We're alive

Wow, time really flies when you are busy busy busy. Seth is 14 months old now and really starting to show his true colors. Now, he is still SO good for the most part but definitely has an ornery side. He's discovered it... free will. Sometimes when you go to pick him up and he doesn't want to be picked up he goes limp and puts his arms up. If you remove him from a situation before he's ready he bends over from the waist, puts his head down, and hits the ground with his hands. Think of an ostrich putting it's head in the sand, that's what he does. He's also discovered hitting and has mastered the art of throwing things. He hits me in the face, which I *really* don't like, but it's strange how difficult it is to keep from laughing. When he gets frustrated about something he hits, but he also hits when he's excited. If you tell him not to touch something, he blatantly defies you and touches it or hits it, while looking you straight in the eye. It's funny because he'll reach out and touch something really fast and then pull his hand away, like it's hot.

You can really tell now that he understands a lot of what we say and what we're asking him to do. He will follow simple commands or requests when he feels like it. Like putting an item into a container, which he loves to do, and then empty it out again of course -- all over the kitchen floor. This had some unexpected consequences though as now he thinks it is a fun and exciting game to throw things in the garbage, and when he does he claps and says his version of "yay!" So enter the garbage can with a locking lid, which I actually love. We were long over due. We removed the gate from around my Jade plant and so far it has survived without too much damage although I did see some stray leaves and branches on the floor today. The cats also like to play with it so I can't blame Seth completely. Seth has also been allowed to have the run of the stairs and within a day or two was zipping up and down lickity split. He slides down backwards on his belly and does it so fast I can hardly believe it. It is nice to know that he is fairly safe around stairs now though. Not that I would leave him unsupervised around big flights but we just have a short set of 6 or so that go up to our bedrooms and bathroom, and we keep the doors closed up there so the chaos stays to a minimum.

The last couple of weeks have been March Madness of course so there has been lots of basketball on TV. Whenever he sees it this is another time he claps and says "yay!!!" Which of course is really exciting for Eric. There's really no rhyme or reason to what he will eat or won't eat at any given moment. Sometimes you will offer something to him, like spaghetti or whatever, and he just can't get enough of it. One day he ate practically a whole box of macaroni and cheese! The next day it all went on the floor. Other times he will not pick it up and eat it off his tray but will if you put it directly in his mouth. Or you have to practically force him to eat one bite of something and then he realizes he likes it and then he will eat it himself. The latest weird item that he adopted on his own: black olives. I never would have guessed but he eats them and begs for more. Last week I also gave him some tofu with plum sauce and he thought that was pretty fabulous.

We took at trip to Seattle this weekend and went to the Children's museum. He liked it a lot, partly I think just because he had lots of room to roam around. It was really interesting to just put him down and see where he chose to go. He still has absolutely no stranger danger and will just walk up to anyone and try to push the buttons on their camera or whatever he feels like doing. We also saw Mandy and her family on Sunday and it was super cute seeing Seth and Kasey play together. The trip home went really well, we left around bedtime and Seth slept almost the entire ride home. We didn't stop at all and we didn't hear a peep from him until about Cheney. It was a good test run. Not sure how well he will do in the car for twice as long when we go up to Edmonton again here in a few weeks.

Another funny thing he has been doing lately is taking his shoes off. We've had them for quite awhile and probably part of it is that he likes ripping the velcro and the sound it makes, but I also think maybe they are getting too small and so he doesn't like wearing them. I'm looking around for some more but it's kind of a tough decision for me. He is still sleeping about 12-13 hours a night and 2x 1 hour naps during the day. It is nice to get that 2nd nap out of him but he also does really well if we skip it and just put him to bed a little early. He almost invariably wakes up at 7:30am regardless of when he goes to sleep at night. Whenever I tell people how much he sleeps they are amazed and tell me how lucky I am. But I'm going to take the credit, after all I worked hard training him. :)

That's about all I can think of for now. I unfortunately did not take very many pictures over the weekend since my camera died, but hopefully I can get copies of the ones my mom took at some point.