softball and mud

Yesterday morning we went to Laurel to play a pick-up softball game with some other members of our church, and it was really fun.  It was co-ed, so I could have played, but someone needed to watch Jed - so I opted to let Scott play instead.  When we got there I saw that were a few other wives who were taking turns with their husbands, playing and child-watching, but I hadn't thought of that so I was wearing my flip-flops and wasn't prepared to play.  Scott, who used to be really good but hasn't played in several years, walked away from the games a little frustrated at his performance but glad he went to play.  The other team, many of whom get together once a week to play just for fun, were clearly more practiced - but our team did much better the second game and had the lead up until the very end.  Even though he wishes he had performed a little better, I loved watching him play and thought he looked very handsome out there on the field:

Jed didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, but found the mud puddles (it was hot and sunny during the game, but we've had a lot of rain recently) quite tempting.  I tried to keep him out of them for the first 20 minutes or so, but quickly gave up and let him splash around.  He promptly slipped and fell, coating his backside with mud:

After doing that a couple times, I decided it was a totally lost cause and just tried to keep him from running into the street, onto the field, or grabbing other people's things with his muddy hands.  He was mostly happy, except for a short period after he had fallen on his back in the mud and hit his head on the ground - he didn't like that at all.  But he loved splashing in the mud, digging in the mud, and kneeling in the mud.  Most of the other moms kept pulling their kids out of the puddles and wiping off their shoes, but I didn't think it was worth the fight.  It was just mud, and how could I deny him such joy???

For a little while, he was quite entertained with "painting" our car with mud - luckily our car was the one closest to the empty parking spaces where the mud puddles were and all the kids were playing.  He would dip his hands in the mud, walk over to the car and smear the mud around, then walk back over to the mud puddle to get some more finger paint and return to his art.  He did this about 20 times in a row, perfectly pleased with himself.

At one point he knelt down, leaned over, and tried to drink the mud, which is where I drew the line - all else was fair game with the mud, but drinking it was not okay.  By the end of the softball games he was absolutely covered in mud - which probably helped block the sun, so maybe it was a good thing.  We stripped him down, used baby wipes to get him clean enough to ride in the car, then whisked him home and into the bathtub.  He was one dirty but happy baby!

summer activities I

Jed and I have been keeping busy this summer so far, doing lots of fun things.  Here are a few of the activities we have done recently, that aren't exciting enough to warrant their own blog post, but that I don't want to completely overlook (I will probably do a post like this several times over the course of the summer):

National Train Day
On May 11th National Train Day came to Washington, DC, and Scott and I decided to take Jed, since he loves anything with wheels.  There wasn't a lot to do for a 1-year-old, which wasn't very surprising.  But we walked through some historical train cars - some passenger, some dining, some fancy, some not.  I didn't last very long in that part, as I get claustrophobic.  But Jed seemed to have no problem with the small spaces, and loved running down the corridors.  Toward the end of the day we found the model trains, and the area to play with the toy trains, and Jed loved both of those.

Petting Zoo
For one of our Playgroup activities we went to the petting zoo at Watkins Regional Park, and Jed loved to see all the animals. He appreciated them being in their cages, though - when any of them walked too close to the fence he got nervous.  His friend Ivy was glad to see him, and though she had been crying before Jed arrived (scared of the animals), once he got there she quickly warmed up to the activity.  They both enjoyed playing with some buckets that we found.  When we got around to the peacocks, one of the other moms bought some food and passed it around so all the kids could have a turn feeding the birds; but when I gave Jed some of the corn kernels, he tried to feed them to himself instead.  After the kids had seen enough of the animals, we took them to the park across the street.

Memorial Day
For Memorial Day we went to BBQ with some old friends of mine, and we convinced the St. Clairs to join us.  David and Nadine live out in Rockville and have a huge yard, which the kids loved running around in.  We played Bocce and lawn bowling (which Debbie and I lost at spectacularly, which was embarrassing because we played against my dad and someone's 10-year-old), and had really delicious food.  Jed enjoyed some potato chips that my dad gave him, and when I tried to save Jed by eating the last little handful on his plate, I nearly choked because I hadn't realized that they were salt and vinegar (so, so gross).  Jed hadn't minded, apparently.  At Jed's bedtime, we put him in his pajamas and got ready to go; as we did so, Jed stole my dad's cowboy hat and began running around with it, very pleased with himself.  He looked pretty funny in his Toy Story pajamas, brown sneakers, and white cowboy hat:

