for the birds, buttons, words

The last day of our trip. Let it be known that the army crawl is not lost. He alternates — as it pleases him.

After a leisurely morning of banging on pot tops, rolling cups, dismantling magazine stacks, chasing dogs, etc., we piled into the car and headed for the Bosque wildlife refuge in hopes of showing the boy lots and lots of birds. Bur! Bur!

Fortunately, we saw hundreds of stately gray cranes and thousands of snow geese and ducks, plus two or three hawks, and a family of mule deer. Unfortunately, the boy fell asleep in the car on the way over and slept the whole drive through the park, waking up just in time for lunch.

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I finished Jonah’s sweater on this trip. The one I’d started back when I was pregnant. Should have knitted it for the 18 month size as finishing it just when he’s one means he’ll be able to wear it for like 5 minutes.

I might be able to stretch it a little if I block it. Something I’ve never done. Just like I’d never knitted a sweater before this one, or sewn on buttons.

Fortunately for me, FIL learned how to sew on buttons in the Navy. He shared the wisdom.

(Note intermittent presence of old Joe in the background / sideground of photos below.)

* * *

Jonah keeps racking up the “B” words. He now knows “Burt” for his Sesame Street finger puppet (sadly, he’ll never know “Ernie” since we misplaced him months ago). He can say “Book” and sometimes he says “Goob” which stands for Good Book (I think). Grandma Judy taught him Elbow “Boh” and he knows that Leg is something that gets tickled though he doesn’t say the word, just offers the limb.

Bellybutton is either “Beh” or “Butt” depending on his mood. Peacock is “Cock” of course.

He’s also started pointing. You, this, there. Kiss my fingertip.

The most amazing thing though is how every time he looks at any statuette, photograph, or cartoon drawing of an owl and almost whispers, in the gentlest dulcet tone, “Whoooo.”