So your bed's not good enough for you, huh?

I can't get either of them to keep their shirts on.

Just two menfolks taking a walk.


Looking for trouble?


Probably preparing to eat chicken poop.


Jim is very keen on sharing.


Babies = great battering rams.


His look of deep concentration cracks me up.


Jim doesn't believe in holding hands when he walks.


Preparing to help with the yard-work.


I tried to get Noah to let me ride on the other side, but then there wouldn't have been anyone to take the picture.

We went to a park, y'all.

Ah, the south, home of excellent old trees.


We were bored, so we went to this park in Aiken SC, about half an hour from home.


Jim was delighted to get out of the house and see some new things.


When my family lived in Missouri (I think) when I was a kid, my brother and I used to catch these things all the time. I can't look at one without remembering how my mom would make us let my sister hold them even though she'd invariably squeeze them to death.


Pretty flowers, in imminent danger of death-squeezing.


It totally looks like he's interested in the horse, right? He actually was a LOT more intrigued by the dirt under it.


Practicing his stairs.


D'awwww.


Hiding, to no avail.


D'awwww.


Fountains into which Jim was determined to jump.


You wouldn't believe how hard it is to convince a 1-year-old to go in your general direction.


Excellent trees.


Jim walked for probably over a mile (which is a long way when your legs are ten inches long!), but he eventually broke down and needed a lift.


Purty flower.


Turtles! Significantly less squishable than a lizard skink.

A few things about right now.

Jim likes books now, particularly board and cloth books with easy-to-turn pages. We keep a couple such books in each room, and he'll frequently bring one over to whomever is sitting nearby so that we can hold it and tell him about the pictures as he turns the pages. When we get to his favorite pages, he says "DOH" and stabs at the picture with his index finger so we know to read it to him repeatedly.

His favorite page of his favorite book. "Beware the crab! I think he knows / Just how to pinch your tiny toes!"

We're down to four chickens now, from our original fourteen. Out of those, one died from being smothered by the others. One got very very sick and Noah had to execute it. Three were meat chickens and wound up as roasts, salads, and soups. Five turned out to be roosters and got sent off to Freezer Camp so as not to irritate the neighbors with their bad attempts at crowing. So now we've got four hens, and they're pretty cute. I'm calling the silver one Amelia and the gold one Gertrude, but I haven't been able to settle on names for the two little red hens. Any ideas?

Amelia is up in the chicken house, with one of the red ones behind her. The three in the front are ex-chickens.

A week or so ago we tried weaning Jim off the boobies because he was developing a serious biting issue. Like serious-serious. Blood serious. So we cut down to just nursing before naps and bedtime. It DID cut down on the biting, but I just couldn't do it. The poor little dude would just walk up to me throughout the day, put on his very saddest face, and start signing 'milk' in a very tragic fashion. I scared Noah pretty good with a crying fit the other night to the effect of "He only had one word (MILK!) and we took it awaaaaaay *sob*" Not sure if I was totally overreacting or what, but we're back up to nursing around 6 times a day and hoping the biting will go away if I just ignore it.

The biting isn't confined to nursing, actually, but it's much less painful everywhere else. He's kind of confused about kisses, I think. He does this thing where he leans ominously toward you with his mouth wide open, and when he makes contact it's a toss-up whether he'll bite, go "ummm!", or make a *ppbbblllrrt* noise.

Oh, and one last thing! Jim has a new sign, in addition to milk and all done. He now signs GOOD. Sort of. I taught it to him wrong. I taught it to him as a thumbs up, and he mimics it by waving his index finger very dramatically. So now he's got more words!

Jim got a box!

I just cut open the box so he could pull things out at his leisure.


Mmm, Lepidoptera.


Apparently soft things are good. He hugged his llama for aaaages. Yes, I know what that sounds like.


Take it from Jim: a good dose of skepticism is always wise when dealing with finger puppets.


Seriously, he liked it.

Cake Day!

Jim's birthday cake - carrot with cream cheese frosting. We bought a candle to put on top of it, but then we lost it, so no candle for Jim. He probably would've eaten it anyway.


At first he was completely unaware of what one does with cake.


Noah helped him figure it out.


Okay, that's good.


Double-fisting his cake.

Bonus Picture!

His very first scribble with his new crayons, done on his birthday shortly before cake time.

Outside!

Jim found a feather. This is his 'look at my cool thing!' face.


Usually followed immediately by this 'oh yes I am intrigued' face.


Sometimes he looks shifty.


But mostly he's just cute.

Takes after his mama.

We're accident-prone, Jim and me, especially since the boy started walking. I've stubbed my toes and burnt my fingers trying to stop him from getting into stuff, and Jim? Oh, Jim. He's gotten more injuries in the past couple weeks than in the entire first 11 months of his life.

TWO cuts, look closely.

Take this one, for example. He was happily playing with a potato in the kitchen while I washed dishes (yeah, we're cheap - potatoes are just as fun as real toys to a baby). Suddenly, I hear a "Eh. Eh? BOOHOOHOO!" Yes, he actually goes "BOOHOOHOO" when he cries. Anyway, I look around and he's filched a cat food lid out of the trash and there is blood EVERYWHERE. I take the lid from him - it's red and slick. His hand is covered, with blood running down his arm. It's on the floor; he's slipping in it. Guess it's time for Jim's first ER visit.

Doesn't he look pitiful, dancing on his own bloodstains?

Fortunately, after rinsing him off, and dousing everything in hydrogen peroxide, and bloodying several rags and the bedspread and Noah's phone, it turned out that it wasn't actually as dire as it first appeared. Jim handled the whole situation with considerably more stoicism than I did. He quit crying as soon as I picked him up, and was overall much more interested in leaving bloody fingerprints everywhere than in being comforted.

There were a bunch of minor bumps and bruises in between, but the second MAJOR injury happened about a week later. Noah and I were just getting dressed to take Jim on-base for official registration for Tricare. Jim, meanwhile, was just sitting on the bed minding his own business. Unfortunately, Jim REALLY likes to walk now, and when he's walking, he's not so hot at judging distances. So Noah came out of the bathroom, and Jim walked over to meet him, and BAM. Flipped right off the edge of the bed, did a full 360 in the air, and landed right on his head. First reaction: "Holy shit, make a noise, don't be dead." Second reaction: "Holy shit, move your limbs, don't be paralyzed." Luckily for Jim and us and the future of the US Navy (says Noah), he was neither dead nor paralyzed. He did get a hell of a bruise on his temple, though, which I planned to photograph later.

At least it covers up the bruise, right?

Long story short, I never got a chance to take a picture of Jim's pretty bruise because several hours later he randomly stumbled and fell face-first into a dumbbell in the corner. Once again, blood EVERYWHERE, completely covering his face and his shirt and Noah's chest and all of our hands. Babies have a lot more blood than you'd expect. I think they pack them with extra because so much is bound to get lost.

Jim doesn't give a crap about the blood on his shirt.

That was another "crap, are we gonna have to go to the ER?" moment, but again, things weren't nearly as bad as they initially looked. We're already starting to get more relaxed about his various knicks and scrapes, so I assume by the time we have another kid or two we're not even going to bother cleaning it off, just let the cats lick it up or something. Babies are pretty resilient.

Eating cheese like a bad-ass.

Babies grow, y'know.

Brand spankin' new.


One month and wary.


Two months and noisy.


Three months and inquisitive.


Four months and escaping.


Five months and astounded.


Six months and resigned.


Seven months and excited.


Eight months and exhausted.


Nine months and space-faring adventurous.


Ten months and bashful.


Eleven months and irrepressible.


12 months and quite done with sitting.