From the Mouths of (Our) Babes

Have a wonderful birthday.

We visited a new park this weekend. Avery did not appear to like touching the grass there. He seems to prefer spotty patches of dirt, leaves and cigarette butts to the lush green that appears on the parkway. What an urban baby he is!

...but he did have fun in the sun with his dad.

...and didn't mind the grass, as long as it was only his sneaks touching it.

We took Avery to the Free Library Events yesterday. He loved the storybook characters, and received a blue balloon. He also loved seeing his grandpa, Tom, for fun in the park; and later, his grandma, Sally for a lovely dinner. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the evening activities.

Avery loves looking out the picture window at our house to watch the world go by. He now can (sometimes) wave at neighbors (never on cue), and is particularly fond of trucks and busses. Upon seeing a truck the other day, for example, he immediately went to find his new truck bath book. Calling this act "brilliant", Hopie bundled him up to explore the outdoors and identify trucks. It was quite cold, but he was itching to get outside, having been cooped up indoors for a while prior.

Avery seems to have turned a corner in the bathtime process. Now, instead of really complaining while in the tub he won't leave it. Even though the toys taste funny from the soap.

We were all stranded at home yesterday due to the "Nor'easter" that flooded the area. I took Avery out to see the rain at the end of the day, covering him with the Protect-A-Bub we have for the stroller. It was accidently put on backwards (just like his pants the other day), allowing a pool of about three inches of water to form in the basket under the seat. I stuck one of Avery's rubber duckies, which he calls "Ruba", in there. Avery found this very amusing. Mostly, Avery (smartly) preferred playing inside during this storm. He entertained us by clapping on cue to, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!", and then getting hysterical. Maybe we'll try to get some video of this new trick. It's too funny.

We said we were not going to feed Avery any sugar as long as we could stand it. Turns out, that is about 11 months. Avery had his first pancake at one of our favorite breakfast spots in Philly, Honey's Sit 'N Eat. Of course, he totally loved them! Afterwards, he ate a cucumber.

It was such a wild weekend that SOMEONE put Avery's pants on backwards.

Avery was feeling meditative at Nan and Poppi's.

This afternoon Avery and I went to the park that no one in the neighborhood goes to. There are, seriously, 20 kids in throwing distance (a ball, not the kids) from our house and no one uses the neighborhood playground, which is only a block and a half away. Though Avery isn't really old enough to enjoy the equipment there, we do like swinging and leaning on things. We tried the seesaw, although with a new wrinkle of trying to snap a camera phone picture of the event - Avery didn't seem to happy with the seesawing, but he'll come around. You'll also notice that Avery was trying really hard to get the piece of bread (?) on the inside of the fence, to no avail. Fortunately, there were cheese pizza chunks on the outside of the fence that Avery sampled just after these shots. Mmmm. Thanks, random park pizza eaters!! Earlier Avery finally decided that the acorn shell he'd popped in his mouth was not actually edible, although he defended it with clenched jaw like it ...

We celebrated the Spring holiday with the traditional trip to dim sum with the city grandparents, Sally and Tom, and Uncle Justin. Avery wore his Goodnight Moon slippers, given to him by sweet Cori, which happen to have bunnies on them. He tried some turnip cake (mostly smelled it) and chewed on chopsticks. Later, we visited nan and poppi's and Avery tried ham (licked it, really) and chewed on green onions. He won't eat green peas, but he'll eat green onions. Avery's learning to shake his head no, and nod yes. He sometimes even does this at appropriate times, leading us to believe that maybe he understands the meaning. Tonight, for example, when he crawled up to the bright red tool box (attractive nuisance that it is), which contains all kinds of sharp and pointy objects like nails and random other things I don't know the name of, but know are not suitable for babies, I said, "Avery, no!" He turned around, shook his head no, and went the other...

Avery's starting to like taking a tub.

We've been introducing Avery to some new foods. He's now tried hummus and whole wheat pita, broccoli, canteloupe, and spinach puffs. He's very careful when trying anything new. He tries it with all of his senses before putting it in his mouth. This usually results in swishing it around a bit before spitting it out again. However, we found a winner! Avery's got a new favorite: carrot juice. We figure it's a great way to get him his veggies.