Do my feet smell? - Photo Challenge

Harper thought that Robby needed a bit of help in the hygiene department, so, y'know.  She brought out the tongue.  And, yes, this picture is a little old.  He's not so apt to lie still anymore.  ;)

The Lion at 8 Months

Hoo boy!  The Lion is A.C.T.I.V.E.  He always was, but this month?  He has decided he doesn't even want to sit down.  Ever.  And we have quit using the changing table because he's flipped over and crawling away before you can blink.  TROUBLE.  But cute trouble.  ;)

Mental Leaps

The babble now comes in sentence form.  Not that it means anything.  Rather that it has a cadence to it.  He also is making his opinions even more well known.  He does NOT want to sit in a highchair to eat.  He wants to STAND in the bath tub.  He wants to have whatever YOU'RE eating, not what's in front of him.  Etc...  He understands most of what you say to him, "Turn off the light", "Put your arm in your sleeve", "Sit down".  Now, whether he wants to LISTEN is another story.  The new words are only speculation.  I believe I'm hearing his version of "Yay" and "All done", but still confirming that one.

Physical Strides

He is EASILY pulling up on his own.  Turn away for 2 seconds, and he's standing by himself at the coffee table.  The problem is, he also believes he can walk.  Which he cannot.  So, he will pull up, let go, and fall and start screaming.  This is requiring sprint work on Chris and my part to prevent.  He can stand momentarily on his own, but we're talking seconds, not minutes here.  He also is now starting to be able to walk holding only one hand.  He STILL does not do a full crawl, and we are starting to believe he never will.  He army crawls incredibly quickly, but that's it.  However, we discovered that if you strip him down to his birthday suit, he will raise himself up a bit.  What a boy will do to avoid rug burn.  ;)  We may be practicing au natural in the future.  His favorite things to practice right now are sitting down from standing and jumping.  What is he still NOT doing?  He still has trouble going from belly to sitting, but will crawl to a step, crawl 1/2 UP the step, and then scoot his legs under him until he is standing.  He also has not mastered the pincher grip.  It's getting close, but he's still mostly mashing food in his fist.    

Food

He's eating pretty much everything that is not a high-allergen food.  We even have managed to re-add sweet potatoes without issue and are trying rice tonight.  The only food we are leaving on the allergy list for sure is squash.  His favorites are some common ones like peaches, bread, and pasta, and some weird ones like spinach and any meat.  He also is way too big a fan of anything that comes in a dropper.  You know your child has been sick too much when he gets excited for a medicine dropper, and I had to hide the Tylenol in a new place already.

Sleep

I don't want to curse it, but sleep has GREATLY improved.  We have had THREE nights this week that I didn't have to get up with him at all.  I'm really hoping that this trend continues.  He goes down somewhere between 7/7:30 and wakes up between 6:30/7.  We are trying to wean him off of his 3rd nap, and so his schedule has ended up as inconsistent as always during the day.  He usually will end up with somewhere around 3.5 hours of nap on days he's at home and 1.5 hours at daycare.  If we're lucky.  That is a major issue that we are starting to get fairly angry about, but that's a story for another day.

 Cuteness

Of course, he's cute all the time.  *cough*  Ok, when he's not being a screaming stubborn mule that is obviously my child.  ;)  ANYWAY, he is laughing a LOT these days, and loves to be tickled, and really, played with fairly roughly.  He's such a boy.  He still LOVES swimming, and splashing, and will even kick now when watching the big kids.  He has an irrational love for the vacuum cleaner and will squeal to get to stand with it.  His favorite toys are anything that he shouldn't have.  Dog toys, magazines, remotes, etc...  He still loves to sing, and I even had to call my mother the other day when I had the Broadway station on and he was singing along at the top of his lungs.  The boy likes his classics.  He is just starting to dance.

Size

I don't know.  As always.  He's somewhere around 20 pounds, and I don't know his length.  I will try and measure and edit this.  He's still almost exclusively in 9 month clothing, but I think we might start moving into some 12 month stuff.  We've actually been in the same size for almost 4 months!  Wow!  We did just purchase convertible car seats, and have installed the one that arrived in Chris's car.  No more carrying him around in his little infant seat anymore.  :'(  Ok, I'm not really sad.  The kid was getting WAY too heavy for that!

Notes from the photo shoot

He actually manage to turn the music on with the Lion!  You have to squeeze the paw.  He completely startled himself with it and he wasn't sure what to think.  And, finally?  The month by month comparison:

Snow Day!

Yes, it flurried a few little flakes around Halloween, but today was the first day that the Lion could really play in the snow.  So, we bundled him up like he was in A Christmas Story, and made sure that he couldn't move.  And plopped him in the snow while we had fun with the dog.  It's so not fair.

We spent some time staring out the window when he woke up, and for the first time the world was entirely white.  I'm not sure exactly what he thought of it, but he talked to the snow for some time.

Later, we actually went out, and he seemed interested, but since he couldn't move, the excitement was more about what the dog was doing.

And, Harper has never loved anything more than the snow.  She could play in it all day if we let her.  Unfortunately, it was starting to get late enough that there were cars on our street, and we took her back inside the fence pretty quickly.

