Mommy says I was big help!

I have to go. I need to vacuum my bedroom now!

One of Mommy’s techniques for calming Alex down is using the tried and true method of reading him a bedtime story.  Sometimes though, it backfires and just gets him wound up even more.  That’s what happened this night as Mommy read Alex The Grouchy Ladybug.  I heard the giggles all the way downstairs and had to get it on tape.  Excuse the video quality, but I didn’t want them to know that I was filming them. 

Here we are before:

During:

And after our little outing:

Mommy must have looked funny carrying Alex down the middle of the street in blustery snow, because one lady peeked her head out of her door to ask if we were ok!  We were fine, Mommy’s just a little crazy!

P.S. How about those Indianapolis Colts?  

Alex loves to stand now. He gets quite upset at times when we won’t help him get up.  We keep telling him that he needs to learn to crawl before he can walk.  He tells us not to waste our time with such old, tired clichés.  He’s not even talking yet and already he’s smarting off to his parents.  Usually when he gets up into the standing position, he looks a lot like Elvis, or at least a young Forrest Gump teaching Elvis how to dance. 

He’s also trying to walk a lot now.  He’s working his way around furniture slowly, and invariably the second you take your hand out of catching mode, he falls to the ground.  But if he isn’t willing to crawl first, then he’s going to have to take his lumps going the hard way.

One other note about the video, you’ll notice that Alex’s ultra-hip mom is already teaching the young lad some classic 70s disco tunes.  It won’t be long before he’s wearing white leisure suits and strutting down the street like John Travolta.

First we went to Grandmother and Granddad Peters house on Christmas Eve.  As you can see, Alex was incredibly excited:

And why shouldn’t he be excited?  He was the center of attention all day, but all of that attention can take a lot out of a boy.

 

Eventually we were able to get around to the fun stuff and Alex got to open his first present.  He opened the presents like an old pro.  Of course, he was more interested in the paper than what was in the box.

Yep, Alex had a great time celebrating his first Christmas at the Peters’ house.

  

Christmas Day started out at home with Mommy and Daddy.  Alex had lots of presents to open, but that can be a lot of hard work, so a nap midway through was definitely in order.

  

After Alex got through all of the presents that Santa brought him at home, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Luckhaupt’s house and opened even more presents (not pictured).  We did take time for a nice family picture though.

After a long day of playing with his all of his cousins, Alex was pooped.  And so, he settled in for a long winter’s nap.

Alex says that this was his best Christmas ever!  We hope you all had a safe and happy Christmas as well!

 

 We all got to spend a whole week hanging out together, but then Mommy had to start work at NIOSH (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) on Monday and Daddy started working (his same job as in Michigan, only from home now) today.  Alex gets to play with Grandma Mary during the day…

…and hang out with Mommy & Daddy and watch his favorite team on TV in the evenings.

Alex almost didn’t recognize Mommy today when she came home from work in her new Public Health Service uniform!

Can you believe that Alex will be 3 months old tomorrow?  We can’t!

And there was lots to see.  There were tons of birds of all sorts ranging from blue jays to sparrows and many others that neither Mommy nor Daddy recognized.  There were also lots of flowers and trees that provided some color and cool shade, which was much appreciated on a hot summer day.  There were chipmunks and dogs to chase those chipmunks, but don’t worry, these dogs couldn’t climb trees so they wouldn’t catch the chipmunks anyway.  

But most of all, there were ducks.  There is a huge pond at this park and it is a hot-spot hang out for tons of ducks.  You can hardly go 20 feet without running into a duck there were so many.  These ducks had been there previously when Daddy and Alex went for walks, but Alex actually got to see them this time.  He looked at them inquisitively (as much as an 8 week old can be inquisitive), but mostly he was unimpressed.  Seems he doesn’t know enough about the world to know that he should think that ducks are really cool.  Ah, we’ll get there eventually.  Maybe we just need to rent Howard the Duck for him so that he can learn the wonders of the duck species?

After seeing ducks for the first time on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy thought it would be fun to teach Alex the ways of the ducks on Sunday.  Since teaching him to fly was impractical, it was decided that maybe he would like to take his first dive into the swimming pool.  Grandma and Grandpa Luckhaupt had purchased a swimsuit for Alex prior to our trip, so we knew we had to give that bad boy a test run, especially since it may not fit him anymore in a couple of weeks (that kid is growing fast!). 

The first thing that we learned during our swimming experiment is that Alex doesn’t like the heat much.  It was pretty warm on Sunday, though not unbearable, and still Alex was none too happy about being out of the temperature controlled hotel room.  Since we didn’t plan on keeping out in that temperature too long, we decided to go right into the swimming pool.  Young Alex was unsure of what was happening at first, but then took to it like, er, a duck to water.  He really seemed to like his first time in the swimming pool even though the water was just a bit chilly.  In fact, he liked it so much that he kicked free of Daddy’s grasp and did two laps end-to-end in under 30 seconds.  Oh, okay, that last part didn’t happen, at least not in real life.

All in all, it was a very exciting weekend for Alex.  He got to meet his Uncle Eric for the first time (not pictured).  He got to spend some time learning about nature.  He got to eat at Outback Steakhouse for the first time – hey, he had a bottle while we were there, so that counts right?  And best of all, he got to experience the best part of a family vacation – the hotel swimming pool.  The checklist is starting to fill up.