Poor Bruised Isaac

After about the first week of crawling, I started to notice Issac doing these little push-ups. It resulted in many painful faceplants for him and lots of tears.
Then he discovered that he could sit himself up from laying on his belly and he has been so happy being able to play with toys without having to be flat on the floor. This new trick has caused a few bumps to the back of his head though as he loses his balance and topples over backwards.
I was okay with these 2 new developments and convinced he at least wouldn't figure out how to crawl on his knees for at least a few more weeks.... and then his cousin Robert came to visit. Robert is almost 4 months older than Isaac and substantially more advanced in his skills as you would expect. Much to my surprise and dismay, I could actually see Isaac's little brain working as he watched Robert crawl around and climb up on things... and then he started trying the same tricks himself!
This is the beginning stages of him pulling himself up onto things (much forehead trauma here as he hadn't figured out how to scoot forward and could only stay in this position until his arms got too tired and he came crashing down onto the floor or the object- fun!)

The next stage was figuring out how to walk his little knees forward (a welcome blessing after 2 days of black and blue forehead smacks).
But he wasn't satisfied with that so he decided to try to balance on his knees (again, many falls and lots of tears).
Every time I try to pull him down or off of something, he looks at me like this: "Just try to stop me."
And once he'd mastered pulling himself up onto small boxes and dog cases and such, he decided he could climb up anything- the back of the couch, a coffee table, even chairs.

And of course he ended up flat on the floor like this most of the time (but usually with a much unhappier face).

The really hard part is that he doesn't quite have the concept of holding on down yet. So most of the time when he climbs up to a table or something and gets the phone or TV remote or one of Ethan's toys that he was going after, he grabs it, immediately shoves it into his excited mouth, and then topples over backwards because he has forgotten to hold on to the table.

So whether it's good or bad, Isaac's on the move. Officially up on his knees exclusively and I just hope he lives through all the falls.

And on the bright side, because he can now sit up well on his own, he gets to join Ethan in the regular bathtub and I get to stop getting soaked trying to give him sink baths! Yeah!