Most of you have already seen these, but here you go anyway…

Here is his attempt at escape…the thought and then the follow through.

Okay, ha ha, fooled you…I just hit my 100% limit on this site, so go to the link on the sidebar (the one with links to Ben’s blog, Samuel’s blog…etc). and click on Avery’s second steps.

So go there if you want to see the escape (and no, it’s not a car)

Okay, so we know that Avery likes his toys a lot, but I didn’t realize that Todd was envious of Avery’s bond with Mr. Froggy…

  Jealousy is an ugly thing…taking a toy from a seven month baby!!!  Bad Daddy!!!

Anyway…

Updates…

Food – he is now eating Sweet Potatoes (which you knew) and  now Peaches.  We will be starting Squash or Pears, I haven’t decided yet.

Wiggles – he’s moving a heck of a lot faster by the day, we are successfully using our fort at the moment, although I believe he is getting very close to figuring out that he can go through the excersaucer.  He got partially half of the way through yesterday…he found a toy in there (that even I didn’t know was there) and was trying to get it. 

Forts – this morning as Todd was trying to leave for work, I was setting up to fort…I had one of the couch cushions in place and getting the next one that goes on top of it.  He was trying to get over the first one when I put the second one on, he pulled himself up to standing.  He stood there for a while looking at Todd and I, then fell on his butt and started playing. Very cute!

Let’s see, what else?  Oh yea, he is getting funnier and funnier by the minute in the bath!  I can’t describe how funny it is…he has this rubber ducky that he sits in, because the bathtub is too big for him now.  It even quacks!  He kicks and kicks which causes water to fly everywhere, also causing soap bubbles to appear, which he then tries to grab.  While he is trying to get them, they go away, so the kicking and splashing starts again.  When he gets bored with that, he slaps his hands in and out of the water, causing the same effect.  I think I may have more water on me when he is finished. I just can’t describe how incredibly funny it is.  Wish I was smart enough to figure out how to put video on here!!  Ahhh, someday.

I will soon be starting a new blog, don’t worry, I will put a link for it on this one.  It turns out that you only get 50MB of space on these things before you have to pay for more.  Since I won’t be buying more for the rest of Avery’s life, I am just going to link a new one to this.  (Thanks Mom for being so brilliant when I can’t summon the mere brain cells it would have taken to come up with that one on my own.)  Besides, it has only taken me 7 months to use all that space…apparently I am a master babbler, they should erect a statue in my honor for all to know my talents and strive to come anywhere close to my level, even though that would be near impossible   However, being that I am incredibly modest, I could not allow that to happen (I have turned down many offers)

I can’t think of any other items to include in here, so I will leave you all with some misc pictures to enjoy…

Hope that will tide you over for at least a few hours 

Almost…

That’s cereal on the side of his face…he smacked the spoon and sent cereal flying, then squished it down the side of his face…     Yummy…perfection

 He’s very proud…

  Peeeek-a-boo

And, the ones that made me laugh so hard and so much…(as Emily said…till she almost peed – although that’s not difficult seeing as she is pregnant).  He always makes this face, and it is impossible (almost) to get a photo of it…until yesterday.  I grabbed the camera when he was playing with his sweet potatoes, and then the cereal came, and then…he started making the face and it took a few times to time the camera right.  I ended up making the face, and he repeated it (big step for him to imitate).  Okay, is that enough suspense for you?

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. Kissy Kissy Kissy  

It is April right???  In Wisconsin, I guess that still means winter…

 So again, I say…What gives?

We are supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow today; a lovely little birdie (who will remain nameless…Emily) informed me that it is supposed to get up to 60 in St. Louis today…that doesn’t seem fair now does it?  The power has gone out four times today; Avery is not quite sure what to think of that.  Okay, I’m done with that for now.

Update: since I started this post, we are up to six power outages…seven, eight, nine, ten…(long post), okay I’ve stopped counting…

Other funny stuff…

For those of you who have not seen these photos…

I have NO idea what was going through his cute little head at this moment…he started to put his hands up to his forhead (like they were horns).  He did this a few times so I figured by the time I got the camera, he would be done with this talent (like usual) and moved on to something different.  Well, I was right…funny boy.

