Don Ho or Lawrence Welk joke, I had my choice, I guess! (See image below.)

Observations/stories to share:
• We have a series of toys that hide inside each other, balls of different sports. He discovered that when he dropped a few of them and they fell open, he could get what was within. I gave him one of the toys with something inside of it that he wanted to get to, so he ran over to the linoleum area of the living room and started spiking the ball into the floor to try to get it to open. (In this case it was a squeaky puffin toy inside of a plastic football.)

• Ian managed to give himself a big fat lip the other night, scaring Melissa and I have to death. He was running and tripped, and landed with a startlingly loud smack on the linoleum. Turns out he had a magnet letter in each hand (he likes the “O” and the “0” the most for some reason, but loves all the letters in general) and the majority of the sound was from those letters in his hands hitting the floor. He was able to mostly stop his head from hitting, but not completely. The fat lip was gone overnight.

• On Monday of this week Ian watched TV with me and sat directly on my lap, leaned back on my stomach and put his arms behind his head, elbows pointing to his left and right. I didn’t have a camera handy, but wouldn’t have been able to pull off a shot very well anyway. When he stood up, his hair in the back had been pushed up and out.

• The young lady who runs the daycare in which Ian spends three of his weekdays decided to help the care providers that Ian is used to dealing with by changing his diaper. I’m not sure how often she helps out, but apparently she had never been peed on before. Ian recognized her authority immediately and gave her a thorough christening.

• For kicks, I’ll make a note here — I do know that this is fairly normal, so don’t worry, but Ian has pretty much regressed to saying only “ball” and “mama” and little else in terms of recognizable words. You can tell he’s working on it, however, he seems to be practicing whatever sounds he can come up with.

• Also this Monday, I uncharacteristically asked Ian if he wanted milk while we were sitting in the living room. Typically I say “Are you hungry?” (and just as typically the reaction is an excited series of flailing gestures toward the area where we keep his food.) Instead, as I said, I asked about milk and so his immediate response was to try to lift up my sweater. O_O

• We had a beautiful weekend including several trips outside to run a bit in the grass and another trip to the park that will be a video here on the blog shortly.

I got exactly two shutter clicks in on this before Ian started crying, so I’m glad one of the two turned out alright! Here Mama is kind enough to make some fun for Ian to chase and pop. See this image larger.

Below are some interesting tidbits in images, but here’s a few stories via text first…

• Ian tried to pick me up off the floor by grasping my shoulders. I didn’t get it at first, but it turned out he wanted to hitch a ride, which he typically does by standing on my lap, looping an arm behind my neck and pointing. As I had been laying down, he needed me to sit up in order to get into my lap. I couldn’t really tell what he was doing until I started sitting up and as I did so he grunted as if straining to lift me. It was hilarious!

• I whistled a song that one of Ian’s toys plays… and he immediately walked over to the toy and started the song playing. (I should probably stop mentioning this kind of thing. He does it all the time now. Start singing something from one of his DVDs, and he looks at the TV… and I mentioned how he’ll go and get the right book if you recite a part of it to him.)

• The news that I’ve mentioned a couple times now without saying too much is that I found out that a major source of income for our household will dry up come September 1st. I don’t want to dwell on it, but suffice to say we’ll be fine and that “new house” plans are on hold for foreseeable future. Let’s call the path ahead a road to recovery. If you’re interested in more about this topic talk to me in person or on the phone. Again, all will be well, I can tell already.

Remember a long time ago when I put this picture in the blog, claiming that the highlighted portion of his gums were causing Ian to be irritated?

It turned out to be some surprise big ol’ honeys in the back on the top that were really causing the pain at that time. Here you can see just how big those teeth are! But guess what? The other night he started cutting a few more, and this time they really are coming out at around the position shown in the above “ow” image! (The one highlighted in the image is actually through the gumline slightly and the other side looks red and angry.) See this image larger.

I was trying to figure out what made Ian choose the specific ball that he picked in the story I told awhile back where I got to take him to the toy area of a store for the sole purpose of buying whichever ball he decided on. When Ian picked up this book again recently, one that we got from Aunt Melanie/Uncle Ben and crew a long time ago, I remembered that he had excitedly pointed at that ball in the book and said “A baw a baw a baw!!!” just like at the store. I had thought he was simply happy at the store, but he may have also been having a bit of a flashback. I explained this to Melissa and she didn’t quite seem to buy it, but as if to drive the point home as I was theorizing, Ian pointed back and forth at the book and the ball saying “a baw a baw a baw!” See this image larger.

