The World Is My Oyster...and now I can grab the oyster!

For the past nine months, I have been incredibly patient.  Eager and interested…but patient. For the first three months, I was confined to a small plastic tub in the NICU.  I was too busy growing to worry much about exploring the world.  Still though, I loved looking out the window at my rooftop garden, and I loved examining each and every person who came to visit me.  Finally, the time came for me to take my first car ride home, and I suddenly realized what a vast world I live in.  I have now been all over Northern California, including up to Tahoe four times, and even to New York City.  The past few months, I have been slowly learning to accomplish my milestones: holding my head up, rolling over, and standing with some help.  These are important in and of themselves, but now I have accomplished my true mission.  As I lay frustrated on my activity mat, or confined to my vibrating chair or Bumbo seat, I was so jealous of how the grown-ups could just do or fetch whatever they wanted.  I could see so many interesting things from my stationary vantage point, but they were perpetually out of my grasp.   No longer! 

Grammie assembled my new toy just before we went to New York.  My walker on wheels!  I didn’t know what to do at first, but within a day, I was zooming all over the house!  I shriek with delight each time I bang into a new object.  I saw Mama’s soft coat from across the room, and just had to have it for myself.  So, I motored on over there, and grabbed it…then tried to eat it (which is what I do with everything except for my bottles!)

The world has always been mine, but now I can actually explore it on my own!

Finding the coat.....

                                                    Eating the coat....

         I discovered the box my new highchair came in...and kept trying to talk to the little boy on the box...

The other news this week is that I finally met my cousin Nora who lives in Oregon.  She is my really my second cousin (her Mama Sharon is my Mama’s cousin).  She was born at the beginning of November 2011, about 6 weeks after my due date.   She is super cool, and very pretty with lots of dark stuff called “hair” on her head.  I never knew that other babies could have hair!  I got to play with her for an entire day, and we had a great time on our tummies together.   We sucked on each other’s fingers and of course had the requisite photo session.  We giggled together and practiced our bicycle kicks, but she scared me a few times too.  Every once in awhile, she would cry a little bit.  I have never heard a sound like that before (my own crying doesn’t bother me)…and it freaked me out.  So, every time she cried, I would break down in hysterics too.  What can I say?  I’m an empathetic guy!  I do not, however, understand why the grown-ups laughed so hard every time this happened.  What do two little people have to do to get a little sympathy around here?

Daddy & me with Sharon & Cousin Nora

Mama & Sharon with me & Nora

Nora and I...I kept trying to roll over onto her...

Practicing our bicycle kicking together

Cousins holding hands

Daddy & I with Cousin Tim & Nora

Sharon & Nora with Mama & me