Food…and doctors

For those of you who have not heard…our little boy is officially on solid foods. 

Side note…

    We had our appointment with the Ear Nose and Throat doc who gave us the okay and informed us that his laryngomalasia/stridor are improving by leaps and bounds and he thinks Avery will grow right out of it.  That was some of the best news I have heard in a LONG time…that means the chances of surgery are pretty much null!!!!!  Whew!

Back to the subject at hand…

We started with Carrots; as you remember, he did NOT like them.  We moved on to sweet potatoes (yuk) and he really seems to like them. 

  ”These are my sweet potatoes, and I like them”

From there, we tried some bananas (yum) we still aren’t sure of these.  I have stopped those and will try them again later.  Our next attempt will be peaches (again, yum).  I am trying to alternate between veggies and fruit, so he is getting a balanced diet.  From there we will go to squash, then some other fruit, green beans, etc…

I think the problem with the bananas is two fold..One…I think the consistancy is a little too different for him and he is trying to figure that out…Two…I think he is having some ‘digestive’ problems that commonly accompany this particular fruit.  Things on that ‘front’ have been very different lately.  Okay, I’m done with that subject.

Big, big, big…

At our doctor’s appointment on March 20th, Avery weighed in at a whopping 15 pounds, 5 1/2 ounces; at our ENT appointment on April 5th, he weighed in at an even more whopping 16 pounds, 9 ounces!  Obviously he is NOT starving!    At our regular appointment on March 8th (his SIX MONTH birthday) Dr C said that Avery is going to be a small boy.  He said that Avery is just going to take  after his mommy…we’ll see, he seems to be growing rapidly right now if you ask me.

Zoom, old…

On Easter Sunday, Avery turned seven months old!  That still shocks me.  Pretty soon he is going to be a year old!  Scary thought.  I hope everyone had a lovely Easter, I wish we could have been there!  Here’s a picture of Avery’s first Easter…

 The Easter bunny arrived on Friday night (in the form of Uncle Dave).  He came bearing an Easter basket dressed up as a baseball (ironically, it was the one that I was looking at getting for him at Target).  In it was a few outfits, and Pablo dressed up like the Easter bunny.  He’s cute, you can pull back the ‘hood’ from the bunny costume and see Pablo’s beenie.  For those of you who are not hip on the kids shows these days, Pablo is from the Backyardigans.  Maddie (Dave’s daughter) and Ben (Emily and Neil’s son, for those of you who don’t know) watch it and really like it (and apparently Neil too)   I, myself, have watched it multiple times and have found it a cute show.  I don’t let Avery watch it yet, because as you are aware, he is only seven months old.  I have, however watched it with Maddie (as well as by myself while Avery naps) and I am hooked too. (On another note…we actually arrived ON TIME to mass on Easter Sunday – problem was, there was no parking and we had to go searching; as bad as this sounds, we ended up parking in the cemetary, so it took us longer to actually get into church, but it still counts right?)

Wiggle, wiggle, hop, hop…

He is not quite crawling yet, he kinda does this hopping inchworm/military crawl to get around, but he is getting around very quickly now.  I have the baby gate up and I have taken all the cushions off of the couches, however, he learned after THREE days, how to climb right over those and head for the kitchen and dining room table and chairs.  Not sure what I am going to attempt next, but I hope whatever it is works longer than 3 days!  I have tried a little makeshift fort.  We have two escape routes from the middle of the living room, where it is safe for him to play.  He basically has a U shaped area to run around in.  One of the escape routes goes from the end of one part of the couch to the kitchen bar…the other goes from the end of the other couch to the wall holding the entertainment center.  My new fort consists of his toy basket lined against his excersaucer agains a laundry basket tipped on it’s side (because, as we all know, he loves to play in those), then a few pillows.  So far, that is working.  On the other side, I have another laundry basket against two couch cushions piled on top of one another.  We will see how many days this will work.  So far, he hasn’t figured out that he can probably fit through the excersaucer itself…hope that doesn’t occur to him anytime in the near future!

