Been meaning to post this...

Names of been changed to protect the innocent...if there are any.

The little person living in our house, we'll call him Bart, has become increasing alter to the noises around him. When he hears someone approaching him, Bart will quickly crawl to the nearest object that he can use to help him stand so he can look around. Often, that object is either his mother, we'll call her Marge, or his father, we'll call him Homer.

Bart heard a loud noise the other day which startled him sufficiently that he jumped into Marge's lap so he could look around and see what the noise was. Odd, no Homer. It sounded like a noise that Homer some times makes. Homer, however, was at work. Marge, by this point was cracking-up. Not because the noise came from her. Oh, no. Bart scared himself with is own fart!

Marge and Homer are frequently told how surprisingly alert Bart is for his age. We never quite understood what they meant...until now.

In other news: Richie is getting his fourth tooth (his second upper incisor). As such, he has been having some difficulty sleeping at night. Now that he crawls better, we can tell when he's bored with his daddy...he just crawls away. Poor daddy. That takes about 30 minutes. On the other hand, he will still cry when daddy leaves the room. Even if he's eating. He's still babbling, occasionally a lot! He's about 21 pounds these days. He's eating solid foods, including cheerios! Sweet potatoes are his favorite non-crunchy followed by squash. He's putting things in containers, but he's not very big on stacking. He'll do that once in a while but mostly he like to knock stacked objects down. He's starting to have favorite books. There's one book that if mommy starts saying the first line, he'll go and grab the book. He'll find the lion, but only about once/hour or so. If you ask again, he'll just look at you as if to say, "It's right there! I already pointed it out to you! Were you not paying attention?! Find that darn thing yourself." Really, he just ignores you if you ask him to do it again.

Alright, that's all I can think of at the moment!

Toothosaurus

Things are going really well on the Richie-front! He's starting to stand without support! He'll hover in space for a few moments before he realizes he's not holding on to anything. Then he freaks out and falls. Or, grabs the nearest object, but there's other not enough time before gravity takes hold! Unfortunately, we really have not been able to catch a picture of movie of it. Richie is still fascinated with the camera to the point where he stops what he's doing to races for the camera, if he realizes it's on him. Oh! There's another thing. We were going to enter Richie into the baby-Gap baby search, that is until I read their contrast which would have made them Richie's official agent to do whatever they wanted. I knew there was something sleazy in the contract when they made the window containing the contract the size of 3/4 of the sentence width and only four lines tall for a 17 page document.

Here's the boy sleeping in Daddy's arms....


Just thought this was a cute picture. He rares sleeps on his back anymore.


Here comes another tooth! Mommy thinks that Richie get's crabby about 2 weeks before the tooth erupts. Toothus-boy! Toothosaurus!


He's still got the smile!


One last thing, he has really gained some speed in his crawling! And, he's getting much more adventuresome, too. As such, he has started to learn the word, "No!" Or, rather, "No..No..No!"

Oh wait! There's more! Richie has started eating Cheerios...a LOT of Cheerios! And Baby Mum-Muns, too. (You'll have to ask Mommy what those are...I think they're a little rice treat.)

From the 70's and still makes for good sitting!

I was snooping in my basement for a tool while I was changing the transmission and rear differential fluid in my car over the weekend. An old chair from my youth caught my eye! I remember sitting in it when I was young and I thought Richie might just be ready. Now, I'm not sure, but it looks like it may have been my older sister's first and then mine followed by her boys and now...
He thought he was SO cool sitting in his own chair.

Too bad it's a little "tippy" so when he goes to stand up, it's not exactly delicate. But, if you hold the back of the chair down, he does fantastically.

Hey! Within an instant, he's a couch-potato...darn it!

Jump-a-roo

I knew there was a cute video I wanted to post...

Another owie

Richie has been trucking around much more, lately. He's also become a daddy's boy and chases me where ever I go. Very cute, but he's also started to cry if I don't pay enough attention to him. I guess that is also cute, but is a little troublesome when I'm trying to go to the bathroom with some haste.

As part of his increased mobility, he is falling down more frequently. No Big surprise there. Usually, it is without much fanfare. However, the other day Daddy was swapping the DVD players in the living room and Richie was standing up by holding on to the rocking chair. Not seconds after I said, "You know, that rocking chair rocks, so be careful Little-Man." He fell down and broke his fall by using his head on the rocker. Which resulted in a little owie and a few minutes of crying. Here are pictures of his latest bruise just above his left eye.




These pictures are not bruise-related. Just a cute shots of Richie and Mommy. Daddy put him in that outfit.



We went to Larriland farm last weekend to do some apple picking but ended up apple and tomato picking. 30 lbs of tomatoes later...(at only $0.49/lb if over 20 lbs, who could help themselves?) Anyone want a tomato sandwich?



In other news, Richie likes carrots. But not at this very moment. He is getting very fast at standing, especially if he hears Mommy or Daddy walking down the stairs. And he is getting very interested in anything that Mommy or Daddy has that he does not.

No no, Richie. That's Mommy's computer that Daddy is typing on. Yes, it is your blog, but you have to get your OWN computer!

Random shots and thoughts

Don't know why there have not been more photographic opportunities lately, but her are a few new shots.

This first one is an image of something that the little boy REALLY doesn't like! I thought it was fun that the stacking sun's (which I originally thought were octopuses) were almost the exact same colors as our locking rings. The minute Richie sees this arrangement, he immediately crawls over and dismantles each one! In face, if you stack the suns, he'll unstack them very quickly. He's a dismantler!


Here's a couple of cute shots of the boy using his Mommy to stand.



In other Richie news, we've been trying to teach him the baby-sign language for hungry to help cut down on the whining. (Which really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.) He's not able to actually do the sign, but if you ask him and he is, he'll laugh.

Where's the Lion?

So, apparently, ML has tested this on three different occasions including one stuffed lion. Huh, the boy can learn. Hopefully this will last into his teenage years!