Big Thanksgiving fun

Last week's Thanksgiving festivities at Grandma and Grandpa's house were lots of fun for James, as well as the rest of the family. James fell asleep five minutes into the big feast, but after a good nap, he tried all kinds of new foods. Stuffing, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes with gravy were some of his favorites. He was not too impressed with pumpkin pie, but that might be because his piece wasn't covered in whipped cream like everybody else's. His solid-food eating skills are improving, and Thanksgiving was a very good time to get some eating practice. In the week since then, he has made great strides in his ability to use a fork and spoon, take manageable-sized bites, and even drink milk from a big person cup. This last skill still needs a lot of work, however; he prefers blowing bubbles in the milk to actually drinking it that way. It does not help his progress that Daddy cannot stop laughing when James does that.

James also got a lot of attention that weekend, because lots of relatives and friends were visiting. Here we see Min giving James a ride, which James enjoyed so much that he made Min do it a few hundred times.

On a completely different topic, Aunties Erin and Kristin were commenting on our choice of terminology for James's, um, diaper fillings. Mommy uses the terms "wet" and "solid;" Daddy prefers "wetness (the noun form)" and "thunder." None of these were approved by Erin and Kristin, so we have sought new terms. Henceforth, we will use the German words for one (eins) and two (zwei) for his number one and number two, respectively. We chose German because it is unlikely that we will use German in any other way, and because much of the German language sounds kind of like words made up by a small child anyway (das ist gut, der flughafen, purpurfarbig, etc.). Hopefully we will not accidentally offend any German friends or neighbors with this use of their language.