Gus and Nora: Officially a toddler

Only 1 more week to go until Gus reaches the ripe old age of 1. I keep calling him a toddler but I honestly didn't know if that was right, I had to do a little reading earlier this week to find out what the toddler criteria is. I think Gus qualifies;: a toddler is one who toddles, especially a young child learning to walk; during this period, the child learns a great deal about social roles and develops motor skills.

Here, for instance, is Gus at our friend's Kristie and Skunny's house on Friday night where we ate a scrumptious dinner of beef stew and salad. Thanks Skunbergs, it was delicious. He socialized plenty while we were there and showed off his new walking/toddling skills.

We often throw all his animals into a laundry basket and tell Gus to give them a ride around the house. He has even started making the car sound effects to go along with it.

Brushing up!

Oh, here's a funny story related to brushing your teeth. Last Thursday at about 7am I went in and scooped Gus out of his crib for the day. He seemed rested and in a good mood and was chatting away as I set him down to tend to diaper duty. I unzipped his jammies and did a double take - there, stuck to the poor kids thigh was his toothbrush. Ooops, clearly we were in a hurry on Wednesday night while getting Gus ready for bed. But if you've had a kid or two, please tell me you understand. When you have a kicking and screaming baby sometimes you just have to hurry and zip up the jammies while you can! You don't have time to take inventory on all the toys and gadgets you've used to keep them entertained while trying to get them into their pajamas.

I now make sure I've located the toothbrush before putting him to sleep. Thankfully he is not scarred by his mom's irresponsibility. He was ready to brush his teeth again the next night.

On a totally unrelated topic, we had the teeniest dusting of snow this weekend, Gus had to check it out.

Sunday was my b-day and it was a grrrrreat day. I received some wonderful gifts from Ross and Gus, and after I was done opening my presents, Gus played with the bag. We all win.

This kid is in love with the vacuum. He actually chases the vacuum around while it is on and in use. We've even gone so far as to put it at the top of the stairs as bait in the evenings when we want him to go upstairs and get ready for bed.

Disclaimer:
- Yes, Gus is wearing his NDSU football jersey again in all the remaining pics in this post. It dawned on me that the last 3 posts included photos of Gus in the same jersey and soon people might start to think our poor child only has 1 shirt. But I have an explanation: he wears it on Sundays because Sunday is football day in our house and since we work all week, we take the majority of pics on Sunday. So he's in good shape with clothing, he's got plenty, he just prefers his fb jersey.

The below photo was not staged. This shot was taken with 3 mins left in the Vikings game and I know why Ross was hooked on the TV screen but I can't explain why Gus was. Of course we think he is advanced but there's no way he understood the nail-biter scenario...or did he? He looks pretty intense.