Cuddling with mommy

As I have told you Tobias is moving around more and more and of course that makes him tired at times. It is at those times there is nothing more comforting to him than to cuddle with mommy or daddy. Here he is cuddling with mommy and loving it. A lot of times he will just fall asleep like this. I can tell you it is nice for mommy and daddy too! Don't they make a cute pair like this? That's what I thought when I shot this picture.

Hurricane Rita: Evacuation

As I am writing this we have had a couple of days of holding our breath. This has to do with Hurricane Rita because Dickinson, where Lisa's parents live, is right in the affected area. Initially the predictions were for the eye of Rita to pass straight over Dickinson, but "fortunately" (if I may say that...) it hit a little further east in a much less populated area. Lisa's parents, her brother and the cats evacuated on wednesday to Lisa's sister's place to the north west of Houston. We spoke to them this morning and they are fine where they are. They had a brief power out and lots of rain, but that's it. Of course there is no way of knowing what shape their house in Dickinson is in at this time, but judging from the path Rita took is seems that it could have been worse... We're still holding our breath somewhat until we find out.

Using Utensils...

Every wednesday Tobias goes to the daycare. I take him in the morning but before I do that I write in his notebook. This is a way the daycare communicates with parents when the children can't tell the stories for themselves (which means until the children are about 18 months old). It is a nice way to communicate, because not only does it help the parents and the daycare to communicate, it also creates a sort of a diary. So, I try my best to keep them posted on his developments every week and so do they (of course we also communicate in person... :-)). Yesterday they wrote that Tobias had eaten a slice of bread using a fork. That was hard to believe or imagine and kind of cool. So today I thought I'd try that at home..... As you can see here it worked fine, although I had to cut the bread and prick the pieces on the fork. Also I had to make sure the plate with the bread on it was out of reach so he would not grab a piece with his free hand... I do think he likes eating this way, but I am not sure if he likes the bread better than he does his oatmeal, but then again "a change of food makes one eat" (which is a literal translation of a dutch saying...) so, we'll keep trying different things.

Restless Sleep...?

Judging from how we put him to bed and how we find him when we get him out of bed Tobias must be a restless sleeper... Most of the times we put him in bed laying on his back like a normal person, head on one end, feet on the other. A while back I posted a picture where he had turned himself over. Well, before that he already started turning himself around. Now he is also moving around and if you add all these motions together there is no telling how we find him in the morning. Today he added his newly acquired capability of getting himself into a sitting position.... resulting in me finding him like this when I got him out of bed... cute huh? Not only that, but it is also time for me to lower his mattress a notch before he manages to drag himself out of bed....

Cowboy Tobias!

Here is Tobias sitting on (or is it in?) his rocking horse. Well, on what he may now consider his rocking horse... Why do I say that? Well, this rocking horse was given to me by my grandfather when I was Tobias' age (or maybe for my first birthday, I don't remember that accurately :-)). It was relatively recently used by my cousin Carolien's daghter Sabine and yet even more recently returned to me for Tobias to use. So, technically speaking it is my rocking horse Tobias is sitting on or in here. Since I am not using it that often anymore I guess he can consider it his as you can see he does. I think it is important for Tobias to keep all options for future developments and plans open, including becoming a professional cowboy... It looks like he has got what it takes :-)

Can I sit on the couch?

As I have said quite some times before, the development of Tobias is going really fast. Sometimes though, I think he wants to go a bit too fast. OK, he has been able to sit by himself for about a month now and he is getting better and better at it. He is becoming more stable when he sits, but also more agile. He can move from one toy to another, grab it while sort of laying and then come back into sitting position. Also he can crawl and them get back in sitting position in a different place. I think his intention in this picture was to sit like the "big people" sit... He must have been sitting like this for 15 minutes or so, just pulling himself up on the couch, making noises and, every once in a while, look around him so daddy could take a good picture... :-)

Cool dude!

On most of my daddy-days I take Tobias into town for a walk. This gives him the opportunity to be outside and me the opportunity to get some groceries and stuff. As summer approached and came, the sun in Tobias' eyes became more and more of an issue during our walks. So, I decided to get him some sunglasses... At that time (that must have been July I think) and the weeks to come the sunglasses seemed totally wasted on him... Whenever we put them on his face, he would take them off immediately. Today is a beautiful and sunny day so, when we went into town I thought I'd try the sunglasses again. Well, he didn't take them off. As a matter of fact he enjoyed having them on and I think he even realized why he was wearing them. I didn't even have to readjust them during our walk. I only had to take them off whenever we went into a store because, you know, that's just common courtesy, right? And of course Tobias is a descent kid who knows good manners :-). As we were walking, not only was Tobias enjoying his sunglasses, but also lots of attention from everyone because, well... he looks sooooooo cool! Doesn't he?