Exploring Can Be Dangerous

The events taking place in the picture above led to the nice little boo boo under the eye in the picture below.

 The first pic exposes my laziness in shoving things under Samuel's crib.  Actually, I decided to keep his little suitcase handy from Thanksgiving since we'll be packing up again for Christmas.  In the mean time, Mr. Busy found himself digging around under there.  Before I could be of any assistance in pulling him out, I heard some comotion followed by a red face and a little screaming.
Apparently on the way out from his journey under the crib he collided with the suitcase or some other random object I had stashed and ended up with a bruise and a little scratch under his eye.  You never know around here.  I'm learning daily that childproofing is not a one time event.

Reading Corner

 I made Samuel his own little reading corner this morning because for the past few days he had been taking all his books and sitting with them behind the rocker.  I've kept a big basket of books next to the rocker from my teaching days mainly because we're limited on storage.  He hasn't really gotten into any of these books up until now because he's had other baskets of board books that were more his speed.

 After several days of finding the little rascal hunched down behind the rocker with scads of books around him I decided to pull the rocker out a little, bring his board books over, and make it his reading corner.  Let's just say, he's still back there as I type.  He-loves-it!  You can see he's "reading" to himself in the photo above.  :)

 Now I'm looking for a little chair his size to put back there.  We put his booster seat on the floor for some reason recently and when he figured out he could climb in and out of it there was no stopping him. He got so excited that there was a chair on the ground that was his size we couldn't get him out of it.  This is what first got us thinking that he would enjoy his own little chair.

The Difference a Year Can Make

I found this post from December 4th of last year of a video of Samuel's first airplane ride.  What a sweet tiny little thing.  As I watched the video again, I chuckled to myself thinking about our upcoming flight to Texas this year for Christmas.  In one year's time the sweet little newborn is now a prime candidate for a "backpack harness."   I used to think it was odd to put a "leash" on your kid, but I've had second thoughts picturing us waiting around in the airport.