Yes, I know it's been a while since I've posted. But in my defense, it was a marathon holiday season. We drove down to my mom's place south of St. Louis, and stayed there a week. Then drove up to Byron's folks in Chicagoland on Christmas Day, and stayed there 4 days. Then drove back to South Bend and hopped on a plane to my dad's place in Miami for a week. So we were away from home for about 3 weeks, and it was exhausting. Great fun though. Leo got to see all his grandparents (and meet his Great-Granna for the first time!), get his face licked by a dog (which he absolutely adored) and see almost all his aunts and uncles. There was snow, ice, and beaches. Planes, trains, and automobiles. OK, no trains. But everything but that.
Leo was the lucky recipient of an abundance of adorable clothes and great toys. He even got to help open some of them (and frankly once he did, all he wanted was the paper to chew on...). While we were gone, he got really good at sitting up by himself (which is great when it comes to playing with toys) and started pushing himself up on his hands and knees when placed on his tummy. He's THIIIIISSSS close to crawling - and is getting great at scootching himself backwards when he's on his hands and knees.
Also, his bottom two teeth have broken through. There was alot of consternation and wailing before that happened (and some more since) but he now has two little nubbins poking through. Which has led to me being bit a few times when nursing, which was not fun. Hopefully we can nip that practice in the bud, pun fully intended.
As for Leo's new year's resolutions, he told me "mamamama bababa aaa dadadada" which I translated into something about eating more vegetables this year, and learning to walk by the time he's 10 months old. (True story - an aggressively friendly preggo lady in Miami aka 'Auntie Michelle' made friends with Leo while we were waiting for our table at a restaurant and while she was holding him, declared that he had strong legs and would walk by 10 months. Crazy hormonal lady, but very genuinely friendly....)
We've all happily settled back in at home, and are enjoying dressing Leo up in all his new outfits and playing with his new toys. And yes, so far he's even enjoying eating all his vegetables. That's one resolution he doesn't get to break!
There are a ton more pictures on my Flickr site if you're interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clickclickchic/
Every spring Notre Dame plays a football scrimmage game they call the Blue & Gold game. It's surprisingly well attended (so many rabid fans hungry for football) and we all enjoyed it as a family last Saturday. It's free for students and little kids, so a great occassion to get the little man out into the stadium. It was unfortunately cold and a bit rainy, so we weren't sure how long he'd last, but he loved it! He enjoyed a little MBA Family Life Committee tailgate beforehand, and contentedly sat and watched the first half of the game without squirming, fussing, or anything. Hooray!
He also showed two small but entertaining developments the same day: he started to clap his hands, and started to sort small objects. The clapping we'd been trying to teach him for a little bit, and he seems to have really caught on to the idea. The object sorting is really entertaining - he started by moving a pile of goldfish crackers, one at a time, from one compartment on his stroller into another, then moving them back. Then later the same day, he started shaking all his small plastic shapes out of their bucket but then putting them back in one at a time. They're small developments, of course, but really cool to watch.