Luau
Jed actually wasn't involved in this at all, but it was a big part of my life for over a month.  I'm in the Stake Young Women's Presidency at church, and we recently threw a multi-stake youth dance - with a Hawaiian Luau theme.  I was in charge of all the food and all the decorations (so basically, everything except finding a DJ).  It was a lot of work, but it turned out well. I carved a watermelon - part of it held cubed watermelon pieces and looked like ocean waves, and the other part was carved into a family of turtles.  There was a Mama turtle, and 4 babies following behind her.  I made them heads, but didn't have time to make feet and tails - so I told everyone who asked that they had them tucked up into their shells.  My landlady has been getting rid of all the bamboo in our side yard recently, so before she hauled it away I took some pieces, cut them to all the same size, and lashed them together to make a bamboo facade.  I painted "Tiki Hut" with 2 palm trees on some newsprint and hung the sign on the front.  On the tables with all the food I had lots of little things scattered around, like seashells, shark puppets, fish netting, lots of flowers, ceramic fish and turtles, etc.  I put the chips and salsa in plastic beach buckets.  Across the front of the stage I hung more fish netting, leaned some boogie boards against it, and placed a "gone to the beach" sign.  Tiki torches lined the front walkway, and the sign-in table was covered in vintage postcards from Hawaii (the little wooden table was saran wrapped to keep the postcards in place).  I pinned up some things on the wall - sarongs, fans, and beach shorts.  The dance was a success, and our biggest problem was that the air conditioning in the gymnasium was broken, so it kind of felt like we were actually in Hawaii (I told everyone that I had done it on purpose...).  But the kids seemed to enjoy it anyway, and we had about 100 people there. I took pictures of some of the decorations, but not all of them.

Virginia Renaissance Faire
Since my dad jousts semi-professionally, and was jousting in the Virginia Renn Faire this year, we went down on the last weekend and watched him.  Scott, Debbie, Jed and I drove down together, and stayed about 6 hours.  Since it's a 2-hour drive each way, that made for a long day and a tired, tired baby (who didn't take much of a nap while we were there)!  It rained a little that morning, but was sunny the rest of the day - but during the first joust, at noon, they couldn't actually joust because the rain in the morning had made the field too slick.  So they did some skill games instead, and was able to joust a little during the 3:00 show.  Jed loved to look at the horses, and would point and exclaim excitedly, but wanted nothing to do with them up close.  (Can't say as I blame him; they are only about a million times his size!)  Right before we watched the 3:00 joust, we caught a show in the woods called Circus Stella, which was really cool.  The couple who did it were cute and funny - and did trapeze stunts, tight-rope walking (and tight-rope unicycle riding), torch and chain-saw juggling, silk rope acrobatics, and brought out their dogs.  Besides watching my dad, it was definitely the highlight of the day.

16-month update

A few things about Jed at 16 months:

• Jed's vocabulary is expanding, slowly but surely.  He now says about 10 words and signs 30+.  I have absolutely LOVED teaching him sign language, and he clearly enjoys it as well.  It helps him communicate what he wants to me, and instead of shrieking until he gets what he wants, he can sign "please".  When he is playing with a toy, or standing on the edge of a step, or looking up at an object and he starts fervently signing "please", I know he wants help.  No need to start crying.  He can ASK for "milk", "banana", "water", "cheese", etc...instead of screaming and leaving me to guess what he wants.  He can sign "all done" when he wants to get down from the table, instead of resorting to throwing his food to tell me that he's finished eating.  All of this I anticipated, and is the reason I started doing sign language with him.  But what I didn't anticipate is the way he can communicate with me outside of things that he wants or needs.  When he sees a dog, live or in a picture, Jed will sign "dog".  When he hears a dog bark, even if he doesn't see the dog, he will do the same thing.  I then know that he not only recognizes the animal by sight, but also the sound it makes and associates the two together.  When he points to a picture in a book and signs "bus", and then points to a picture in another book and does the same sign, I know that he recognizes them both as buses, even though they look a little different from each other. When we are out about about and he starts excitedly signing "bird", or "flowers", or "helicopter", I know what he's paying attention to.  This gives me great insight into what he's picking up on from the things that I teach him, and what is interesting to him - of all the things he could have seen, that is what he noticed.   Plus, he gets SO excited that he recognizes things and can tell me about them, and I respond in kind.
• Jed loves all things with wheels.  If he sees any cars or trucks, he points excitedly and yells "car-car!"  He will say this over and over again until he is satisfied that we have sufficiently recognized the coolness of the vehicle he has seen.  He drives his cars and trucks around at home very enthusiastically, making "vrrrrr" sounds for the cars and clicking sounds for his trains.
• He loves to dance so, so much.  I will soon have a little video put together of a few clips of him dancing and then I will post it.  He shakes his booty, swings his arms, twists his torso, bounces up and down, and spins in a circle.  When I play a cd of music, he will dance at first, and eventually get distracted playing with a toy.  But he immediately stops whatever he is doing and is very concerned in between the songs because the music stopped - and isn't happy until the next song comes on.
• He went through a phase where he wasn't interested in books, and wouldn't sit still long enough to read them with us.  But he has recently become completely enthralled with them again, much to Scott's and my delight.  He spends a lot of time each day reading books, whether with us or on his own.  He often climbs onto his little chair near the bookshelf, pulls a book off the shelf, and proceeds to loudly "read" it to nobody in particular - with great fervor.  When he is finished, he pulls another book out and "reads" that one aloud.  He can do this for up to 45 minutes at a time.

One of Jed's favourite places to stop and rest during our
walks around the block. He is wet in this picture because
he stopped and played in someone's sprinkler on the way.

 

My landlady is clearing out the side yard, and Jed loves to hang out with Will the maintenance guy
because he always has the best tools.  Will loves Jed too.

 

Learning the value of hard labor

Sometimes I just can't stand the cuteness!

He may be cute but he's still trouble.