Richie did a wonderful job reading in the summer reading program during which time he read 238 unique books...or, rather had 238 unique books read to him. Now, anyone that has spent any amount of time with Richie knows that each book was reread around 5 times. :-) At the end of the summer reading program, they hold a little party...
Here is the shirt they gave out:
Here is Richie's original reading booklet. It filled up quickly and we had to switch to an Excel spreadsheet.
For being such a good reader, he earned tickets to the National Aquarium! (They did that last year, too.)
And, again, we won tickets to the Orioles game like last year!
Similar to last year, the O's are not doing to well so the stadium is not well attended. So, like last year, we skipped our ticketed seats which would have us in the third balcony and found an almost empty row to the right of home plate! Like last year, we just walked in with purpose and sat down in an almost empty row like we knew what we were doing. Ironically, we were sitting in the last row in the section and just in front of the "Seat-Nazi" who spent almost the entire game talking with her coworker about all of the people she's had to move out of the wrong seats that evening. The best place to hide something it in plain view!
It was really hot that night and we were all a little schvitzy.
If you see a faint white streak bisecting the chalk lines, you'll see the ball!
We had 1/2 the row the entire time we were at the game.
Richie seems to know exactly where he is!
It was quite hot! ML will tell you how appropriate it is for Richie to wipe the sweat from his face on my shirt. I did not know such behavior was passed genetically!
He's an amazing little boy!
Here are some cute pictures from that same evening...
Check out that toothy smile!
As many of you know, Richie really enjoys fish! So you'd think he'd go ape-sh!t at the aquarium. Don't get me wrong, he enjoyed it, but he didn't make a bid deal about it. However, now when he's in my office all he wants to do it watch the movies! He points to himself, then the monitors and makes repeated fish-noises! His favorite fish movies are below.
See? No big smiles....odd...and sad...he didn't seem ill that night, just not enthused.
A giant shark is eating my baby!
This is his second favorite movie. It took me a while to figure that out. When we sit at the computer, once he's done with his favorite movie (the one after this one) I'd start going through all of the movies. He'd kick my legs, shake his head and make fish-noises. It took me a few days to realize when I show this movie he stops kicking and shaking his head!
He knows exactly how to ask for the following video. He makes his fish noise followed by his horse noise! Not very difficult for me to put together but amazing that he came up with that combination on his own.
Here's just a cute picture of Ma-ma and Ga-ga.
Richie and Mama when to the Baltimore Science Center where they got to hold some lights in front of a camera with a long exposure.
We joined in the celebration of our friend Christopher's second birthday. (This is the boy who was giving us all of the hand-me-down clothes until 6 months ago when Richie sprouted past him in size.) Last year he really did not like that hat...this year he wanted two!
Richie asking "Please" while sitting in my old baby-seat.
There is a fountain called the Splash-Pad in the Inner Harbor. Richie really started to enjoy it this year.
The day we took those shots of the splash pad, this was sitting in our harbor. Don't really know why.
Splash-Pad!
Richie News:
His talking has really blossomed. He says Ga-ga (for Da-da), Ma-Ma, and Ning-ning almost continually with a few O's, Uh-Oh, Ow and Meow's thrown in for good measure. Ning-ning was originally what he called one of the characters from a book which was Thing-Thing, but then he decided it was to be Na-Na's new name. Strangely, he will occasionally say "Google!" And we're working on Oma since he knows both parts. If you coach him a little, he'll say them consecutively, but he has not yet put the sounds together consistently...every once in a while he'll eek a noise out that sounds like Oma.
He is off the chart for height and in the 90%ile for weight. As of last Tuesday, he weighed 29.8 lbs. Feels like more probably because of the diapers. His local pediatrician is very pleased with Richie's progress and growth. He seems more concerned about Richie's night-time bottle feeding than we are. He takes two bottle before we brush his teeth and put him to bed. He whimpers for a moment until you've left the room and then rolls/goofs around for up to 15 minutes before passing out. It has gotten much easier than it used to be. Oh! And he sleeping through the night again! (Hope I'm not jinxing it for tonight.)
