['Arthur's news, notes, stories, etc.' picture]

I decided to move this section of Arthur's page onto a separate page of its own, because it's supposed to get big! It hasn't gotten so big yet, but just you wait ... you see, the thing is that Arthur is always doing so many new and interesting things that most days when I sit down intending to write about them, (1) I can't remember half of the things I'd been wanting to talk about, and (2) I don't really know where to begin. Oh well, here goes!


3/16/96

I've really been slipping on keeping my pages updated, but Arthur has sure been getting to be a big kid in the three months since I last wrote. holding hands, not throwing, chess

Arthur isn't much of a talker yet, though he certainly understands an awful lot of complicated talk. About all he says right now is "Dada", "Hello", and that he meows when he sees a cat or a picture of a cat. He will imitate the inflections of a phrase, and sometimes it will sound like

He's also really into shoes right now for some reason. If he sees his sneaker-type shoes or rain boots he wants them put on right away, and insists on keeping them on all day (usually I have to wait until he's asleep to take them off). The rain boots slip on and off easily enough that rolling around on his bed playing may dislodge one, in which case he becomes very distressed until it's returned to his foot. Yesterday a visitor praised Arthur's "real Santa Cruz-style outfit" as he ran around the backyard wearing nothing but shoes and socks. This is kind of funny because everyone else in the house goes barefoot almost all the time, despite Arthur's .

12/23/95

Arthur (15 months last Wednesday) is now totally into books. He will bring you a book, insisting "eh eh eh!" (he's not Canadian so that's "eh" with a short "e" sound) that you read it to him, though he does tend to flip the pages around a bit faster than you can keep up. Sometimes this is a little board or picture book like "Spot's first book of Netiquette" but other times something a bit less appropriate like the Consumer Reports Buyers' Guide. And when I was reading Sam "The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs" the other night, Arthur was interested in it for quite a while, sitting in my lap listening and watching, but eventually he left, quickly returning ("eh eh eh!") with one of his own books. :-)

11/20/95

Arthur is 14 months old today! He's totally cat-crazy right now, especially over a friendly kitten that's been hanging around. Usually when he wakes up he sits in bed waiting/calling for me, but this morning he was just ziiiiipppp out of bed looking here and there for the kitten while making little meowing sounds. (Sam calls this kitten "Lost and Found", and she looks very much like "Curie Cat" from the program "The Incredible Machine 2.") Arthur frantically pages through two cat picture books, excitedly pointing at each picture of a cat, and sometimes gets mad when he's on a text-only page or when the book falls closed.

Another thing Arthur is totally into right now is jars/bottles/other containers that have caps on them. If he sees me holding anything with a cap on it, well, he WANTS it! And he already knows how to unscrew screw-on caps, so I have to screw them on very tightly before letting him hold any containers with screw-on caps. His favorites are half-full two-liter soda bottles (he can roll them around, tip them over, and enjoy seeing all the bubbly stuff sloshing around inside) and little bottles of "extracts" such as vanilla.

Arthur just likes taking things apart in general (not just removing caps) and becomes very agitated, making many small whimpers of alarm, if toys such as Duplo blocks are pushed together too tightly for him to take apart. When he can take them apart then he gets a wonderful triumphant grin.

Besides pointing at pictures of cats, he uses pointing to show where he wants to go when he's being carried. Often it's to something that was deliberately put up out of his reach, oh well!

Arthur doesn't really try to produce words himself (other than "da da" and imitating cats' meows) yet, but sure understands a lot of them! His walking has been getting much better and faster. He also has started liking to crawl backwards sometimes. He's been figuring out how to climb onto more and more things, such as chairs and benches, so we really have to watch him carefully.

I moved Sam's rocking horse into Arthur's room, and he really loves to bounce on it. When he wants to ride, he walks over to it and pats it on the saddle.

I see that I've never mentioned how much Arthur enjoys music, especially making it himself. He really loves to drum, whether being held up so he can reach Jon's conga drums, on his own birthday bongo drums, on Jon's xylophone/marimba instrument, or just on pots and pans. Synthesizers are another favorite, and he also likes to blow recorders and whistles. He also likes to bounce/babble along to music on radio/tape/CD.

