Walking, Talking, and Sleeping in the BIG Bed

Okay, so I am terrible at updating. There is a lot of catching up to do.

Benjamin is 10 1/2 months.

He took his first steps just over a month ago. He isn't a very patient guy though, and rather than learn how to walk slow and steady he just lunges himself forward and hopes that his feet will keep up. They never do and usually with in 3 or 4 steps he face plants. That does not deter him though, he simply continues on with a quick paced crawl.
He also said his first two words in the last month. Dada was his first, followed shortly by mama. And he has finally picked up the sign for milk, although, he only does it on occasion. And today he did the sign for story. Which was odd to me because it is one of the more complicated ones.
He has quite the personality, and he is all boy. He climbs and conquers various pieces of furniture in our home one at a time. Yesterday I found him in the middle of the living room, completely naked (no diaper) and playing with his pee pee. Today in church I was trying to keep him happy and quiet. He wasn't interested in eating his cheerios so I gave him the container to play with. He immediately flung over his head and we had to ask the people in front of us if they could hand it back to us.
He also got babysat for the first time (while awake). He made it 2 1/2 hours with his Auntie Heather! Then apparently he started trying to nurse (awkward >_>) and we had to head home.

There is something else I decided that I wanted to write about this time too. Since Benjamin was born he has been a very light and restless sleeper. For the first 2 months he could not sleep unless he was being held. If we tried to lay him down, no matter how long he had been asleep, he immediately woke up. We had no success no matter what we tried. Eventually we gave up trying things, and just accepted that he would be sleeping with us until he started sleeping better. We tried here and there to put him down in his pack n' play, which is next to the bed, but have never had much success. He never sleeps in it longer than an hour. We have ups and downs with his sleep and about a month ago we decided to try out his crib. He napped in it 2 or 3 times, and it was about the same as the pack n' play. Then, I was watching the news one day and they were talking about crib recalls, again. It wasn't our crib, but I thought...hmmm...I wonder if there is anything out there about our crib. So I crawled under it and found the make and model number and googled it. I was shocked to find out that our crib had been recalled a month after he was born. We were livid! How could this happen and we never be contacted. Apparently because the company is offering a repair kit that will make the crib "safe," they don' t have to follow all the recall rules. We can't get a refund for the crib. All we can get is the repair kit. When offered the kit I told the company, "No thank you. You had your chance at making a safe crib and you killed a baby." So we are now without a crib. And Benjamin is happily bunked up with mommy and daddy. Please refrain from telling me the "dangers" of bed sharing. We researched the matter in depth before deciding to let him sleep with us. We know the ups and downs of it, and we know the ups and downs of crib sleeping. We made our choice and we're extremely happy with it, especially since we found out about the crib recall.