Avery and Baby Clarence

Here's Avery's new baby doll, named Clarence because we chose him off the "Clarence" shelf at Toys R Us (get it?). Honestly, it doesn't seem like Clarence will work his way up to the top of Avery's Favorite Toys list which is dominated by his stuffed elephant ("Elphy"), all of his cars and trucks (anything with wheels really), and anything that can be rode on or pushed or pulled out or off (like tissues out of a box or books off a shelf). Clarence is probably right below a box of Kleenex in terms of how fun Avery deems it. But we thought maybe a baby doll would be a good thing at the very least to help Avery learn the name of body parts and maybe to help him learn how to get dressed and undressed. Avery does enjoy chewing on Clarence's head anyway.

Carolyn is working this week and Avery is home with me until we leave tomorrow for Saint Louis. We've been running errands, playing with toys, going to the playground, and trying to keep our apartment cleanish. Avery likes to keep this challenging. Because we've been out of town and we're leaving again to go out of town, we haven't gone to the grocery store, and our kitchen is pretty empty food-wise. So I had to get a little creative to come up with a lunch for Avery. I actually did a good job, I think. He had baked beans, mixed veggies, fake chicken nuggets and apple sauce. Lunch isn't usually this messy, but today, Avery really got into feeling all the textures of his food. He flung baked beans onto the carpet, and his new trick is blowing "raspberries" after taking a bite of food, thereby spraying flecks of food everywhere. Yeah, he's kind of gross. Then he had an absolute fit of the giggles when he discovered that he could dip his hands into the applesauce and then clap, making the applesauce fly everywhere. He found this to be hysterically funny. Me, not so much, but it is fun to see him get such a kick out of things.

But lunch was so gross, that he had to have a bath afterwards (with Clarence -- I'm trying to move him up on the Favorite Toys list) and now he's taking a nap. We have a new sort-of rap that we do called "Where is the Baby Lotion?" Actually, Carolyn made it up a couple of weeks ago when she was looking for Avery's Aveeno lotion after a bath and couldn't find it. She didn't know I was in the next room and could hear her chanting, "Do you see it over hee-ah, do you see it over they-ah? Where is 'da baby lotion?" This rap works well for just about anything. "Where are the baby wipes? Where are the baby wipes? Do you see them over hee-ah? Do you see them over they-ah? Where are 'da baby wipes?"