At least she got a little time to reminisce about her crazy puppy days when we had a couple of 2 ft snow storms in a row.

Funny enough, when I tried to have the Lion walk around, it was more like he was walking on the moon than in the snow.  His snow suit was just too cumbersome.  I can wait for the day when he can romp around with us!

Ah...Refreshed.

These pictures don't have anything to do with the post, but they're recent and cute, so...there it is.  Guess what the Lion did last night?  SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 3 MONTHS!!!  Woo hoo!  I am a happy momma.  

More accurately, he woke up at 11 and 4:30, but put himself back to sleep both times.  I really wasn't sure 4:30 was going to happen, and he fussed for probably around 20 minutes, but never got hysterical, so I let him go.  And...SUCCESS!!!

I am very proud of my little man, and very happy for me.  ;)  And, ok, comment on the pictures.  See that funny face he's making in the picture below?  It's hilarious!  I call it his gorilla face because he keeps pulling his lower teeth in front of his upper ones.  Too funny.

White - Photo Challenge

This week's photo challenge from The Paper Mama is "white", and what is more appropriate than one of Robby's favorite activities?

Longwood Gardens

 Here we are, a couple weeks into January, and I'm doing posts from a month ago (well, December 23rd).  The Christmas season just gets too busy with all the activity, and visitors, and I end up missing posts.  And, I don't want to lose the pictures, so you're getting it now.  I know, it's selfish of me.

I know Robby looks uncertain here, but he did such a fabulous job!  We were at Longwood Gardens from about 1pm until 6pm or so and he just was an absolute joy while we were there.  The ride home was something else, but I'll discuss that later.  

Longwood Gardens is impressive generally, as is their solar field (which, the man in the picture above might have had something to do with), but it is truly beautiful at Christmas.  They both decorate interior areas with Christmas trees and seasonally appropriate plants, but then the entire property is lit up with thousands of lights at night.

We lucked out with a beautiful day, that was only a bit chilly, and my parents were able to make it back from visiting my brother and his wife in NYC to go with us.

Some of the less traditional displays delighted me.  Yes, this area was red and green, and filled with Christmas trees...but in a fountain?  Who would have thought...

I wish I had a view of the this entire conservatory, but this fountain had 8 or so trees in it alone.

Longwood was built by Pierre DuPont, in the early 1900's because he wanted to preserve the trees that had been planted their.  The gardens, and residence, were extravagant additions, though.  We found ourselves speculating on how massive a fortune it must have taken to import all the various species of plants in one room that we were in alone.  

This was the first time that Robby had truly seen trains, and now he is becoming more enthralled with them, even craning his neck up to watch the one circle over the dairy department at Wegman's.

Obviously, the boy wasn't going to let go.  He was afraid someone might steal his vantage point!

Yes, this is a GINGERBREAD HOUSE.  There were a few that represented each of the buildings on the property.  I can't imagine the effort that it took to make them.

I also loved that there were seasonal touches to each of the rooms.  This was the greenhouse dedicated to roses, but it contained hundreds of decorative stars (that I can't think of the name of for the life of me, even though we always had one hanging in front of our house...) hanging from the ceiling.

Probably my favorite "tree"

There was also an outdoor train display that we looked at before heading in to eat dinner and wait for it to get dark enough for the lights to turn on.

Robby amazingly never napped (again, eluding to the car meltdown in out future), but LOVED dinner in this cafeteria-style restaurant that we were in.  He had just been introduced to turkey, and happily ate bits of it out of my sandwich.  He was his usual charming self, squawking back and forth with a child at another table.

Once it became darker, the brilliant light displays stole the show.  Unfortunately, Christmas lights are really darn difficult to take pictures of!

I tried, but you'll have to imagine for the most part...

As we made our way out, of course, that's when Robby chose to fall asleep.  He slept for about 10 minutes, which is just long enough to make him think he is refreshed, without actually doing anything for him.  We get to the car, and BAM he's awake.  Not even 5 minutes into the drive home (which takes 45 minutes), he starts to lose it.  We stop, let him eat, and hope that his mood will be improved.  No such luck.  TOTAL MELTDOWN.  He SCREAMED the entire ride home.  My mother insisted that I let her switch seats and try and calm him down, when I had given up and was just letting him go.  Of course, she was no more successful than me.  When my boy gets going?  There is NOTHING you can do other than get to your destination.  And hope that there is no permanent hearing loss.  We made it in record time as Chris found the shrieks motivating, and, of course, the second we get home, he's a prince again.  What can ya do?

Anyway, a great place to visit, and I'd highly recommend making it there if you can!

Sometimes we just seem to be going nowhere...

This really isn't a downer post at all.  It's making fun of Robby's newest form of transportation.  And sharing some videos.

And for good measure.  Here is how close to standing we are.  Ignore that he falls at the end.  He was fine.

Oh, one more.  His favorite Christmas present.

Trying to Learn to Use my Camera

One afternoon when we were playing in the nursery, I pulled out my camera and decided to try and figure out exactly what each setting did.  Using my son as a model.  (Yes, I hear you laughing)  Here is how helpful he was.

Then I found a new model: