The Heidt Family: The adventures of a Thirteen Month old Boy

So, it was my birthday on Tuesday. John baked my very favorite cake:

We went out to dinner and everyone was well behaved. It was a good night. We came back from dinner and had cake after William went to bed. All in all it was a nice day with lots of well wishes arriving over the phone and in the mail.

Here is a picture of us last year and a comparison from this year. Last year: tired and sore. This year: still tired after chasing a little boy all day and sore from a 3 mile run this afternoon. But happy. Very happy.

One month old baby Thirteen month old baby

Although this looks like a cute picture, he is trying pretty hard to get away. There is work to be done.

Smile!

Babbling away. I'm working hard this week to get recordings of him saying some of his words. Maybe John will have time to help me post them this weekend. And maybe the birthday party video? We'll see what we can do.

Our climbing adventures continue. William figured out how to get on his push toy to ride it and how to push it forwards/backwards with his feet yesterday. However, he is not so good at figured out how to lift his leg over the body of the toy to end up facing the steering wheel. Wouldn't be such a big deal except he is MAD about not being able to reach the buttons that make noise when he is facing backwards. See above: Happy! I figured out how to climb on this thing! A short moment later he lost it because he couldn't reach the buttons that play music. I am absolutely certain I took several pictures of him riding the toy the correct direction, but can't seem to find them in the 56768765416576876854653 pictures we have of our kid on this computer. Seriously.

I am pleased to report that we have also conquered the scaling of the Coffee Table in the living room. I'm taking the next few days to see if we can't get this out of his system before I go ahead and remove this piece of furniture from the living room.

Here we go climbing again wearing one of my favorite shirts. More pictures of that will be below. Every time he manages to pull himself up onto either the couch or the coffee table, he spends a full ten seconds just like this. Resting from the extreme effort of pulling his entire weight up and over his cute round tummy to the top of whatever mountain he is climbing.

And...the new shirt. Mr. Mischief indeed. Do you remember those books from when you were little? I do...and this shirt totally fits us. John (who is a freak) claims he doesn't remember these books at all from his childhood. Someone better call, email or comment to let me know I'm not the only one who remembers these characters.

Mr. Mischief doing what he does best...

Looking for more trouble

More Mischief to be had over here...

This looks like something interesting (PS this is the assigned "camera" booger sucker, not "kid" assigned. I guess if you want to know more about why our camera has boogers you should ask John.)

Even Mischief makers need to take a break to rest...and plan.

If you asked me this week what William's favorite toy is, I would have to tell you the 5 pound bag of potatoes in our pantry. Even though he is not at all interested in eating them in any form (fried, baked, mashed, etc), he still loves his potatoes. He loves to tote them around one by one (shown above) or by the whole bag full. Earlier this week we had to hurry up and eat some potatoes because the bag was too heavy for him and he was quite upset about not being able to lift it by himself. He hides them in various places and rolls them around on the ground. Luckily, they are a pretty sturdy type food (as opposed to an egg) so I try to let him explore and play. However, it is a fear of mine that one will roll under the couch/steps/desk/furniture and we will not realize it until it starts to smell. Ewww.

Here, he has taken them all out of their bag and put them on a different shelf in the pantry. After this activity, he selected two of them to run around the house with.