Figuring It Out

Grandma is off to the beach (en route to home) -- the house feels emptier without her here!

The boys are both into climbing these days; they like climbing up their slide both ways (with a little help), and they try to pull themselves up on the kitchen set and (alas) the baby gate. James loves to climb on the couch but isn't big enough to get up there himself, so he's happy when an adult will give him a boost!

Mattie has been Mr. Puzzle-Solver the last couple of days. One of their favorite toys is a set of plastic stars with holes in the center that go on a post; they've been good at taking them off for a long time, but Mattie has now figured out how to put them back on the post. He did it over and over again to make sure he had it, and he was so pleased with himself! They also have a little caterpillar truck with two cylinders; when you push one of them down, the other pops up and makes a noise, and when you push that one down, the first one pops up again. The boys had never paid much attention to that aspect of it, but Mattie figured that one out the other day, too. And then this morning he was very happy to be able to get the triangle puzzle piece in the triangle spot.

He did the sign for hat today when I said that the cowboy had a hat on, and then he pointed to the cowboy's hat. Smart boy!

Mattie also has two bottom teeth coming in, one on each side of his current ones. We'd been trying to transition him from formula to (cow's) milk, but he had some intestinal unpleasantness. I'm hoping that maybe it was the teething or something else causing that instead of the milk, so we'll try again with the milk in a few days and see how it goes (no pun intended :) ).