Bryantown

I found an Alphabet Pal caterpillar at a garage sale this weekend like the one we bought for Addie.  It has 26 legs, each with a letter and a red, blue, green or yellow shoe.  You can set it to say letters, sounds, colors or to make music.  There is also a pullstring so the child can drag it around behind them once they start walking.  When it is on letters and you pull the string it sings the alphabet song.  Joey loves to pull the string, then he will look at Daddy and wait for him to sing along with the caterpillar.  He laughs and obviously thinks its great fun because he will do it over and over. 

Joey has started to reach and lean toward the person he wants to hold him. He will also reach toward a toy or the jumper when you are holding him up and he wants to go play with that toy.  He’s always reached to get things but now it’s like he knows he can modify our behavior by showing us what he wants.  It seems to be a pretty handy little communication step.

Joey had his first night away from home on Wednesday (June 18).  Joe and I had a late softball game and since Amy brings Luke on Thursday she said she would love to just keep him over night and bring him in the morning too.  It sounds like he did fine.  He likes to be near Luke and touch him or whatever he is holding.  He will be staying with Jenny sometime soon too.  Seems like he is just growing up so fast!

We missed him.  It’s funny how he has become such a huge presence in our home - we are always aware of the fact that he is here. It was so great to see him again in the morning.  I hugged him and carried him around for a while. 

We got a sprinkler pool for the kids to play in.  I can hardly wait for it to get warm enough to have Luke and Addie play in it too.  We know Addie loves to get wet in the spray of water when Joe waters the plants!  Here it is all set up the first time.  Joey was not to sure he liked it at first, then he got used to the cool water and really enjoyed trying to catch the little sprays.

So today while we were having lunch, I gave Joey some of the sweet potato puffs (Gerber Graduates finger foods) and he was actually able to pick them up between his pointer finger and thumb!  He found that it was much easier to get them in his mouth holding them that way too rather than just grabbing them in his fist like he usually does.  (When he has them in his fist he can’t quite figure out how to open his hand into his mouth to get the puff, then he just forgets about it and throws it away.)  He was better at the pincer grasp with using his left hand but I think the right hand is not far behind.  He ate 5 or 6 of them and reached for the container like he wanted more.  I’m so proud of him!

Babies really do chew on everything.  Joey is 6 months and 2 weeks old here (June 2, 2008) and he is practicing standing.  He can’t quite pull himself all the way up — thus the stop to chew on the chair.  He will stand for a couple of minutes then forget that he needs to hold on to stay up.