Elphy 1 and Elphy 2

Avery officially has a "lovey": his stuffed animal, Elphy the Elephant. Whenever we hand him Elphy, he gives it a big hug. And he can't go to sleep without it. The other night, Avery woke up at 4:00, cranky from his sore gums (he is teething big-time. He is getting tons of new teeth, including his molars, all at once). We brought him into our bed, but he wouldn't go to sleep until finally we thought to fetch Elphy from his crib. As soon as he was holding Elphy, Avery fell asleep. We went to Kohl's the other night, and they were selling stuffed elephants for $5 and the money goes to some sort of children's charity fund. We decided it couldn't hurt to get a spare, so now we've got a second Elphy.

Breakfast with Elphy:

Reading a book with Elphy 2. Avery ALWAYS holds the book upside down:

I swear I left the room for one minute, and when I came back, Avery had found a roll of paper towels and unraveled about half of it. He's so proud!

Lamaze BBQ in New Jersey

Reagan's parents Rainbow and Chris invited us to their house in New Jersey for a barbecue. Unfortunately, Carolyn had to work since it is Labor Day weekend, and she is always extremely busy this time of year. But Avery and I went, and so did Oliver and his parents and Ernesto and his parents. It is kind of funny that we all just know each other from our "weekend warriors" Lamaze class, but we always have fun getting together for our reunions. It was cute to see all the kids playing together, especially since they are all the same age (born within 2 weeks of one another) and they are all doing the same things, more or less. Reagan has a dinosaur (or maybe dragon?) pool that all the kids enjoyed splashing in, and Avery LOVED Rainbow's homemade gruyere-cheddar-bacon macaroni and cheese (we all did). All the kids are babbling, crawling and walking everywhere, and loving bubbles, water, and dirt. They have all gotten pretty mobile, but it was still a relaxing afternoon for us parents who enjoyed sitting in the sun, drinking wine, and talking.

Avery and I were the first to arrive, so he and Reagan played together for a while. They enjoyed splashing in this water table so much that they both became soaking wet and we decided quickly to go ahead and put them in the pool without waiting for the other kids.



Fun in the Pool:




Reagan getting a hug from her mom; Oliver; Avery's butt; Ernesto:

Ernesto and Oliver:

Avery and Oliver:

This bubble machine is brilliant!

Here's the proof: our son can walk!

Avery's first steps!

Avery started walking today! When we went to pick him up from daycare, "Abuela" (Belen's mother from Argentina) who has been working with him on walking had him walk a few steps to us! And then at home we've gotten him to take 3-4 steps at a time without holding onto anything. It's so exciting to see him walk! We got a little bit of him walking on our camcorder, but we haven't been able to figure out yet how to put videos on here. Hopefully we'll figure that out soon. Anyway, we're VERY proud of our son today!

Some of Avery's favorite things

Avery LOVES the hairdryer now that he understands that even though it makes a loud noise, it is not scary (he is still afraid of the loud vacuum cleaner though). This one is not plugged in and has become a toy of his. See how he is holding it up to his head to pretend he's drying his hair? We now have to blow-dry his hair after baths. He likes to look good!



Avery LOVES walking around our apartment with his walker. He is GREAT at steering around furniture (we're seriously really impressed with how well he can get around). He spent a lot of the weekend walking back and forth from our living room to the kitchen and sometimes to our bedroom chanting "eee yaa eee yaa eee ya" and calling out "Mama!" whenever the wheels got stuck in our kitchen rug and he needed help. Notice how Ruby is running away from him as he enters the living room.



Avery loves to go for a walk in our neighborhood, especially when we head to one of the playgrounds nearby:

Avery's latest thing is going into his room, taking most of the books off his shelf, dumping them on the floor, and then sitting in the middle of all of his books to "read." He almost always holds the books upside down, like he's doing here. It's pretty adorable. Yesterday, there was a horrible incident in our apartment (I smelled something funky in our kitchen and finally realized that there was a dead mouse under our sink. Carolyn was at work, so I had to take care of it alone and it was horrible!). I told Avery to go to his room and "Read books for a while so Mama can take care of something yucky" and he did! What a good boy!