Eeek, where’s Mommy?…

Avery is going through what seems to be some separation anxiety at the moment.  He cries when I am out of eyesight, when I leave the room (even if he can still see me) and even when I am in the room, but not touching him.  It’s sweet and makes me feel loved and needed (like I didn’t already), but it makes getting anything accomplished throughout the day nearly impossible.  It even makes it difficult to take a shower.  I used to sit him in his bouncy seat in the bathroom while I showered; that is until he tried to take a swan dive out of it.  Then more recently I have been hauling his excersaucer into the bathroom (not an easy feat) and taking a shower, but even that is difficult now.  He doesn’t seem as thrilled to play in his excersaucer as he used to.  I don’t know what I am going to do next, aside from getting up at 4 am to take a shower before Todd leaves.  I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Bottle…

He is getting really good at holding his bottle up on his own.  He has been doing it for a few months while you hold him on your lap and feed him, but couldn’t quite get the hang of doing it himself while in the high chair.  One day, he just put his mind to it and said ‘mom, I will take that’. (okay, so I know he can’t talk, so maybe he just grabbed the bottle from me… technicality)  He is doing really well at it.  It makes it so I can give him the bottle while I prepare his cereal and baby food.  Much easier…and great independence for him.  He learns so much every day!

Funny new game…

Okay, so Avery has this zoo animal train that Aunt Emily, Uncle Neil and Ben got him for Christmas.  When he pushes the ’smoke stack’ it plays a song.  When he pushes the place where the girraff stands it plays a song, one of four each time he presses it.  Originally, he would move the girraff and it would activate the song.  He didn’t know why the sound happened, he just enjoyed it.  In the last month or so, he has figured out that if he pulls the girraff out completely, he can reach his hand into where the girraff was and push the base to make the music himself. (I think that made sense).  I know that he is doing that intentionally because he will lean the train over, reach his hand in and it starts a song.  He plays with the wheel until the song is over.  When the song stops, he looks at it and either reaches his hand in to push the base or pushes on the smoke stack to make a song start, then smiles real big at it.  This goes on over and over…

Normally, because I’m weird, I sing along with the tunes because I have heard them enough times to know them (and the order they play in).  I was being silly this afternoon and being very dramatic with my singing; Avery ate it up and started laughing.  He started (or I started, not sure which) this game…He reaches in and pushes the base, lets go of the train and turns and looks at me, waiting for me to be goofy.  I do, of course ‘cuz that’s who I am, and he laughs and laughs.  The song stops and the process happens all over again.  He is a funny little boy and is really learning cause and affect very quickly.  He is very deliberate in pushing buttons and making things make noise.  Funny.

He also ‘talks’ to his toys, bottles, sweet potatoes, mom, dad, kitties etc.  I was telling Mom and Dad today that while I was feeding him his breakfast I heard something that sounded like “I love you,”  though I’m sure it was not.  It was followed by what sounded like daddy (which could be), followed by Oahu (I think that is one of the Hawiian Islands).  He’s going to major in geography (or at least be better at it than his mommy).

   ”Cheeeese”

Funny boy…later gaters

All, I can say is…it’s going to !SNOW! tomorrow….I want the warm weather back! Why Why Why Why????

Today is opening day for baseball season, and in the spirit of things…

  Dave and Neil…I know that was hard to look at (I know this, because I have already gotten feedback from Dave).

On another note…

 Sweet little boy, holding his bottle all my himself, gosh he’s so sweet, and inocent, and calm and quiet…

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Okay, so not always…

 but we still love him

Weeeee!  Had to put these on here real quick…he pulled himself up using my shirt and hand, so I turned him around so he could hold onto the side of the couch…

     had to drop the camera on that one…

 Fun!!

All for now…

I keep forgetting to include this story in the blog…

Kitties…

About a week ago, Dave was up for the weekend.  As you may or may not know, we are taking care of his three cats…Marvin, Buddy and Tammy.  Well, Dave was on the floor playing with Avery when Buddy walked by.  Now Buddy is one of those big fluffy, really long haired cats…very cute (very tempting fur).  Dave was helping Avery pet the kitty and he was doing really well (Avery that is – but you were doing well too, Dave ) until Avery grabbed two huge handfuls of Buddy’s lovely black fur from the side of his body.  Buddy stoped short with this deer-in-headlights look on his face so animated that you could almost hear the thoughts in his head ‘why am I around kids?’ ‘why do they do this to me?’ ’How do I get out of here?’ So he did what any scared cat would do, Buddy ran away.  You would think that would be the end of the story wouldn’t you? …Avery lets go, cat runs away, everyone happy???…  Are you kidding me, really, have you met my son?

