'Morning Heath!

Heath is nearly a year and a half now. (In fact, a co-worker pointed out to me when he was born,"Best birthday in the year; exactly 6 months from Christmas"). And his personality is like watching a big flat river, when you know big rains are in the mountains - its all about to change, we don't know the hows or when, but we know something is coming. Less picky about what he eats now, but still with a downright frightening appetite. Very vocal to get what he wants. Early riser - we are pleased when he makes it to 530 or 6, but typically we are looking at a 5 am start to the day.

Oh, and he loves oatmeal, just rolled oats and flax seeds (lightly ground). And when you put all this together it makes for a near circus act... EVERY morning. Pretty much as soon as I (Dad) can get up - sometimes just before him, sometimes at the same time - I get the oatmeal prep started. When he is awake Mommy gets him on the potty, one or two things reliably happen there, and then he is released to sprint into the kitchen, squealing.

I didnt mention specifically, but he is also very impatient, so even if the oatmeal is done, there is still time for it to cool, which is an eternity when it includes screaming (Alder sleeps through it all), grabbing his spoon from the drawer, running back-and-forth to the table, grabbing his bib, standing by his chair, screaming. Squat down to talk to him about how it is hot and we need to wait and he just wails "Hot! Hot!" over and over, pushing against my knees so I will stand back up and make it come sooner.

Once I have it prepped, I take half of it, put it in a clay bowl, then the bowl into the freezer. The other half, in the pot, I put in the sink so the metal sink will conduct the heat from the pot ASAP. In both vessels I spread the thinnest layer possible on and around the inside to maximize surface area for cooling... then blow on the one in the sink. Within five minutes, I can just give him the one in the freezer to eat while I finish cooling the one in the sink. This times out nice. On the light-on-the-screaming mornings, I can blow on the one in the sink long enough to actually mix them both to serve all at once. I provide this detail to illustrate that after 10 to 12 weeks of this, maybe more by now, one becomes either an expert or totally crazy. And both expert and crazy I think qualifies as a circus act.

He can put down a couple of adult servings within 3 minutes easy. Three servings within five, I would say.

The doctor actually told us to cut him back to two servings when we told him about this.

NO CHEWING... not even squishing. Granna claims that he has what it takes to be a competitive eater.

OK, enough... we have tried to capture a few seconds. Not the theatrics upon waking, but of the eating.

Then he begs for bites of our cereal, shortly therafter, and when Alder gets up, 1.5 to 2 hours later, he begs for his oatmeal too.

He weighs 30 now. Alder is 35.

Halloween...not so bad after all...

Autumn is here and we are really enjoying it. August and September are pretty miserable in our yard due to mosquitos so thick that we look down at our bare legs and see 10s of them on each calf. I begin to feel like a prisoner in my own home...longing to go outside and lay in the grass. So the cooler weather is a welcomed change. We have had a very gradual transition to cool weather too with very few COLD days - it has gooten up to the 60s all week in mid November.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Pocahontas State Park to enjoy the nice weather. We hiked down to the lake (reservoir). We spent quite a while throwing acorns in the water and sitting in the leaves by the shore catching glimpses of the resident belted kingfisher.

the boys enjoyed picking out a pumpkin and carving a jackolantern.

My parents and sister joined us for Halloween and we had a great time. Heath was a clown and his cute face paint....

...lasted about 10 minutes...

Alder borrowed a sweet alligator costume from his friend Chloe and loved getting his face painted and acting the part.

So I should probably say that Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I have never enjoyed dressing up and going to various parties with my last minute, lame costume and I am not that fond of candy either. Well, this changed that a bit this year, thanks to having a three year old and having my parents and sister visiting.

It is also amazing what a few glasses of wine will do for the whole trick or treating experience. We agreed to only go for a very short loop around the neighborhoood because (1) the less candy the better considering that Alder has never actually had candy except a few dum-dum lollipops from the haircut place and (2) he has nothing to complain about since this was his first time trick-or-treating. After a short walk around block in our neighborhood, we came home and dumped out the very small pile of loot, divided the chocolate in one pile for the grown-ups (we are not fighting that Alder claims to not like chocolate) and the remaining sugary mess in another. Alder was allowed two peices (lollipop and smarties) and then we had a great time being rowdy and silly while he burned off the sugar....if you haven't already I suggest creating a Phil Collins Pandora station - you WILL know every word and you will LOVE it.

Halloween in our neighborhood is quite the big deal. They actually turn the pool and rec center into a haunted house for two weeks prior, the yards are decorated quite intensely, and on Halloween night, the street are full of families. Our trick-or-treating timed well with Hazel (age 2) and her parents, which was a riot - a first for Hazel, Alder and Heath. The kids got more and more comfortable with each house, having no problem just walking up and asking for something for free. And Heath was eating up the experience, squealing door to door excitedly on my back. We wondered, if they wondered, why we didn't go out and do this more often.

The adults' treats were some of the things we heard:

"Daddy these are my candy. And, I am going to share them and you will have one." Hazel

Old white-haired lady known for walking her street smoking cigarettes. Alder and I walking back from her porch to the street. "That was a nice lady Alder". Alder replied, "No Mommy, that was a man," hopefully not within earshot.

The first couple of houses, Alder walked up and asked, "Can I have some candy?". We didnt think to prep him with how the process worked and to say thank you.... Then a couple of houses later, as the door opened, he exclaimed "Happy Birthdaaaaaay".

As trick or treating was done, and we were walking back to the house, we asked what we would do next and Alder says, "Lets do something TRICKY!"

I will also brag a bit about how well Alder has been doing with the small stockpile of candy in the house. We have been pretty strict with his sugar intake and only recently have loosened up a bit . We had a serious conversation about how candy is not food and that when you eat too much of it, you can feel sick and your body is not happy/healthy. So the way it works, until the candy is gone (we are down to four pieces), is that if you eat a "good dinner" you can have a choice between a piece of candy, a small amount of strawberry/milk/smoothie beverage, a couple of ginger snaps or frozen blueberries . Our standards for a "good dinner" are quite high, so this doesn't even happen daily, and we are glad that he actually chooses among these choices pretty evenly. For the first 48 hours, he wanted to talk about and sort his stash pretty often, but the excitement died down quickly, thank goodness.