The Tater Tot Update: September 2011

Baby Laughs

There's nothing better than a good baby laugh. All I had to do to get this one was stick my tongue out at him.

I love giving Harrison random things that coincide with his latest interests. Today I found a snake a the dollar spot at Target...and gave it to him for being a good boy while we took Barrett to the doctor to get a couple of vaccines.

Here's how the afternoon went...it gave me a glimpse of my future with these two.

Look at my cool snake Barrett!

YUM YUM! Don't you want to eat it? Poor Barrett...is this his future?

Harrison's latest adventures

Harrison has been enjoying school and looks forward to going each Tuesday/Thursday. He is now at the point where he can tell me what he ate for lunch (and I know if he's right since I pack it for him :-)), who he played with, and what he did. It's a really fun conversation in the car on the way home from school.

He's as silly as ever, and lately has been doing a lot of dancing. At school they play the "freeze game" where they play music and when the music stops and the teachers say "freeze" everyone has to stop. This, coupled with the "Dance Party" advertised on PBS at the end of Curious George has led to our own dance parties here at the house.

His version of dancing is a lot of spinning in circles and/or fast dancing around stomping his feet and also spinning in circles. Then he falls down, and says, "Harrison fall down why mom?". It's actually pretty entertaining and a good way to burn off some steam inside the house while it's still hot outside. Here is a dance party moment from last week--you'll hear him say "dance party" when I ask him what we are doing.

Harrison still has fun making us laugh by doing random things, like wearing our shoes or putting a basket on his head.

Here he is at the park this week being a "buckethead" as he calls it. He laughs as he runs into things and falls down while doing it. What a nut!

Here he is modeling Mark's shoes...notice his poses and silly faces. He loves to make us laugh!

We've been really into bugs lately. I knew going into this whole adventure with boys I'd have to tolerate the creepy-crawly things that I hate. A couple of months ago there was a week where Rhino Beetles were all over the park. We had lots of fun picking them up, playing with them and coming back to find more each day. Harrison was gentle with them and sad when he'd find a dead one.

We've been on a bug drought until last weekend, when we found a walking stick at the park. Harrison was thrilled, and carried it around in a bucket all morning. When he left the park he released it and we have yet to find it or a replacement again, despite many attempts on our daily visits to the park. He asks every day where it is and continues to look for it, so here's hoping we'll find another one soon!

Over the weekend our next door neighbors called to see if Harrison wanted to come see a big tarantula that was on the side of their house. He has talked about it every day since, and calls it a "ranta" since he can't quite pronounce it. I HATE spiders and am dreading the fact that we are heading into "tarantula season" around here where they seem to pop up all over for a couple of months. But, at least Harrison will enjoy looking at them.

To capitalize on his love of bugs, I grabbed a set of bug flashcards from Target. That's the best 30 cents I have spent in a LONG time! We have spent the past week or so at dinner (and other random times during the day) reviewing the bug flashcards and he has loved every minute of it. It's quite an interesting conversation with him when you talk about the fact that mosquitos and ticks eat blood...and that silverfish eat books and breakfast cereal (who knew??) but at least he's learning and I'm sure someday this will all come in handy for him.

This weekend we went to Harrison's friend Hunter's house to play. He loves to play with Hunter and they really play well together so it is always fun to see them.

He had lots of hugs for Hunter...and I'm not sure Hunter was really as "into" the hugs as Harrison was!

I think this is the only picture we have of the four of us together...it only took five months.

Five Months Old!

Five Months Old!!

It is SO hard for us to believe that Barrett is already five months old! Time has really flown by with him...he is no longer my sweet squishy little munchkin...well, he is still sweet and squishy, just older :-)

Last Monday morning I awoke to hear him, turned on the picture on the monitor, and he was on his stomach staring at me. He had rolled over from his back to stomach a couple of other times while playing, but never in his bed. He looked surprised, but not upset. He didn't do it again and we had a quiet week in that respect.

Fast forward to this past Sunday, when he again rolled over when he woke up. Let's just say that this kid likes to sleep on his back. So...it's been a long few days when he wakes up basically just pissed off that he has managed to get over to his stomach. Thankfully it's only been a couple of times each night/early morning, so it hasn't been too bad. But, he definitely isn't a fan of sleeping on his stomach. He just finally fell asleep that way this afternoon, but I think only because he just didn't have the energy to be mad about it anymore. I must have turned him back over about a half-dozen times, only to have him roll back within a minute or two each time. ARGH! Let's hope this passes quickly.

Here he is on the monitor today...prior to getting mad about being on his stomach.

Other than that he is his usual charming self! He is quite a social little guy, and loves it when you smile at him. He adores Harrison, and watches his every move. He is grabbing at anything he can get his hands on, toys, cups, dinner plates, my hair, etc.

He is very intent on what we are eating during dinner. He sits at a high chair at the table with us and hangs out and plays with toys. We weren't going to let him try food until he's six months old, but since he's been so interested in what we are doing, on Friday we let him try about a tablespoon of really mashed up banana. He seemed to like it--we just put some on his finger or toy and let him suck on it. He also likes to have a cup and drink some milk out of it, so we have started doing that too. Since he isn't a fan of the bottle we figured we'd just start working on learning to use a cup.

On Sunday afternoon he and I were running some errands, and I gave him my Camelback water bottle to just chew on since he was fussing a little. Before I knew it water was dribbling out of his mouth and I realized he was actually drinking out of it! So, last night at dinner we gave him a small Camelback with milk and he couldn't get enough of it. It was pretty cute, because he'd get pretty excited when the milk would flow out and then he'd smile and it would run all out of his mouth.

He is really enjoying the exersaucer now. We started letting him spend a few minutes in it about a month ago, but he could only go for about five minutes at a time without getting frustrated or tired. Now, he will happily spend about 20 minutes in it, and loves to check out all of the things around him.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks: