Now that the weather is warm, Ricky is outside almost as much as I’ll let him. Since we have a secure backyard, I’m trying to be brave and let him play outside alone, but I still worry, so yesterday, I was sitting near our sliding glass doors while he played outside. Ricky was using a bucket to move the water from the dogs’ dish to various parts of the yard . . . a planter, his wagon, the sandbox. Then I heard him start laughing. It is an uncontrollable giggle and it is very contagious! Usually, it involves one of our pets (For instance, when I stepped out of the bathroom during his bath and heard the giggle, I quickly went to see what cat he had pulled into the tub. Maggie was not actually in the tub, but was quite wet from Ricky flinging water out of the tub at her with his bucket). After the giggling started outside, I could see Ricky running back and forth from the watering dish to where Trouble (our 100 pound, Husky/Shepherd mix) was sitting. The poor, patient dog was getting bucketful after bucketful of water dumped on his head and his back. Daisy, our other dog, ran from the water buckets, but Trouble just took it.
Ricky still enjoys Billy, although he loves one on one time with either of his parents. He particularly likes to be read stories. At night, after Kevin has gone through the nighttime routine and is leaving the bedroom, I can hear Ricky calling after him, “Tories, tories!” because he can never hear enough.
Billy is growing more and more. Kevin often comes home from work and tells me that he has grown more that day. His smile comes more and more easily and he is starting to grab at objects. I had him in his bouncy chair yesterday which has a couple of rings that link together hanging from it. I noticed the last link was missing and looked and looked for it. I finally found it around Billy’s wrist! I guess he got a good grip, slipped it off, and somehow got a bracelet!
Billy is almost ready to join Ricky in their bedroom. He only wakes us up once during the night for a 3 am snack. Once he sleeps through the night, he and Ricky will be roommates. When Billy is in his playpen in the family room, Ricky often climbs in with him, so once they share a room, I’m anticipating the morning when I find Ricky in the crib. Billy already has to share his sleeping accommodations with our big orange cat. At that 3 am feeding, more often than not, there is Hunter, curled around Billy’s feet.
Yes, Ricky is playing with a pink elephant in this picture. It is an old stuffed animal of mine and the only elephant we currently have. Today it is wearing one of Billy’s shirts and a pair of his shorts. Ricky’s phases come and go quickly and are hard for me to even keep up with! This week is elephants and dragons, next week, who knows.
The following picture shows what our Ricky likes to do, especially when he gets sleepy. We were visiting Grandmama and he decided to climb into Duchess’s crate. It isn’t very big and we weren’t exactly sure how he got in or how he was planning to get back out, but he had no problems. He enjoys little “houses.” The space in our entertainment center under the tv is where we keep a basket of his toys and Ricky often pulls the basket out and climbs into the space telling me that he’s at “Ricky’s house.”
When you take a few too many pictures of an 11 week old with the flash in his eyes, you get a picture like this one. Isn’t he cute?
