Slow Down!!!!

The past two weeks Jude has gone into a development frenzy. Two weeks ago he took the very first crawling steps. Now, not only is he crawling all over the place, but he can also climb the two steps that go from our bedroom to our bathroom. And he has started pulling up on things and has gone from stomach to standing all on his own. Sunday, at an area wide devotional, we were singing some "clap happy" songs and we turned to see him clapping along with the songs. That was the first time I had ever seen him clap. Now, the very next day, he will clap anytime he sees Sarah or I clap. Today, we took him for his 9 month checkup (20 lbs, 29 inches/45th and 75th percentile respectively) and the doctor discovered that his first tooth has broken through. With all of this, doesn't it figure that our video camera broke 3 weeks ago. I finally exhausted the possibility of cost efficient repairs and bought a new sony handycam with a 40x optical zoom. It shipped today, so we should be able to film him by the end of the week, by which point I am sure he will be walking, running and playing soccer at the rate he is going. But on the bright side, with the 40x zoom, he can crawl or walk through our yard, down the street and across the highway and I will be able to get great footage from the comfort of our front porch swing. Technology sure has made parenting simpler.
Another development came last week when I was listening through the new Paste CD with Jude on my lap. He was mostly unresponsive through all the songs until #19. On that particular song, he began to slap his knee on beat with the music. Normally, this would have made me proud, but in this instance it broke my heart. It was the most backwoods, redneck, country song I have ever heard on Paste, AND THATS THE ONE HE IDENTIFIES WITH??!! Chalk that up as parenting failure #1. Let's hope there is still time to reshape his musical tastes before too much damage is done.

On a side note, we will have more pictures soon. In the tradition of the Brandon and Heidi Baker family, we will take Jude's Halloween pictures within the next few days as well as his 9 month pictures. As soon as I get them on the computer, I will post them here.