I love snowy days when the sun is shining and it’s cold, but not so cold that going outside without a jacket for a few minutes isn’t OK. We went over to our friend’s house to meet her new puppy – who spent half the time trying to pull him down to wrestle – and Ollie was more interested in stomping around in the snow.

Our house is so close to a main street, he’s far more interested in watching cars; she lives in a wooded area, set so far off a main road that it’s almost silent when you’re outside

I can’t wait until my parents move into the lake house up north. He’s going to go crazy for the lake AND the silence.

One of the Peanut’s favorite things to do is play on our bed. Especially in the morning when one of us is trying to sleep… the Porkchop is much better about keeping him out of the bedroom when it’s my turn to sleep in (he just loves his Daddy so much, I can’t keep him out!). He loves to stack his toys up there, sitting snuggled next to the dog, sorting puzzle pieces or blocks into separate piles.

And of course the minute I post about the Peanut being a picky eater he goes and decides to bite into an apple. Three bites and he was done, but we were suitably impressed.

The Peanut is not the best eater, a fact that surprised us, especially considering the Chop and I were both great eaters as kids. Now the Chop has some strong dislikes (onions, anything pickled, etc.), but in general, we eat lots of different things.

The Peanut, on the other hand, is currently subsisting on a diet of milk, water, oatmeal, cereal, yogurt, some pureed fruits with veggie mixed in, the occasional cracker, guacamole when he feels like it and a couple of chips. He is largely uninterested in feeding himself, aside from crackers, chips, a french fry when we’re out and most recently, a slice of apple with lunch.

Every week we go to the grocery store and pick out a few things that we think he might be interesting in trying to feed himself. Flatbread, pears, frozen pizza, hard breadsticks from Italy, carrot sticks – basically anything that might take on the approximate size and heft of a chip, if cut correctly, lol.

He tried pizza this weekend. Only a couple of bites, but we don’t sneer at progress.

The Peanut loves moving vehicles — cars, buses, trains, whatever — if it moves, he’s mesmerized. So today we took him to a new outdoor barbecue joint at a busy intersection for lunch. He sat (bundled for the 40 degree temp) clutching a fry in each hand while we ate for thirty minutes, doing nothing but cooing and tracking the cars with his eyes.

Sadly he’s still teething, so it’s nice that we can do something so simple to make him happy.

We saw a pod of whales right off the coast yesterday, playing less than 100 yards off the shore. The Chop and I were impressed, but the Peanut only had eyes for the waves. We spent most of the time on the beach pulling him back, carrying him up the beach and letting him walk determinedly right back to the edge, before swooping him back again.

We took a giant container of bubbles (something he loves), thinking he’d want to run after them – no dice. The siren song of water was all he heard. 🙂

Valentine’s Day is one of those fun holidays where I get to make cards (seven this year, fun!) and eat sugar. What’s not to love?

Every evening before bed, the Chop and I try to clean up after the Peanut. Some nights we’re too exhausted to clean at midnight, but most of the time we spend 10-15 minutes resetting the house. This includes putting together numerous puzzles, lining his little plastic toys (people, monsters and animals) in rows on the tables, putting his blocks in their bins and stacking his books in a box. We’re making strides at getting him to pick up his own toys, but we tend to spend the last hour he’s awake running around the house laughing, so toy pickup often falls to us.

The best part is when he walks into the living room the next morning, smiles and goes to each area and selects what he wants to play with first. He likes a clean palette to screw with. 😉

The Peanut has two new favorite games. One is to scrunch shut his eyes and speed crawl around, grinning like a maniac. On one hand it’s hilarious; on the other, we’d prefer he didn’t crawl into the wall, off the bed, etc. The second is to speed walk around the house, arms out in front (like a zombie, wth) and laugh. Sometimes he chases the cats or us, but mostly he just runs around in circles.

We have no idea where he came up with these, but they’re definitely entertaining. I feel like we could make a ton of money charging admission to our house. 😀

I have a painfully excellent sense of smell. (During my pregnancy, it was horrible and caused me to gag all the time.) On one hand it’s nice, because it’s seriously contributed to my ability to taste things; on the other hand, when something or someone has an odor, be it offensive or not, I take note.

Normally my adorable son smells delicious. Like babies and baby powder and baby soap – even his breath is sweet – but now he’s eaten guacamole two days in a row and he smells like a pile of garlic.

Of course the Chop can’t smell it at all, so I’m sadly suffering alone.

Currently the Peanut’s favorite foods are chips and guacamole. Yeah… don’t ask. He’s picky to the max. We definitely enjoyed his 15 month checkup where the doctor informed us that while he can feed himself anything, he doesn’t seem to want too.

Lately our dinners out have centered on places where we can get those two things. Oddly chips and guacamole are pretty prevalent across the board, so the Chop and I so far have no complaints.

Although we did discuss today how we’re going to explain to people why we always bring guacamole to parties – even when it’s a sleepover and there’s pizza.