Happy Father's Day!

Jonathan was so excited to celebrate his Daddy for Father's Day. He made a garden stone with his footprint (kept grabbing the cement mix with his fist, so handprint plans went out the window) and planned a surprise afternoon at a nearby baby beach with Daddy and our friends.





Aaron and Nathaniel, David and Jonathan celebrating Father's Day 2009

Jonathan is quite the busy "baby" these days. I put baby in quotes 'cause he's trying so hard to be a toddler already. It's amazing to see all he's learning and watch his little mind figuring out so much, but hard to see him growing up SOOOO fast already. Much of his attention goes to exploring his newfound mobility and to eating, so we have a few pictures of each. He has converted a variety of objects into "walkers." Among them his Fisher Price barn -- just tips it on its side and scoots it around the house. The other day he grabbed the bar stool and pushed it around the kitchen, office, and living room. He was laughing the whole time, thought it was just the BEST. I had to keep a hand on top to steady the top-heavy 'walker,' cause it would try to fall on top of him any time he tried to back up with it.




No idea why his shirt's half unbuttoned... no, actually, it's probably 'cause he squirmed so much getting dressed I just gave up on any non-essential buttons.




Meal times -- all kinds of excitement here. The child's a meat-lover in a serious way. I have to wait until he's worked on his veggies a while before putting any meat on his tray or game's over for anything else. I'm convinced he could eat deli meat for weeks on end.

Monkey Update
What's grosser than a stuffed monkey with a stinky tail? Two stuffed monkeys with stinky tails. Not sure I really accomplished much with the Stunt Double. Really, we just have two slobbery stinky monkeys that each need a few rounds in the washer each week. And Jonathan has the most disgusting, endearing game now. He's taken to trying to stuff Monkey's tail into my mouth while I'm nursing him. I think the entirely-disgusted / shocked-and-yet-amused face I make just eggs him on, 'cause he cracks himself up while insistently stuffing a cold slobbery stinky blue Monkey tail between my pursed lips with his chubby little baby fingers. The combined gag / laugh he elicits from his Mommy with this game is apparently worth extensive effort. We're going to have to find a better way to learn about sharing.

High Maintenance Monkey

I had to feel a little empathy for Jonathan this morning. He had so much to do... crawling around, pulling books off the bookshelf, pulling up and cruising around the furniture, dropping toys from head-height one after another to watch them fall. And it wasn't easy to do all that holding Monkey, who apparently insisted on being held all morning, no matter what Jonathan had to do or where he needed to go. It may be that Stunt Double Monkey arriving on the scene has made The Original Monkey a little clingy, and Separation Anxiety seems to be making an epidemic through the Hong House, with all children and monkeys under the age of 2 suffering severely. Watching Jonathan struggle to pull up, hold onto the furniture and cruise around while clutching Monkey by his paw quickly brought to mind scenes from yesterday... Jonathan's Mom pushing the shopping cart through Target, with baby on hip (not in the shopping cart seat, no way). Baby grabbing at everything we passed, while I tried to quickly find new PJ's to fit his growing legs and check on out of there.

I can't complain, though... before Target we hit Old Navy, and 2 stores in a day ranks yesterday as a MAJOR shopping spree. To the moms out there: Old Navy has a great sale on baby / toddler clothes. And to my husband: When you see the credit card statement... think of all the airline miles I earned us! It was all on sale. :)

And before I close, let's take a moment to admire my high-tech skills. That's right, did you note the "hyperlink" on Stunt Double Monkey above? With that achievement, I'm pretty much reaching Professional Blogger status. And I even figured it out without my brother's help. Yup, pretty pleased with myself.

Step... Step... He's off and cruising!

turn down the volume and ignore my dumb commentary -- baby's cute, though.

Yum yum... ha ha ha!

Much like his daddy, he just cracks himself up!

Stunt Double

I know, I'm working on getting some new video and photos up. We seem to have run into technical difficulties, which are compounded by Baby putting his hands into the doggie bowl every time I turn my face towards the computer for 2 seconds.

He's sleeping like an angel, now. Even went to sleep without Monkey (see photos), who is taking his second bath this weekend. If you're not familiar with monkey hygiene, that's a lot of baths for a monkey. Jonathan's made a habit of sucking on his little tail while he sleeps (hm, don't know if that implies while Jonathan sleeps or while Monkey sleeps, but they're usually both asleep). It makes for one disgusting monkey tail. Add a splash of prunes from this morning's breakfast (I have NO idea how Monkey ended up eating breakfast with Jonathan. Let's just say Baby and Daddy must have gone a little wild while I was at work today)... and you've got a Monkey begging for a swim in the washer.

No worries, though. We have a stunt double flying in as we speak, straight from the Amazon. Amazon.com This should take some of the stress of daily performance off of Monkey, and I think our Little Man is too little to know the difference. I'm thinking it'll evolve into something like the little girl on Full House (Michelle?) ... who knew there were two of her? until MK and AO went into massive production of Walmart videos and hit the tabloids.

Alrighty, Monkey's dry enough... about as dry as a monkey gets. I'll tuck him into bed and cross my fingers for a good night sleep. With a little luck and some Monkey cuddles, maybe I'll only be seeing my little guy once before the crack of dawn.

Vrrrrooooom vroom, night night!

Splash!

This entry is dedicated to the lovely babies of the NICU, who had a spendid night, and to Mr. "Author-of-the-30-Hour-Rule." I'm home, rested, and having a splashing time with Baby, thanks to you.

"Splash Pool" was the post-call afternoon activity. We picked up a little pool (complete with hippo-stylin' sun shade, how cool is that?!) and some water toys at Walmart on the way home. Jonathan actually loves shopping -- I guess there's a lot to look at. He would have been quite content spending the rest of the day at Walmart, to be honest.

I'm not sure who was more fascinated by the plastic hippo growing bigger with each puff of air -- I had the full attention of both Pepper and Jonathan. Peps won't admit it now, but he was a little scared of the thing at first. Jonathan knew just what to do. The moment there was any kind of form to it he climbed over the growing rim and sat right in the middle, then leaned over to slobber all over the plastic, which is quite frankly about what it looked like I was doing. Then he went for the toys, conveniently located nearby.






Pool inflated, we drug the hippo into the backyard to fill-er-up, with Peps running enthusiastically ahead. Jonathan was a little unsure at first, reaching out for me to hold him instead,



But once he made a splash or two, he was totally into it. Toys in hand, he splashed away 'til there was as much water on the lawn as in the pool.





Now we're cozy, dry, fed, and napping... for barely long enough for Mommy to throw some photos on the blog. And... there he calls....