Quick Updates

Well, Gregory now has two of those little teeth on the bottom. We're slowly trying to give him a few things to chew. We think this will crimp his style of inhaling food, however. Poor boy! He did have a weight check last week because of that six-month check-up where the doctor was concerned because he was low. As a reminder, he was 15 pounds, 14 ounces at that visit. One month later, he is at 18 pounds, 12 ounces, and back to about the 40th percentile. About 3 pounds in a month - it's not just our imagination that he seems huge! And adorable!

Judith is doing a great job playing with Gregory and playing on her own occasionally. She has a new love of "The Little Mermaid." She got the story in a book from Aunt Katie for Christmas, and wants it read many times a day. She's watched the movie one time - but she's afraid of "that girl's daddy" (King Triton - he has a beard and Judith is terrified of men with beards). She really loves "the first song" - "Part of Your World". She wants me to sing it again and again. I try to limit it to two or three times a day. Judith loves trying to sing it back. Her favorite lines are "I have everything" and "Who cares? No big deal! I want MORE!" :-)

And Gregory is just everywhere these days. In a five minute time span he can get into the garbage, get into the recycling, rip up some papers of mine from work, get into the pantry, open the pots and pans drawer and start pulling those out, and basically make us freak out whenever he's out of our sight for a few seconds. He really is quite the curious adventurer, and very little holds his attention longer than about 30 seconds. The one exception to this is the little play piano that was first Judith's. He loves turning the music pages, and pushing the keys, and making the piano make music. That can keep him entertained for 10-15 minutes at times - which is amazing!

And he's doing a great job pulling himself up to a standing position, sitting himself up, and standing while only holding on with one hand. He's tried all week long to stand up and let go of what he's holding on to, but has yet to stay up more than about a second when doing that. I have no doubt however that he'll be doing that soon. He's also pulling down books off of shelves, getting into the DVDs and videos, and trying to put stacking rings into the VCR. I looked at him at one point this week and exclaimed, "Wow - if you're this much trouble at seven months, what am I going to do when you're 18 months??!!" He blew a raspberry and smiled that wonderful smile.

We're continuing our home renovations. We "finished" painting the first floor of the house at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning. However, we have decided we're not thrilled with the 1/2 bath. Really, I'm just trying to work up the energy to re-do it. We're thinking of either tiling or wainscoting, and certainly a new vanity. The room currently has a pedestal sink that is terribly unhelpful. I don't understand why people want bathrooms with no place to put extra toilet paper. Bathrooms can be beautiful, but strike me as the top of the list in terms of functionality outranking beauty in importance! But so far I haven't worked up the momentum to take this on - because once I start I really have to finish in about three days. And it would be my first bathroom remodel project.

Robert is redoing the storage under the stairs. He built out the pantry shelves when we moved in, and is now doing the same for the under stairs closet. It's a bit of a different process because nothing can be supported on the sloped wall, which is just plywood without any studs in it. But it should be done by later today (if the rain stops and he can make the one last cut of wood he's been trying to make for three days!) and then we can get those items put away. Really, if we keep doing them one at a time, then our closets will be real show pieces by the time we're done. And it's a whole lot better having functional, organized (and pretty) space for things than having a huge cavernous space with one stupid wire shelf for hanging coats. This closet will now be the extension of the kitchen pantry. Yeah!

Judith really wants to watch "Mickey" now ("Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" is the ultimate carrot/stick for our child!) so it's time to go. Have a great weekend!