What Stephen loves...

Stephen is now nearly 11 months old and boy is he starting to get into everything. He is such a little character. He cracks us up regularly with the things he does.

He loves to laugh and smile...and his laughter is quite contagious.

Stephen loves to be in the bath. In fact, he just loves water. He will play in the dog's water bowl if he gets a chance to. He splashes and stirs the water, making quite a mess.

Stephen, Luke, Thomas in the bath

Stephen loves to "help." Anytime I sweep the dirt in a pile he will crawl over to it as quickly as he can. If he has the little broom and dustpan, he will pretend to sweep it up (creating an even larger mess than before I began sweeping). But, if he does not have the broom, he has been known to lie stomach down in the dirt and move his arms and legs back and forth like he is swimming or something. He has done this several times. I'm not sure what he thinks he is doing.

Stephen is sweeping here. The little broom is in his right hand.

Stephen LOVES his food. He also prefers to feed himself and sometimes gets quite irritated if you try and feed him. He wants to do it himself, but usually he creates a massive mess where he has food in his hair, eyes, ears, and down his shirt. We find it most beneficial to put him straight into the bath after eating.

He loves the wood stove because he is fascinated with fire. Unfortunately he has figured out how to open the stove. He knows it is hot and so he hasn't tried to touch the hot parts (the handle isn't hot at all), but if we have a fire going, we have to watch him like a hawk in case he either hurts himself or sets the house on fire.

Stephen also loves the kitchen cupboards and playing with the pots, pans, and pie tins. He likes the sounds they make as he taps them and often will use a spoon or a little piece of wood he has found to stir up some imaginary food. If he has some dog food to stir, he is even happier and this will keep him occupied for about an hour.

One of the things that Stephen loves the most is a computer game called BabySplat. (BabySplat has a Notepad-like interface that splashes colorful shapes and interesting sounds like mooing, kissing noises, and horns as keys are pressed.) When we let him play it his face lights up and he squeals with delight.