But wait - there's more!!

Yes, yes it's TRUE! Two new blogs in TWO DAYS!!! Count them... One, two! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (Yes, we've been watching a little Sesame Street in our house lately... LOVE the Sprout channel!)

So Bug has learned some new skills recently that I just have to share with everyone. First is he's learning to point to parts of his body or pictures of things when you ask him. He's awesome about point to his "nose" and picking up his feet when you say "foot" (which is really cute because sometimes he loses his balance and topples over!). He also knows that the hat goes on his "head" and we're working on "eye" and "ear" and "belly". He also pats his side for "diaper" or "stinky poopie". I'm so proud. :-) He will point to dogs, kitties and balls when he sees their pictures, and is learning to point to "Dada", "Mama", "Tucker" and "Alex" when asked. SO CLEVER!!

Another very recent skill is that he will put his clothes into his hamper when we are changing! So jam-jams go into the hamper in the morning, and socks (one at a time of course) and clothes go in before bath. I never really showed him, just one morning I handed him his jammies and said, "Alex, can you put your jam-jams in the hamper?" and pointed and away he went!!! I was so thrilled I clapped and cheered and hugged and kissed him. Now every time he does it he'll put something in and then turn and look at you and if you don't clap for him he gets a stern look on his face and claps to encourage you. Well of course then I clap like mad for dear Bug and he just beams! He will also put something in and if there is more than one piece he sometimes rushes to get it and doesn't quite get the first one all the way in. So he'll start to walk away, then turn and look and he has to go back to put the first piece ALL the way into the hamper. I honestly don't know where this child would have learned perfectionist anal tendencies... do you?

So here we go, some more pictures. A bit random in their subject, but well worth it!

First, a few from the zoo... we didn't take very many, but we sure had fun! Grandma Mary bought us all ice cream treats and WOW was that pink flamingo thingy awesome! Vanilla soft serve swirled with cherry icee... YUM. Alex was quite taken with it... until he got brain freeze from eating too quickly! Luckily a sip of water cured that and he dove right back in. Also do you see the peacock. Do you SEE IT? How CLOSE it is? Yes, pretty bird but dang those things are aggressive. We watched this particular jeweled terror snatch a cracker right out of a little girl's hand. Yeah, I wasn't too keen to linger around there much longer. I mean it's just a short hop from cracker to BUG TOES right?

Bug was also really interested in the elephants. We have some in his room with the safari theme, but seeing them in real life like that really captured his interest. So I've been doing the sign for elephant (using your arm to show how the trunk would go from your nose) and now he sorta does that sign and says "mmrrruuuu" whenever he sees an elephant. It's great!

Here are a couple pictures of our little eater. I believe one is bbq chicken, veggies and noodles with a side of Grandma Mary's famous frog eye salad for dessert. And then of course the first introduction to chocolate pudding. I think a picture is worth a thousand words on this one. I will take a second to point out that Alex is very good with a spoon and a fork. In fact he feeds himself a bowl of Cheerios and milk every morning with very minimal mess. However, the spoon was just not efficient enough for the pudding...

And lastly, the ever popular naked bath photos. I love bath time with Alex. He just loves to play and blow bubbles and "swim" and splash. He does try quite frequently to drink the bath water, so I had to take away all of the container toys for a bit, but I recently gave them back to him and now he just fills them up and dumps them all over his head. Yes, some still gets into his mouth when he gasps from the rush of water over his face, but not nearly as much as when he drank the shaving cap full. I'll take what I can get.

Alex has curly hair. Who would have guessed? Really curly hair. Especially when it's wet. But even dry it's beautiful and wavy the longer it gets. He is also really good about letting me brush his teeth, and really likes to "brush" his own. Here is is blowing bubbles for you, too.

Here is Bug after his most recent haircut. We love Julie!!!

Update from May and June 08

SURPRISE!!

Yes, yes... I know there are many of you that are rubbing your eyes right now... is it true? Is this really a blog update? Am I dreaming? Should I buy a lottery ticket? (The answer to this last one is YES and if you win you must share the karma....) But yes - Here it is!!! Mostly just a lot of pictures of dear Bug, with stories here and there.

We've had a great spring/summer so far, taking trips to the zoo, the Children's Museum, Trinidad, the park and the swimming pool so far. We hope to be able to do all of that again and explore even more places.

