11 months

Simon turned 11 months old today and a few of the highlights from the past month were, of course, food-related. Shocker! As Kevin was picking him up from school earlier this month, he witnessed Simon at the table YELLING for more Cheerios! He tends to just yell when he’s hungry. He also had his first donut just a few days after the Cheerios incident as Kevin took him and Harmon to Erwin Orchard.

This month was also big at school as Simon moved into a new room. He’s no longer a ladybug at Annie’s, he’s now a big bad dragonfly! This move really spurred a lot of new activities, especially pulling up on any and every thing AND cruising.

Who knows what the next month will bring!

Let's go Krogering

Harmon doesn't always like to eat his dinner, or go to bed, or, for that matter, get out of bed on school mornings. But, one thing he does, without fail, is accompany me to Kroger. It may seem simple, but one of our special times together is when we have father-son time at the grocery store.

There was a time when he would tell me which Kroger to go to (the one "by the stadium" is actually Westside, while the one "by our house" is actually just that -- nearby on Carpenter Road). Once there, we are a machine. Now, just ask Aimee, I love me some lists. I write lists on everything, so, of course, I bring my list to Kroger. But, Harmon seems to always know what we need.

First, no matter what entrance we go through, he insists on running to get this yogurt. Then, it varies from pretzels to Pop-tarts to bread to fruit. But, one thing he loves to do is to carry the next item we pick up. It never fails: he could be walking down the aisle with a bag of "chester" (Chessman) cookies, and if I stop and get more applesauce, he has to carry that. Heck, I could pick out a 40-pound bag of charcoal and Harmon would strap it to his back if it meant he could carry it around the store for a while.

When we head to the checkout, Harmon will take the last item that has now become his best friend and hand it to the checkout clerk. But, they must scan it right then and there and hand it back to him in its own bag. If not, he will let them know.

Lately, he has loved taking quarters and buying things out of the gumball machines at the entrances to the stores. Hard to believe most of those things are $1 now. But, I did feed Donkey Kong and Crazy Climber machines when I was younger, so I am happy to give him quarters.

Overall, we have fun together and it makes the chore of grocery shopping more fun. I tell him I always enjoy my trips to Kroger with my buddy!

Simon's 10-month update

Simon has spent most of the last month getting after it at the dinner table. While we had let him try a few things – Cheerios, banana and those Gerber puffs – it wound up as a total finger food fail. So, we waited until Thursday, Sept. 17 to try it again and then IT WAS ON. He had some cheese and bread that night with us at dinner and loved it. He has not looked back since. He’s devouring Cheerios, several kinds of bread (biscuits, crescent rolls, garlic bread, etc.), pasta, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, apple, raisins, zucchini, peas, carrots, squash, applesauce, puffs, oatmeal, yogurt and tortilla. We also are adding things by the day and DUDE LOVES ALL OF IT. He loves to eat and there is no way possible you can feed him fast enough. If you take one split second longer than he wants, he will let you know about it. In short, he’s a great eater and we're happy about that!

Because of all the finger foods, he is way less interested in his bottle. He still has it but not nearly as often. I hope he weans himself at Christmas like Harmon did.

To work off all that food, he is army crawling like nobody’s business and just starting to pull himself up. While he loves his toys, his favorite activity as of late (well, besides eating) is giving his big brother a heart attack by getting into his toys. We’re working on sharing – it’s going OK.

Lots of new words and sounds but STILL NO MAMA! Damn it, kid.

And, lastly, yes, at 10 months, the eyes are still blue. I’m starting to believe.

Ring my bell

Last night, when we all were playing in the basement, Simon busted out his fastest army crawl toward the exercise room/playroom. Of course, as evidenced here, Harmon can’t handle this. So, in an effort to prevent Simon from touching his precious toys, he stormed by him and crashed right into one of the exposed basement poles. The impact knocked him to the ground and the sound was that of a dinner bell ringing (I still can hear it). By the time Kevin got to him, he was up on his feet but we quickly had to wrestle him back to the ground to put some ice on the already-developing bump (oh and he HATES ice). I think we caught it in time because the welting and the bruising, fortunately, weren’t bad at all.

All this bell ringing, though, got us to thinking that we’re REALLY going to have to do something about those poles as Simon learns to walk. The basement wasn’t finished when Harmon first started walking so we never had to worry about it then. Now, though, we need to come up with a plan – quickly – or we’ll have to wrestle two kids to the ground for ice treatments.

Please, stop, noooooooo!

Now that Simon is mobile, Harmon can't stomach the thought of his baby brother putting all his precious cars – with or without faces – in his mouth. So, the minute Simon is on the loose, Harmon totally loses his damn mind.

Harmon will be playing in the living room and the minute he sees Simon peek his head out of his bedroom AT THE OTHER END OF THE HALL, this is pretty much his reaction:



I’m hoping he’ll grow out of this!