Caught on camera (phone)

Yesterday- at the zoo James became a darling lion.

Oct. 13- umm...Gross!  somehow this makes him look a bit like a pirate to me.  Unfortunately he did remove this and pop it into his mouth.

Oct. 10th- got to the stage where putting on our shoes was a daily delight.

On Oct. 8th Decatur hosted a "touch-a-truck day" where all the city vehicles are put on display for children to explore and learn about.  

James got to experience the back of a police cruiser.

See the ladder of the fire truck.

Sit in the back of said truck (that seat was REALLY high off the ground!).

"Drive" the small garbage collection truck.

He thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

Taken on Sept. 23rd- James was rummaging in the bottom of his toy basket and came across a long-ago discarded pacifier.  It had been one of his favorites for the first few months of his life.  He seriously looks weird to me with it in his mouth and thankfully he didn't decide to take up the habit again.

To the aquarium with ish-ten and ellie

This morning we got to go to the aquarium with Christian and Shelly.  James is so enjoying being one of the boys now- pretty much able to keep up with his friends that are older.  And is quite funny to sit in the front seat eaves dropping on their 'conversations' coming from the back seat.

As usual James was thrilled to see all the animals.  To his dismay the octopus was hiding as staff were in the tank cleaning it.  But James did get to touch a cownose ray, a horseshoe crab, sea urchin (not sure what kind) and a sea star (he still insists on calling them starfish).  Also, it seems his aquatic interest might be shifting slightly from octopus to sea stars (or at least they might be on par at the moment).  His other burgeoning aquatic love is for the hammerhead shark.  Unfortunately the big tank didn't seem to have any at the moment even though they used to be there (this might be due to the fact that they were consuming other animals in the tank- namely the cownose rays).

On the way out through the gift shop I picked up a fish ornament to give to James this Christmas- though I doubt he'll leave it on the tree for long.  Currently about 20 of our decorations are off the tree and in the den being sorted, piled up and in general being truly enjoyed.

Crib climbing update

This evening James got to stay up a bit late to make sure he was good and tired (and lacking extra climbing energy), he had a long shower opening magic beans, got extra songs and a long back rub (well, he says back rub please but really wants his tummy rubbed) while I sang even more songs to him (currently requested is more 'row, row, row...boat').  And when I said goodnight to him I said "James, it is time to go to sleep.  So you need to stay in bed and close your eyes and go to sleep." To which he replied "No down, no open door, knock, knock" he was recounting what he had done earlier and was not supposed to do again.  And thankfully it worked, he stayed in bed and was awake a while before going to sleep as normal. I had tried not to make a big deal out of climbing out of his crib earlier, thinking if I make a big fuss he'll know it is something worth his while to do- and of course I didn't want to make him feel like he had done something wrong as I'd never told him he wasn't allowed to climb out of his crib (why put the idea in his head!).  So hopefully what he heard from me today is that when he is put to bed he is to stay in his bed- whether it is a crib or in a few days a toddler bed.  I think either tomorrow or Sunday I'll be heading to pick one up.  Tonight he had no sleep sack on as I thought that would only up the danger aspect should he try to climb out again.  I am truly dreading having him in a toddler bed.  Almost all of his toys are in his room as we don't have a play room, so he will have free reign in there unless we can figure out how to make it worth his while to stay in bed.  Either that or all the toys will have to come out of there and perhaps go in the den.  He was already starting to look so old to Tim and I and this latest development just confirms that.  My baby is no longer a baby.

It finally happened...

I've tried my best to prevent it by use of sleepsacks to restrict range of movement, but today James finally figured out how to climb out of his crib.

One minute he is in bed for naptime, the next minute I hear strange noises from his room and I walk to the door and hear the ominous noises of the door handle jiggling and his voice saying "knock, knock.....knock, knock....knock, knock".

Sigh.

I ended up rubbing his back and singing him to sleep.  

Not sure what our game plan will be now- we need to figure out how to keep him safe and falling from the top of the crib rail seems highly dangerous to me.  

I might just try (at least tonight) telling him that he is not allowed to get out of bed.   I'm guessing this has about a 5% chance of success.

OCTOPUS!!!

 The other night I was standing outside James' door after he'd been asleep a couple of hours and I heard him stirring, rolling around his crib to find a comfortable position, still asleep....then I heard him say in a sleepy, dreamy voice..."starfish..." our darling boy is still obsessed with all things aquatic.  He nightly requests his ocean books for bedtime reading, LOVES Finding Nemo (said knee-moo by James) and carries his toys octopodes (Tim and I just had a google referenced discussion on which is the correct plural form of octopus) around with him 80% of the time.  So yesterday when we went to the aquarium James was able to tell me exactly which animals he wanted to see (normally we go with friends who have older children and I've always just taken James along with them at their pace as he is pretty flexible that way)- so he requested to see the Sea Horses and BIG sting ray (meaning the Manta Rays) and, of course, the Octopus.  Often the octopus is hiding in a crevice in his exhibit and James is sad to not truly see him.  However, last visit and yesterday's visit had the octopus out and about much to James' delight.

Last visit we talked about how we could see the suckers as the octopus crawled along the glass- I said something like "look you can see the suckers on the bottom of the octopus!" from which James extrapolated that we were looking at "oct-pus bum" (his words) and he was thrilled to keep repeating with enthusiasm "Oct-pus bum!"  He had recently been practicing body parts and one of favorites at the time was the human bum.  (Since then his favorite to point out is eyebrows.)

That night I told Tim about James' discovery of the Octpus Bum and Tim said he thought the mouth was actually underneath.  Google confirmed so our recent visit to the tank had me correcting James about bum versus mouth.  He wasn't as thrilled with this development.

However, he did love the octopus just as much and spent quite a bit of time crawling back and forth in front of the tank following the octopus' travels.  He was one delighted little boy.

Birthday with Daddy

 Wednesday was James' actual birth day and one way we celebrated was to pick up James' favorite "pig" (bbq) and take a picnic lunch to the airport park with Tim.

 Not sure what I said to elicit this expression but it does seem these days that James is practicing a lot of emotions via facial expressions.  In fact, if he is getting grumpy we practice our grumpy faces and then our happy faces and that usually will get him out of his funk.

 James did love the planes and playground but he was also thrilled to use his running skills (he learned to run a couple of months ago and now can go quite fast without tripping) to chase flocks of small brown birds- Tim was indulgent and even let him chase them into a parking lot.

James wasn't too happy when Tim said his goodbyes to go back to work.

 But a kiss always makes things better.

 That evening Tim brought home James a decadent cupcake since he won't get his birthday cake until his party this weekend.  Lucky for me James was full from dinner so I got to share in the goodie.

When everyone one in the house is battling a cold...

 This past weekend all three of us had stuffy heads and runny noses- which means energy was low for going out and active playing.

 My solution to James' boredom was to provide him with something new (and something other than his beloved "shows"). 

 So our dining table and chairs became his first blanket fort/tent and he loved it.