I’ve had a lot of work days the past week and a half, so I haven’t done that much to blog about or taken that many pictures, but I have a few to share! I have to say, one of my work days was only 8am to 4:30pm for a training day, and that was amazing – it felt like sleeping in not having to be there until 8, and getting home before dinner time was soooo great! And I only had to pump once during the day (actually I often get through my long shifts only pumping once, too). I think my ideal schedule would be if they started offering 8-hour shifts at my job (7am to 3:30pm) and I could do four a week. Then we could have Ari in daycare and A. could drop him off in the morning and I could go home, shower, and pick him up in the afternoon.

On one of my days this past week, I got to be on-call all day. We still had our nanny come for part of the day, and she did this cute finger-painting with baby food with Ari:

We went to the nearby Café au Play when Book Babies at the library was too full but I still wanted to go somewhere. I love this idea of the knobs and things for kids to play with while you wait in line and order at the counter!

Ari’s great-auntie sent him this Radio Flyer 4-in-1 trike for his first birthday – early, so we can start enjoying it now, in the nice weather we’re having! We excitedly opened the box but had to delay assembly for a few days.

Today, our friends came over and helped assemble it! Ari loves it, as you can see!

We took it for a trial spin while we walked Andrew to their house for a doggie playdate:

Then we headed to the new pizza place that took over the location of our favorite neighborhood breakfast place. Ari fell asleep and we were able to play our new game, Pandemic:

So, what has Ari been up to lately? Well, he seems to pretty clearly have two or three words he tries to say. “Dog” or “gog” is pretty consistently applied to Andrew and even to our nanny’s dog, according to our nanny. One night, he was flipping through his bedtime book and I heard him say “dog” and saw that he was on the dog page! He also says “gock” when he’s holding socks, and once when he seemed to be trying harder than normal to get the “s” sound, it came out as “hock”. He may or may not also say “duck” for his prized rubber duckies. Finally, he says “da da” a lot but it doesn’t seem like he’s referring specifically to A., except for one time the other evening when he was looking right at him as he said it.

He has stood up on his own without pulling up, and he’ll let go of something when he’s standing and just stand there for 10 seconds or so, and he’s “cruising” a lot more, holding onto things and taking steps, but no walking yet!

He’s been a really sweet, cheerful, charming guy in spite of being on some kind of sleeping strike recently – no naps except in the stroller, Ergo carrier, or car seat, and staying up late, until we finally go to bed with him! I would expect him to be cranky but he hasn’t been, at all, so it’s been easier to let him stay up.