You are becoming a regular eating machine. You have two teeth fully in and two teeth working their way out, but want to eat everything you can get your little hands on. Just when I stocked up on jar baby food you decided you didn't want baby food anymore. You want to feed yourself. You want to eat whatever we are eating. So I have been cutting up little pieces of banana, and little pieces of cheese and mandarin oranges and green beans and french bread crusts and filling your tray with these. Seems to be going well.

You are not walking yet. And you have kinda quit trying for the moment. Last week you would pull on anything in reach and then turn around and fall flat in a true "timberrrr" moment. You have the bruises all over your forehead to prove it. I guess you have learned the lesson b/c you really aren't doing that anymore. You are still pulling up on everything and very excited about it. You are also crawling on all fours just as much, maybe more now, than army crawling. Lately you are trying to get into whatever Lexie is doing. Stephen never stays still and does anything. You get excited to see him run by whenever he does, but Lexie will get involved playing with something and then you will crawl over to wherever she is and try to grab and get into her stuff. She gets really frustrated and trys to move you and trys to grab her stuff back and fusses at you. You aren't usually fazed and are even stronger than her. Most of the time I try and step in and move you and distract you with something else, more for my sake than anyone elses.

We have really been working on sign language with you over the last two weeks and you seem to be getting it. Mostly you do 'drink' and 'more.' Have introduced 'please' to you. Need to work on 'all done' and 'eat.' You really pay attention when I am showing them to you and your eyes just look so intense and interested. You are still really shrieking from your highchair though, so I need to stay consistent with the signs.

Well, last week we pretty much weaned. You were getting really hard to nurse b/c you wanted to wiggle around so much while you were nursing. You had never really taken a bottle very well before and I wonder if that was because you knew Mommy's milk wasn't supposed to come out of a bottle. But I decided to try you on a bottle last week to see how you would do and used some of the formula I had in the house for making your cereal. You took it from me and drank it all by yourself! I nursed you a few more times over the next few days to help myself, but haven't nursed you know in about 4/5 days. Not even sure now!

One of the most common forms of fever in a baby between the ages of 9-12 months and Nathan has it: Roseola. Neither of my other two had it. He has had fever all wknd w/ no other symptoms and we were really wondering what was going on. Yesterday morning he started with a rash on his forehead and by this morning it is covering his head and his trunk. It doesn't bother him and there is nothing you do for it, so we will just watch it and it should go away within a week. Thanks to Grandma for diagnosing. Apparently Kikken, Nene and I all had it as babies.

You are definitely recognizing your own name. I was playing around with you this morning talking to you and calling different names and you only looked up when I called Nathan. You also love to talk. You say "Ahh" and then I say "Ahh" and then back and forth. Very cute. Usually you will cock your head all the way to one side at some point during one of these exchanges and then smile really big, like I'm so cute!

Well, you are scarfing down cereal and fruits every night. You eat biter biscuits and zwieback toasts. You also do ok w/ french fries. I am also giving you miniscule bits of whatever I am eating. Over this past weekend you got a little constipated, but things are moving again! =) I think your system just needed to get used to solid foods.

This past weekend you went with me and your Daddy to the hospital in New Orleans to see Grandpa Big Jack. He nicknamed you "Jumbo" and was full of plans for you as a future football player. He predicted you were going to be 6'8" and 290 lbs and a force to be reckoned with. He said your number would be at least as high as 74 and after that could be whatever the hell you wanted it to be b/c you would be big enough nobody would mess with you. We will see what the future holds, but it was special for Grandpa to get to see you.