A Walkin' Talkin' Fool

So, I was checking out Mama Grouch's site and she had this link up for this nifty little photo competition website (next week's theme is messy...oh yeah, I got messy). Well, since I think that my kid is pretty darn cute too (though he doesn't have the Twerp's big soulful eyes) I figured that I just had to enter too.....

In other news:

Remember how MP3 let me know that he wasn't done with bathtime? Well, in case you thought that I was exaggerating or something check this out. Last night, when I said, "All done!" , he started chanting, "ah-doh, ah-doh, ah-doh", crawled to the drain and started banging on it. I swear that sometimes you can see the gears turning in his head. help me And he's now walking all over the place. He's not perfect yet, but he's almost there. He seems to really enjoy pulling U-turns in the middle of the living room, go figure. His favorite place to land when he falls is on the dog. When he starts to lose his balance he will actually change trajectory in order to aim for the dog. For what it's worth, Mystery seems to enjoy the attention. If the cats are around he chases them non-stop. Tigger also seems to enjoy the attention...Squishy, however, is really good at hiding.

Weird sounds (words) that my kid makes:

mbvvv= moooo (yes, as in cow)

zsht= fishy (he has fishies all over his bedroom walls, which we point at during diaper changing time so that he'll keep his hands away from other things....yes, that other thing)

awwww= the sound he makes when he fakes a yawn. Yeah, it's as cute as you think it is.

de-de= bye bye (complete with wave...and bye-bye kisses, too!)

Gng= BOOM! (whenever he lands on his butt I say "boom!" and he repeats "gng!" This noise is made in the back of the throat. Go ahead, try it.)

Story Time

Let me tell you a story. Every night, after dinner, is bath time. MP3 loves his baths. He also loves to accidentally stick his face in the water and inhale. Since I do not like to spend too much time bent over the side of the tub in a futile attempt to keep him from trying to breathe water, bath time can sometimes be rather short.

The other night was like any other night. He crawled around the tub, stood up and banged on the faucet (I think he's trying to make the water work...), but then he did something new. He stretched his legs out behind him so he was laying on his tummy, and then he very slowly and deliberately stuck his face in the water. He slowly brought his head back up and started blinking. I'm fairly certain that he had his eyes open the whole time. Of course five minutes later he accidently stuck his face back under water and inhaled, but still...how odd was that?

Then another odd thing happened. I was pointing out all the different sea critters on his washcloth (shell, octopus, fishy, crab, starfish) when he grabbed ahold of my finger and made me point to every single starfish. But the strangest is yet to come.

Then when my back couldn't take anymore, I said, "All done," and he gave me this absolutely puzzled look, which is odd since whenever anyone says "all done" he normally starts saying it over and over. Anyway, he looked at me strangely and I went to unscrew the drain stopper. He began chanting, "Nononononono," crawled over to my hand and took it off the stopper. I am sooooooo doomed!

Oh yeah, and he loves to follow the dog around and make her tail wag....

Wag the dog!

He routinely takes 4 to 6 steps now before going to his knees. The other day he actually stayed upright for 11 steps! Yesterday he did: step, step, step balance wobble step, step, step balance wobble step, step, thump! And when he makes it to his destination he looks like this (see below).

He has discovered (some time ago) that the dog crate makes a great place to stand and hang on.

We also discovered that our blankets have a wee bit of static electricity....

SHOCKING!

Hey! I almost Forgot!

Did you see that giganto post down there? Wow. And no pictures of MP3! How'd that happen? Lemme remedy that....


For Christmas his Aunt Kim bought him this nifty walk-behind thing. For a month he fully enjoyed sitting in front of it and playing with all the movable parts (including a shape sorter) on it...then one day, while pushing on it so he could stand up, it moved! He gave it a strange look. He looked up and saw that it had a handle. It was at this point that I could literally see the light-bulb turn on over his head (I believe I mentioned previously that he's a thinker? help me). His whole face just lit up! He stood, grabbed that handle, and he hasn't stopped moving since. Of course, he can't turn the thing. This means loads of fun for me (okay, it's actually a pain in the ass), but he sure loves it!



Oh yeah. I also had a birthday. If you think you can see other candles peeking out from behind the ones in front, your eyes are deceiving you. Or something.

Fun at School Or Look! A New Post!

A few weeks ago we went to a Renaissance Faire at the Kidlet's school. It was a small event, but still lots of fun. Wings of Wonder was there with a Red Tail Hawk and a couple of kestrels, a group of guys were there with their foam covered swords and whatnot, banging on each other's heads (and letting the kids do the same), there was "Tea With the Queen", a knighting ceremony (the program actually said "open to all young men"...more on this later), a May Pole, beading, heraldry, archery... All in all, not bad for a school event. In the school's weekly newsletter they said that they'll be having a bigger and better one next year. Great. I now have a year to get costumes together (the Kidlet was very upset that she didn't have a costume on).

