7 has taken to babbling very loudly. Everywhere. On our many recent trips to Lowes, he has taken to wandering the aisles flapping his arms and shouting. We are quite popular.
In this 33 second video, he is doing a little babbling, but the main focus is him playing with sound. He likes to block out the ambient sound by covering his ears and then pulls his hands away very quickly and listens to the noise.
My phone camera does not have a wide enough lenses to see our new huge room, but please note the recessed ceiling, rope light, etc. We will use the real camera later to post better pictures.
Martin (worker): should we put the hand rail up on the stairs? Me: I thought we were going to do that last so that we can move the furniture up first. Martin: That's why we are clearing out the trash up there. Phil (other worker) is hanging mirrors and then we are done.
Technically, Bill (painter) still has to paint the doors and do some touch up, but we will be moving all the furniture upstairs tonight.
Joseph has taken to being back home quite well. Gone are the screaming episodes when placed in his crib, and instead the usually happy, energetic toddler has settled back in to life at his real home. We spend lots of time outside playing, partially to get yard work done and enjoy the weather, and partially to stay out of the way of the workers. Of course, now that there are stairs (carpeted, finally!) available to climb, that's what he's most interested in doing. He's really gotten quite good at going up and down, and has learned that the plastic carpet protector on the stairs makes them slippery... and way more fun to just slide down on his belly instead of going one at a time!
We're hoping that the workers will be finished by the end of the week, but have decided to wait until they are completely done with upstairs before moving anything up. The north bedroom just needs the drawer and door hardware installed, our bedroom needs the lighting installed in the crown moulding, a set of closet doors and door/drawer hardware installed, and closet shelving painted, and the hallway is finished. The bathroom needs the most work, with final coats of paint, trim around the tub base, vanity tops and sink faucets installed, mirrors hung, and shower doors installed, whenever they arrive. Beyond that, as you can see in the pictures below, the bottom portion of the staircase needs to be finished, and then they still have to install our new front door and baseboards in the kitchen before we can call the job complete.
While at his grandparents' last week, we learned that Joseph really enjoys having his hair combed after bathtime. One night this week Joe brought out the comb, and ended up letting Joseph play with his hair instead.
Joe was a great sport, as Joseph tried to comb through Daddy's hair, but mainly banged the comb against his head, and eventually got it stuck!
Which was clearly so funny!
And ended up causing a lot of giggles during a period of baby hiccups. And honestly, who doesn't enjoy listening to a baby laughing?
Joseph still doesn't talk, but definitely likes to grunt, shriek, shout, etc. to get his point across. This is somewhat indicative of how he likes to communicate now, although each day he's learning more signs and is happy to use them.
Saturday evening was beautiful, so we decided to take Molly out for a walk. Earlier this week Joe had mentioned wanting to take Joseph on a walk to Baskin Robbins, which is about a mile and a half from our house. That particular evening dinner ran too long to go, so we tabled the ice cream trip. Saturday we managed to get Joseph fed and still had plenty of time before bedtime, and thus opted to head for the nearby Russell Stover's for ice cream... also a little over a mile away, but in the opposite direction of Baskin Robbins.
We had never been there before, and I was a little amazed at how nice and big it was! (And I'm not going to lie, I thoroughly enjoyed the nice assortment of candy samples :) ) They had a good selection of ice cream, which Joseph wanted no part of. He did enjoy picking up the jelly beans that someone had spilled and trying to eat those! Joe and I each picked out our ice cream, and watched as Joseph walked up and down the sidewalk, exploring and making friends with other little kids outside. It was a perfect evening, the ice cream cost half as much as our favorite, Murray's, and the experience couldn't be equaled. I'm so glad we opted to walk to the ice cream store and hope to enjoy many more trips this year!
I got a new phone at the end of last week, with a much better camera and faster data connections, so I'm excited about being able to post more frequently with events as they happen, as opposed to waiting to get home, upload pictures and then recount the previous week's events.
We've been working with Joseph on learning sign language for a few months now, but it didn't seem to be sinking in at all. Until now. Actually, he started about 10 days ago, right before heading to St. Louis to stay with his grandparents and aunts/uncle so we could run in the Brew to Brew race and move everything back home. He's just started with "milk" and "more" but it seems like now that he's figured out the connection between making a sign and getting what he asked for that he's like a sponge soaking in all of the new words and signs we present. I'll try to take some video of it soon, but it's awfully cute!
And as I mentioned, we are officially back in our house! No, we're still not finished, but we're over 90% of the way there. The carpet gets installed tomorrow, and after that there's just a lot of little details, like final paint touch ups, installing the toilet and vanity tops, shower doors and hanging the closet rods. We are really hoping that by this weekend we'll see enough things finished to move our bedroom furniture upstairs. We are probably a little overly ambitious saying that, but who knows, it may happen. :)
Luckily, Joseph has taken to being back home quite well. Gone are the crazy refusals to sleep in his crib. Maybe it's because we had the house all cleaned up and his toys scattered around the living room and his room, so we could play a lot and explore before it was bed time last night. Today we had a baby play group in the morning and he ended up falling asleep in the car for his morning nap before we made it home. But by the time he was ready for his afternoon nap, I decided to let things happen and put him down in his crib. Even with the half dozen guys running around, firing nail guns, sawing trim pieces and generally being noisy, he still managed to sneak in an hour long nap - not too shabby!