Alex has been doing so great - he's really trying to talk and gibbers a LOT. He's getting very good about repeating "words" and we can get him to say a lot of things at least once. Duck is a pretty new word, and the usuals... dog, ball, book, Dada, Mama, hat, bubbles.... But he is doing the signs for a ton of words. He points to the sky when he hears an airplane, he makes a "beak" when we say bird, taps his head for hat, does bath and sleep every night for bed, shows us he wants to eat or drink, shows us milk, is starting to do the "I love you" hug sign... gosh there are so many! He's still a fantastic eater. New favorites are plums, chicken nuggets, bananas and cottage cheese with yogurt just like Mama and Dada eat.

One funny story and then on to the photos. I've always sung to Alex a lot... made up songs, silly songs, lullabies, "The Ants Go Marching" often enough to populate the entire Amazon rain forest with ants, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" en espanol, you name it, I can sing it! Now, luckily Alex is my biggest fan and thinks I have the most amazing voice in the world. Or so I thought. One recent morning on the way to daycare I was showering him with my rendition of Old McDonald when I turned to see how he was doing. He had his head turned and buried in the corner of the car seat with his face smooshed against the side and his finger in his ear. WELL! I'm sure it wasn't my singing... right? =)

Without further ado... I present - BUG.

Memorial Day in Trinidad:

Alex helped water Grandma Mary's flowers, and helped Papa John hang some cool lights for the bbq party! He also got to sample the piano at Nan's that will soon be living in our house. Hooray!

Children's Museum

Oh my gosh, we ALL had so much fun at the museum. Alex cracked up when Dan used the frog hand puppet. He had a blast with the Lincoln logs and exploring the little forest area. He was in and out of every little house they had, and of course loved the kitchen area, just like at home. He always has a bowl and a spoon nearby and loves to "cook" things with Mama.

Helping out in the Yard:

We've been doing a lot of work in the back yard this summer and Bug has loved helping. He knows though that if we're going to be outside he needs a hat, and will tap his head or yours and say "hat" when you start to head out the door if you've forgotten to put one on him or yourself!

A "Sign" of things to come!

Well it's official - we have words! We've thought that Bug has been trying to tell us things for a while now, but we just couldn't quite understand his particular take on English. He's been very good about using the signs he knows and he's really starting to pick up more and use them correctly!

So last Saturday (the day before Mother's Day) little Bug was kind of wandering around looking like he needed a distraction. So I said, "Alex, go get a book and I'll read it to you!". He looks up at me, does the sign for book (hands together and then opening them like a book) and says "Buhk?" "YES! That's right! Book!" "Buhk? Buhk? Buhk?" saying it and doing the sign. He got so excited! He then picked one of his favorite books, handed it to me in that adorable way toddlers do - standing as far as possible while still leaning towards you - then he turned around and backed up across the 2 feet separating us until he felt my lap bump his legs and sat gingerly and expectantly on my lap for me to begin reading. Hooray Bug! Since then we've had "ball" (bah) and "bubbles" (bububs). All of these he's said a number of times so we're sure that they're the real deal! Notice the "B" theme? He doesn't say "dog" so much as we thought he would, but he uses the sign for it all the time (patting your leg).

Other fun sounds are him giggling which we adore, and anytime he sees a cat or a picture of a cat he says "maaaoowww". SO CUTE! He also puts his hands to his mouth when he does this, which is almost how the sign for cat is (using your fingers to draw whiskers from your mouth). So I'm 99% sure that's what he's doing!

April 2008 - Aquarium and Playing Around

Well Spring has finally arrived here in Denver and we've taken advantage of it whenever we can. It started with a trip to the dog park with Tucker and our good friend Chris. Alex just loves to go "off roading" in his stroller and tries to get me to go faster by rocking back and forth and then throwing his hands in the air whenever it gets bumpy. I think we're going to have an adrenaline junkie on our hands.

Bug has always been great about keeping a hat on and he really likes his sunglasses, too. Here he is surveying all of the dogs and making sure everyone is getting along. He really gets a kick out of all the dogs and the kids at the park. He especially loves all the doggie kisses he gets!!


