some pictures

What Gavin did during Mommy's shower

Caught!

Grilled cheese and tomato soup, Gavin style

Gavin LOVES his truck book. He gets so excited by trucks, especially the scraper and the telephone line repair truck (we can't figure that one out, but he adores that one!).

We've had a busy week. Gavin started swim lessons Monday. We had a lesson each day, Monday through Thursday. For half an hour we bopped around the swimming pool, splashing and singing silly songs and practicing blowing bubbles. The first day he was very unsure, clinging to me something fierce. By the end of the lesson he had warmed up and was having fun. The next day when we walked through the door and he saw the pool, he had a ginormous grin on his face and giggled. We have another week of lessons next week. Jason is planning on going into work late one day so he can come watch, and maybe he'll get a couple of pictures while he's at it so you all can see the boy in the pool.

Wednesday was Jason's birthday. We went out for dinner Tuesday with his grandparents to celebrate. On Wednesday I cooked him a birthday dinner of roast beef and red potatoes and baked him a Boston cream pie (although something went wrong with the cake and instead of being spongy it was denser than dense -- still tasty though). After dinner we met my mom and sister and her family for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.

Gavin has been talking up a storm. He now says mommy, and says it all the time, usually while whining and tugging at my shirt or shorts. I feel like a mother more than ever when he does that (eyes rolling). He also says daddy, but since he learned the sign for daddy, he prefers to use it instead of the word. Everyday it seems he says a new word, though like many of his words, they are often one-time things, or he'll say them a lot for a day and then not again for weeks.

He's learning new signs quickly too. It seems as if learning the sign for nursing set him off and running on signs - he learned he could actually communicate what he wants with them and that makes him so happy. He will now watch intently while we make a new sign, and then practice it. His recent new ones are cracker (the cookie sign), banana, daddy, car, and thank you. He's not doing all of those independently yet, but he's well on his way.

follow the day

It's kind of nice when you just follow the day and let it happen as it will, rather than trying to force it into your planned vision of the day. This morning Jason took the Honda in to have the brakes looked at. Gavin was needing a nap by that point, but wouldn't go to sleep so I (foolishly, I admit) decided we would go run our own errands instead. But as I was getting ready to go, Jason called and said he was on his way home. I waited until he got here, letting Gavin run around outside for a while since he hasn't had much outside run-around time lately.

Instead of dashing right out to run errands, as I'd planned, we all went inside. Jason put Gavin down (and of course he went right down for Jason, as usual. The stinker.). I sat down here in the office and spent the next hour and a half doing work for a friend in Massachusetts. All caught up, I went downstairs and read, while Jason played PS2, until Gavin woke up about half an hour later. (A long nap, a blessing!)

We headed out for our errands then, completing the ones we were able - the registrar's office was closed but we bought some shorts and shirts for the boy, I picked up the new Harry Potter from the library, and we got groceries. When we got home, dinnertime. By this time Gavin was super cranky and tired, and fortunately he went down really easily again (and again, for Jason. At least he sleeps for one of us.). Then I finished up baking the bread I'd started during dinnertime and we watched the British comedies on PBS. Anyway, it was a nice day, much nicer I think than if I'd forced the issue and taken Mr. Crankypants to the grocery store this morning.

Speaking of Mr Crankypants, he has finally started signing for nursing. He actually signs "want nurse," the "want" being pointing at his palm, which seems to be used differently enough from "more" that we are calling it a separate sign, "want." Of course, typical for him, he also uses "want nurse" to mean "want _____" (fill in the blank). Sigh. I suppose it's entirely possible that he always wants nursing. I wouldn't put it past him. Milkaholic, he is.

Once he finally started signing "want nurse," after a week of desperate teaching when I got fed up with the public shirt lifting, he was so incredibly thrilled. He was communicating! With words! You could see the elation and pride on his face in that big ol' toothy grin. He may actually have started asking to nurse more, just because he could. In the week after that he learned the sign for daddy and uses it frequently in context, and also started saying "mommy" and actually meaning me. I wish you could hear him saying that. It's sweet, but he says it in such an urgent way, half scream, half summons, I can see it will soon wear on my nerves if he doesn't tone it down. Aww who am I kidding, eventually it'd wear on my nerves no matter how sweetly he says it, right?!

Going now. I have a slice of hot, buttered, fresh-from-the-oven bread and Harry Potter waiting for me.

our life, lately

Two weeks ago (really, it was two weeks ago?) Gavin's Grandpa M and Grandma Julee came for a visit. They brought cousin Seak with them. We had a lovely time while they were here, going to the zoo and the park, and out to dinner and out for ice cream. Gavin and Sean played together pretty well, considering there's a 3.5 year age difference between them.

Our 4th weekend was okay. Saturday afternoon we went car shopping. We decided to trade in Dozer for a lower car payment and much lower gas consumption. We didn't find anything that fit out needs. That night we went to Rose's parents for a cookout since Rose and Mark were in town. We got to see little baby Jenna, who is growing up so quickly! It was so lovely seeing them. Truely, it's a shame they live so far away (yeah I know, a two hour drive -- sooooooooo far away...).