Well, instead of letting go when Buddy took off, Avery held on for dear life.  Avery was sitting up when this all occurred, so when Buddy went running, Avery held on for dear life and was propelled forward onto his belly and was dragged a few inches by the kitty.  VERY funny sight to see!  Nobody was hurt except, of course, for the gobs of hair we had to pull out of Avery’s (soaking wet from drool) clenched fists before he could eat it.  And maybe some of Buddy’s cat pride.  That’ll teach him to get that close to a baby.

Gate…

We had to officially put the baby gate up this past week.  He is not crawling yet, but he moves very fast doing the military crawl/jumping inchworm on his belly.  He gets around very well that way, so I put the gate up so he didn’t take a tumble down the stairs.  Yesterday, he got even closer to crawling, he has started ‘running’ with his knees.  His hands stay in one place, but he runs in place with his knees…looks really funny.  He is getting more brave by the day too, yesterday when he was on his hands and knees, I held a toy up in front of his face and he reached for it with one hand without getting off of his knees first.  Of course, he fell forward when he did it, but it is a ’step’ in the right direction.

More pics…

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, who knows, anyway…yesterday I had him in his room playing on his blanket from Aunt Mary while I went through his clothes and toys and general stuff to see what I could pack away and what needed to come out of storage.  I came across this had and I had to take a picture, ‘cuz he looked so darn cute…

         I just love this little guy, he has such a personality!

 All for now, until I publish this to the blog and realize I forgot another funny story.

Okay, so Avery is smart, but his mommy…not so much.

I was feeding him dinner last night and he was rather distracted.  He acted interested in the cereal, but once it got towards his mouth, he lowered his head and smacked the tray on the high chair.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I was getting the bites in, but he just wasn’t cooperating.  Then it hit me…and I watched him again as I sent a bite his direction…he was watching the shadow of the spoon move accross the tray and up his bib.  He was trying to get it while it was on the tray (like cats with a laser light).  Once I figured that out, the distraction was very funny.  I don’t know if he necesarily figured out that it was a shadow, but it was really cute.  Then as I took the tray off to get him out when we were finished, I saw this…

 Here’s another feet one for you mom…

Here’s some more pics…

And for those of you who say he doesn’t have any hair…

 Todd thinks that being out in the sun and fresh air at the Zoo stimulated his folicals and started his hair growing…who knows.

 And by the way, it is supposed to get up to 78 degrees today…in Wisconsin of all places.  We all know it will snow again before Wisconsin spring actually arrives, but it is nice while it is here.

Well, Avery is awake now, so I must go…love to all

Okay, I missed two from the week of St. Patrick’s Day…

Sleeping babies make one sleepy…

Only my nephew, Ben, can pull this look off…

   huh? 

Angel… and the opposite of angel…  and yes, he IS yelling, at the top of his little boy lungs.  I can’t belive I actually got the shot.  Good thing he wasn’t mad yelling.  Just testing the vocal cords.

So you buy all these toys, your family buys all these toys, your friends buy all these toys…and he wants to play in the laundry basket!  Go figure!  I was doing laundry and he started playing with the laundry basket, tipping it over and trying to crawl in, so I put him in it.  He played for longer than I thought he would for it being such a small space, I guess it just felt close and secure.  Something new.

Sometimes Mommy’s funny…

These are random pictures taken yesterday and today…

 feet, feet, feet, I like feet

Our evening ritual is to go into his room at 8:15, wind him down from the day, and get him set to go to bed at 8:30.  Sometimes he gets ahead of himself…

   Peek-a-boo

Another time when he started reaching into his toy basket, he started pulling stuff out that he wanted to play with.  It was cute…

  alllmooostt   ahh success.

   and again

 That’s all for now (was that enough pictures??).  Later gaters…