Eleven Months

Erin is eleven months old today.  In a month she will be ONE YEAR OLD.  Which is ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, Erin was ridiculously grumpy today.  She's got one bottom tooth that has broken through, but still isn't really visible.  She's got another bottom tooth that is JUST BARELY trying to come through.  And man does that ever make her grumpy.  I'd love for all her teeth to just come in right now, so we can get the grumpies over and done with.

Erin can easily pull herself up to a standing position almost anywhere.  She's a wicked fast crawler, and her unusual crawling position means that she can pretty easily carry something in her hand while she crawls.  She's not walking at all when she's is standing up.  If she's standing and sees something she wants, she crawls over, stands up and gets it.

Erin loves books with photographs in them (she especially seems to love pictures of cats.  Which, sorry kiddo, isn't going to happen).  She babbles away all day long saying who knows what.  She has a reliable "milk" sign, and "all done."  That's about all you can count on for signs - the rest are just wavey flappy hands and arms, which could really mean anything.

She loves her brother, and she loves her dog, and she very much enjoys a good game of "crash baby down" on my bed, or bouncing on Dexter's bed, or bouncing on the trampoline in the basement.  She giggles when you chase her, and she loves a good game of peek-a-boo.

Here's some pictures, and a video (click for link) from today:

She's moved her drawer pilfering to the next one higher

Still trying to pull that front off the drawer.  Again.

And here's some photos from the past month or so:

Not Erin, but a cute moon and the leftover of the sunset.

She reminds me of her cousin Gordon in this one

She stands up to greet me after every nap

This reminded me of one of my favorite Dexter photos.

Erin's burrito face

How'd that work out for you?

Dex was telling John at dinner today about his sad choice at school today.  How a friend at school had a car and was wrecking everything, and broke Dexter's road.  And how Dexter hit him.  And I said "So how'd that work out for you?"

"PRETTY GOOD!" he said enthusiastically.  "He stopped wrecking things and cried instead."

John had to leave the table go stand over the kitchen sink, so as not to spew his mouth full of water all over everybody at the table...

Beach Day

Going to the beach is hard work.  When you're just making a day trip you have to take food, and water, and more snacks, and chairs, and beach toys, and somewhere for the baby to take a nap.  And then you have to CARRY all this crap to the beach, with two unhelpful children who just don't carry a damn thing themselves.  And then you get there and everyone wants a snack, and doesn't want to get sandy, and HEAVEN FORBID you even mention going close to the water because there's just no way that's gonna fly.  And then it's time for lunch, and someone needs to go potty, and someone else has poopy in their diaper, and someone is mildly entertained by the water and the sand til so much sand gets in their mouth that they are gagging on it, and someone STILL won't go in the water because it bites.  Or tickles their feet.  Or makes the sand move under them.  Or whatever.  And then someone needs a nap, and someone STILL won't go in the water til someone picks that someone's ass right up and just carries that someone in, literally kicking and screaming, til that screaming someone realizes that, hey, this is actually kind of cool and the waves are ok out here and I can swim and LOOK I AM TREADING WATER!  And then someone wakes up from a way too short nap, and it's time for another snack and another quick swim, and then suddenly it's time to pack up and go home so we can have dinner and shower and go to bed.  Holy man, am I ever tired.  There's no way I could take both kids to the beach by myself these days.  Thank heavens John came, too.

Erin checks out this strange new world

Huh.  What's this strange sandy stuff that I can throw all over the place?

I didn't see it happen, but apparently Dex went down to the water the first time and freaked out when he stood in the water and a wave made the sand come out from under his feet.  Aaaaaaand that was about the end of the water for him.

She was pretty proud of herself.

Erin was mildly entertained.  I sat with her at the edge of the water for a while and she was giggling.  She liked eating the wet sand.  I took her in to swim a few times.  Sometimes she was cool.  Sometimes she was crying.

This was a "crying"version

Dex was working on some sand castles, and also a little pool for Erin to sit in.  So he needed some water for his pool.  We made him go get his own.  Watching him try to scoop up water with his bucket while not actually STEPPING in the water?  Priceless.

Time for lunch

Time for lunch!

Official beach shot for the summer

Sleepy here was SO TIRED, but wanted to watch everything.  So she'd be sitting, and then lean over and put her head in her lap to rest for a while.  Somehow, I don't think you can sleep that way little girl.

Not sure this loungey way is going to work out for you, either.

Ahhhh.  That's better.