Hi again everybody sorry for the delay, but I admit something came up that kind of took the wind out of my sails enough that I found it difficult to find time to update the blog. More about that in a future entry, probably the next one.

Easter was very special this year for many reasons. For one thing, Grandpa Dave and Grandma Marcia joined us for the holiday, and also it was Ian’s first Easter Egg Hunt!! I had a buddy of mine tell me that he didn’t think his two year old would actively hunt for eggs, but as it turned out, his son proved him wrong; but so did mine! Fourteen month old Ian was an egg hunting machine!

A big thanks to Grandma Marcia for sharing in the culinary responsibilities, as well as to Grandpa Dave for fixing our snow blower that’s been half-broken for so many months! I want to also thank everybody for their cards and gifts! And now onto the photo section!

This picture says it all really, doesn’t it? We had an egg hunt, we all had a blast and laughed our butts off, and Ian shared his prizes with everybody! See this image larger.

Here’s some eggs Ian! See this image larger.

Hey there’s a bunny and an egg up there on the thermostat, Ian! See this image larger.

Grandpa Dave was Ian’s go to guy, for this holiday. Here’s how it worked… first, Ian would hand the egg to Grandpa Dave. See this image larger.

Grandpa Dave opens egg… See this image larger.

… revealing surprises inside! Place in mouff… (We stuffed the plastic easter eggs with puffs, the easily digested baby snack…. which worked well! That was Melissa’s idea, go Mama!)See this image larger.

“Nom, nom, nom nom…” See this image larger.

“Bunny!” See this image larger.

Looks like somebody’s pretty happy! “Thanks Guys!” See this image larger.

I bought these for a hilarious Easter Bunny Ian picture. He didn’t like them so good… maybe next year. 😉 See this image larger.

Ian’s foot rests on Mama’s knee during the feeding process. He does this with both of us as his legs can’t quite reach the built-in foot rest yet. See this image larger.

Ian works the flaps in a hide-n’-go seek book. See this image larger.

If it looks like I’m about to throw Ian, that’s about half right. I hoist him above my head to pet the stuffed-animal cat that balances on a wall between our living room and kitchen. See this image larger.

As I said, a good time was had by all! See this image larger.

And these people ate like kings for the next three days… thanks to awesome leftovers! See this image larger.

NOTE: I’ve made four blog entries in the last 24 hours, scroll down to make sure you didn’t miss anything, and click “previous entries” at the bottom of the page to view anything older than the fourth entry!

NOTE2: The banner above now randomly shows one of three banners we’ve been using for Ian’s blog since he was born. As we add new ones they’ll still show up randomly. I figured this would be a fun way to think about how much he’s grown. EDIT – Except that OF COURSE on a PC this doesn’t work; it is showing up at the bottom of the page. You guys are going to have to live with that until I find some help fixing it or I go back to using an old version of the same program. It took me a ton of work to get it updated in the first place. Frustrated. D.

Ian started smiling and laughing when I made a noise kind of like a raspberry while Melissa was bathing the lad. He was already in a good mood; actually all of us were — and if I’ve learned one thing so far in trying to chronicle Ian’s life, it is that if he laughs or reacts in an interesting way once, grab your camera or video camera. Because if you’re waiting to make sure that the same thing is going to happen a second or third time, you’re probably going to miss the boat.

You’re about to see a bunch of pics that look fairly close to the same, but I can’t help including them all; this was a great night for the three of us.

He’s mimicking the noise I’m making back at me here, but it made for a cute smile. See this image larger.

I swear sometimes we could turn off the lights and he’d glow. Great Granny Betty said that we’d get some of our best shots with him in the tub; she’s so right! See this image larger.

This may be my favorite Ian shot of all time. Pure joy, and love for (and from) his parents. See this image larger.

Whoooooa! See this image larger.

Seriously… magazine cover? Gerber package? Toy advertisement? See this image larger.

Still trying to be happy, despite the rinse cycle. See this image larger.

Love his posture in this shot. You can tell he’s more or less hunching with laughter and comfortable with his parents. And hey, have a couple teeth, why dontcha, kid? Sheesh! 🙂 See this image larger.

Still in a daze from his cold, these photos are from Monday the 17th of March, I believe. The really good ones are coming up shortly, give me a day or two to get those up here. Here’s how that Monday went —

We’re not happy because we’re siiiiick so this is our saaaaad faaaaace. See this image larger.

According to this thermometer, you’re still hungry, kiddo. See this image larger.

A good swing will cure what ails you. See this image larger.

Have socks, will travel! See this image larger.

Secret message for Mama when she returns from another rough day of work! Can you decipher it? See this image larger.