Top o' the evenin' to you and sláinte mhath (good health
to you) on this fine St. Patrick's day. The green was definitely flying
today and the house had the smell of the dueling crock pots that would
yield up a pair of corned beef dishes (both had onions and carrots,
Mommy's had potatoes and Daddy's was the traditional cabbage). Either
way, you just couldn't lose...and you really couldn't choose...so we
didn't! Yes, it was quite a wonderful dinner and I'm sure there is a
pint o' Guinness there with Daddy's name on it to make the evening
grand so! :)
But that's not the important thing here...nope, we had a certain little
one who decided to pose for the camera and the new pictures are to the
left (we know that's why you dear readers hang out on this site!).
We have a little one who has a strong fondness for corned beef and the
trimmings. That really shouldn't come as a surprise and it'll be nice
not having that tete-a-tete on St. Paddy's day in the future but our
little piglet really packed away the traditional dinner.
There's definitely Irish in that boy! :)
Saturday was a busy day of work at the house with Mommy sanding the deck
before it is repaired and painted. Daddy will get a chance to help with
the sanding and fulfil a dream of playing Andrew Dan Jumbo when
it comes time to repair the stairs. But as Teresa Strasser from
While You Were Out might say...not just yet!
Nope, today was also the start of the mowing season and that means
doing the annual refurbishing of the Deere which involves changing the
oil and filter, the air filter, fuel filter and spark plug. We couldn't
exactly have little one out near the deck for the sanding action so
naturally he took his turn as the shop foreman supervising Daddy
and his refurbishing job.
The kid's a natural, I tell ya! At one particular moment during the
oil change, he started talking. The rough translation was something
like Daddy, don't use a real small container to catch the oil which
is under pressure! Next time, Daddy will listen to his shop
foreman and remember to use a two liter pop bottle to catch the used
oil! That's because the oil went everywhere (including my shirt) but
fortunately I did have the tray in place so none of it hit the ground.
That was the only really exciting part of the job...then it was time for
the hard-working foreman to take a nap with Mommy and Daddy got a chance
to Zamboni the grass in the yard.
Later that evening, we discovered that Nicholas has started pushing
through his third tooth (one of the top incisors) and there are a few
other puffy spots indicating that other teeth are on the way. This
phase can't end too quickly as far as we're concerned...Nicholas sure
doesn't care for teething and isn't afraid to let you know it! But
you can't rush these things...or can you? Where are the pliers... :)
May your birthday be a happy one and we hope will be one of many more
to come! For those BLOG readers who might be of a mind to enquire as
to how many spankings she should receive for the day, we have to suggest
another venue for that enquiry because we ain't tellin'!
The last two weeks have seen some extraordinary growth in our little
one. Previously, he had started walking with assistance and has gotten
quite good at orbiting the coffee table and the standing play tables.
A happy bonus is when he's playing peek-a-boo with Taz at the
coffee table...his laugh alone is worth the price of admission. He
occasionally will stand at the corner of the coffee table near one of
the musical tables and start shaking his head back and forth rapidly
whilst laughing all the while. You can't help but smile at it if not
laugh out loud! We've also figured out how to wave bye-bye as well as
do the clapping and patting thing.
What took us by surprise is that he's found his forward gear with a
vengeance. He started out doing a crab walk about a week or
so ago. He'd always been gifted in the fine arts of the
butt skooch and it always amazed me how quickly he could get from
one end of the room to another just by rotating about his axis in that
fashion. Unfortunately, he did most of his crab walking at
Grammy's so I was only able to catch one instance of it on a Saturday
afternoon. But it was definitely authentic...I had no idea our boy
was taking notes from that last trip to the beach!
That crab walk was very quickly replaced with
zone-5 afterburner forward momentum and it's startling how quick
he can be. A case in point...last night Daddy headed from the living
room into the kitchen to get some dinner. Nicholas let gravity do it's
thing (9.8 meters per second2 downward momentum) and then he
had turned to engage his target. Forty five seconds later, he was at
the dishwasher inspecting a stray piece of Taz's food (and given a
chance, I'm sure he'd chow down on that premium Iams!). That was
a good seven meters (approximately twenty-one feet!) which is pretty
good for a little one just starting out.
Eagle-eyed BLOG viewers will know full well that he's got a very good
mischievious grin. That grin doesn't compare with the actual mischief
and he's now getting into anything and everything that isn't nailed
down or otherwise secured. He's a sly one, he is! Remote controls
are not safe in his airspace. Neither are papers that are laying about.
And we really like wires, particularly those hanging on the back of
computers...
And whenever you look to find him, you find him where he is not...
--- Danny Kaye, The Court Jester
He's certainly going to keep us on our toes. It's very clear he's ready
to do that walking thing and it's been fun watching the progression from
holding onto an object for dear life to hey, I'm cool...I
don't really need to hold this thing. The confidence changes are
quite amazing to see...even with the occasional bruise and attendant
crying jag when he decides to do a face plant. But he's usually
right as rain soon enough afterward and then we're off to the races again!
The other thing that really amazes me is that you can see more and more
where he's obviously figuring things out for himself. A case in
point: Nicholas was at the coffee table and he wanted to get to Daddy's
easy chair. But it was a little too far with too little to hold onto.
He got this momentary look of intense concentration and his eye fell
upon the musical ball tower thingy (put the ball in the top holes and
watch the ball run down the ramp whilst the music plays...pretty nifty
thing, really). That tower thingy was within his reach so he transferred
to it. He then pushed it a bit and essentially walked it over to the
chair...whereupon he was suddenly distracted by Mommy's papazan chair!
:)
The changes are getting so pronounced that he's changing day-by-day.
It just amazes me to no end watching this process where he's learning to
stand on his own two feet. He's no one's fool and he's certainly no
dummy...he's got a pretty darned sharp intelligence for a ten-month
old and he's going to be formidable when he gets older. He'll be
formidable for another reason at that time because we've definitely
found that he has a temper and it can be pretty intense at times. But
compared to other babies of a comparable age I've encountered...he's
really been the best of the lot.
We've also gotten much better at feeding ourselves and we're rapidly
ending our fascination with food in jars in favour of real people food.
You'd be surprised at the foods he's sampled...last night's dinner was
a bit of a yummy pot roast that Mommy put together (MMMMMM...pot roast
rocks!). He's been eating macaroni and mashed potatoes for quite a
while but he's definitely moved up to more substantial foods. It's
still a bit of a pain for him trying to chew the food because he's only
got those two teeth on the bottom row so far with no others that we can
see right now. But he makes up for it in enthuiasm and gets the job
done and that's what counts! We're also started drinking from sippy
cups...before we know it, he'll be wanting a glass of the good stuff!
That doesn't mean our big boy isn't fond of getting the bottle...believe
me, he's very happy at the end of the day to get that bottle...so much
so that it puts him to sleep! :)
With all of these changes as quickly as they're happening, who knows
what he'll do tomorrow...
There are a bunch of new pictures of the baptism available for your
viewing pleasure courtesy of Nicholas' godparents Mike and Julie
Morrison.
Admit it...you come to the web page for the pictures...and we're
really happy you do! :)
Nicholas is still doing that I'm a real mobile baby thing with
reckless abandon. If you see pictures with bruises, he's not abused...
he's just a daredevil without that fine-tuned sense of balance yet. It
is much better than it was three weeks ago where he'd really land on his
butt hard or do a face-plant right into any handy table. But if you
even get much of a cry out of him, it certainly doesn't tend to last
very long and he's right back at the doing laps round the musical tables
thing. Ahh...to be young and without a care in the world again... ;)-