New tricks

Stephen has been doing a few new cute things lately... one is building tall towers with his oversized legos.
He's also learned to dangle from his high chair tray and swing.

And he discovered that he can store oyster crackers in his pockets. Sorry, no photos of that one yet.

Where is Mr. Frumble?

Stephen really loves books. I mean, REALLY. More often than not, if I'm ignoring him, he's reading his books. Last night I noticed that he wanted to read all of them.

And, let me just boast for a second about his early signs of being a genius: We were reading a Richard Scarry book the other day... Best Word Book Ever, or something like that... and we open up to the page called "Busytown." If you're familiar with these books, you know what kind of mischief goes on in Busytown. Unlike Stephen's First 100 Animals or First 100 Machines books, I haven't tried to teach him all the names of the critters and craziness in Richard Scarry's books. But, just to be funny, I said:

"Stephen, where's the pickle car?"
He scans the page. Then points, low and behold, to a pig driving a giant gerkin on wheels.
"Good job, Boo! Now, where's the Doggie holding an apple?"
This one's easier for him. He points to it right away.
"Now, where's the cat with the giant sausage?"
Stephen got stumped. He pointed to another cat, so I showed him the butcher shop and pointed out the sausage. I thought he might remember sausage from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," but I usually zoom through the page where he eats ten things. Plus, I don't serve Stephen sausage. Too many nitrites or nitrates or something.
Anyway, last night he wanted to revisit Busytown.
After asking him about Mr. Frumble and the car with Huckle and Lowly Worm, I asked him about the Sausage Cat again. He got it right away.

So. My son is a genius. Or perhaps just a potential repository for extremely useless knowledge.

Classic Munchie Pose

I needed to capture this oft-seen tilted head pose. His arm, which apparently is wacking the arm of the chair, is actually falling into the familiar habit of searching for a way to grab my shirt, neck or whatever, which he does when I'm holding him.

19 months

Eating an apple and enjoying his toes

Do you want some too?

Park play

The birds are watching

Last week, Joe and I took Stephen back to Jeffers Bend to try to enjoy the fleeting warm weather. The sunshine slipped behind some clouds before we got there, but we took shelter from the chilling winds in the little bird observatory.

I mentioned in an earlier post that it's been vandalized-- educational posters torn down, birdseed littering every surface, cigarette butts and other garbage on the floor. Well, this day was even worse. The dust pan, used to clean up aforementioned mess, was stomped to shards. One of the two birdfeeders was also the target of some stupid show of aggression; knocked clear off the pole with its bottom side broken.

It makes me really angry that our little town can't appreciate the small slivers of nature that are open to the public.

Anyhow, there wasn't a bird in sight as we hunkered down in the dirty little shelter. Joe held Stephen, while I tried to scoop up the birdseed with what was left of the dustpan. I carried the scoops out to the one remaining birdfeeder.

Then they came. A hoard of crimson cardinals... then their buffier counterparts, then chickadees and juncos and field sparrows.


Several cardinals also perched on the window ledge to peck at their reflections... and we did our best to capture the scene. Stephen was tickled by having birdies so close.

Iron Zoo

Video and words forthcoming.