That's no baby

That, my friends, is a big boy.

Toddle

We have a toddler, have I mentioned? Each day his confidence in his ability to walk independently grows. This makes him dementedly happy.

Also, he likes cymbals.

Angst

So Jasper has three car seats. By the time I got around to buying the third one (which lives in Aunt Jill's car) I was looking for the least expensive (but still safe) model. A close out sale provided us with a pink flowered seat. It has been suggested to me that the money I saved on the seat might well end up going to therapy for the kid to get over having to ride around in a pink floral seat.

This picture indicates that might be true...

Just begun.

Seriously, not to brag or anything, but how gorgeous is this kid?



Its his birthday, which means we've successfully kept him alive for a whole year. To celebrate, we went to the doctor for our annual exam (he's perfect). Then we went to the zoo to really celebrate.

We looked for tigers.



(We didn't see any.)

We waited in line for a really long time to ride the train.



Look, Jasper and his Grandpa!

And then we rode the train



and saw wallabees and emus. And humans in their natural environment.

After a while we went home and sang a couple rousing rounds of "If you're happy and you know it."



(This might be my new favorite picture ever.)

All and all a good day to celebrate a good year. I'm looking forward to many many more. Happy birthday, froglet.

Hugs

Jasper has started giving hugs. If we ask him for a hug, he will crawl over, pull himself up to standing, and wrap his arms around us (or at least as far as they will go). If Morgan or I are holding him, he will extend his arms to the other of us and lean forward to give hugs.

He's also started hugging the cats.



Okay, hug might not be the word. Really, Jasper has started lying on the cats. He crawls over, puts both hands on the cat's side, and then rests his face on the cat. He started this yesterday afternoon, and has been doing it anytime a cat will let him close enough (this means its mostly been Pax who's lucky enough to get the love).*

Pax loves it.




*Of course this is all closely moderated and we never let the cats alone with Jasper.

11 months...

To celebrate Jasper's 11th month birthday, we took him to see Flight of the Conchords last night.



It was an outdoor, all ages show, but since Jasper really wanted to sing along, we ended off to the side so we wouldn't disturb other concert goers.



All that singing and dancing wore the boy out though...

For Tim

Jasper doesn't understand either.