From the Mouths of (Our) Babes

We're doing some mini projects around the house, and Avery loves helping. He loves it even more than yogurt covered raisins. First, Daddy asked Avery to bring him the measuring tape: Then, he was asked to help by stepping on the end to measure the distance to cut the screens for the kitchen door: The bending tape was WAY more interesting than expected, and stepping on it was NOT: Measuring on the floor was the step (strategy): Phew, Avery needed to stop for a cookie break (IKEA Ginger Snaps---less sugar than most cookies and Avery loves them). Note: there was a clothing change here due to some unexpected juice spillage.: And I completely forgot our blogiversary! We've had this blog for more than a year now---wow.

Yesterday morning, I said to Avery, "When I say 'Who wants pancakes?', you say, 'Me!'. " So then, I prompted, "Who wants pancakes?" and Avery said, "You!" This has nothing to do with the picture of Avery and Walker looking in to see the holiday train display at the Market East Station. But, of course, I didn't have a camera when the exchange took place.

Avery just took one look at my holiday socks and said, "Silly. Take off!" Wow. He's stringing all of these ideas together, and now he's giving me fashion advice. Well, they are sort of silly.

We had fun out and about in the city today. We visited the Franklin Institute with Cousin Finn, Uncle Eric, and Jamie and Vegas. Avery LOVED just about everything but the old train that you "rode" a few feet. It made loud scary noises, and he was screaming for the entire 2 minute ride and saying "scary! scary!" Poor little guy. Then, Avery napped while everyone else had dim sum. We took the underground walkway almost all the way home, and Avery was thrilled sitting in the old trolley seat.

Soooo, the feeling might not be there yet, but we are having fun asking Avery to repeat things we say. Happy Happy Holidays and Hugs from Avery & from mom and dad, too.

Avery LOVES sitting in this box. Not sure why, but people always say kids love the wrapping more than the presents.

Avery got into the presents this morning. He has been really great, allowing them to just exist in the corner, under our tree. He hasn't let curiosity get the best of him, and hasn't questioned why we even have a pile of little presents under the tree. We've been giving him maybe one little present a day...and he's learned to say (in the air), "Thank you, Auntie Julia," for example. This morning, that all changed. He was into the presents, and brought them to us and said, "Open!" Luckily, he doesn't have long to wait to open the rest.

Just now, Avery pointed outside into the garden and said, Sun, Sun Rainin' Peekaboo Sun Bye, Bye Sun Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon I want to enter it into a poetry contest.

We are staggering Avery's holiday presents, so today we gave him a parking garage, complete with a little car wash, gas station, helicopter landing pad and ticket booth. This resulted in a funny mix up later, when we tried to explain to Nan and Popi that Avery had Walker kiss the ticket booth attendant. We had forgotten to mention that this was a little figure in his new parking garage set, and led to some confusion.

Avery's first(ish) marshAmellow this morning... Really, I think he looks like a little marshAmellow in this clip. He had about one small bite and was done with it. It's probably because he hasn't been introduced to hot chocolate yet.

Sooo, we need to get some great shots of Baby Walker and Justin so we can continue with the family photo sharing here! At this time, however, Uncle Eric has been digitizing old shots of the Shore fam, which just makes for fun posting. Soooo, this morning I posted that Avery loves the hat Uncle Gary bought for Walker. He will come downstairs in the morning, put on the hat, and walk around with it on, trying to get our attention. He even quietly admires himself in the mirror occasionally. Here he is this morning: Then, Avery actually looks like a tiny catcher giving signals to an invisible (and equally non-appropriately dressed) pitcher. Soooooo, based on this, Uncle Eric saw Boo's hat, and raised him two: Seriously, there were some cool fashion trends goin on in the 70s.

Really. We stuff Avery into a sweater, and a puffy suit. We strap him in a stroller that renders it impossible for him to move. We place a restrictive blanket over his legs. We stick mitts, which have NO finger holes at all, on his hands, making it difficult for him to practice those fine motor skills he's honing. And we wonder why he freaked out, throwing his car and screaming for macaroni, when we took him on errands last night.

Avery's rendition of Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday, Sashee! lalalalalalallala

Of course, Avery says he likes the armadillo. This is mostly because I think it's so cute that he can say armadillo. I am pretty sure he doesn't know what favorite means yet.

So far, Avery appears to be a very reasonable little guy. He loves being helpful when we are doing projects, and let's us know when he's "schleepy" and wants to take a "nappy". However, he likes to push the limits sometimes, and just do funny things to get a rise out of us. Some of them are more menacing than others. On the not very menacing side, for example, this morning we were playing PeekABoo under the table. He was having a really great time, as you can see: Then, I said, "Avery, SMILE!", and this is what he did: His first dramatic pout. I also gave him a haircut and think I caused him to have a little cowlick sticky-up part in the back. Oh well. His hair grows SO fast; a few days and it'll be fine.

Sashee and Tum came to spend time with Avery, and also helped make it a very productive day! Avery even "helped" clean the layer of fishy cracker/raisin/cookie/prunejuice out of the car, but really that was mostly Grandpop Tum.

Yum.

Either that, or the apron REALLY didn't go with his outfit. I swear, this kid is SO fashion-particular. I don't know where he gets it!

Uh oh. A little too much mommy modeling. Avery wouldn't leave the house without the proper bag(gie) today.

Avery's been a little rammy lately. He just gets overly energetic RIGHT in time for bed. It hasn't really changed his schedule at all. He just runs and runs and runs, and talks and talks, and then, immediately upon having his head hit the pillow, he's asleep. Seems ideal, actually.

Scene: Walking on Walnut Street. Avery, and Avery's Mom and Dad Mom: Avery, what do you want for lunch? Avery: Macaroni. Mom: Ok, we'll go home and make macaroni. Avery: Macaroni. Mom: OK, Boo. Oh, look at the car, Avery! Avery: Macaroni. Dad: We're almost home. Avery: Macaroni. Mom: Ok, we're close. Avery: Macaroni Dad: Avery, what else can you say? Avery: Macaroni. Brief period of silence. Avery: Macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni, macaroni. ...the entire rest of the way home. He was very calm and patient. He just really wanted macaroni. Oh, and mark the date. Avery asked for an ate uncooked broccoli today. Maybe it's not that he doesn't like vegetables, just that we gave up trying too early.

Avery learned that he should not pull or tug on all the ornaments on our little sparkley tree, but that pointing or touching them is OK. Avery now gets up on the toy chest each day, and points at every single ornament.

I have to dress him up while I still can! Fun with scarves... PeekaBOO

Clearly, Avery was not feeling very entertained by mommy this evening.

Avery did very well getting his shots today, despite the fact that he also had to wake up from his nap to get them. He got a flu shot, and shots for mumps and chicken pox. He was excited to see "Colreen" until, of course, she stuck a needle in his little arm. He screamed for under one minute, and then we gave him yogurt covered raisins (aka "yogu"), which are his special treat. He also got THREE stickers when we left, so he was pretty distracted. Before the shots, there was a cute exchange at the doctor's office. A little girl, Elsa, was there because she had an earache. Avery walked up to her and said, "Hiyyyyyiiii," and and pointed at her. When she didn't reply, he said, "Aaafreee!!!" (Avery). We all thought it looked like he was introducing himself. The little girl was kind of shy, and said hi as Avery was walking away. Very cute. And Avery seemed none the worse for wear when we stepped out into the snow afterwards. We tri...

This may be our family version of Chocolate Cake for breakfast. When Avery insisted, Daddy quickly caved and provided yogurt raisins for dinner. All Avery had to do was indicate...what a sucker. there was also video but this shortie will have to suffice to sum daddy's frustration with blogger video. Shot by Avery, it's a short meditation on the restricting qualities of technology and the patriarchal society. Genius. Too bad you can't see it due to blogger's crappy upload tonight...

Avery is really getting good at showing us the bunny!

Avery helped his dad with some refreshment retrieval yesterday evening.