We haven’t been able to update the blog lately because life has been hectic for us. Eric has been traveling a lot for work. He has had a trip almost every week this year. Most of the destinations haven’t been too interesting, but last month he did have an eight day trip to Siberia. When he isn’t on the road, he puts in long days at the office.

Christi and Keith have also been traveling a lot. They have tagged along with Eric on a couple business trips (Christi was tempted to go to Siberia until she found out it would take 40 hours of travel time each way and the weather forecast was -10.) They have also made five trips to Las Vegas to see Christi’s dad.

We are pleased to report that Kosmos’ new muffler is working. Getting it installed is a long story and we hope to find time to write about it soon. We’ve also got more boat updates to write about, including the toilets, wing engine, new canvas, baby gear and a boat trip up to Oceanside Harbor. And we have some travel posts we want to write, as well.

Keith is now 13 months old and has really turned into a little person! It seems like every day he hits a new milestone. He is developing so quickly that it is amazing.

Eating is still his favorite activity. He has gotten four more teeth on top, for a total of six. He can now bite into soft foods, like strawberries, and prefers to biting into food over pre-cut up food. He also chews his food surprisingly well for so few teeth. He has gotten to be fairly good with utensils, getting the food into his mouth more often than not. He’s been good at drinking out of a straw for about three months now, and a couple days ago he started drinking from a regular cup without any help — though, like the utensils, the liquid doesn’t always make it into his mouth.

Right after our last update he started singing “Row, row, row your boat.” One evening, Keith said “woah.” Eric thought it sounded like “row” and started singing “row, row, row your boat.” And Keith sang it back: “woah, woah, woah, ba ba.” Since then, he sings that song all the time, along with some others that are clear to him, but not to us. We doubt he comprehends what “row” means, but he certainly understands what boat means. When he sees toy boats or boats in the marina, more often than not, he’ll start singing “woah, woah, woah, ba ba.”

At about the same time that he picked up the “row row” song, he started saying other words. One of his first words was “mom,” which meant food. “Mama,” which meant Christi, came soon after. Of course, “dada” meant daddy, but it may mean other things, too, since he says it often and not always in context to Eric. One of his most commonly used words is “ba” which apparently means happy. Another early word was “buh,” which he would say every time he saw a book, so “buh” clearly meant book. What was interesting was that he had absolutely no interest in books (other than trying to tear them up) until he was about 10 months old. When he started saying “buh,” he was 11 months and just beginning to peruse books. Another oddity was that just last week he started saying “bye” and waving. Normally, babies start waving much earlier, and we found it interesting that he didn’t start waving until he could say the word.

Keith’s comprehension is also good. While he doesn’t understand everything we say to him, we are confident he understands the majority of it.

Towards the end of February, Keith realized that if he pulled himself up on dressers, he could open more drawers. He then realized that if he pulled himself up on nightstands and coffee tables, he could get at everything on top of them. He was so proud of himself for these discoveries! He has been constantly into everything ever since. But we don’t mind. We love his curiosity.

A week after his one year birthday, Keith started cruising around furniture. He can walk a relativlely long way holding on and easily transitions from one piece of furniture to another. We’ve also seen him let go of the furniture a few times since then, but he always grabs back on or falls on his butt within two seconds.  We expect him to start walking any day now. Last weekend, much to Christi’s chagrin, Eric taught Keith how to climb stairs.

Keith is still “Mr. Entropy,” but now, he’ll actually put things back into place, but then he’ll immediately tear it apart again. In the last week or so, he’s begun sharing, giving us various things that he was holding or playing with. When he’s full, he’ll feed us the rest of the food on his tray. Also in the last week or so, he’s started pointing out things he wants to eat or play with.

He has become more independent. He used to insist on being supervised all the time, but now, he sometimes doesn’t want to be watched and will try to sneak off. The good news is he still wants to be watched more often than not. Unfortunately, “no” can be something of a game to him. When he’s in a playful mood, he thinks it is funny to do things like steal glasses, eat small rocks, touch electrical outlets, and other things that he knows are not allowed. But, once again, more often than not, he listens to “no” and behaves.

He gets more affectionate and loving every day. He frequently crawls over to us and initiate cuddles, hugs, eskimo kisses and regular kisses (but he doesn’t understand the concept of puckering lips so he just plants an open mouthed wet one on us).

Keith was never particularly interested in peek-a-boo when we played it with him. Recently, he has fallen in love with playing peek-a-boo with us — meaning he covers his face with a cloth of some sort, then pulls it off and giggles. He giggles even harder when we say “peek-a-boo” when he pulls the cloth. His giggle is adorable.

Unfortunately, Keith is still a terrible sleeper, waking up several times a night and not napping much. We’ve given up on getting him to sleep better. Pretty much every expert agrees that a child cannot overcome sleep problems without a strict schedule (meaning wake up, eat meals, take naps and go to bed at exactly the same time every day), and the reality is that with our lifestyle, we can’t put him on a strict enough schedule to fix the sleep issues. Plus, Keith doesn’t fit the normal profiles for sleep problems, so we’re not even sure the sleep issues can be fixed given their unusual nature. While Christi gets plenty of hours of sleep, the broken sleep leaves her perpetually tired and she thinks a lot slower than she used to.

Here are a few random pictures from the last couple of months: