A few pics.

The other day Ted figured out how to use the digital camera, sort of.  Once he stopped turning it on and then off and then on again (and again, and again) and embraced pressing the “big button”, he was able to take some pics.  He’s not quite doing Ansel Adams quality work just yet, but he’s off to a good start.

Here are a few of the 50 photos he took.  Good thing we’re not using flash cubes!

It reminds me of when I use to take my dad’s old Polaroid he used for work (with no film loaded) taking “photos” all over the house.  I hope Ted keeps it up.

Check out our lawn! It’s greener than its been in a while! There had been some struggle with weeds and dead spots since we got here, but this fall I re-seeded and fertilized, and before that Kate and Ted pulled out a zillion weeds.   And its November, and I need to mow the lawn again!

Speaking of lawn, here’s Auntie Christine and Ted, taking advantage of the yard when she came down to visit a few weekends ago.

Here’s Ted eating his favorite breakfast, pankcakes and syrup, made with sprinkles.

Our son, a party animal who parties with animals.

Here’s Ted, showing off his eyes.

When Ted wakes up in the morning he usually just kind of whines and moans until I go and get him, but as soon as I get to his crib he starts pointing at things and naming them. Usually different things every morning- shirt, dog, baby, bear, etc. Then he starts saying “Moses, Moses, Moses.” Sometimes Moses is actually there, sometimes Ted is just wondering where Moses is. Then we come downstairs and most weekdays he says, “tee,” which is Ted’s way of asking for tv. So we watch some Blues Clues and then eat breakfast. Ted has baby oatmeal or baby multigrain cereal mixed with baby food fruit or sweet potato. He feeds himself, but gets a lot of it all over, including behind his ears and on his knees.

After breakfast we head upstairs so I can shower and we both can get ready for the day. While I shower Ted colors all over the bathroom. Today I decided I would just give up on trying to stop him and deal with the fact that we will have to wipe down the graffiti every day. Before I kept telling him, “no Ted, keep it in the coloring book” at which point he always holds out his crayon and says a color (frequently the right one) and then starts coloring something else. Since I don’t want to go back to the days of him whining and crying while I shower I have no interest in taking the crayons away, but I seem to be teaching him there are no consequences to my saying no. I guess I will have to deal with the graffiti and just teach him we have to clean it up.

Next we head out to music class, story time, the park, or playgroup. When we go to the park the child has no fear. And unfortunately no sense. He gives me a heart attack and makes me look like I am totally over protective every time. He goes to the top of the tallest play structures and dangles a leg over the climbing wall or flips himself over a metal bar, etc. Yesterday at the park he fell down a couple of stairs and scraped his head. Today he climbed off a picnic table bench and bonked his head on the cement. He is totally accident prone. Luckily he handles it well, although there were tears today, since he bonked his head in the same spot as yesterday and it must have really hurt. But after a few minutes of tears he was ready to head back out to the play ground. He is definitely not a clingy kid. Every where we go he runs off and joins right in the action.

We stay out till lunch time and either eat where we are or in the car. He has some yogurt and sometimes lunch meat and/or fruit or veggies. Then I drive home and he falls asleep. When we get here I carry him up to his crib. He usually naps for about two hours. When he wakes up we have a snack and play with his toys until Pat comes home.

Then we all have dinner together at the table. Ted eats what we are eating, sometimes with additional veggies, avocado, or black beans if he doesn’t seem to be too interested in the main course. He calls green beans, black beans, and pinto beans all the same thing, “bean-beans.” He is a big fan of bean-beans.

After dinner we usually go for a walk around the neighborhood. Ted insists on pushing the stroller rather than riding in it, so we just bring the free umbrella stroller, while our fancier strollers sit in the garage. He pushes the stroller most of the way down our street and then when he starts getting distracted we make him sit in it, which he protests. Then when we get to the safer street with no traffic we let him out. He jumps out and starts running and says “run, run, run” or “go, go, go” or “fast, fast, fast.” Then without fail he starts looking for the moon. “Moon, moon, moon?” Throughout the walk he continues to check in on the moon every couple of minutes whether we can see the moon or not. He points out all the airplanes and helicopters and watches them till they are out of sight and then says, “bye bye.” He alternates between running and dawdling to look at rocks. Then when we get to the end of the safer loop we put him back in the stroller and head home.

At bed time Pat gives him a bath and then its story time with milk, brushed teeth, and off to his bedroom. Either Pat or I will sing him a couple songs and rock him in the chair and then put him in his crib. He goes right in without a peep. And that is a typical weekday in our life.

Hopping on a jet plane again tomorrow and heading up north to meet up with them, and then on Sunday we’ll all pile into the Celica and drive home.  The Celica has been busy up north, getting itself a new clutch, a long overdue bit of maintenance  I can’t wait to shift gears again without fear!

It’s been a fairly productive time for me down here.  I did lots of yard work, installed a rain collection barrel, cleaned out the garage so we can fit an actual car inside of it, filled up two bags full of old clothes and brought them to goodwill, and got to visit some locals.  I also installed our new HD converter box thing, which will allow our tv to work after the great old school tv signal cutoff happening next year.

I also caught up on sleep.  Delicious multiple-hours-in-a-row sleep.  It was good to relax, but will be better to see the rest of the After Victory crew this weekend.