New Milestones

We have achieved some new milestones here.  First, Drew is now eating some table foods.  Previously I had given him little Gerber Puffs, but I don't really count those as table food because nobody else eats them (unless Zach gets really lucky and I let him have a couple).  As of tonight, Drew has now had Cheerios, pears (the canned kind since they're so soft), mandarin oranges, semi-mashed up black beans, and cottage cheese.  So far he has liked everything he's tried.  The only problem is that some of that stuff is really hard for him to pick up.  I cannot remember what table foods Zach first tried, so I wonder if I'm anywhere close to the same things.  I think it's ok for him to have beans and cottage cheese, but I don't remember.  We go to the doctor tomorrow for his 9 mo. check-up, so I guess I will ask what else we can try.  Poor Drew has such a bad cold- he was sneezing all day today and every time snot would just shoot out of his nose.  His little nose looked pretty red when he went to bed.

The other milestone here is that Zach can now write his whole name.  For a while he was able to write the A and the H, but the Z and the C were a little tricky.  But lately he's been getting closer to getting the Z and C down.  He may not write them exactly correctly (for example, you're supposed to start at the top, and with the C, Zach starts at the bottom and goes up), but that's ok.  That'll come later.  Yesterday Zach made a card for Aunt Katherine and wrote HCA on one side of the paper and a Z on the front, but tonight was the first time I saw him write his name in sequence, 100% by himself.  A year ago at this time he quit wearing diapers and moved to a big boy bed, so I guess December is a milestone kind of month for him.

After Zach got up from his nap today, he said to me, "Mom, did you get to take a nap?"  I told him that I didn't get a chance.  He then said, "Well, if you want to take a little nap right now, you can.  It's ok with me."  I said, "Thanks, honey," and kind of brushed it off, but Zach was persistent.  He said, "Really, Mom.  You can go to sleep if you want to.  It's ok."  I said, "Would you take care of Drew for me?"  And Zach said, "Yeah, I would...sort of."  I said, "Sort of?  What would you NOT do?"  He said, "Change his diaper.  I would not do that."  That kind of made me laugh, because I thought he'd say something that he thought I would expect him to say, like, "I will not push him or hit him," or something like that.  

Finally, here are just a couple of random photos.

This is the finished Christmas tree.  I definitely don't love the shape of it, but Zach is so proud.  He keeps saying, "Isn't the tree I picked out a big hit?  I knew it would be a hit!"  Yesterday Zach and I decorated it, after I finally got the lights on the way I wanted.  Drew is somewhat interested in the tree, but hasn't been too bad about it.

Here's the gingerbread house that Zach and I made.  He also worked on it with Mike and Grandma Cynthia.  These are not great pictures.  The gingerbread house turned out pretty well.  It was a little difficult for me at times to give up control and let Zach make things asymmetrical.  Whenever I am building, I like symmetry.  This house does not have it, for the most part.  And Zach didn't care if his gingerbread people had one red eye and one purple eye, though again, it's not how I would have done it.  I let him do it his way, though, and it looks just great! 

And here Zach and I are using glitter glue on the pine cones that keep falling off our Christmas tree.  They actually look kind of pretty with the glitter on them.  Zach was really excited about decorating them, but then didn't feel like spending a lot of time to put much glitter glue on each little piece.  So his pine cones have two or three drops of glitter glue on them, and that's it.  Oh well.  Again, I am working on just letting him do things his way!