Christmas Presents under the tree

It's the Christmas season

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

First Terrible Towel Wave

Atticus catches the ball

Some kids have a blanket or a stuffed animal lovey; Atticus has now adopted his Steelers football as his lovey. He's hardly nursed since Thursday as a result of teething and congestion (and maybe he's weaning all of a sudden?), so perhaps these things are related, but now he's taking the football to bed with him and hugging it to his chest like a teddy bear as he drifts to sleep. Even as a a person who's not much of a football fan, I find this adorable.

Sunday, we attended Luminaria nights at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. We spent the majority of the evening listening to a Klezmer band, and Atticus loved it! We sat there for over half an hour for sure. At first he was so stunned by it all that he sat stock still, his eyes glued onto the musicians. Eventually he danced and clapped and enjoyed some red velvet cake with me, while Chris looked on disapprovingly.


This is the closest Atticus got to Santa. He dug his fingers into me like cat's claws. He didn't cry though, just made sure he held on tight.

Last night, Atticus caught a ball for the first time. He did it three times! He seemed surprised, but pleased, by our excitement.

Another first last night, he pointed to the saline solution and requested that I put it in his nose, and he even helped me do it. Quite a turn from the usual--me pinning him down while he screams and squirms. I guess he just wanted some control.

We have some Christmas surprises in store for you--a cardboard Christmas tree we're working on, etc. Pictures to come.

a few Thanksgiving photos from Palm Beach


animal cracker snack at the playground just off the beach


Thanksgiving dinner with his cousin, Connor




making friends with a peacock at the Palm Beach zoo

goofing around

riding turtles with Connor


getting warm after a swim in a crisp breeze

btw, I took Atticus down the resort's huge water slide dozens of times the previous day. He was so crazed about it that as soon as we landed in the pool, he was climbing out and screaming, "more, more, more." After that I dunked him a few dozen times because he was screaming for more and more of that too.

Atticus held a grudge against me Monday morning because I scolded him for throwing his toothbrush into his potty and then held the lid shut so that he couldn't do it again. He wouldn't let me touch him for the next hour or so.

This morning he fussed as we were leaving the house because I bumped into a cloth grocery bag, knocking it onto the floor. He wouldn't leave the house until I hung it back up.

In the past few weeks or so, he's learned to jump--his feet actually leaving the ground. It doesn't happen every time, but it does some of the time at least.

Jack's Big Music Show

Atticus barks along with Mel on Jack's Big Music Show, and pets Sabine

• Atticus does a mean impersonation of our blender's smoothie setting. We haven't yet managed to capture it on video though.
• He knows the very long (60+ songs) animal songs album we listen to in the car so well at points that he anticipates what song is coming on next and makes the appropriate noises (e.g., "baa baa" as "Baa Baa Black Sheep" is about to begin).
• He loves baked kale chips, and this is the only vegetable he is guaranteed to eat anymore. He seems to prefer crunchy, crispy textures to mushy ones.
• He enjoys watching football with his daddy, and is constantly announcing "touchdown" and throwing his arms up in the air the way Chris taught him.
• He's engaging more and more with the books we read together before bed--naming things, asking what things are, etc.
• He doesn't like blemishes--be it the page he tore in the back of Green Eggs and Ham or food on his bib or his hands or, god forbid, his clothing.
• He loves to bark along with Mel the dog during the musical introduction of Jack's Big Music Show (video to soon follow).
  
• He's getting into Elmo too.
  

I keep forgetting to post these: Atticus's first school photos. They don't have a background on them at the moment because we bought the files so that Chris can do what he wants with them. Anyway, I think my sweetie is the cutest little boy in the whole wide world (even with the crotch grab in the last photo).

Storybook

We finally replaced the batteries...

A few notes:

• Atticus has lately started putting pairs of words together more and more often (e.g., "sit down," "water, daddy," um, and other combinations that now escape me)
• "Sit down" comes out more like "shit down."
• he loves his shoes so, so, so much--wants them on always just about (just like dad). The only point during the pediatrician's examination of him on Monday (some kind of virus) during which he did not cry and scream was when the pediatrician assisted me in putting Atticus's shoes back onto his feet.
• He also continues to be a fanatic about lights and ceiling fans and music. They must always be on. He threw a major fit when he discovered that I'd taken down the purple spider Halloween lights the other week. He was so disturbed by this change that he refused to eat his dinner.
• He's begun to watch a little television here and there--not a lot, of course, but we do record a couple of shows for him. His favorite is Nick Jr's "Jack's Big Music Show." He particularly likes Jack's dog, Mel. But when the show lapses into narrative a little too long, he loses interest. When the show ends, he says, "bye bye" to the puppets.

Halloween in Chicago

flowers that sprung up from seeds my Dad planted a few months ago

We went to the fall festival at Agua Linda farm today. It was nearly 90 out--so much for fall. Atticus loved the petting zoo. Every time I started to move toward the gate to leave, he said, "more, more, more." He pet goats and sheep, and admired the chickens and ponies from a distance.