Have at you!

Not bad for the first time she ever held a bow!

About that knighting ceremony. When we arrived at the school we were given a program listing all the events and where they were located. When I saw that there was going to be a "Knighting Ceremony", and that it was open to all young men, I said to myself, "Like Hell!" So when it came time for the ceremony and the Queen came out and asked for all the brave boys to come and get knighted, I told the Kidlet that she could go too if she wanted. "But I'm not a boy," she said. The husband and I told her it didn't matter and that she could get knighted if she wanted to. Telling my little girl that a boy can do something that she can't, evil people *grumble grumble* As soon as she was standing in front of the queen, some friends of ours sent their daughter out, and then another little girl appeared. Huzzah! Take that, powers that be!

I think she was knighted "Sir Kidlet the Brave", or somesuch.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening. I'm curious to see what they're planning for next year. I keep wondering if maybe I should see if I can get onto some kind of planning committee or something for this event. Hrmmmmm.......

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In Other News

MP3 is a bit....ummmm.....odd. Okay, you could have probably guessed that given who his parents are, but let me explain. At 7 months old, his first word was "ah-doh", otherwise known as "all done." I guess I should have said first words. The first time he said it was after eating breakfast one morning and I thought that he was just making the sound that I make when he's done eating, he couldn't actually be saying it. Later that same day he was screaming "ah-doh, ah-doh, ah-doh" while getting his diaper changed. Then while reading a book to him he pronounced, "ah-doh", slammed the book shut and wriggled off my lap. A few days later Mike was holding him while watching football, when the game stopped for halftime he again said, "ah-doh." Yeah, I think he means it. After that came "dada" (or dadadadadada), when he's upset he'll say "mama."

One super-cute thing he says is "lala." Mike often rocks him to sleep while singing this little tune "lala lalala lala lala laaala" so now MP3 will sing "lala" whenever he gets tired or just wants to cuddle (he's a good cuddler). He will sometimes even try to sing himself to sleep. Awwwwww.

Other oddness: My family is filled with early walkers. The kidlet was pulling herself to stand by 6 months, cruising all over the place by 7 months, and starting to take her first steps in the early 9th month. MP3 however, didn't even try to stand until well into month 7, and even then he didn't really cruise until his late 8th month. Comparing his progress with his sister's I figured that wouldn't be walking until 11 months or so. I was fairly certain he'd be walking by his 1st birthday, but not by much. Well, I've been reassessing that idea. He stands, often, for increasingly longer periods, without touching anything, while doing squats. Yes, squats. He likes to lean his back against the loveseat and try to walk toward the center of the room. Forget trying to walk to the table, or walk to the couch, he just wants to walk. So far he's only managed to get one real step in before he goes down, but he keeps trying. Yesterday he finished the 2nd step before he went to his knees. I give him 3 weeks.

The other day he was cruising around with one hand on the coffee table staring at his feet and moving them very slowly. He'd twist each foot around while it was off the floor, wriggle his toes, flex his ankle...I swear he was trying to figure out how they work so he could control them better! I am not kidding. I am very, very serious. He is quite the thinker (help me), just ask my mom about how long he has to study each hallway before finally committing to crawling down one of them at her house ( help me).

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In Still More News: I am insane. Okay, you probably already knew that. The reason for my insanity is this: I am taking college classes again. Yep, 2 kids (one of them teething constantly for 4 months...the tooth finally came in...now the next one is coming) and here I am trying to get homework done at night while chanting "please don't wake up, please don't wake up." It all started because I thought it'd be neat to learn HTML. Wouldn't it be neat if I could code my own little web page (you're reading it) without using the limited templates allowed by blogger.com? Well, it turns out that there's a pre-requisite for that class, and I'll need at least 6 credits for financial aid, which means I also need to take a history class, etc., etc. *sigh* Well, I managed to 4.0 last semester, and now I'm banging away in another semester. At least now I'm taking that HTML class that started the whole thing.

So. Perhaps at some point in the not too distant future you will be seeing some changes in this here blog. Of course, I'll only be able to muck about with coding after my homework is done, and MP3 isn't teething, and I'm not in the middle of a knitting project, and I'm not passed out from exhaustion. In other words, don't hold your breath. It will happen, just not anytime real soon.

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I would like to send out a big CONGRATULATIONS to my cousin and her family! It seems that they are expecting a little girl this summer. I bet Miles is sooooo excited to be a big brother!