Undeterred

Now that Xander is able to move around, it's a lot easier to see what he's thinking. Since he doesn't crawl very fast, it's easy to spot what it is that he's crawling towards, which is helpful, just in case he's crawling towards something dangerous. If he is, there are a few options available at hand that mom and dad can utilize to dissuade him. One option is to put something else in his way and see if he changes course. Another option is to try and draw him away by making a noise or banging something on the ground. Finally, you can walk over, pick him up and put him down back where he was. There's just one problem: none of these work well, if at all.

Xander is one very determined little baby. Once he locks his eyes on something, there's a good chance he won't stop until he has it within his grasp. His favorite items include mom and dad's shoes, heating vents, door stops, and of course, computers. He also frequently crawls over to the bottom of the stairs and hoists himself up on the first stair, but so far that's as far as he can get. He's also getting better at opening cabinet doors from the bottom, though he'll only do that if directly in front of them - he doesn't seem terribly interested in cabinets just yet.

Often, mom or dad won't want Xander to be crawling towards whatever he's crawling towards - i.e., dad's dirty sneakers. But no matter how many times Xander is picked up and placed back where he was, he will start right back up. Unless it's something dangerous, mom and dad usually give up and let him have at it. After all, sucking on a dirty shoelace isn't going to kill him, it's just gross.

It's not just at home that Xander exhibits this behavior either. On Sunday, dad took Xander over to a friend's house to watch football, and eventually my friend's sisters took him into one of the other rooms, as they weren't that into the games. This room had a printer on the floor, and sure enough, Xander was interested. Upon entering the room, I saw him trying to hoist himself up on the printer (it was a bulky kind of printer, the kind that was super high-tech in 2006 but looks incredibly dated today). Obviously, I didn't want him breaking my friend's printer, so I pulled him off and put him back in the center of the room. But he started right back up again, crawling towards the printer. After we repeated this process four or five times, I gave up and handed him to my friend's sister, who exclaimed, "He's so focused!"

Who knows how long this phase will last for - it seems every kid today has ADD, or ADHD, or some sort of attention issue. It's not hard to understand why when you buy children's CD's, and all the tracks are less than two minutes long. Nevertheless, it's exciting to see Xander so determined to reach whatever it is his little heart desires, and hopefully it's a trait that he carries with him as he matures.