Baby Watching

I'm having fun. I am baby watching. On the weekends, I get to play with Nicholas, but during the week he is in school all afternoon. We didn't really want to disrupt his schedule that much, so he stays at his other grandma's house in the morning and she gets him to school. I stay home with Zachary.

What I've learned in the week I've been here.
1. Zach is strong. He's been crawling for 2 months. Now, at 7 1/2 months he is standing and letting go. He loves to do this. He will go from sitting or squatting to standing and repeat it several times.
2. Zach is fearless. Big dogs and vacuum cleaners are things to follow after and grab ahold of.

3. Maggie loves babies. I didn't really realize that before. I knew she was good with them, but she seems very happy to be here and she rarely moves away from the baby.
4. Zachary is a chatter-box but he speaks mostly cave-man: "uh, uh, uh, HUH, AHH, uh, uh"
5. Zachary ADORES his big brother.
 There's a story that goes along with that.

When Nicholas comes home in the afternoon, Zachary lights up. Nicholas plays pretty well with him most of the time. When they play together, Zach's normally happy face becomes a huge grin, and the laughs and shrieks follow.

Sometimes Nicholas likes to play with his race cars and at those times, he doesn't want Zachary around. The other night I was feeding Zachary while Nicholas was racing. Nicholas is full of sound affects. His car sounds can be quite real. EEEYYOWW echoed into the kitchen as the cars went around the track.

Zachary couldn't see him from his chair. I kept trying to spoon cereal into his little mouth, but I was having trouble. There was 'The Moving Target' to deal with as Zach kept rocking back and forth in his chair. He was also busy making his caveman sounds.  mmMMMmmm, mmMMMmm, mmMMMmm... As I watched, I caught on. He was imitating Nicholas with his race car sounds.

I moved the high chair to the doorway where he could see his brother. The rocking slowed. As I moved a spoon into view, the mouth popped open. It worked for a few minutes at least. Then a big grin covered his face and he gave a happy shriek....splattering cereal all over. Which brings me to...

6. The other thing I've learned...feeding babies is still a messy business.