Now he's gone too far!

The dogs really are his role models. First he licked the dishwasher. Today he tried to take a nap in the beagle's crate.

This has to stop! (As you can see, he has learned how to take off his pants.)

Decisions, decisions

He's gotten a ton better at walking, and I couldn't pick from our top two walking videos of the night, so here are both of them in all their glory.

This is the first one. The great thing about this is that it shows that the little guy can't turn left, just like Derek Zoolander. 

This is the second one. It hints at the huge amount of trouble we will be in if we ever take our eyes off the little dude again.

Have a wonderful weekend!

He's One!

I've been working on a sappy first-birthday post all day today (mentally, that is) without any success. I tried to take some cute (and inspiring) photos of him tonight, and none of them were that great.

In other news, our dogs have always loved licking the inside of the dishwasher. It's either covered in food residue because we don't pre-rinse, or it's an extra water dish if the dishes are clean. Tonight, while I was making dinner, I heard a strange sound, turned around, and saw this:

Yup, that is my son, sucking (clean! I promise!) water off the dishwasher door. It was exactly perfect. He's managed to be both the little guy we totally adore and quite possibly the most bizarre baby in the world. Happy first birthday, you ridiculous mess!

Look who's walking now!

This might seem pretty underwhelming, but we're excited!

The child I deserve?

The first time my long-suffering mother bought me shoes, I laid on the floor at the shoe store holding my feet and crying. My own darling child has never been too thrilled with shoes either. We've just let him go barefoot so far, but he really needs some shoes for the winter. Here he is, standing up in his new shoes and socks. Then he realized that something wasn't right.
   

It only took him about five seconds to get rid of the first shoe.

Why yes, that is my bare foot right next to him... why do you ask?

We're classing up the place!

The little guy has been pushing crates around the kitchen for weeks, so for his birthday his Nana and Pops got him a scooter to push around instead. Not only is it not full of recycling, it has wheels so he won't split his lip on the edge when he hits carpet anymore.  He'll have to be a little creative to hurt himself on this thing, but I'm sure he'll manage.

He also had a giant cupcake at his birthday party, thanks to a loving cousin. This is what heaven is like:

Birthday hat!

All the October birthdays were celebrated today at daycare. The little dude got to have a cupcake for his afternoon snack, and he also came home with a birthday hat.

He'll be one on Wednesday!

Variety!

He can almost stand up without holding on to anything. He's also started crawling like a spider-monkey. (I'm not sure why we call it that, but it's when he crawls with his legs straight. It's wildly amusing.) Anyway, in this video he says "I did," bonks his head, crawls like a spider-monkey, and finally stands up and cruises away. He's amazingly ridiculous.

For the record, he escaped while I was changing his clothes at bedtime. I'm starting to feel a bit trashy, what with the laundry perpetually drying in the background, the cluttered dining room table, raised toilet seats, and a diaper-clad, snot-covered, barefoot baby. *sigh*

This is what feeling better looks like...

He's finally feeling better! Also, he can take off his own pants!

I was going to talk about how cute he was for me this morning and how whiny he was for his dad this afternoon, but then he gave me a much better story at dinner.  He eats peas and carrots a lot, and usually I put one or two pieces in front of him at a time. Tonight he kept throwing them on the floor. Then he made the sign for all done and even said it ("Aahh dun"). His appetite slowed with this cold, so I got him out of his highchair and took him and the bowl of uneaten veggies to the trash (only the veggies were going in, I promise).  On the way, he reached down and started scooping up fistfuls of peas and carrots and stuffing them into his mouth. I guess he wanted GIANT PILES OF FOOD tonight instead of little pieces. Who knew? 

So, I put him back in his highchair and fed him some more. After the veggies were gone he had some saltines, a few chunks of apple, and then he finished his yogurt. That means he's definitely feeling better. I'll leave you with the last thing his food sees:

Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!! 

Whistle while you play?

The little guy stayed home sick today and didn't do anything that wasn't snot and/or vomit related, so no pictures from today! You can thank me later. Instead, I'm going to share is a ridiculous video of my dad blowing a whistle for the little dude (sorry dad).  Watch out for the volume because the whistle is a little shrill.

Who needs words to communicate?  Just smash the whistle back into your grandfather's mouth and he'll know exactly what you want him to do (and he'll do it!).

Head Injuries, Episode 1,000,000

The poor little guy woke up this morning with a fever and a cough, so we kept him home from church. We also let him wear only a diaper because he was so warm. He perked up enough (after he took some medicine) to fall headfirst into his toy basket late in the afternoon, giving himself a black eye and a long scratch down one arm. About half an hour later, he fell headfirst into an open kitchen cabinet door, which cut his forehead and drew blood. After dinner, though, he had a cupcake.

All in all, he seemed pretty satisfied by bedtime, bless his heart. For long and unedited video of our cluttered table and shirtless cupcake-eater, click here.

Waterfalls!

