Couch Diver

Jude is hilarious these days. He crawls all over the place, waves at everyone (including himself in the mirror), and tonight he invented a game which consisted of climbing from the couch to the table, throwing a book onto the couch, then diving onto the couch to play with the book. After doing this about ten times in a row, I pulled out the camera to try to capture the moment.

After having been a great eater for most of his short life, Jude has finally discovered that he can have an opinion about his food. He's decided that he doesn't like pureed baby food any more, and pretty much only wants to eat things that he can pick up with his own two hands. Current favorites are bananas (he can eat a whole banana in one sitting!), chicken, and cheese. We need to start preparing vegetables in finger-food chunks. Until now, he's been getting most of his veggies mixed with cereal, but this is no longer working. Next question: what do we do with a freezer full of cubes of pureed fruits and veggies? Make smoothies for ourselves???

We've been keeping an eye out for "stranger anxiety", which is supposed to hit at around this age, but so far Jude does not seem to be exhibiting any signs. He is very happy to see his parents when one of us has been out of his sight for any period of time, but he seems to be just as happy to see other friends and family as he is to spend time with one of us. This makes things a lot easier for us, since we're fortunate to have a few loving babysitters who are willing to take care of Jude so that we can have some time to ourselves. In fact, my mother is arriving tonight so that we can have our first "Parents' Weekend Away". We're looking forward to it!