed direction and went back to the bathroom. He knew what daddy was up to and he was having none of it! Unfortunately, he got distracted by us laughing so hard that he never made it back to the bathroom, and made it quite easy for us to catch him to change the diaper.
Of course, sometimes this is funny, othertimes, like when you have a naked baby, it's a little more of a rodeo. Jace's morning routine goes something like this. Take the baby out of the bath, all wrapped up in his towel. Place him down on the floor and go grab a new diaper and the lotion. Come back, baby's gone. Go catch the baby. Put him back on the floor and begin to put the diaper on. Check that, wrestle the diaper on as he tries to twist away to get to books. Now it's a race, can I get him back on his back and the book in his hands before he can roll over again to start crawling towards it? He wins about half the time. The other half of the time, I get his diaper, lotion and clothes on. But not all at the same time. With breaks between lotioning every limb to catch the baby and put him back on his back. The most efficient way to do this is have one person holding him standing up while the other diapers, lotions and clothes him, but being only one person, it's more of a rodeo. Oh, the adventures!
Then he discovered how to pull himself up to standing today. While in the tub, which of course meant that at one point he lost his footing and hit his chin on the tub. Fortunately, he has a harder head than he lets on, so there was no harm done. He was more frustrated about not standing anymore than he was about hitting his chin. Crawling and standing within the same week, oh boy! He took his time about crawling, but I'm thinking he'll be moving on to walking as soon as he can get it all figured out!
He's also figured out how to say mama, which he usually does when he wants food, and dada is for when he wants his parents. At least, that's what the pattern seems to be so far. Hopefully someday he'll discover I'm good for more than just food!He's been saying dada for a while, so it's fun to see him say that, but mama is really cute because he has to bring his lips all the way together so that his cheeks look really huge.
His diet has changed too, since he's getting older. Aside from still nursing at every meal and between meals to make sure he's getting enough, our skinny boy, he eats cereal with coconut milk for breakfast, an avocado sandwich for lunch with some fruit and crackers, and we try to give him something similar to what we're eating for dinner when we can. So far this has meant pasta with spaghetti sauce, which he loves wearing as much as he likes eating it!
What a big boy already. A little, emotional part of me wants to cry when I see him crawl away from me to go explore his books... he's already grown up enough to want to go do his own thing without mama, and he can get there without me too!

So sweet when he's sleeping! He always sleeps on his side now. Of course, the way he is about cameras, he woke up right after this picture was taken so he could pose for the camera.