Ripping paper with grandpa

Under grandpa's super-vision (and banjo sere-nading), M got to tear into some gifts on Christmas Eve.

I suppose you could have wrapped up just about anything and he would have thought it equally fun, or confusing.



We had a good time observing though.












While on the Christmas whirlwind tour in SD we also visited great-grandma, Cecile, who is a few months shy of turning 100!

















M was on his best behavior through the entire trip. He even went to stay with Aunt B last Friday night. Ma & Pa weren't quite sure what to do with themselves on an evening without him.

In case you were wondering...

This is what the sock monkey looks like:

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Because M can't read yet it is probably safe to pre-announce that Santa Claus is bringing him a sock monkey. That would be a teddy bear that in the olden days was made out of discarded hosiery. Nowadays, the construction materials are neither used nor homemade.

Without a full year's worth of data to support the decision, St Nick made the judgment call to put him on the 'nice' list pending further evidence.

We hope you're Christmas will be fun and spent with people you like.
-Merry Merry!

Ps.
If you're interested, a personal holiday greeting from superboy himself can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rwy7nAck2k

A tale of two tables

We had M in for a medical check-up.
Yes, it is true, Dr Benson may have been the only one to recognize that Mr. Peanut turned 3/4 years last week. He was given a clean bill of health and no lollipop.

So far he has dodged all the airborne conta-minants of the season (unlike both of his parents).

Plugging his measurements into the growth charts for children his adjusted age he is doing quite well length-wise - he's just shorter than average. Weight-wise he's at the 10th percentile (with a full tummy). This in spite of a sharply increased food intake in the past few weeks. If all else fails he might be able to hawk prêt-à-porter in the future.

Spreading Holiday Cheer

On Sunday it was - roughly - five months since M came home from the hospital.

With that milestone and the pending holidays we thought it a good oppor-tunity to take the graduate back to his first alma mater and spread some baked goods around.

As luck would have it, many of the favorite staff were working and they were happy to see him - more than twice the size he was when he left!

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring the camera. But we have a few shots from the pre-trip warming up of the cute-baby face.

Food!

Well sort of...
As a first step on the long journey towards foie gras and truffles we're dabbling in oat-based cereal. If you have visions of Honey Bunches of Oats or Start, think again. Take everything you like about cereal and remove sugar, salt and flavor. Serve in semi-liquid form. Lukewarm...

We're serving a Swedish varietal so it comes from the land where bland food was invented. I envision this is what Oliver Twist was asking for more of when he was tossed out of the orphanage...

We're serving it with a spoon so he is adjusting to the new cuisine as well as a new way of eating (he's now on his third). So far, he seems intrigued with both and it is going well. Rumor has it I was quite fond of this stuff eons ago.

The somewhat fuzzy pictures are from the first attempt at this. The bib is purely symbolic. M has, of course, impeccable table manners.