So I picked Dex up and walked in to the ocean with him.  He freaked out.  But once he was in and I distracted him a little bit with chatter about boats and paddle boards and the like, he realized that the ocean is ok.  I get it, his fear of waves.  They are not my favorite, either.  But floating around in the salty water and being lifted by the waves a bit is kind of fun.  And he loved it.  So we came back in and I traded with Daddy, so Dex could swim with Daddy, too.  And then after Erin woke up we all went back in one more time.  And then we decided it was high time to head on home.  So glad we ended on a high note.

After being grumpy and not seeming like he was having much fun all day, til the very end, Dexter said in the car "I like this place.  When we come back tomorrow I will go swimming again."

DIY Saturday

John's been talking about staining the deck all summer.  But it's been too hot.  Or too wet.  Or we've been away.  This weekend we had no excuses.  The deck was clean.  The weather was great.  We were here for one day of the weekend.  And now we have half a stained deck.  Floor.  Who knows when the rails will be stained.  That sounds like a lot of work.

The rest of the deck will have to wait, because tomorrow we're heading to the BEACH!  For the first and only time of the season.  The car is packed and we're outta here at 8AM.

A little pajama play time this morning.  Yes, Erin can now stand up and play at her table with no assistance required!

The boys prepping the deck for stain.  The caution tape is to keep Buddy off the deck.  And, you know, to entertain Dexter.

Helping Daddy pound some nails

Little more hammering was required

Stirring the stain

Master stainer.  Actually, the painting took far longer than John had hoped.  About 5 hours of painting time, plus prep and clean-up.

Dex couldn't help with painting, so he did other fun stuff.

Dex can hurl TWO balls at the same time.  I'm not sure I can even do that.

Dexter said he wanted to play trains on the deck so he could talk to Daddy while Daddy was painting.

Erin and Dex played happily in the yard while I put dinner on the grill.

Everyone is entertained by a spastic Buddy

My Kind of Longwood

It was a beautiful day today.  Amazing.  Crystal clear.  Cool.  No school, for perhaps one of the last Fridays ever.  Sounded like a perfect day to trek to Longwood for a couple hours in the afternoon, between Erin's naps.

Dexter starts a new preschool next Monday, and will go on Monday and Friday.  He'll go to his other school on Tues/Wed/Thurs.  So we don't have any free week days any more.  Which makes me a little bit sad.  And also a little bit happy.  Sad because I liked Friday outings.  Happy because if an outing is not possible, now I don't have to figure out how to fill up Fridays.  Til Thanksgiving break.  And Christmas break.  And Spring Break.  And the middle of May.  This new school is a bunch of slackers...

Anyway.  Longwood.  We had an early lunch, got Erin up from her morning nap, and off we went.  Dexter fed some fish while Erin ate lunch, picnic style, at the side of the pond.  We checked out some tree houses.  We watched some fountains.  And with the little bit of time we had left before we needed to get home for Erin's second nap we played in the outdoor children's garden.  Because that one, Dexter says, is more fun than the one inside.

Dexter watches fish patiently while waiting for Erin to finish her lunch, so we can go to the other pond and feed the bigger fish.  He was so patient while waiting that he got a yummy molasses cookie, for his efforts.

Picnic lunch for Erin

Here we are, kind of, in the Canopy Treehouse

Looks like both kids share the love of the Italian Water Garden

YAY!  Fountains!

I love this little series of photos of Erin trying to get a better view of the lawn mower down below her.  Screw the fountains.  She just wants to see the loud thing that moves.

Dexter feeding fish

Erin feeding, errrr... Erin.

I love these couple photos, as well, of Dexter dancing on the glass floor of the Birdhouse Treehouse.  We haven't been to this treehouse in a while.  Dexter told me when we were going there today that we had never been there.  No, no, I said.  That's not right.  We went there with Aunt Jeanne and we danced on the glass floor.  His little eyes lit up.  And then he did this.

If only Aunt Jeanne were here today.  But, alas, she is in NY getting ready for her enormous yard sale.

Little Miss Loungey, in a chair in the children's garden.  She cracks me up all the time with her lounging.  She'll crawl up to me, look to see that she's close enough, and will just lean back against me and lounge for a bit before she gets bored and crawls away.

Butterfly Baby.  After I took her picture, Dexter asked if you have to take a picture when you sit in the butterfly chair.  Like, you know, is it a RULE that you take a picture of someone sitting in that chair.  Well, yes, child.  Yes.  It's a RULE.

Fountain play

Erin liked a little bit of splashing.  I think had we stayed longer she may have gotten a bit wet.

Still haven't had enough pictures of the cute kids?  Here's a link to some video from today.