What English Sounds Like

...to a one-year-old.

Some stills of the great cookie grab. This is what happens when mommy leaves the gingerbread cookies in the wrong place.

Beowulf is a little obsessed with light switches right now. His main reason for wanting to be picked up is so you can take him to one. Which leads to today's other adventure...

Whoops!
I ALMOST got the shot where the leapfrog table had slid out all the way and he was completely horizontal, hanging on by fingers and toes. But alas, I was too slow...

Oh, I dug Beo's mirror out of the garage. It helped him learn to smile so I thought it might help him with his words, too. :-)

Video Glut

I took a bunch of videos recently so I thought I'd just throw them all up here for the grandmas.

Here's Beowulf walking... at first he had to "conduct" with his hands to keep his balance. He's past this now. :-)

I showed Beo how to use a whisk...

When I tried to sweep the other day, Beo grabbed the broom and decided he wanted to do that, thanks.

For Beo's birthday we got some of those party blowers. Turned out they didn't make noise, but he thought the unrolling "tongue" was hilarious.

And last but not least, Beowulf eating his birthday cake. Apparently we wore him out beforehand because he was so sleepy... :-)

Happy First Birthday, Beowulf!

My baby is one year old today! Maybe I shouldn't be calling him a baby anymore since he's technically "toddling," but I don't care! He's still my baby. No denying he's grown, though!

Beo and Fuzzy Bunny watch Kipper together.

In the past year he's gone from being a tiny little bundle of sleep to a walking, not-so-talking little man who knows what he wants and how to get it. His defining personality characteristics are stubbornness, determination, and humor.

Beo likes bath time so much we have to keep the bathroom door shut or this happens.

This year he's learned how to sit up, crawl, clap, wave, point, shake his head, climb, and most importantly to walk!

The Point. Cut the crap, Mom, you know what I want. Now go get it.

Beowulf doesn't talk yet (not even close), but he clearly recognizes his own name as well as "No," "Mama" "Daddy" and probably a few other words.

This ornament looks like a cookie!

His favorite place in the whole world is the park, and he would be happy to spend all day there. Rainy days are torture, but whenever the sky is clear and he's gotten to go to the park he's a happy guy for the rest of the day.

But it does not taste like a cookie!

Our little rascal is also quite the extrovert. How did that happen? He loves people, especially other children. He is absolutely in heaven when there are other kids at the park, and he follows them around and tries to copy them. He also does very well with adults. As long as he sees that Kelson or I are friendly with someone else, he isn't at all timid. He does great in the nursery at church.

I wonder why I keep putting it in my mouth?

In the evening when Beowulf is tired, he watches Kipper the Dog. He also likes the movie Wall-E. Then he goes to bed and - Mommy's favorite - sleeps through the entire night! Hooray!

This is Beowulf "smiling" for the camera.

Most recently, he's learned to show affection. We're getting some very good hugs, and he's starting to hug his stuffed animals. Today he walked around hugging his bear, and then when we went to B&N tonight he went straight for a stuffed penguin and insisted on carrying him all around the store, which made everyone he saw smile. Man, I swore I wasn't going to get him any more stuffed animals, but what could I do? He slimed it!

Much better. And no, Mr. Gingerbread ornament did not survive unscathed.

We are so blessed to be Beowulf's parents, and this first year has been a wild, wonderful ride. I can't wait to see what 2011 brings! (Potty training, anyone?)

Beo plans to be the first Viking in space.

This is why...

We don't put milk in the sippy cup.

After an unfortunate incident with a ceramic cup, I bought Beo some plastic dishes and have started giving him food in them. My little barbarian decided this was the correct way to use a bowl:

Hmm, a little inconvenient. Let's try hands, shall we?

Oh yeah! That works!

As demonstrated in my last post, Beo is quite good at unscrewing things. There are some little silver posts in the stand we put his lamp and sound machine on in the bedroom, and he likes to unscrew those. I believe it all started when we got him a little plastic baby walker from Target. The "arms" are attached with big green screws, and Beowulf's favorite way to "play" with this toy is to take them off.

Possibly because they look like giant pacifiers.

Yesterday we went to Grandma Caro's to bake some cookies (yum!) and picked up this giant bin of duplos her friend had passed on. Beo is in heaven!

And just for good measure, some more creative dinnerware usage.

Christmastime!

Beo's first encounter with a Christmas tree!

Our new house has a lovely front window, perfect for a Christmas tree, but we were pretty sure if we got a regular tree we wouldn't be able to keep Beowulf out of it. So instead we got a little 3' tree from Home Depot and set it up on top of the end table, which we moved in front of the window. My mom brought a bunch of my old ornaments and I put the most unbreakable ones on the bottom. So far Beo has investigated, but not actually tried to pull anything over. I'm surprised, since one of his favorite things to do now that we've got a wood floor is push all the furniture around.

It's been a while since I posted, so I'll try to give a quick rundown of what's going on in the Hootman household.

Beo and Mommy and LOTS of boxes!

First, we're pretty much moved in. We're still missing some key pieces of furniture (like a chest of drawers for our clothes - closet space is very limited) but we'll add those over the next few months. However, the house is looking really good - and clean! It's bigger than our old place and it feels really spacious.

Beo got this piece off the shoe rack... I thought he just pulled it but then I realized he had unscrewed the nut that held it on the back. Just like his dad...

The neighborhood is great. Doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of kids, but we put lights up last weekend and since then everyone else has been doing the same. It's so cool to live in an actual neighborhood where people get into the spirit of things. Yesterday everyone in the family across the street got up on the roof to hang the lights!

I'm an angel!

Just kidding!

Kelson's new job is going really well. He's working very long hours and that seems to be the norm, but his work is very much appreciated, which is nice! He bikes into the BART station and takes the train to SF every day.

Beowulf finally meets Great Grandma Caro!

Beowulf and I are a bit lonely during the week, but we've been exploring the area and discovered the local parks. The only thing lacking here is swings, which are his favorite, so we are going to have to find some for the back yard.

Chillin'

Speaking of Beowulf, he's learned so much in the past month! He's now toddling around, which is pretty cute. He can walk the length of the living room, but he's still a bit unsteady and falls on his butt if he's not paying attention. About two days ago he started shaking his head "no." He also likes to point at everything - either to tell you what he wants or get you to say what it is.

Thank you for the fuzzy bunny, Aunt Wendy! I love him!

I've had to crack down on the discipline a bit, because he's now to the point where he intentionally does things he knows he's not supposed to. Most of the time he's a very good boy, but sometimes temptation gets the better of him! In the beginning I disciplined him by giving him a smack on the hand and saying "no," but that didn't work... mainly because he thinks getting smacked on the hand is pretty funny!

Let me show you my new trick... dropping food I don't want on the floor to make it disappear!

It turns out that what really gets to him is the tone of your voice - which is not surprising because we knew he was very sensitive to sound. A stern, low "NO" results in instant sobbing, which breaks my heart! I wish I could tell him it's not THAT big of a deal... that he just needs to behave! But I guess for babies it's kind of all-or-nothing. He'll get the hang of it, as will I.

PEEKABOO!