Sunday morning I got a call from the client I was currently on call for. She had been having pretty regular contractions all morning. She said they planned on going for lunch and doing some walking at the mall, and that she'd call me when anything changed. Jason and I decided to go out and do some more car shopping. We found a number of dealerships closed, which surprised us, as we figured weekends were the big time for car buying, especially a holiday weekend. Eventually we fell into the perfect deal and purchased an '01 Chevy Cavalier with only 10,000 miles on it: Mission Accomplished.

Meanwhile, my client was still contracting. Around 8 pm I went to their house and worked with her for awhile until contractions were close enough to go to the hospital. In all I spent around 20 hours with them. I didn't get home until 3:30 or 4 the next afternoon. Jason and I and Gavin went out for Taco Bell, then we came home and I crashed. It's been years since I was up for 30 hours straight, and never have I done it while experiencing such an emotional time as this birth was. So our 4th wasn't so much of a holiday, but that's ok. I'm not complaining one bit. The world is one baby boy richer now.

new word, just like that

Gavin has a new word, one he learned last night. At 1:15 this morning, Gavin was awake. He crawled over to me, pointed his warm little finger at my eye, and said, clear as a bell, "eye." Several time he did this, seeming quite happy with himself at his new skill. (Maybe that was why it took an hour and a half for him to go back to sleep!) This morning - later this morning, that is - he did the same thing, only we didn't mind so much since the hour was a much saner 9:15.

On a related note, each morning for the past few days he has at some point after crawling around on the bed and on us, crawled up to the headboard and grabbed my glasses. Normally this would elicit frantic grabbiing of the glasses from him, but for some reason a few days ago I didn't frantically grab, I just waited to see what he would do. And what he did was to put my glasses into my hand.

This morning he did the same thing, grabbed my glasses and put them into my hand. Only this time, he pointed to them and said, "eye!"

garden update

The garden is growing phenomenally. This was taken a couple of days ago, and we've had a heap of rain since then, so believe me that it's even larger now.

We've gotten 1 bunch of lettuce so far, which made some yummy salads. There are two more bunches out there but we haven't had salad with dinner in a few days. We need to soon, though, because they're getting bug-eaten. We've also gotten three beans (yes folks, three whole beans!) from the bean bushes. And there's one cucumber that should be ready to eat in a week or so, and a ton of cucumbers and pickling cucumbers that are just beginning to grow. The zucchini are a bit slower, but there are plenty of blossoms. And the tomatoes are blossoming too. Ah, the vegetable excitement of a garden!

water and language

I made the mistake last week of introducing Gavin to alternate methods of playing with water. He was bound to find these ways sooner or later, and I relize now, too late, that it is much better for it to be later than sooner. But alas, Fist Time Parent-itis strikes again.

I don't even remember now how it was I introduced him to the kitchen sink as a plaything. I'd held him up to it before to rinse cereal or yogurt off his hands and face but never just to play in. Oh yes, I remember now - I was on the phone with a client and Gavin was clinging to my leg crying and whining for attention. I needed to talk to this person, I couldn't hang up and talk later. So I picked up the boy and held him up to the sink and turned on the water. Ahhhh, Gavin said. This is fun! Splash, splash. Unh! Unh! Turn the water back on!

Oh boy.

Now whenever we're in the kitchen, guess what he wants to do?

Oh boy again.

The other thing I introduced him to, this time knowing fully what I was doing, is the hose outside. How could I not, when I had to use it to fill his little inflatable pool? And when it's so hot and humid outside it's like swimming just to walk to the garden?

I don't mind the hose so much. It's fun to watch him play with the water. Or drink it, which is really what he spends much of his hose playtime doing. The rest of the time is spent pushing on the outlet with his fingers, which makes water squirt everywhere. He started doing that, then dashing toward me for a hug when the water got him. He would do that while laughing and giggling, so it wasn't that he was scared by the water. It was just part of the game. The other thing he's started doing is anytime he's playing with water - hose, sink, pool, or bathtub - is to dip his fingers in and suck the water off, then hold his fingers up for me to have water too. Aww, thanks kid. Thanks for sharing your dirty icky buggy poolwater with me.

One afternoon this week Gavin and I were playing with the phone. He loves the phone. It beeps. Sometimes it talks (as it did yesterday afternoon in a different phone playing episode... fortunately it was only Jason he'd called, and not some random stranger). So we were playing at answering the phone. I say "ring, ring", he puts it up to the general vicinity of his ear, then I say "hello?" On this occasion he started saying "hi" when he put it to his ear. So then I expanded on that and started saying, "hi Daddy." Imagine my surprise when he repeated, "Hi Daaa-eee"!

Since then Gavin has been on a "daddy" kick, practicing his "dada" sounds. He is still not saying words with any regularity, apart from "hi," "ball," "bread," and "belly." A strange assortment of words, to be sure. But he is getting closer to talking, we think. Or at least closer to the time when he'll start saying more words - hopefully words that will help him communicate his needs with us. We're not naive enough to think one morning he'll wake up reciting the Gettysburg Address, but maybe he'll say "water" or "eat."

And now, some pictures.

Is there a Gavin behind that ball?

Why yes, yes there is!