Yup, I'm late posting this. I know this. Life sometimes gets in the way of things I'd rather do, like be on time with an update entry on our child. So sorry.

Anyway...

For starters, major, major thanks to Jill. She saw my pitiful lamenting about missed opportunities in the last entry, and offered another chance at the miracle which is the Dyson vacuum, this time as birthday presents for Nathan and myself. We didn't let the offer go this time. Who knew a vacuum could be as fanatastic as this one?? Holy crap! Hmmm....maybe that will work again.... "Oh, I shouldn't have passed up the opportunity to get my mortgage paid off, and an extra several tens of thousands of dollars in the process!!"

*hums Jeopardy theme*

Well, ok, that might be a bit much. A gal can dream though...

As I was saying...

Lots has happened this past month (6 weeks) since the last "real" entry. For starters, we're down to just Wrigley in the animal part of our household now. Mojo started getting really bad again about breaking out of the yard, destroying whatever he could get his mouth around, and just generally not listening when we told him to do something. When he actually growled at Nathan a couple of times in a few minute span, that's when we decided we had all we could stand. We send him off with a bandana and stick to go live in the sticks on a farm. When we dropped him off, he took one look at us, gave us a look that can only be described as giving us the finger if he could, and took off. So now it's just the Ninjamunkey, Baby Munkey, Wrigley FuzzyButt, and me. And that's ok.

Mikey went to his first hockey game on 3/13. A bunch of friends joined us for a minor league game to help celebrate my birthday. At first, Mikey wasn't quite sure what to make of all the noise and lights and people, and didn't like it. But after a few minutes, he remembered that he loves noise and lights and people, and thoroughly got out of it all.

During that evening, witnessing how one of our friends acted around Munkey was enough for Nathan to realize completely what a great, all-around guy he was. So Nathan asked our friend Chris to be Mikey's godfather; once Chris was able to speak again, he said yes. Of course, now there's no end to all the really bad Marlon Brando impressions Chris does, but luckily Munkey can overlook all that.

On the health front, I took Mikey to the doctor last week for a 9-month checkup. He tipped the scales at 20 lbs, 11 oz, and measured 29 inches long (see, there's a reason we call him Goliath!). They also said, though, that he was slightly anemic. So they gave us some iron drops to give him daily for 2 months to see if that helps or not. Keep your fingers crossed, please. He started cutting 4 teeth on top at one time, putting him in a great deal of pain. On top of that, he seems to be cursed with the same seasonal allergies that I have, making him go into sneezing fits this time of year. He and I are a bit of mucus-y messes at the moment

As far as things he does...he's putting more words together, and knowing the meaning of them. For example, he figured out that when he drops something, we would say "uh-oh". So now, that's his new game, purposely dropping things, and saying "uh-oh" while giggling. He also goes out of his way to drop food for "Doug" (what he calls Wrigley), and knowing that da-da bye bye means he is going somewhere with Nathan. He also can somewhat wave when you say, "Say bye bye, Munkey." He recognizing bottles by sight, and the sound of them being shaken, and has favorite toys taht he reacts in different ways to. He also just figured out that he can stand up if he pulls himself up by using handfuls of the couch cover. He even knows how to stretch up on his tip-toes to get even higher. He also balances on his knees quite a bit while sitting up, and has started crawling more using his hands and knees. He still prefers the Marine Crawl, though, as he can move faster with it. Overall, he's a riot.

New pictuers will be up on Snapfish when I get a chance to upload them (hopefully in the next day or two). In the meantime, try to amuse yourself by catching up on older entries, and emailing any comments you might have to alisowels@1scom.net (Blogger doesn't have a comments section like Upsaid did. We can code one, but must like everything else, we'll have to get around to it when we can).

Hugs and kisses, everyone

Ali