My parents are still in town (yay!), and we went down to visit the other set of grandparents this afternoon.  They are spending the weekend at their hunting camp, which is near a state park with a gorgeous waterfall.  Here we are hiking near the waterfall with the little guy:

We still don't have any video of the little guy walking, but he's definitely taking a couple of steps every now and then.  Here he is standing up next to his dad back at the hunting cabin:

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

My dad was playing with the little guy today by making a ringing sound and pretend to talk on the phone.  The little guy was imitating him by holding the phone to his ear and trying to say "Hello."  Then he multi-tasked like his mama.

I have to say that this is a more flattering imitation than when the little dude points the remote at the TV and hits the buttons. I feel vindicated: We read! Really, we do! I promise! 

In other news, he totally took his first steps today! If you blinked you missed it, so there are no pictures. He hasn't done it again, either, but he took two steps in a row without holding on to anything. My mom saw it too, so it really happened.

Somebody's a pouty-face

The little guy was too tired to go to sleep tonight, resulting in a lot of this face:

Not even food, snuggles and kisses seemed to make this better, so we put him to bed.

A gorgeous day!

It was beautiful outside today.  I wasn't at work because my parents are in town, so we had a picnic at a local park.  After we ate, the little guy played on the playground and then crawled around by the river.  Here are my parents enjoying the view:

And here's the little dude enjoying the ground:

Lazy day at home...

The little guy and I both had the day off today (thanks, Christopher Columbus!).  We've both come down with daycare crud, so we had a pretty uneventful morning.  He spent a long time turning the pages in his books, especially his big book about dogs. 

Speaking of dogs, the little dude figured out how to open the dog's crates.  He (kind of) let the beagle out today.  He kept opening and closing the door, so the poor little dog was pretty confused.  The beagle couldn't quite make it all the way out before the little guy would shut the door on him, literally.  Here's the little dude, trying to open the latch again:

Baby's first Domino's Pizza?

He loved it!  He ate a whole piece, even the mushrooms and green peppers on top.

That looks like more fun than the first tooth or the first steps, right?  (We're still waiting on those first steps.)

Well boo...

One thing I know to be true... raise your kids up in the way that they should go and they won't depart from it. Well I'm doing the best I can to teach the boy right from wrong and to keep him from developing bad habits, though at almost one I'm not sure he really understands much of what we say to him. I guess you just have to keep repeating the core principles and values you want them to learn until they sink in. Here's is a picture of one attempt to instill one of the most important principles of life.

(This was us getting ready for game 2 of the Phillies - Reds series.)

Principle 1 - Baseball is the one and only best sport God has given us and the Reds are the team. I think this one is starting to sink in. See how happy the boy is?

Principle 2 - Sometimes things look bleak (down 2-0 to Grandma's Phillies, thus the post's title), but never give up.

Books!

The little guy has weaned (sob), so our new bedtime routine involves reading some board books together.  He's getting pretty good at turning the pages, but his sense of timing needs work. 

It's a good thing there aren't a lot of words on each page and the plot is minimal because he rarely goes through the book the right usual way.  He seems to randomly combine skipping a bunch of pages and going through the book backwards.  For some reason I feel compelled to read each page out loud as he turns to it.  It makes the stories a little choppy, and sometimes I really have to rush (or guess at what the page says).  "Who says quack? Cows say moo. Not a hen. Look! A dog! Cows say moo. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Cows say moo. Who says quack?" 

Makeshift Walker

When I was in high school, sometimes we would order a ton of lemon slices with a glass of water in an attempt to make lemonade for free at restaurants.  It never worked very well, but I think the little dude is following in those footsteps by making his own walker and saving us the money.  Here's the proof:

Future cool guy?

Thanks to an adoring aunt, the little dude has a pair of designer jeans.  They're awesome, and he's super-spiffy.

When I picked him up today at daycare, I was informed that the pack of little boys that play together (chasing each other around and giggling) has started wrestling.  And, they love it.  Apparently they laugh and laugh and crawl all over each other and wrestle.  That's fine, but now these little terrors are trying to involve the other babies... and the other babies aren't necessarily fans of rough-housing.  (Already?  Really?)

My reaction: dismay and a touch of amusement.  My vision of a book-loving introverted son has been shattered.

His dad's reaction: "Yes!  He's part of the cool crowd!"

Of course he is, look at those jeans!

Assorted hilarity?

We have a lot of random pictures that are funny, but aren't providing any inspiration for posting.  So here's a compilation of happy photos with a theme: food!

What can I say?  The little guy loves to eat anytime, anywhere, anyway.

Also, his striped pajama pants make his tush look funny:

Just to see you smile...

...his dad'll do anything.  Apparently, this includes playing a game with a cracker in his mouth!  The little dude grabbed one cracker out of his dad's mouth and ate it, but his mouth was still full for this one:

We're going to miss that laugh when he grows up.

Buckwheat Festival!

We went on a short trip today to the Buckwheat Festival.  We ate some good food, spent time with some family, and saw a lot of really amazing animals.  The little dude also spent some time playing in the grass with me and then with his cousin.

We got to see a lot of goats today (I love goats, don't know why), and the goats cracked the little dude up.  He thought they were hilarious. 

On our way out, the little guy was asleep and we caught the tail end of the draft horse pulling contest.  I had no idea how big those horses were.  The winning team pulled 9500 pounds 27 feet.  These horses were massive-- this picture doesn't do them justice.