Avery LOVES sunglasses. These are a pair of his mama's:

Avery loves his Aunt Hannah!

Look at Avery watching Hannah practice!

(Here, Avery has invited Elfie to sit and listen with him, right before bedtime):

Driving a taxi at the Palisades mall:


At Jason's 2-year birthday party:

Avery says "Don't worry, 'eye' am okay!"

This morning, we had to take Avery to the eye doctor to get his tear duct unblocked. Carolyn and I were nervous even though we knew it was a simple and short procedure. This office is so annoying though -- they had once before made our appointment for the Manhattan office without telling us, so when we showed up to the Scarsdale office, it was closed. And this morning, they said to come at 7, so we arrived at about 6:45 since normally you get to appointments early. But the building was closed and there were no cars in the parking lot. This increased our anxiety, but we finally saw someone else go in the building and they let us in. But when we got to the office, the receptionist couldn't find Avery's medical record! None of this is really that big a deal, but since we were already on edge, it seemed worse than it really was. Anyway, once we finally got in, they had to strap Avery down and bind his arms, legs, and even his head so he couldn't move. Obviously he HATED this. And the doctor numbed his eye and stuck a tube in it, and I'm not sure what else. It probably lasted for less than 5 minutes, but with Avery screaming and crying, it seemed longer. Carolyn said "It was less horrible than watching your C-section." Well, obviously. And Avery certainly recovered much more quickly -- before we left the office, he had stopped crying and even wanted to play with the toys they had in the waiting area.
In the car on the way home (wearing his pajamas and also sunglasses since his eyes were dilated plus he likes to look cool):


We came home and poor Carolyn had to go to work, but Avery and I took a long nap and now he is walking around with his walker, probably heading back to the bathroom to unravel all the toilet paper (he's already done this once today):


Our weekend was really fun. We went out to White Post Farms on Long Island with Kim, Jess, and Olivia. Avery LOVED feeding the animals and riding the quarter-fed rides. In fact, he loved the rides so much that he mad-cried (as opposed to sad-cried) when we took him off the ride when his turn ended. Then we all headed back to our apartment to hang out. Avery and Olivia really played together for the first time, and he kept laughing at her because he found everything she did so funny! And they both enjoyed playing with Avery's new toy -- this fancy kitchen set Carolyn found on Craig's list. The woman selling it just lives down the street from us, so she brought it to us early Saturday morning. It makes noises and comes with lots of pots and pans and fake food. Avery has started to really get underfoot when we are cooking or doing dishes, so eventually we think we'll put it in our kitchen so Avery can "cook" while we cook. It's a cute idea, but we'll see if that actually happens.
Then on Sunday, we were heading to church, but we were running late, so we decided to skip church and instead go to the Palisades mall which was really fun. Avery rode (with us) on the ferris wheel and the carousel (which he especially LOVED and said "wheeee!") but also a bunch more of those little rides like the ones on the Farm, and this time, he didn't cry when we took him off as his turn ended. So it seems like he has already learned that there will be many more rides to enjoy in his lifetime :)
We also drove up to check out the outlet mall in Westchester. It's a nice, big outlet mall with all the normal stores but also an area of very high-end, designer outlet stores (ie. Chanel, Georgia Armani, DKNY, Jimmy Choo, etc.) which was frankly weird but funny (there was also a Barney's store which made me think of "Romy and Michele" when Michele tries to get a job at Barney's but instead she gets sent to their discount outlet).

Feeding the animals (Avery loved having the deer nibble food out of his hand!):









Bottles for everyone:


Family portraits:



Cute babies (Dora the Explorer was at the Farms that day but the line to see her was way too long, so instead, Olivia got a Dora ice cream bar):





On the Tigger and Bob the Builder rides, Avery was excited and had a blast (notice how he hogged the steering wheel) while Olivia enjoyed herself more calmly):









Happy babies at playing at home:



Playing with Avery's new kitchen: