Lately

Stephen has been gone for the past three week. You'd think I'd be use to this by now, but I don't think it ever gets easier. This last week has been the hardest. Zander and I have been trying to keep ourselves busy, and binge-ing on foods that we can't eat with dad around like pickles, olives, seed bread, and ranch just to name a few. Mostly, Zander is the one keeping me busy. He gets into everything! Lately his favorite things to play with are cords of any kind, the plant in the living room, and the garbage cans. He doesn't play with any of his toys anymore; like all babies, he wants whatever I have or whatever he can't have. It drives me crazy! I feel like a broken record day after day telling him "no" or "don't touch that" etc... most of the time he just smiles or laughs at me and continues to do what he's doing.

He is becoming more fun to play with because he can move around and he's getting bolder by freestanding all by himself. He'll be leaning against the couch and I'll hand him something to play with, so he grabs it with both hands and stands all on his own until he realizes what he's doing and then falls down. He loves torturing the cat. He follows him around the house trying to pull his tail or an ear until Toby gets fed up with it and nips at him and runs away. His newest love is tipping over the garbage cans in all the rooms and pulling out tissues and ripping them into tiny pieces all over the floor. And he still bites. Hard. Usually it's only me or Stephen he'll bite, but the other day I noticed that I had several small bruises all up an down my arms! The little beaver!

Zander loves being outside. We go for walks quite often and he'll sit at the edge of his seat looking all around the neighborhood and enjoying the breeze on his face. I've been trying to weed my flowerbeds and vegetable garden the last few weeks. Zander wanders off into the dirt eating handfuls of it at a time--dirt, weeds, rocks, bark, bugs...you name it, he'll put it in his mouth. He is such a mischievous little boy I have to constantly keep my eye on him. I sure am glad to have him though. He is what makes me get up every morning....literally...
He makes me laugh a lot throughout the day, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

A few days ago Zander and I were downstairs; I was on the couch while Zander had pulled a kleenex out of the box to rip to pieces on the floor. I didn't mind because it was occupying him for quite some time. I'd glance down at him every now and then to make sure he wasn't eating anything. He finally got up and started putting these tiny pieces of tissue on the table next to me. after a while I glanced down at them and every piece had blood on it! Not only that, but there was blood smeared on the table, so I took Zan man and gave him a look over because he never made a peep. I noticed that his hand was bloody and that he had bitten his finger. I got him cleaned up and he went back to what he was doing. The next morning he was playing with a bracelet in the bathroom. I was in the kitchen cleaning dishes and I heard screaming. He bit the same finger in the same spot! Basically, I think he just reopened his wound from the night before, but there was blood dripping from his hand. I cleaned him up again putting neosporin and his first band aid on his poor little finger. So that's what this picture is--his first band aid.

SO mischievous!