I’m in the middle of my long work stretch. I got a bonus four hours off on Sunday when I got to leave early because our census was low, then I had yesterday off, just a short project at work today, and tomorrow I start another stretch of three shifts. The weather has been AMAZING the past couple of days and I’m so glad I was off for it! Yesterday it was at least 70 degrees.

We really need to do some work on our yard! I’ve been mowing again and today I tried it with Ari attached to the front of me. It was much easier when he was inside my belly!

Yesterday we went to Book Babies and Ari had a BLAST. There were probably about 20 babies there and most of them were crawling, it seemed. We did songs and books, but Ari’s favorite things were the shakers, play time with toys, the parachute, and the bubbles. When we did the parachute he sat under it with his back to me just shrieking and laughing and flapping his arms up and down. During the bubbles, he crawled to the other side of the room and sat there trying to catch bubbles with a few other babies. Afterwards, he dug through the bin of books.

We also went to the park to throw the ball for Andrew and Ari sat in the grass for a while and then figured out he could crawl in it – then he was off! All over the place! I didn’t take pictures of the crawling, though.

Then we had dinner outside!

So it was a good day off.

Ari has been so cute lately, and also more and more difficult with his behavior. I don’t want to label him stubborn or strong-willed but…well, I took Andrew to a new vet today and I had Ari with me and we just turned the whole room into a baby playroom! Books and toys all over the floor trying to keep him happy so we could talk about Andrew. She said, “he is a very busy one!” and it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard that. He’s really into toilet paper right now and will struggle to pull rolls of it off the lower shelves in the bathroom, then he’ll…eat it. When I take it away he screams and sobs! At the vet’s office he ripped off one of the flaps in his favorite peek-a-boo flap book and…ate it. Or tried, but I took the pink wad out of his mouth before we left. The first time I tried to take it out of his mouth, I stopped when he shrieked because I was trying to talk to the vet. I’m going to have to get better at being consistent but he’s not even 1 yet!

A couple of new accomplishments: he can put all of the shapes in his Green Toys Shape Sorter and the other day he pulled his wooden shape sorter off the shelf and emptied the pieces out and started trying to put one of them back in. Also today when I got home he crawled over to me and I thought he was going to pull himself up on me but he just kind of stood up in front of me and stood there for a second before he grabbed me for balance.

Also, he LOVES books. Maybe I said this already, but he’ll just sit there with his books flipping through them by himself. He turns the pages of his bedtime book by himself and pauses on the one where I make the “bzzz” bee sound and poke him in the belly. If he skips a page he’ll correct himself and go back to the right one! It’s so much fun to watch him learning to do more and more.

And here is a shot of Andrew doing one of his favorite things: