Art

August is becoming quite the artist.

He and Carlos have been using crayons. The first few attempts seemed to be more about the ripping of paper. But August now seems to get the idea that the crayons make color. He likes to run around with the crayons, so they are worrking on some bounderies. His teacher's said he does the same thing at school.

We also invested in some finger paints the otherday....oh let the painting begin!

We will post some demo's before to long.

Communications

August is becoming more adept with his comunications. IN the last several weeks he has responded to the question "are you hungry? should we eat?" by putting down his toy then walking over and asking to be picked up. Then signing more. Today, upon returning to the house from an outing, he signed to Carlos that he was hungry.

Block has a new prominence as well as Uh Oh. in the spoken world.

We still find it difficult to understand much of his babblings, but hey I was a late talker so.....

He does respond to fairly complex questions and comands in both English and in Spanish, and sign so we are not worried. Infact many parents have told us to enjoy this quieter stage ;-)

Bottle Free

We are officially a bottlefree house hold. Those pesky little objects still linger in the donation corner but the young man has not placed his lips on one in a week. He has even shown his ability to drink from a kids canteen with a built in straw.

It was a surprisingly easy transition. We simply eliminated his bedtime milk. Instead we go from bath to snuggle and in the bed. I was prepared for meltdowns but he transitioned like a champ.

Not in the mouth - (don't even touch it...)

Now that the winter is receding, we have been taking August to neighboring Mary Moore Searight Park to stretch his antsy legs outside. Last week, I just plopped him right in the middle of a big field with two little pushcarts and a ball - he cried when it was time to leave (and go take a nap because he had exhausted himself). Our next visit, Mama and I took him to the playgrounds - and he actually pulled himself up out of the rocks and dirt to go down the slides, face first, a couple of times.

Well if it worked last week, surely he'd love to play in the big field again, right? Yes, and no. Today, August was enchanted with the ground. He pulled up grass. He threw sand around. Of course he waved a stick or two. Did I mention I had to pull a deer pellet out of his mouth?

It seems August is a true sportsman and is deeply intent on locating the stag we briefly viewed months ago. While I share his commitment, it seems I've underestimated his dedication to our sporting endeavor.

Amazon did scare up a jack rabbit on our walk the other evening, but the quest for the white stage continues. (Gulp.)

Toys

• Blocks are August's current toy obsession. He is once again allowed to play with them since he responds positively to , "not in the mouth". They are the first thing he wants to play with in the morning and the last thing at night. He has started showing interest in stacking although his true love is for knocking down someone else's tower. August love to assemble the peg pieces with the squares that have holes. He makes "hammers" and "dumbells" that he is very proud of and shares with tehe parent types. He will even help us put the blocks back in the bag if we make it a game.
• He makes a rrrrrrrrmmmmmmm sound when playing with his cars now. It is very cute sonce he still mostly carries them around instead of pushing them. But he does like us to demonstrate how it is done. He tends to knock the cars/truck/train over because he pushes too hard. Then becomes facinated with the wheels.
• Bobot, the cardboard robot, got a makeover today. Mama' painted Bobot with temper paints durring naptimes one and two. He is now multicolored and apparently very exciting. August played with Bobot multiple times before dinner....he even left blocks to play with him.
• August is a natural dare devil. He seems to take after Mama' in this way. When he plays on the slide at the park he wants to go face down. He climbs right up himself and flings himself face first down the slide. An adult must always be at the bottom to catch him. There is not the slightest hesitation. Just a dive with a huge grin. bumpy slides, curvey slides, big kid slides are all good in his book.
• He has also started to blay with his chunky wooden puzzles. Sunny, Eric and Noah gave him an animal shapes puzzle that makes the appropriate animal noise when the piece is put in place. That is currently his favorite but he also seems to enjoy a construction machines puzzle as well.

Jack Bunny

August and Carlos saw their first Jack Rabbits today. We were taking our family walk with Amazon and in the field across from our appartment, Amazon flushed the Jack Rabbit. Its enormous ears lit up in the evening sun as it sprinted across the field.
August, Carlos and Amazon were very excited by the Jack Bunny (Currie had seen an entire herd yesterday morning on the way to work so her excitement was somewhat less)

The End is in Sight

We (the parents) had a goal to be bottle free house by August's 1st birthday. Things seemed to be going well @ 9 months but the fun novelty of the sippy cup soon wore off and he began to demand the bottle with more frequency and whole heartedly reject the sippy cups. We, the parents, tried different types of cups with different types of valves but to no success. Once the novelty wore off he simply rejected them all.

Then for his birthday we got some cheap BPA free, sip & toss cups, for the other babies and voila'! Sucess!

Now he drinks from all his various sippy cups valve free. Milk at meals and water through out the day. The one and only bottle he uses is at bed time. He still drinks his last 6 ounes of milk from the bottle but that is it. So all we need to do is get him to take sippy at night and it is done.

The end is in sight! We may become a bottle free house after all.