Bedtime Stories and Other Stuff

Every night, Jack and I go through the same bedtime routine.  First it's a diaper change, then sometimes a bath, and almost always some bedtime stories.  There are two stories that we read every night, but some nights call for more stories than just the two to help us wind down.  We have read It's Time for Bed  and Goodnight Moon every night since Jack was 3 months old.  He is VERY familiar with them  Usually he sits in my lap, listens to the stories, and sometimes tries to grab the book to eat it.  It's very sweet when he grabs the book like I do, and he sits there holding it open for me to read.  The other night we had a Growth Chart Moment while reading our books.  We were reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  and this time Jack reached for the page to run his little hand over it.  I thought maybe he wanted to rip it up, or just get a feel for the pages, but after doing this with all three of our books, on every page, I figured out that he was touching the picture on the page.  He was touching the bear's face, the little boy's hair, and the fire in the Great Green Room.  (You'd have to know each of the stories to understand.) I was so impressed with this, because up to this point, I wasn't sure what he was really seeing when we were reading the stories.  Now I know he's trying to figure out the pictures on each page.  I wonder if he's figuring out that the words I'm saying go with the pictures on the page. 

Other stuff - Do babies become solid-food-eaters overnight?   While visiting with family over the weekend, and apparently not bringing enough food for my little boy, I ended up giving him some of my food.  Mostly just my pasta, but also some bites of my Fluffy Pink Salad. (And a taste of BBQ sauce, but we won't talk about that). Today, while I was feeding him lunch, I realized he wanted to eat only what he could 'chew'.  I didn't thin down his chicken, which meant he had chicken powder to munch on (do you remember what it resembles?). I also gave him some small bits of nectarine.  He barely touched the pureed sweet potatoes that he usually loves.  I think he just wants to eat big-boy food now.  New baby-food-making adventures await me!

And I think it's finally here.  He's crawling like a big boy now.  Most of the time anyway.  He looks so cute doing it too.  We walk laps around our kitchen island, he cruises around all of our furniture, and now he crawls on all fours.  And I'm proud to say my floors have never been cleaner!