Niquo Stands!

One small step... ok, not a step yet, but how is it that we forget the part between crawling and walking where we have to figure out how to stand? 
My mom says boys and girls are so different in terms of how they develop and how quickly, and based on what she's told me, Niquo Joe is very "boy".  It's taken probably a week of us knowing he's ready to stand on his own before he'd try, and then another 3 days before he was comfortable practicing.  Up to now, we had to get him centered and then leave him stranded.  He'd only let me do that once and then he wasn't having it anymore.  Now he's all for it.  Man it's fun!  He likes to look in the mirror while he stands, and the he experiments with moving his hands and takes pride in maintaining his balance in spite of the motion.
While I try not to be overbearing, there's so much gratification in seeing these little advances.  His personality is shining through more, he's doing more to get attention, making a variety of expressions (though sounds are still pretty limited), and totally comfortable stating his opinions. 
I've started to read to him when he can't get to sleep comfortably.  Up to now, I'd felt like I need to leave him to fall on his own.  I'd let him whine for 5 or 10 minutes, go get him and see if he'd fall asleep to his bottle on our rocking chair, make sure he doesn't need to be changed, etc etc, then lay him down and leave the room for him to fall asleep.  Some nights, we'd go through like 3 cycles of that.  And then, one sleep-time (a nap or nighttime, I can't remember... even though it was only probably 3 days ago) I decided to get on the floor next to his crib and start to read a novel set we bought before he was born.  I decided to pick up where we'd left off (we'd read to him while I was pregnant), so now we're in book 4 of the Madeleine L'Engle quintet which starts with A Wrinkle In Time.  It's so fun to watch him go through his phases of winding down, and then falling asleep mid-motion in some funky position.  And then the little bursts of attempts to fight it, lifting his head and it drops, or laughing with his eyes closed...  The little things.