Here are some nice pictures of a few fun things I did this past week. Oddly, they’re mostly food related. I guess I do like to eat…

Now I could talk a lot more about each of these pictures, but it’s my bedtime now. If you have any questions, just ask me and I’ll tell you all you ever wanted to know, and then some.

Splish splash! I’m stomping on a puddle.

The last of my chocolate bunnies

OK, Mommy. Stop with the pictures, or I’ll cry!

Beware the waffle snatcher! He will snatch your food and eat it too.

I haven’t always liked going to sleep. In fact, I used to detest being put down for my nap, and especially bed for the night. Now that I’m much older and wiser (a week ago Sunday, I turned one and a half years old!), I take particular pleasure in sleeping…when I want to.

So it threw me for a little bit of a loop today when I woke up from my nap and saw Daddy standing in my bedroom. He wasn’t alone either, there were two strange guys inside of his orange notebook peering out at me. I think they were trying to be quiet, but I take after my mother and am a very light sleeper. Daddy told me to wave at them and so I did. Then I just kind of sat there staring at them sitting in my bed. It was kind of like a weird dream, except that it wasn’t.

This is me looking at them looking at me.

Later, after those guys got out of my bed, Daddy explained that they were two of his friends from Russia that wanted to see me sleeping. Come on guys, can’t you let a poor chap take a nap in peace?! I forgive you. After all, it was my noisy Papa walking in my room that woke me up. You guys were quiet.

I am always talking about throwing rocks and other small projectiles into the water. But I don’t think you’ve seen good pictures of me doing this yet. Today I would like to fix that glaring mistake.

Like any other day, Daddy and I set out for a walk shortly after breakfast. When we first left the house, I really wanted to see our neighbors’ cats Pablo and Frida. But they weren’t around, so we started moving again. On the way to the park, I picked up a few pieces of bark and a stone. When we finally got real close to the creek, Daddy grabbed a handful of gravel and we meandered to the bridge.

Once on the bridge, I assumed the position and thought about throwing my rock in the water. Being the tricky Daddy that he is, my pap put his stones down on the bridge. But not all in a pile, like you would expect, no-sirree; that would be too easy! He spaced the rocks out evenly so I would need to walk a little bit in between throwing them.

When I ran out of rocks, I still wanted to throw more, so I went and grabbed two sticks from the bank. Daddy broke them for me and I threw a few pieces in before getting bored.

We got on the only dry swing in the whole park (wasn’t I lucky it was my favorite, the yellow one?), and I had a great break swinging. Then it was almost time to go. But before we left, I went to the place where the picnic tables were and learned how to bang cool rhythms on the tables.

Finally, Daddy said it was time to go, but I had one more little surprise for him. I asked really nicely if we could go to one more bridge. That bridge is right next to a road, so you can only throw stuff of one side. But….if you’re tiny like me you notice a very tiny gap on the roadside of the bridge to drop things into. Maybe for five minutes, I’d grab stones off the road and drop them into the slit. I sure got dirty, but it was fun.

Note: I looked both ways before sticking my arm into the street.

Aha! See the rock in my hand?

And that does it for me. I hope you enjoyed the picture and movie. Now, if Daddy would just get the Zoo movie up for everybody…that one is much more interesting.

For Christmas, Grandmommy and Granddaddy gave me a couple of Raffi CDs. We’re lucky because we haven’t scratched them yet. I’m sure we will though…oh well. But I’m getting myself all distracted. On one of the CDs, Raffi sings a song about going to the zoo. Guess what? Today, the song came true for Daddy and me when we went to the National Zoo!

If you haven’t noticed it yet, there is a new section in my sidebar at the right. It’s called Hear Me Chirp and it is the most recent posts from my Twitter feed. I’m quite proud of myself, I got a Twitter account before my dad did. (In fact, I still don’t think he has one yet!) Anyhow, I’ll start out the account of my day with a recap of all my tweets.

Thinking back over the day, what my comments don’t really capture is how much glee bubbled up in me. For example, usually when I go for a walk with Mommy or Daddy, we always need to be careful because cars might be coming. At the zoo, the place to walk is twice as big as a road AND there are no cars! I could walk wherever I wanted to…almost.

My day at the zoo is all over now, but if you want to remember me and all the fun I had, press the play button below and sing along!

Mummy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow,

Zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow.

Mummy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow

We can stay all day!

Chorus:

We’re goin’ to the zoo, zoo, zoo

How about you, you, you?

You can come too, too, too

We’re goin’ to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

Look at all the monkeys swingin’ in the trees,

Swingin’ in the trees, swingin’ in the trees,

Look at all the monkeys swingin’ in the trees,

We can stay all day!

[chorus]

Look at all the crocodiles swimmin’ in the water,

Swimmin’ in the water, swimmin’ in the water,

Look at all the crocodiles swimmin’ in the water,

We can stay all day!

[chorus]

Yes, Mummy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow,

Zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow,

Mommy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow

And we can stay all day.

[chorus]

[chorus]

© 1961 Cherry Lane Music Co. ASCAP

I think that as a little boy like me grows up, things change an awful lot around him. Sometimes the changes are nice, sometimes they aren’t that good, and sometimes they’re a little bit of both. I’m going to tell you a little story. Then you can tell me what kind of a change you think I had.

A few weeks after I got back from Russia last year, Mommy, Daddy, and I walked all over the neighborhood and collected things from people. I got really good at putting the things into my pumpkin basket (the bag I’m holding in the picture is what we’re going to talk about today). Mommy and Daddy ate most of the things that I got, but I got to play with almost all of them.

My toy pretzels lost their shake

What you see in the picture here was one of my favorite toys to play with. I squished it and it crinkled. I shook it and it and it rattled. I dropped it and it fell. All of this noise was amazing!

Well, today at snack time, Daddy got it out. Even though it had been a long time since I last played with it, I remembered what to do. I grinned as I shook the bag. Then Daddy took the bag from me and opened it. How could he? Didn’t he know that was my special toy? But at the same time, I was also excited to see what was inside. I helped dump the bag out and inside were little round tasty things. Along with some tasty peanuts, Daddy and I devoured my Halloween pretzels.

Yum! Who could have ever guessed that my rattling bag would also be so tasty? Daddy showed me how to hold the little pretzel pumpkins that weren’t broken yet and look through them. In between mouthfuls, we peered at each other through our pumpkins until they were all gone.

Now that my story is finished, what do you think? Was this change good, bad, or a little bit of both? Why do you think so?