I am 9 months old!

Well, I'm 9 months old now! I have been Owen for pretty much the same amount of time that I was Studs. It has been more fun being Owen though.

Generosity

I'm a very thoughtful baby. When I am eating broccoli and parsnips, I don't want to hog them all. I want the dog to have some too!



One for me, the rest for the dog from meandertail on Vimeo.

Mommy?

OMG. Mommy took me to school on Monday morning. She plopped me down on the mat, found a cool toy for me to play with and then went off to do her job. But a totally weird thing happened next. Daddy came to pick me up! I figured Mommy would be waiting for me at home but, SHE WASN'T! Then in the morning, she wasn't there either. OR the next night! Today was Wednesday and, surprise! Mommy picked me up at school. What happened to her??

She said she had to go to some retreat for work. It was at the beach. It was her first time being away from me for so long.

Actually, lets be honest. I barely noticed. Daddy did a good job. He fed me (I threw broccoli at him), he gave me a bottle (I spit up on him), he gave me a bath, he read me a book and put me to bed. He followed all of the Buggle routines. Excellent. We played and went for a walk. It was fun!

But now Mommy is back and I am so excited!!!

Dog wash

Last weekend we did another fun thing. We got the dog to take a bath! I don't think it was fun for him, but it was for me. It was a charity dog wash that was at our vets office. It support their Stray Fund, so they can take care of stray cats and dogs that people bring in, and then they adopt them out to people. Thats where Mommy and Daddy got my favorite cat, Jasmine!
We all got into the car. I sat in my new carseat, which had just been installed that morning!


Daddy and I watched some people put Milo into a big bath and start washing him.



Then they dried him off.



When we got home, Daddy brushed him a lot to get all the old hair out. He is still hairy, but he is not as smelly as he used to be! Yay!

Outside at the museum. Plus: Mommy's idea of hell

We had a busy day today. In the morning, I woke Mommy and Daddy up early (6 am!) to get started on the day. When the stores opened, we went to the grocery store because they were tripling coupons! Woo! Then we got back in the car and drove to the NC Museum of Life and Science again. We met my friend Ike and his mommy and daddy.

Today it was only in the upper 80s, not the upper 90s like last time I went to the museum, so we did the outside stuff that I didn't get a chance to see before. They had a bunch of stuff you could bang, like drums and stuff. Ike can walk around all by himself, so he could bang on the drums.


Here's Daddy and Ike's daddy trying to figure out what this thing is.


You're suppossed to put your ear up to the pipes and you can hear stuff!

Daddy or Mommy pushed me in my stroller sometimes, and other times they carried me. Here's a picture of Daddy carrying me on his shoulders, which is my favorite way to travel!


Then we went into the butterfly house. They had lots of butterflies flying around and a lot of neat flowers and plants. Here's Daddy showing me one.


There were a bunch of butterflies getting ready to hatch!


When we got out of the butterfly house, it was time to ride the train!! It was fun. It went pretty fast and was all jiggly which I like.


I was pretty tired by this point (Mommy is trying to stick to the 1 nap schedule the daycare has me on during the week, but sometimes its a little touch-and-go as we get closer to noon!) so I was totally grumpypantsing while we were waiting to get going. Mommy was trying to keep me entertained by giving me a toy, but I threw it over the side of the train. We had to wait until the train ride was over to get it back. After that we went home. I told you I was tired! I took a nap in my new car seat (Daddy's car version) and then continued the nap in my crib at home.




Okay, now to Mommy's hell. Mommy had heard from Ike's dad that there was a room that had bugs in it. Mommy HAAAAAAATES bugs. Hates hates hates them. Ike's daddy warned Mommy not to go into this room, but she decided to give it a try. There were a ton of huge, enormous, hideous bugs in little glass cages. Here's Ike looking at a cage of bugs (actually, this one might have frogs in it, come to think of it, but it was in the bug room).


There was an area (not even a cage or anything, just an open area!) that had HUGE SPIDERS that were BUILDING HUGE WEBS and they were RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN where they could just crawl onto you if they wanted to!! Mommy practically hyperventilated and died.

One of the hideous cages of bugs was filled with Madagascar hissing cockroaches.


Yes, Mommy took that picture too, but she assures me that she was just about ready to run out of the room. You won't believe this, but in 4th grade Mommy says her class pet was a cockroach just like this that they had gotten from the Johnson Wax testing facility. His name was Raid and Mommy and G-G babysat him over Christmas break or something. And he ate dog food and Grape Nuts.

Different uses for the same thing

I got this push toy that is supposed to help me learn to walk, but it goes a little bit too fast for me right now (it has no brakes! what is up with that?). So I use it for other things. Like, this:


Pushy from meandertail on Vimeo.