One Saturday in early April we had planned on going to the zoo with our friends Windi and Oz, but the weather forecast called for cooooold and windy, so we changed our plans and met at the aquarium instead. Bug had a fantastic time and really thought that the divers in the big tanks were so cool! He loved the bubbles coming out of their masks and waved back at them when they came close to the glass. I think we'll have to go back when it isn't so crowded though. He really liked walking around and checking things out, but there were so many people that we were afraid he get squashed like a... well... a Bug!


Alex still loves the Signing Times videos and we got him a few new ones recently. He's gotten very good about imitating the signs as they do them on the video and is starting to use them more consistently to communicate with us. We love it and get so excited when you can see on his face that he's told you something and you understand him! He's very good about eat, all done, bath, more and is getting better at milk and water. He'll imitate just about all of them and the sweetest are baby and bear. Here he is sitting in his duck chair watching a video. We try to pull the pacifier out as often as we can, but usually the pacifier and the blanket aren't far from where little Bug is. He just ADORES his blankets and gets so excited whenever he sees one of them. Luckily there isn't a specific one so we're safe for now. We have 6 all together, some made by both grandmas and some that were gifts.


Isn't this just the sweetest little face?


















I came out of the kitchen the other evening to see this! Alex had climbed up onto the toy box we got him for his birthday and was kicking his toys off of the top of it while balancing on the other leg. Amazing! He just thought this was so cool. I snapped a bunch of pictures and just as I was going to show him a "safe" way to get down, he found the "quicker" way down and just fell off of it. At least it's only about 18 inches up! Luckily he was just fine and didn't cry so much as look at me in shock. He hasn't gone back up since so I guess that was a good lesson learned the hard way. Mama learned one too!!

March 2008 - Bugaboo Turns ONE! and Easter!

March was a very busy and exciting month for us! With a walker in the house we really had to make sure that things were baby safe. Luckily the installation of a cool gate on one set of stairs and a removable gate on the other made the whole 1st floor Alex-proof. We put a lock on one cabinet but all the others are up for grabs, and boy does he know it! His favorite ones to get into are the pantry, the pots and pans, the measuring cups and spoons, but especially the appliances where the coffee pot and the food processor (sans blades of course) are still the highlight of his explorations.


The dishwasher also holds a high level of appeal
and when it's clean and almost empty is fair game for our little adventurer.























Another big adventure was getting his first haircut! Judging by this picture, he was really needing one. Bug doesn't have a lot of hair, but there were a few rouge pieces that were just insanely long, so he mostly needed a little trim to clean him up. Luckily our good friend and sometimes babysitter Julie is a professional hair wrangler and offered to come by to tame the tresses! Bug was awesome and sat very (ok sorta) still as she snip snip snipped away. Of course we saved every last little wisp and curl.

Here is the after, doesn't he look handsome?!? :)


The day after the haircut was St. Patrick's Day and was welcomed with a new t-shirt from GG.

By far the highlight of March was Bugaboo's 1st birthday. We had lots of friends and family come over to help celebrate, and we had a rubber ducky theme to complete the fun! There were lots of balloons and of course, cake - and one special little one for the Bug! I think that the actual cake and frosting were too sweet for Alex, but he really enjoyed mashing and smearing it everywhere as the pictures show.

Alex got TONS of cool things for his big day, but the runaway winner and still favorite to this day is the set of golf clubs from Uncle Steve. We showed him one time how to hold the club and hit the ball, and that's all it took. He's a natural! The clubs did not leave his hand for hours, and we literally had to distract him, take it away and hide it when it was time for bath and bed. The next morning that was the first thing he looked for when we went downstairs. After weeks now of practicing he's developed a multi-sport game of his own. It's a combination baseball, golf, hockey and soccer. He'll pick up the golf ball and throw it as far as he can (and he's got quite a little arm on him). Then he'll run over to it, gently tap it (a natural putter), then go up to it and smack it with both hands on the club as far as he can (Daddy calls this his slap shot). Once he catches up to the ball at last he'll kick it around with his feet then pick it up and start all over.

Here is Alex after getting the frosting all cleaned off of him snuggling with Grandma and Grandpa Wheeler. Notice the golf ball in his hand?

The next day was Easter Sunday! GG, Papa John and Uncle Steve were all here for a yummy lunch and of course the Easter Egg Hunt! We'd had the eggs out for weeks before hand so they had kind of lost their novelty by the time Easter rolled around. However, being outside and of course having the golf clubs was exciting enough for Alex!