playday at Gran's

Nothing runs faster than a wet naked baby fresh from his bath, fleeing to escape the confines of the towel and imminent diaper installation.

It was a good day. He woke up early and played and then took a very long morning nap, so long, in fact, that Mommy got a little nap in as well. Bliss! But it was good that he napped so long, because we've entered a new trend. He seems to be down to one nap a day now. For the past 3 afternoons, he's refused the afternoon nap. I suppose his little system compensated by increasing the length of his morning nap today. He did seem tired this afternoon but never did nap. Could be he's dropped it for good.

Normally this would cause me some mixed feelings. I get a lot done during the afternoon nap, so it stands to reason that I would miss it even if he didn't. But in place of napping in the afternoon, what he does now is play quietly and alone for the hour to hour and a half that he would be napping. I check in on him from time to time, but he's happy as can be just entertaining himself with books or cars. Tonight while I was preparing supper, every time I went back to his room to check on him, he was sitting it a different spot, reading a different book. He would look up at me and smile and then go back to his reading. I'm so proud!

We had a nice time playing in the playroom at Gran's house. She has a couple of dolls there and one looks like a boy baby (and even wears a diaper). There's another one almost the size of Dennis that's also a boy. He played with these little guys some this week. He put the baby in his own stroller and wheeled him around the room. And today he danced with the bigger doll. He pushed the button for music, picked up the doll, looked it in the eye, said "okay?" and then danced it up and down. It's a terrible shame that I'd put the camera in the other room.

I cooked spaghetti and meat sauce and beer bread tonight, and spaghetti night always necessitates a bath immediately following the meal. Tonight was no exception. I looked over at Dennis as he picked up his high chair tray (which is where he dumped his spaghetti halfway through his meal) and watched in horror as he rubbed it across the top of his head and then tossed it onto the floor. He calmly finished eating the spaghetti that was stuck to his bib or in his lap, and when he looked up at us, I had a sudden realization that we were, in fact, eating supper with an Oompa Loompa. With the vigorous application of soap and water, he seems to have returned to his normal skin tone rather than the shocking orange that he was post-meal. The high chair is back to normal as well, but it also required vigorous scrubbing and cleaning solutions.

After supper, we went on our nightly walk, and Dennis encouraged David the entire time. David was the one pushing him in the stroller, and David actually did some running. Mom and I walked at our pace and waved at Dennis in passing (they lapped us TWICE!). I am just happy that the jogging stroller has now officially been for a jog. It has been hiking a few times, and done lots of track and sidewalk rolling, but tonight was its first jog. Dennis treats it like his coaching seat on wheels.