Or like this:


Everything is funnier the millionth time around from meandertail on Vimeo.

Fun weekend!

This weekend was a fun weekend! On Saturday morning, Mommy and I met our friend Anna and went to the Farmers' Market. We bought lots of vegetables and then went back to Anna's house and she made us breakfast! Yum! While Mommy and Anna talked, I played with Anna's pets. She has a dog named Ostrich and a cat named uh.... I forget! Azreal! I don't know how to spell that though.



Anyway, I love cats and her cat loved me too. He kept rolling around near me and sniffing my face. It was great!
Then on Saturday night we went to my friend Julianna's house for dinner. She has a neat playroom with lots of new and exciting toys!


Then I went to the grocery store with Mommy and Daddy. I helped them get some bread.



Daddy got me a balloon and tied it to the shopping cart, so I was entertained the whole time!

In the afternoon we went to Jax's house for a playdate. He has lots of cats, so I got to see MORE cats! Mommy took some pictures at the playdate too, but they're all on her big camera still. There were some other babies there from the Mommies group. I brought my favorite toy, the irritating musical toolbench!

Then I went for a walk with Mommy and Daddy. The sun was bright in my face for part of our walk so Daddy pulled me backwards and Mommy ran behind me and made me laugh.

Chatting

My family lives in North Carolina, but its only me, Mommy, Daddy and the cats and dog here. Everybody else lives somewhere else. New Hampshire, England, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Texas... and that is just my relatives! I have lots of friends who live in other places too. We use our computer to keep in touch with people. I write on my blog, and Mommy writes on hers too. But sometimes we want to talk to people, so we do video chats on Skype.

We have used Skype to talk to my great grandparents, Mom-mom and Pop-pop, who live in Florida. Here's a picture of Daddy and G-G talking to them. They were walking around the house giving them a tour.


Last weekend we talked to Nan and Grandad and my Aunt Sharon, Uncle Kevin and my cousins Zoe, Lauren and Jack. They live in England.



We have also talked to my Aunt Denise and Uncle Mike and my cousins Madelyn and Molly, who live in Philadelphia. If you want to talk to us sometime, email Mommy and she'll tell you how!

Keeping up to date on the latest research

I have a pretty demanding schedule as a baby. This weekend was a holiday weekend, but did I get to do anything fun? No, I did not. I had to read some papers to make sure that I am up on the most recent scientific literature.
Lets see here...


Hm. I'm sure they mentioned a similar phenomenon in this other paper. Now where was that....


Well, I'm not sure that I'm totally convinced by this gel shift analysis.


I think this other group had a slightly better experimental design.


What do you think Daddy?


Yeah, I agree. I think this really does change the whole paradigm.


Boy. This paper is booooring! Snore!

I'm 10 times more grumpy than you.

At least. Maybe 15 times more grumpy. See, I have a cold. I have had it for the last, oh, 10 or 11 days. At first I was fine, just messy. My nose was running constantly, so I had booger face all of the time. I had a cough too, a nice chunky sounding one. But I didn't feel too bad.

This weekend though, GRUMPY. Now I don't just have a cold, but I have a fever too. For the last three nights, my fever has been between 102 and 103. UGH. I know I'm not happy, but I don't know what I want.

I want Mommy to hold me. No, I want her to put me down. No, I want her to HOOOOOOLD MEEEEEE! PUT ME DOWN!! WAAAAAAH! I want Daddy!! DAAAAAADDY! Wait! WAIT!! Mommy! Want Mommy!!! No Mommy, put me down!!

I want a drink! No, not that drink! No drink!! Get away from me with your boobs and your bottles and your sippy cups! I don't want any of it! No wait! That boob!! No, not that one, THAT ONE. NOOOOO! NO BOOB!

I'm tired. Tired! Yaaaaaawn!! *rubs eyes* Mommy! I'm tired! I'm so tired I can barely hold my own head up! Put me in my crib! Put me DOWN AND PUT ME IN MY CRIB!! Nooooooo!!! Don't leave me! I want my pacifier. Where is my pacifier?? *throws pacifier out of the side of the crib* My pacifier! How can you put me in this crib with no pacifiers?? I'm tired! Wait! I don't want to go to sleep! Nooooo!!

Its exhausting being so indecisive!

And tomorrow I can't go to school because I have a fever. And I know Mommy is all "I have to give my talk tomorrow!" blah blah blah. I don't care. I want her to hooooooold meeeeee! Nooo!!! PUT ME DOWN!! MOMMY!!

I'm 8 months old!

Hey everybody! I'm 8 months old!


I'm so happy, I could just clap!
(which I did for the first time today, at least the first time that Mommy has noticed)



Clap your hands say yeah! from meandertail and Vimeo.