Birthday presents and shoes

Riku got another birthday present this week- a Trunki from his NZ GG and Nana Barbara! His legs are still a bit short for it but I think we'll get a lot of use out of it in the next few years.

I have found out recently that assisted walking or "cruising" is an important milestone, but because I wasn't really watching for it I can't really say exactly when Riku started doing it! I'm pretty sure he has been doing some form of it for quite a while, probably since around 9 months. At the moment though he only likes to walk around fixed objects, he doesn't particularly like his push cart which a lot of babies use to walk around at this stage- as soon as it moves he will sit down.

He is definitely doing a lot more cruising now than he was even a month ago- he only crawls when he has to cross open ground in the living room and kitchen and will walk around or between the furniture as much as he can. Even though he's not walking it is a good idea these days to take a pair of shoes for him when we go out so that he can stand on the ground when we sit down somewhere. We had another mini picnic at a nearby park on Thursday and Riku walked all around the brick platform I was sitting on- he looks so grown up in his shoes!