Holy balls

So here we are, just nine days ago, still a little wobbly with the hippo walker.
(Ooh, disclaimer: PopPop is not a fan of Spike, who is a perfectly nice and loving pet.  Well, at least to those who know when and when not to taunt him, pet him or look in his general direction.  Please ignore all the heartless side commentary.) 


Fast forward.  Through an incredibly challenging series of days at work.  Did I mention that in the span of a month and a half I went from being the middle person in an office of three to being the "acting" boss of an office of five, where two vacancies in my old work environment leave me pretty much solo for 95 percent of what I've got to get done in a day?  OK, reading that back, it sounds confusing.  Oh, it is.  But enough about me.

Guess who took his first steps for Grand-dude today, at one year, four weeks old. 

This guy, who is also learning how to feed himself. And who now uses all eight of his teeth to chow down on peaches.

The dishwasher is apparently an attractive target for this kiddo.  Then Chicken came home and demonstrated his wobbly -- yet completely solo -- three steps in a row (gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister, gimme three steps to'ad the do) toward the diswasher for Mama. 

Who is completely punch drunk, and perhaps a little bit real drunk, celebrating the near-end of a PR nightmare.  Dammit -- again, back to the point at hand -- Cayden is becoming MOBILE.  Exciting, yet terrifying at the same time.

And I can't wait to see and hear the reactions from the other grands and great-grands.  Because I know that secretly, deep-down (in places you don't talk about at parties), there's this competitive grandparent-caregiver thing going on, and they're all trying to one-up each other with the tricks they teach and milestones they enable.

Or maybe that's all in my punch-drunk head.  Yeah, right.  It's there, at least a little bit, and I love it.

Holy balls, he took his first steps today.