Being Made Fun Of By A Baby....Not That Funny.

I'll get to that in a second, but first I just have to say .....I finally got the pictures for Austen's room and had Brian hang them!!! I'm sooooo excited about this! I'm not sure why I waited so long, but oh well.....they're up now.Austen has been doing a lot of funny new things lately. His personality is really starting to show itself and boy does he like to be silly. This kid will literally do anything for a laugh and once he gets it, he'll keep doing it over and over and over and over.....well you get the point.

The other night Brian and I were playing with Austen and I noticed he needed a diaper change. I had already dealt with my fair share of poop that day (we've had a very sick dog) so I was trying to get Brian to change it. I asked Austen, "who do you want to change your diaper?? Mama or Dada?" To this he responded with his arms out and a shoulder shrug as if to say I don't know. We could not stop laughing because neither of us had ever seen him do that before and he did it so deliberately that he had to know what it meant. Now when you ask him a question he does it all the time, unless he knows the answer. It's pretty hard to get a picture of, this one is the best we've done so far.


He's also learned the sign for hungry. It's sooo cute to see him do it!! I love that he can communicate he's hungry or thirsty or done. It's very rewarding to get that back from him considering I'm yapping at him all day.

Austen has a super long tongue. I had no idea of this until recently when he discovered I thought it was funny when he stuck it out. Now he sticks it out whenever he wants a laugh. Here's a pic, but this is only about half way out. The thing seriously goes past his chin.

By far the funniest thing he's ever done is immitate me laughing. At first I wasn't sure what he was even doing, but then I realized he did it everytime I laughed and well it was such a good immitation there was no question. If you know me well, you know that every time I laugh hard I throw my head back and close my eyes. To be honest I didn't even realize I did that, but I must do it often because he has it down. I have a picture of it below, notice his head is thrown back just like I do it and his eyes are closed tight. I'm not kidding, I really think this is by far the funniest thing he has ever done!!! I would probably think it was funnier if it wasn't at my expense.

Lookin' For Trouble

I came out of the bedroom where I was putting away laundry to find this

(I've given this pic the title: "Lookin For Trouble")

Another pic of him in the dryer.

This is quickly becoming a very cool place to play.

We got quite sick around here last week. It coincided with Austen's second tooth breaking through, so you can imagine how fun it's been. It also happened a couple of days after his shots which I think added to the grumpy-ness. He had a pretty bad cough along with a slightly runny nose. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure he had a case of RSV. I had all the adult version symptoms too which are different from just regular rhino virus. There was a couple times where his breathing really scared me, but it wasn't ever bad enough to take him in, so the RSV thing is unconfirmed. Anyway, he's finally starting to feel better and sleep better too.....thankfully! He went on a hunger strike last week and I'm not sure if it had to do with the sickness or if it was just him being stubborn. All he wanted to eat was string cheese and raisins. He finally started eating better yesterday, so I thought I would give him a little taste of some ice cream I was eating. He love, love, loved it!!! Today we went to Coldstone, so I gave him another taste and he got so excited he was yelling and bouncing up and down. I think it's his new favorite thing.

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We finally had a warm day, so we headed over to the playground. Ever since Austen started walking I've been wanting to take him. At first he wasn't quite sure about walking on the wood chips, but after a while he warmed up to the idea and was actually having fun. He went down the small slide a few times (with help of course) and then wanted to climb up the slide by himself. He only made it half way up, but he still had fun doing that over and over. We tried the swing and he wasn't really loving it, so we'll see if he warms up to it next time.

Picking up wood chips.

I think I said "not in your mouth" about 1,000 times.

This is the "are you serious with all the pictures" face.
He had a fun day with some cousins at the play ground and we can't wait until it's warm enough so we can go back!

Smartest Baby Ever

I know it's annoying when people brag about how smart their kids are, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Because it's my blog

And if you don't like it, you can skip this post!

That being said, now we can get to why I think Austen is so smart.

He is my little problem solver....if there is something he wants, he will figure out a way to get it. I don't really like to admit this, but he can even outsmart me and has done so on several occasions. His problem solving rivals some adults'!!! I'm in a good mood so I won't name names, but trust me it does.

Just this weekend he learned another sign to add to his sign language repertoire. For those of you keeping track, he now knows how to sign milk, more, and all done. We are now working on hungry, drink, and Grandma.

He also figured out how to throw. It was really cute to see how excited he was when he finally did it. (He's been trying for weeks, but never seemed to know how to actually let go when the time came.) Now he throws EVERYTHING.....toys, shoes, the remote (which we finally found by the way.....after we already ordered a new one. All I'm gonna say is maybe I should do the laundry more often ....).

The real reason I have been so blown away by him lately is how he has been playing. It's shocking to see him do things that I had no idea he even knew about. For example he got a pad of paper and a highlighter out of the desk drawer, set the paper on the ground and was pretending to scribble on it. The highlighter has a lid, so that's why I say he was pretending. I couldn't believe it.....I didn't think he knew what any of that stuff was for, but I guess he watches me closer than I think. We gave him an empty water gallon and he pretended to pour it into a cup, then pretended to drink out of the cup. I was amazed! Here's some cute pics of him pretending to pour the water into his cup.

Now he's pretending to drink it.

He's started to close his eyes in anticipation of the flash, so all my pictures look like this one lately. His Dad let him have some licorice for the Superbowl.



Sharing the candy with Daddy.

Here he is with his new favorite thing that he stole from Grandma's house. I swear you can buy all the toys in the world, but they just want to play with garbage.

He uses it as a walking stick sometimes, but he also will put it up to his mouth and make noises into it. Very cute!

He loves to help me do laundry!! Here he is pushing the basket from the bedroom to the laundry room.

Notice the concentraion.....he takes his work very seriously.

Next Time I'll Bring Ear Plugs

We just got back from Austen's 12 month well child visit and Austen definitely remembers the Doctor's office and what goes on there. WOW!! He screamed from the second we got there until the second we left. Not only was he screaming, he was also trying to get away which was really fun for me trying to hold him, calm him, and listen to what the Doctor was saying. Poor kid.....not only was he traumatized just by being there, but he also had to get five shots. It was awful!! He doesn't have to go back for 6 months, so in the meantime I'm hoping he'll forget he hates that place. Like the title says, I think next time I'll take some ear plugs.....for the Doc.

Austen has pretty much abandoned the whole crawling thing for walking. He's getting pretty fast now so there's really no need to crawl. He's started doing this crazy thing where he'll lay down on his tummy on the carpet and do this fake laugh thing (I think that's to get my attention) all while petting the carpet. He thinks it's hilarious!! Here's some pics:

We've been trying a bunch of new foods and I'm discovering that he's pretty picky and he has to have things a few different times before he will decide if he likes it or not. Last night I gave him a little piece of cooked broccoli and he absolutely HATED it. No need to try again! He was trying to get all the little pieces out and was making an awful face. He used to not really be that into apple juice, but now he's decided he likes it so he's been drinking that and water out of a big boy cup. He has also decided that he loves raisins......I think raisins might be the new bananas.

Here's a few random pics. It's been hard to get a good picture of him lately because he never stops moving! If I can get him to focus and look at the camera he's usually tyring to grab it.

Classic Austen "sad" face.

Lately he loves to knock his toys over and crawl on them....must be a boy thing.

Not only does he open the drawer under the dryer, but now he likes to climb in.