Our Darling, Growing Child

So lately we have been experiencing a "stage" or something. It has involved a lot more fussiness. (This has not been helped by the diet I've been feeding him which has included a lot of bananas, rice, and applesauce, which apparently can be hard on the digestive system. This fussiness is exhausting! Our usually-happy boy demands way more attention and often isn't even that content when we're paying very close attention to him. Is it teething? That's what some people suggest, but we can't find the trace of a tooth yet, so I don't think so. Some people have also suggested that he's reaching a clingy stage where he mostly just wants his mom. I have tried my best to minimize the clingy stages by allowing many people to hand him (which has been a good attitude for a Beehive teacher since twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are more baby hungry than a newlywed woman), but it may be true because sometimes he has been fussy for other people and calmed down when they handed him back to me. But he is also often fussy for me. Anyway, the real point of this entry is not actually to complain. It's to count our blessings because while we are pulling our hair out a bit, we have lots of fun times with him too because our baby is continuing to grow and develop and learn new things. Therefore, we here present the latest pictures and achievements of our sweet boy.

This is an attempt to capture what we think looks like red hair sometimes. Mostly though it's blond, except when wet and then it's brown.

This is how Dad and Caleb help me put away laundry.

Here is Caleb sitting up on his own.

Here is Caleb with his fan club (two of my Beehive girls). They're teaching him to play the piano.

This is Caleb watching General Conference on Saturday with Aunt Mickie.

Caleb waving. Caleb and Dad are watching General Conference together at Aunt Mickie's house.

This is General Conference on Sunday. We had to listen to it on the radio. In some ways that didn't work too well.

This is Caleb testing out more foods. He's gnawing on a red bell pepper and holding a cucumber. He looks very thoughtful.

Monday night before Easter, we got together with our friends Jay and Libby and their baby (who is just a day older than Caleb) to dye eggs at their place.

This is one of our eggs. Caleb got worn out by all the fun.

Dad and Caleb chilling on the floor.

Caleb dressed for Easter. (Fortunately you can't really tell in this picture that the pants (on this 12 month outfit) are way too long on him.)

Mom and Caleb on Easter.

We watched a lot of movies for about a week there and Caleb often fell asleep during them. This is one of those times. Patrick thought he had the coolest expression. (And I am deliberately sticking my tongue out for the picture, by the way.)

Mostly, he's just darling and we love him and we realize "this too shall pass." We just have to remember the smiles on the days when there are not a lot of them.

And finally, the latest development -- crawling! (sort of)