Avocado Adventures

April had read that avocados were full of "good fat" for babies' brains, so she picked some up at the grocery store the other day. Here are some photos of the Bear eating it for the first time (his brain seemed to really like it) and smearing it all over himself for the first time (his clothes seemed to really like it, too).



You can really see his little teeth in this photo.

Best Babysitters Ever!

While April and I were at the Kingston Bridal show on Sunday, Scott and Gemma came over to babysit! Although I didn't get a chance to see them (or take photos) I'm assuming their day looked something like this:


Thanks again Scott and Gemma for being the best babysitters ever!

Fisheye Fun

Parker Bear loooves the fisheye. Well, mabye not. But daddy does.

Sippy Cup Skillz

Here's Parker showing off with his sippy cup. He thinks mommy is silly and he likes her. If there was a thought bubble coming from his head it would probably say something like, "Mommy is the beeeeest!"

Cookie Time Slideshow

Here's a slideshow of Parker feeding himself a "cookie" (it's actually a Mum Mum biscuit thing but I call them cookies for some reason). Here's the slideshow:

C Is For Cookie - http://www.garrettelliott.com/cookie

Enjoy! Parker did!

New.....Toy-Thing...?

We were shopping for baby gates to block our trecherous staircases, and April saw this thing she read about somewhere, so we bought it. I don't remember the name, but it's this little net-thing that you stuff food into, and then you twist it shut to lock it in place, and your baby can gum it and suck on it so that the food oozes out into their mouths in a paste form. It's awesome! Ha! It prevents them from biting off more than they can chew (literally) and choking, but it makes a HUGE mess. It's funny watching Parker mash it into his face -- he gets food in his mouth, nose, hair, ears, and eyes, not to mention all over his clothes and usually the floor. But he's still cute so it's okay.

Sitting, Swimming, Being Happy.... The Usual

Here's a back-log of Parker Bear photos! I'm trying to think if there are any interesting baby stories to write about... umm... we taught him how to pull himself up! When he's sitting on his bum, if you put your hands out in front of him he'll grab them and pull himself up so that he's standing. The first time he did it he was super psyched, and he pretty much Hulked out, flexing and posing and growling. The only thing he didn't do was rip his shirt off and hold his hand to his ear, egging on the crowd. He seems to be enjoying his swimming lessons, and this week he went under water for the first time ever. It didn't both him that much, which was surprising, because if it was me I would have freaked out. He's also getting a lot better at feeding himself: we give him a little pile of Cheerios and 8% of them make it into his mouth successfully! He also feeds himself Mum Mum crackers, which we call cookies. He's going to think "cookies" are bland, rice-filled biscuits. Sweet.

Parker Recommends...

Mother Hen baby food! April went to a baby show in Toronto a few months ago with tonnes of cool vendors and stuff and she found this company. After sampling her food, she bought a bag of them on the spot because they're super tasty. And healthy. And Canadian! You can buy them at Shopper's Drug Mart. They're a bit more expensive than jars of baby food but if you ate them side-by-side you'd probably go with Mother Hen.

Parker Sounds Like Jawas

Sometimes when Parker makes noises he sounds exactly like Jawas. He does a few high pitched squeals, he does a few growling noises, and he speaks some pretty sweet gibberish. Even when he was only a few months old he was pretty talkative, always making little babbling noises. The other day when I went to go get him after he had woken up, he said, "Da da...?" and it was pretty cute, although I still don't think it was intentional. His ltitle Jawa voice sounds pretty funny though.

Bath Time

Now that Parker's a bit bigger, we've switched from his old skool bath seat that looked like this:

To a new "bath ring" that looks like this:

It actually works really well, because he can sit without falling over now (and even if he does start to tip, he can balance himself on the ring). It's nicer for him, too, because he can play with stuff. He got some bath toys for Christmas and he loooooves chewing on them. Here are some photos from bath time tonight, while he enjoys a good book about seahorses:

Swimming Class!

Today was Parker's first day of swimming class! We weren't really sure what to expect but it's more like splash-around-in-the-pool class. It's also pretty funny to see all the parents with their babies (all of which didn't seem to be scared or upset at all). I didn't want to take my camera because I didn't want to be the creepy old guy taking photos during the baby swim class (and I also didn't want it to get soaked) but it turns out I totally could have brought it and it would have been fine. So although there aren't any photos of Parker splashing around today, we'll get some next week. In the meantime, here are some pre-swim and post-swim photos.

These are Parker's swimming diapers. That way, when you take him out of the pool, his pants don't weigh 3000 pounds.

If you look closely you can see his two little toofies sticking out from the bottom. That's right. I said toofies.

Parker sporting one of his new jackets from Christmas! It was crazy warm out today and all of our snow is melting.

It's funny what makes babies crack up. The other day April was sweeping the kitchen floor and she was narrating as she went along, going, "Sweep... sweep... sweep... sweep..." and then she saw a cookie for him on the counter and she went, "Cookie!" Now when ever we want to make him giggle we just say, "sweep sweep sweep sweep sweep COOKIE!"

I don't remember what he was eating... I think it was a combination of meats and vegetables (hence the look on his face)

More Christmas Videos

Here's a video of Parker and I early in the morning while everyone else was still asleep. It's kind of dark and hard to see, but this is him trying to figure out how to crawl. He's getting closer, but still can't really figure out what to do with his arms. Now he gets up on his knees and rocks back and forth a bit, and then goes back down on his tummy. He also does a bit of squealing, and some sort of swimming movements while he's on his tummy. It's a long video so it might take a while to load.

More Nana Hats, Now With Ear Flaps!

Here's the latest hat that my mom made for Parker, and it comes with a little scarf as well. It looks pretty funny because of the ear flaps and chin strap, kind of like he's wearing a little baby helmet or something. Happy new year, everyone!

Edited to add: I just showed the photos to April and she thought it looked like he was wearing a Star Wars helmet or something! Ha! Get Parker some camouflage and a speeder bike and he's ready to fend off the Empre.