Balls and Bubbles

Tobias loves playing with balls. He will pick them up and play with them one way or another. The bigger the ball the harder it gets of course. Usually he will just pick up the ball and throw it on the floor, then walk after it and repeat the process. The other day he had a tennis ball in each hand and he would bang them together before throwing them both on the floor at the same time and then going after them while laughing like crazy....

Tobias also loves bubbles, or "baba's" as he calls them. We have a bubble blow thing which we use inside the house. Of course it is lots of fun to try to get a bubble and then see it disappear... Tobias also got a bubble machine as a gift. We do not use it in the house, just outside... Recently the weather has been really nice so we have been outside a lot.... and we have used the bubble machine, much to Tobias' delight.

What is even better than balls OR bubbles is balls AND bubbles!!!

Water is Fun

A couple of week back we went to visit my parents on their vacation in Renesse, a small town close to the beach. A friend of my dad's has a summer house there. My parents go there frequently and we visit occasionally.

When we visited this time the weather was perfect. My mom thought that Tobias would like playing in the water. Well, she was right. What started out as just walking around and stepping into the water tub gradually went to splashing the water, to throwing balls of all kinds and sizes in the water, to Tobias sitting in the water entirely!

Lots of fun for him, but also for his audience... :-)

Drinking from a straw

Tobias has been able to drink by himself for quite a while. Mostly he drinks from a sippy cup, but he can also drin from a normal cup as you may remember from previous posts. Recently Tobias added a way of drinking by himself to the list: drinking from a straw. To us that is very convenient because at restaurants we don't have to bring his cup necessarily anymore. We can just sit down at one of the lovely terraces in Gouda, or in this case Oudewater.

Not only is it convenient, it also makes for a nice picture, like this one... We were on a biking trip in the Gouda area and stopped for lunch in Oudewater, a lovely small town, not unlike Gouda, just a lot smaller. I like Tobias with his hat and sunglasses on, and the good thing is, he doesn't take them off. I think he likes wearing them. The wind just took off his hat once during the trip... 

Loving the Cats

Tobias is a very affectionate guy who loves his daddy :-). He will kiss me. He will hug me, which means putting both his little arms around my face and pulling myface against his, or putting his face sideways to push his cheek against mine. He will also "nose" with me which means rubbing our noses together. Of course I am a very affectionate guy who loves his son, so I think it is great.

Needless to say Tobias loves his mommy too and he does the same with her. What is a little disgusting to me though, but at the same time quite cute is that he does the same to the cats, especially Janneke, the disgustingly fat one... Tobias figured out that the cats need a very silent and delicate approach in order for them not to run away. So, now he approached them from behind and technically hugs their butt.....

Anyway, the cats get kisses too, on their noses (or in that area anyway). In this picture Tobias is kissing Janneke on the nose, cute huh? 

Bug-eyes

Even though sometimes it seems like the Netherlands is completely full, flat and boring there are some places, even close to where we live that are just beautiful. Recently I have been biking a lot because of a challenge at work: a two day, 150 mile biking trip through the Belgian Ardennes, which, for Dutch standards, is mountainous (I would estimate that the mountainousness (is that a word?) is comparable to the Blue Ridge Mountains). Of course the occasional dike is the only mountian I get on my trips, but that was not the point I was making. Biking around Gouda can be absolutely beautiful, especially when the sun is out. That was the case last weekend so the three of us went biking.

Tobias loves the countryside too, because there are lots of cows, sheep, ducks, horses, dogs etc. He especially loves cows and makes his own cow sound when he sees some. He also does his dog sound when he sees or hears one. That is so funny. He is riding in the front of my bike and whenever he sees something he is really enthousiastic about he looks up as if to say "look at that daddy!". Soooooo cute!

As I said it was sunny last weekend when we went biking. So not only did we grease up Tobias with sunblock, we also put his cap and sunglasses on. Lots of people are surprised by the fact that he keeps them on, and he did keep them on the entire 20 mile ride.... To us that's quite normal, because he would already keep them on during walks we took last summer.... Well, aren't we the cool dudes with our "bug-eyes"? 

Taking a bath (lying down)

As I have reporte (probably more than once) before Tobias loves taking baths. I usually take a bath with him. That accounts for lots of laughs for both Tobias and me! Sometimes I would lay him down just to see his reaction. Well, he would like that, just as long as I would hold his head while doing it.

The other day I already layed him down while the bath was filling up. At first he was a little hesitant, but as soon as the water surrounded him he stated laughing and never stopped... He loved it. Now we start of the bath like that every time. So, I am only welcome in the tub for part of the time..... but, it is still lots of laughs and lots of fun....

Another bathing thing that started recently is Tobias' new shampoo bottle. It is "kandoo" and it is a pump system in the shape of a big frog-like creature. The shampoo comes out of it's mouth. Tobias just loves that thing and playing peek-a-boo with it is the best thing ever.

It is interesting how things other than toys can be loads of fun. Sometimes even more fun than the toy itself! Anyway, for Tobias' sake I arranged the bubbles in a discrete manner before taking this picture ;-) Isn't that smile adorable? 

Unexpected actions and laughs

Sometimes Tobias does the most unexpected things... In our office we have a basket of toys. Well, Tobias was playing with his toys and with other things while I was working on the computer. I was turning my head every once in a while to check how he was doing. Most of the times he was playing with one toy or another, with my guitar or harmonica or just sitting and bouncing on the couch.

Well, at one point he had taken all the toys out of his basket. Instead of playing with all of them, or putting them back into his basket (which he seems to like a lot because sometimes all he does is take them out and put them back in...) he put himself in the basket.... literally. Of course I could not let that CCD moment (digital version of the kodak moment :-)) pass. I carried him around the house in that basket showing mommy as well before taking this picture.

We all had to laugh :-)