8/20/95

Today I got Arthur to help me make a rice salad by picking basil leaves and putting them into a basket for me (he also put some in his mouth). He was more interested in the purple basil than the green.

8/13/95

Here are three quick little notes:

8/4/95

Here's a nice moment: yesterday we went to the library, and 10.5-month-old Arthur, Sam and a two-year-old were all happily playing together with a "Little People" castle set. Arthur was also really listening to me -- he kept charging off towards a revolving rack of paperbacks, with you-know-what on his mind, but then I would call him and he'd turn around and come back to me. Sam read him some board books of the "Baby say bye-bye, everybody fall down ..." variety, and I bounced him on my lap to the rhythm of "This is the Book that Jack Wrote" while I read it to Sam.

7/23/95

Arthur knows his way around the house, and really charges around. Last night he was making some mischief (throwing blocks into the tub, etc.) while Sam was taking a bath. I'd carry him into the living room and interest him in some of the toys in there, but pretty soon there would be a thump thump thump and there would come Arthur racing into the bathroom again.

Arthur had some fun this afternoon when I put him outside with a bowl of applesauce. He would scoop his fingers into the bowl and then stick them into his mouth (or sometimes on other people's pants and so on). A few times he was doing this and then switched over to crawling so suddenly that he plopped a knee down into the bowl. Afterwards (being totally covered with applesauce) he had his second bath in the regular bathtub, and (unlike the first bath) this one he really enjoyed.

He got a new carseat 7/21, having outgrown his/Sam's first one. We still had Sam's second one, but the pads were pretty shredded, and when I called the company, replacements cost about as much as a new carseat.

7/17/95

Arthur is now a good fast crawler on the slippery wooden floors as well as in the backyard. He's also started asking to be picked up, by crawling over to someone and climbing/reaching up.

He's gotten good at picking small things up with his thumb and index finger, which is good for eating peas but bad for all Sam's Lego people. He's really completely the opposite of Sam as far as first eating habits go -- Sam would eat anything fed to him in a spoon, but wouldn't put anything in his mouth himself, whereas Arthur usually refuses spoonfuls of food but will stick into his mouth whatever he can get his hands on. This means that when we didn't have little toys all over the floor, we had a baby who wouldn't put anything into his mouth, but now that we do have little Legos and so on all over, we have a baby who wants to put everything in his mouth!

He's at a really good age in general -- fun to play with, very happy and loving, and easy to take places. I remember the first time Sam and I tried to take him out in the stroller -- that we only got halfway down the driveway before he got really upset and we had to come back. But now he enjoys going for walks (even for miles and miles), he enjoys playing with things once we get somewhere, whenever we stop for some kind of food we can give him pieces of it too, and so on. He's a great companion and all-around wonderful baby.

6/25/95

Arthur's grandmother Jane has finally managed to get away from her boss long enough to pay her first visit to Arthur, and they are having a very nice time together. Today we took Jane to Fresh Choice, where Arthur worked on his new performance-art piece involving a bowl of red Jello and two breadsticks. I may have to reconsider my recent advice to someone about Jello not being a good hair-dye, because even after a few passes at washing, Arthur's hands and arms are still stained a bright pink-red. Does this make you want to dye your insides with Jello or are you holding out for the glow-in-the-dark flavor? It certainly increases my appreciation for something like tempera paint that washes out more easily.

Arthur's two top teeth are coming through nicely. Today I saw him really crawl, in that he moved each knee and hand forward one "step" before dropping down to his stomach again, but I think our floors are so slippery that he doesn't really "get" how this could be potentially more useful than the sliding around he's been doing for some time now. He gets around very quickly on his stomach -- just in the last few days he's gone from playing in more or less one area to really cruising around the house. Yesterday I put a gate up in the hall leading to Sam's room, to keep Arthur from eating or otherwise trashing Sam's Lego creations, but Sam himself isn't tall enough yet to get over the gate without help, so it only stays up when Arthur is scooting around on the floor.

6/15/95

Arthur is learning to crawl, but sometimes he moves his knees up too close to his hands and falls on his face, ouch! He gets back up again quickly, though.

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