Changing Table Antics

This is what happens lately when I strap James onto his changing table to change his diaper:

It all started one day when James started stretching his arms and legs out when I laid him down. I just couldn't resist those cute little armpits! :)

WW - Before and After

Time Out?

James has recently mastered pulling himself up onto chairs. He'll walk up to the chair and pull his whole body up using basically only his arms. Once he's there he likes to sit for a while like a big boy, and then, when that gets old, he either keeps on climbing (onto the table, for example) or he climbs down and toddles away. Most of the time, anyway. Other times, somehow, he forgets that he knows how to get down. He'll sit and sit until he gets rather frustrated and starts to cry. Those times, he will literally stay there until we pick him up.

The first time I realized this was the case was Saturday afternoon. Paul set him down on the ottoman in his room (which James likes to climb on from time to time). We were both in the room with him, but he turned to us and said "Bye bye!" So we laughed, said "Bye bye" and walked out. And he stayed there. And stayed and stayed. Every time we peeked around the corner of his door he was still chilling there, babbling away. After a good ten minutes of this (at least), James started to get upset, and we ended up going in and rescuing him from his self-inflicted time out.


Strange child.

Saturday Sunshine

We had a pretty great Mother's Day weekend. On Friday, our friend Emily flew into town for a friend's wedding and we got to spend the evening with her eating good food and playing games. Unfortunately, she had to leave bright and early the next morning. We hope you find more reasons to come visit Portland, Emily! :)

We dropped Emily off at the Portland Temple in Lake Oswego, and since we were there, we decided to go to a French bakery near Paul's work for a delicious breakfast. After stuffing our faces, Paul and I decided it was time to buy James his first Wiffle ball and bat! It was a gorgeous day, so we went to a big field at a middle school close by and had a great time playing 2 on 2 Wiffle baseball with our friends, the Belnaps. Thanks for coming to play, guys! In the match up of the Petersons versus the Belnaps, the Petersons did very well and kept a pretty good lead until they blew it in the last inning (I tried to tell Paul it was a bad idea for me to pitch! ;) ). The Belnaps went home Champions. :) I'm thinking we need a rematch. Ha ha. What do you think Adam and Claudia?

Anyway, we did spend some time trying to teach James to swing a bat, but he wasn't really interested. He was more into chasing the balls around and enjoying the sunshine. Here are some cute pictures we took of James with his new toys:




James now says "bat", and he toddles around the living room dragging his bat all over the place saying "bat! bat! bat!" It's pretty cute. :)

A not so brilliant idea...

So, one of the things the doctor mentioned at James' 15 month check up was that James should be working on learning how to feed himself with a spoon. By the time he's 18 months old he should be able to use a spoon "with minimal spilling". Well, I haven't been very good about letting James get practice with spoons lately because I'm not patient enough. It's just so much faster for me to feed him! Alas, I know I need to let him learn, so I thought I came up with a brilliant plan.

I got one spoon for me and one for James. That way, he could get some practice feeding himself, but it wouldn't take forever because I would feed him bites in between. Well, it didn't work so well. James wanted both spoons. And when I took mine away from him...well, see for yourself (pay close attention to his face...I hope it comes across in the video):

Warning: It's very cute, but also sad. I'm probably a bad mom for posting it on the internet. ;) What can I say? I think it's cute!

I promise James isn't like this every time I take something away from him. He's usually very laid back about it. I don't know what it was about that spoon...

15 Month Stats

Height: 30" (17th percentile)
Weight: 20 lbs. 13 oz. (6th percentile)
Head Circumference: 48 cm. (74th percentile)

Yeah...pretty much more of the same! Short, skinny guy with a whole lot of brains! ;)

James' doctor said he is healthy and is pleased with his development. He was especially impressed by James' talking, and said that James is more advanced than some two year olds in that department. Way to go verbal skills!