Peek-a-boo

Yesterday, about half an hour after we put Joseph to bed, we could hear a loud thumping noise from upstairs. It was a lot louder than the noise he normally makes when he bashes his feet on the mattress or cot bars, so we ran upstairs to find out what was going on.
Joseph had taken an extra toy with him, a toy zebra with a teething ring attached. He likes the zebra and will often hang on tight to it. He'd got hold of the zebra and was waving in back an forth, but as he was slightly on his side, the plastic teething ring was rattling up and down the bars on the side of the cot. I had a mental image at that point of a baby in prison stripes rattling a cup up and down the bars of his cell! My baby, the Alcatraz infant!
This week has seen another big leap in his mental development. I've been playing peek-a-boo with him a lot and he's really understanding the game now. When I hold something in front of my face he doesn't loose interest, he will often wiggle his head about, as if trying to see around the barrier. When I say "Boo!" he laughs and laughs!
I joked a little while ago that he could roll across my living room floor in 10 seconds, if only he he wanted to! Today he pretty much did, he must have rolled all the way over about three times before coming to rest and then trying to eat the shoelace on my trainers!
We are still practicing standing up and sitting, but he's not showing any signs of wanting to sit up without any support yet. We've also noticed in the last week that he has decided he doesn't want to be cuddled by anyone he doesn't know well. I think this is a step forward in his understanding that he is a separate person in is own right, in that he is recognising that people are different and that some people he sees a lot of and some he doesn't. He is deciding for himself who he trusts to cuddle him! It's sweet, but it does mean I can end up holding him for a long time as people who really want baby cuddles end up handing him back pretty fast!