Look, Dada! No Hands.

Have you ever visited downtown Paso Robles? If not, you must. Not only do we have fabulous wines and amazing restaurants, but it also boasts a beautiful park in the centre. There is ample grass, trees that will be changing colors here very soon, a picturesque gazebo and lots of great people watching.

In the past few months, a new park feature has become my favorite - the playground. The little kids' (as opposed to the big kids') playground is just perfect for Critter. It sits under a shady oak tree and isn't very high off the ground. We have started going there a few times a week and in the last few weeks he has mastered it completely. The fact that I am impressed goes without saying, but he's not even a year old and he can climb up the stairs, over the bridge, fearlessly go head first down the tunnel slide, turn around and climb off the slide to crawl to the stairs and start over again.

He loves climbing and sliding. He practices going up and down and up and down. He also loves the steering wheel, but that is another video. Like a true master, Critter ends with big finish. "Look, Dada! No Hands".

Red Ball, Orange Ball

If I had to guess I would say that Critter's love of balls - large, small, light, heavy, soft or hard it doesn't matter - started when his Grandpa visited in May. If my memory serves me correctly, it was the first morning they were with us and Grandpa got on the floor with Critter and started throwing a small, hard plastic ball with him. Jude caught on right away likely because he loved throwing anything and everything he could get his hands on. This was much to his Grandpa's joy since he played baseball through college - second base for Cal Poly, SLO - Go Mustangs!

Since then, his obsession has grown and now he has favorites. He loves his medium, red, bouncy ball which we have rightly named Red Ball. There have been a number of times when Critter is very upset for one reason or another and we don't know what else to do so we say, "Red Ball", and he starts to giggle. It works almost every time. He loves talking about it, bouncing it and kicking it.

About a week ago, we were taking our morning outing to a nearby park and lo and behold on the street (not near any homes) was a lonely, worn, orange basketball. I watched to see if anyone was going to pick it up, but given the early hour of the morning there was no one else out and about. We picked up the ball and proceeded with our jungle gym adventure.

Being the show-off that I am, I decided to show Critter my not-so-stellar basketball skills. I dribbled in circles, between my legs and bounced up and down with the ball. He loved it. He thought I was pretty good (some day he'll understand otherwise, but for now I'll take what I can get). From that point on, he has loved Orange Basketball. It is much heavier than Red Ball, but he manages to lift it over his head to bounce it across the floor. 

I not-so-secretly hope that he loves sports as I do. Me? Competitive? What? But even if this is just a phase it is fun to see him figure out what he likes and doesn't like. 

Cousins

On September first two thousand ten at four fourty four in the morning, Critter's cousin was born. This precious little girl's name is Rose. She was 21.5 inches long and six pounds six ounces. She is gorgeous like her Mama and we just know she's gonna be sweet and playful like her Dada.

This is Jude's first cousin and we are so excited to welcome her to the family. We showed Jude her picture online and filmed his reaction. Perhaps he is reacting more to how much he loves his Papa and every word his hero utters, but we're pretty sure he's also ecstatic over a friend for all those family reunions we have planned.

Or maybe he is just laughing at our ancient computer...