Learning Things

Both of my children are learning lots these days.
Little Boy is (finally!) learning to crawl. It goes like this: hand, hand, knee, foot. Tummy. Hand, hand, knee, knee, hand, knee, foot. Tummy. Back. Tummy. Hand, hand, knee, knee, hand, hand, knee, knee. Tummy. And so on. His head is just so big, I think, that it's hard for him to balance for very long and to hold his head up at the same time.
Big Boy is learning to catch. And to go poop on the potty. And to carry stuff.
This morning he came up the stairs carrying his giraffe, a small elephant, a polar bear, and a lion. He slept past his night light (we put it on a timer so he'd stop getting up at 5 a.m.), and he went to bed last night without crying. So he got a sticker for his chart. When he came upstairs, he set all his animals on the kitchen floor and wanted to take a sticker back downstairs for his chart. So he got his sheet of stickers and tried to pick up all those animals again. Dropped the elephant. Picked it up and dropped the polar bear. Picked it up and dropped the lion. Picked it up and dropped the stickers. "Why do I keep dropping stuff?" he asked.
No idea.
Yesterday, Big Boy asked, "Am I starting to poop?"
"I don't know," I said. "Want to try to poop on the potty?"
"YEAH!"
So we went into the bathroom and he tried and tried, and finally, he pooped on the potty. Just a little tiny bit. But he was trying so hard! I thought he must have to go more, so I got his little potty so it would be easier (he likes to sit on the regular toilet). Warning: here's where it gets graphic. No more came out, but he did manage somehow to get a lot of poop smeared on the back of his little potty. So we wiped that off, and he got back on the big potty, and no more came out. So we wiped his bottom, he flushed about four times, and he got two chewy bears (that's what he calls gummy bears. He gets one for pee and two for poop).
This morning Big Boy wanted to play catch with his big green ball. But every time he goes to catch it, he hits it up with his arms. So I'm telling him, "hug it to you." So then he get it, and he's catching it and then bending down over it and hugging it for five seconds each time. I throw. He catches. He hugs.