The month in photos...

I think this is my favorite photo of Hank from the last month. He looks happy like this almost all the time. We are so lucky. He laughs a lot, talks a lot, claps his hands all the time, is starting to wave hello and goodbye, and says 'Mama!' and 'Dada!' He can sign 'milk' and we are working on 'book', 'cat', 'more', and 'food'. He's very communicative and makes no qualms about telling us what he wants or what is on his mind.

Of course he's also become very mommy-centric this month, and he's started to exhibit some serious separation anxiety. So very often he does more than his fair share of screaming and crying (this is usually when he says 'mama, mama, mama, mama!!!!' over and over again). Actually, the first time he did this at a day care drop off, I was so surprised that he was upset that I was leaving that I stopped and looked at him and he crawled over to me, babbling and crying and tried to climb up my legs. I had to pry him off in order to leave. :( it was sad! The only way to temper this when we are at home (because he does it when he is on one side of his gate and I am on the other) has been to take a stab at babyproofing the living room. I'm sure it could be made safer, but for the time being it is ok. He loves to cruise around in here, and we got a long tunnel that he loves to go through. One of the best games these days is for me to go to one end, wait for him to start crawling towards me, and then I zip over to the other end so that when he gets to where he thinks I am waiting he finds that he has to turn around and come find me again. It must be a little infuriating for him, but it is funny as hell for us! Mean mommy....

Oh and all that sleep training I wrote about a month ago has gone out the window... between a cold that won't go away, the teething that never seems to end, and being on the brink of learning to walk, this kid just won't sleep these days. Life is far too exciting. Which means 4:30 am seems like a perfectly good and reasonable time to get up in the morning, which means we;ve had to spend a lot of wee hours trying to sleep on his floor while he putters around his room around us, and sometimes curls up next to us to nap.


























The diaper pail, while perhaps not so hygenic, is a great place to hang out and pick up chicks... 'Hey, baby!'















I try not to get too political here on the blog, but I love this picture of my moms' group with all the babies dressed in their Obama onesies. I wish the quality were a little better, and that some people hadn't been cut out, but it is a pretty good picture of Hank and all his baby friends.















'What should I play with first???' Decisions, decisions...
















This is a photo of Hank and Riley mere moments before Hank's first cat scratch. Poor baby! We felt terrible! But he bounced back quickly and just adores the cats. The cats are not so crazy about Hank. Hank is quick, though, and he chases them all over the living room. They can barely get out of his way.