a game of cat and mouse for Halloween

eight and ate (everything that wasn't nailed down)

Blues is eight months old this month and headed for toddlerhood at an alarming rate. I feel like I never really had an infant with this kid...he was so big from the start and seemed to start sitting up and moving around so early. I don't know how big or heavy he is (except that he's big and heavy), but will get accurate number next month at his 9 month check up. Otherwise, physically, he's strong and health, holding steady at 5 teeth and blue eyes.He's been eating a lot more over the past month. But, true to form, he won't act like a tiny baby and accept spoonfuls of sustenance. He grabs for any utensil we put near him, pulling it away from his mouth and back where he can take a good look at it before feeding it to himself. His been sampling a variety of table foods including bread, apples, crackers, sweet and white potatoes, carrots, chicken, and cheese. I'd love to feed him yogurt or oatmeal, but he prefers to do it himself, so very little reaches his mouth. Thank goodness Aunt Lucy sent him a little mesh bag for feeding chunks of food to babies, so he can handle the slipperier stuff like mango and banana. Ellis call it "his feeder", which is perhaps a little too on the nose.
Maddox is increasingly on the go these days. Crawling at super speed and starting to cruise in earnest. He really likes "chasing" Ellis around the house, but hates being chased or "herded" by Ellis. He's been very keen on making friends with Scout, but it doesn't seem terribly mutual, probably because she hates having her hair pulled as much as I do. Though he's been exploring a lot, he fortunately hasn't shown much interest in the stairs. Our house has two little carpeted steps between the kitchen and family room, so he's been using those to get some practice.He's starting to get the hang of peekaboo and loves getting thrown up in the air and tossed around. If he keeps growing at this rate, though, I'll only be able to do that for a couple more weeks. Trey's already logged his "wrestling" with Ellis, which is fairly terrifying for me, but apparently part of being a boy. Sigh.

wrestling match

Despite his young age, Blues has been scrapping with his brother some. Ellis hasn't quite mastered the art of gentle wrestling, but then again, to be fair, neither has Blues.

Ellis apparently let Blues begin in the advantage position (above), but Blues just fell off of Ellis's back. I didn't give Ellis points for the take down because gravity on his lardy opponent really deserved most of the credit.

Blues wound up in a headlock. His weight is about half that of Ellis but the bigger disadvantage seems to be that when he is on top of Ellis his feet don't touch the ground. Hence hollering at him to "drive with his legs" doesn't mean a whole lot.

Coming out of the headlock Ellis crawled off and Blues put on his game face. Check out those Nixonesque jowls. As he crawled toward Ellis, the trash talking started. Turns out Blues can deliver some good verbal garbage. I am sure I heard him say, "If you got onions in the sack then don't make me chase your pajama wearin' ass."

Ellis continued to take things lightly and ended up paying the price. I gave Blues a couple of points for an almost take down (above).

Then Blues managed to turn him. I thought Blues was going for the pin, but then just before I counted three he let up and with speed that couldn't be captured on film he showed that he had already earned his name by delivering the patented family finishing move, The Poke of Death:

time lapse kitchen

For a few weeks now we've been working towards painting the kitchen. Here's a before shot. Ugh.
Stripping the wallpaper wasn't really difficult, at least not in the usual sense. More in the "must constantly monitor all scraps that fall to the floor lest they been ingested by a roving 7 month old." Nonetheless, I was ultimately successful. Trey worked on patching the many crazy places in the wall and we tried out some colors. The only picture I have of that features Maddox in the foreground; apparently he's having a breakfast of Cheerios and, uh, hinges.
This weekend...priming!
And painting begins!
We're hoping for some kind of color washing or faux finish over this. And eventually (maybe even before Christmas despite our glacial pace) new draw pulls and lighting.

and so it begins

Our mailbox has been inundated with "holiday preview" toy catalogs and so Ellis has taken to circling the items that he fancies. Today, as he paged through one, I heard him mutter to himself "ugh, I don't like girl toys... where are the boy toys?"