Crawling and standing and cruising and talking and stuttering and falling

In the last week or two that I've been lax about documenting our lives, stuff has been happening.  Let's catch up:

• Conor is crawling like a boss!  After a month where I thought he was wistfully watching his sister army crawl around him, apparently he was just taking notes.  He started properly crawling tentatively at his 8 month birthday (no army crawl for him!), but now he's confidently exploring everywhere.
• Samantha is still army crawling, and I'm fairly certain that's all she's going to do, because she's fast!  Faster than her brother even.  Time for the gates to go back up.
• In the last two weeks, both Conor and Samantha have been taking every opportunity to stand, so it was time to lower their cribs. 

For some reason, Zachary had started "helping" the babies sit down, even when they didn't want to.  I told him that we want them to practice standing because after they get good at standing, they'll start walking, and then they'll start running and be able to play soccer with him.  "Oooh!" Zachary exclaimed.  Seemed like an innocent enough conversation at the time, but when Cindy helped Conor down when he appeared stuck standing up last week at daycare, Zachary started crying, telling her that he needs to stand.  Oops.

• I've seen Samantha and Conor take a small step to the side, but the Husband claims he witnessed Conor cruising around his crib when he was particularly upset about his imposed nap.
• Samantha said her first word yesterday!  She grabbed hold of my pant leg, and said, "Mama."  Brilliant girl.  She's been saying it often ever since.  This morning, the Husband tried to have a conversation with her:
• Husband: Who do you like best?  Say, "Dada."
• Samantha: Mama.
• Husband: No!  Say, "I love Dada."
• Samantha: I love Mama. 

Clear. As. Day.

True story.

And now the not-so-pleasant stuff:

•  Zachary started stuttering.  Sometimes a lot.  Everyone, including the internets, says that this is fairly common, so I'm trying not to worry.  But guess what?  I worry anyway.
• Last thing for now - let me preface this story with a note for my mother:  No one got hurt.  I repeat, everyone is perfectly fine.  Okay, here goes:  Roar fell down the stairs while holding Samantha. That is some scary shit (pardon my language mom, but you know that's the most accurate description).  I include this story in case you needed another example of how Roar is an awesome teenager:  He instinctively held her up as he fell down an entire flight of stairs.