High Five

A few days ago Scott started trying to teach Chance how to High-Five. After just a few tries he got him to do it. Scott just put his hand up and said "High-Five" and Chance will clap his little hand onto Scott's hand, then we all clap and say "yeah." Chance loves it. Today he even tried to initiate the High-Five by putting his hand up and looking at us till we did the high five back to him. I have read in one of my magazines that high-fiving(sp) is something he shouldn't do for a while now but now that I am trying to find a milestone age on the internet I can't find giving a high-five listed anywhere. When we were at the Doctor's office, we showed her and she called other doctors into the room to show them and told us that was very impressive for a 9 month old. Of course, when I got out the camera to try to get a good picture of the high five Chance wasn't cooperating and the camera wasn't flashing at the right time. So, I got pictures of him not giving a high five but I'll keep trying and soon will have one of a real high-five.

Trail of Mess

Chance no longer wanders from room to room looking around. Moving one or two things that are in his way or maybe something that is large or bright that he just can't resist. Now wherever

he goes he leaves his mark. Anything on the ground or three feet above it is fair game. He moves everything on the floor and pulls things off of shelves or off the top of tables. He crawls under things and over things and around things to get to other things that look more interesting. Today I just let him go and followed him around to see all that he would do. I took pictures of all the rooms he left behind. He started in the living room where he has lots of toys and them moved on to his room where he took all the books out of the shelves along with some more toys. Then he went on the our bedroom where he unstacked all the journals and books I have next to the bed. He also snuck into the bathroom and made a mess in there which I did not get on camera. He loves getting into things. He loves

taking things out of boxes or off of shelves. He plays with things for long periods of time. He loves books, his board books as well as adult books. He likes to open and close them and open and close them again. He doesn't rip the pages very often at all so I let him play with my books. I figure as long as he does not ruin them anything that shows a like for books is good. We always read at least one book before bed and sometimes two or three depending on how tired Chance seems. Even when I am reading he will start closing and opening the book. He is a big fan of the laundry basket and just discovered under my desk.
Last year when the Saints did so well (actually the best the have ever done) I promised Scott I would buy Chance a Saints outfit for this season. A few weeks ago I bought him this little Saints outfit. Today was the first day he got to wear it and he does look pretty cute in it. Even though the Saints are not doing quite so well this year Chance has his outfit so he is ready like a good New Orleanian just in case they do win one this season.

Happy Birthday Scott!!

It is Scott's birthday today! We weren't able to do too much. Chance and I got him cards and a gift card to Itunes. Earlier this week we bought an Apple TV so that was most of Scott's present. At the end of the day while walking Rosco, I stopped by the coffee shop and picked up a couple pieces of cake and some milk. When I got home we ate dinner and had cake with one big candle on Scott's piece. Chance had his dinner and a few little pinches of cake that Scott and I shared with him.

Rosco Guarding the Door

Last night we left Rosco out of his cage. We usually put him in his cage but he has really mellowed out a lot in his older years so we thought we would give him another opportunity. He used to make a lot of noise and sometimes he would get bored and get into things he wasn't supposed to but this morning when I got up Rosco was sleeping in front of Chance's door. When I opened Chance's door he was standing up in his crib looking out of the bars right at both me and Rosco. Chance sleeps in a sleep sack that sometimes holds him back while he is trying to stand up or crawl. This morning he could only get up half way because he was standing on his sleep sack which made it really cute because he was looking through the bars instead of over them.

More Park

After Chance arrived at the orange cone we had to go check it out to make sure it was safe and to keep Chance from going any farther. He played with it for a minute taking dirt out of the cracks and getting more dirty before Scott picked him up and sat him back down away from the orange cone so he could (in theory) make his way back toward us. He didn't acutally make his way back toward us, He started to crawl back to us but then he started to turn, a slight slant to the left, then we could tell he was headed back to the orange cone. So Scott when back out to pick him up and brought him back to the little baby blanket we were sitting on. Donaldsonville was a cute little town with an old Main Street USA downtown that was fun to drive through and the park was just what we needed. There was a playground across the street but we didn't go over there because Chance is still a little young for all those things plus there were no trees for shade over there anyway. Check out the last picture they have matching outfits.

Park in Donaldsonville

We went to finally get our driver's license's (we are a little lazy) switched over to the state of Louisiana but found that all of the offices around here to be very very busy. We decided to drive to Donaldsonville, LA which is just about an hour from New Orleans. They have a Department of Motor Vehicles office there that took us about a half hour from the time we walked int he door till we walked out the door again. Both Scott and I got our licences too. After we were finished at the DMV office we decided to stop at a little park in the town to let Chance play and eat lunch. He needed to play for a while since we hadn't really planned to drive up there today he was kind of restless. He really liked the park. The park had a few trees and lots of grass which is all we needed. We didn't stay too long because there were also a lot of gnats around but we stayed just long enough for Chance to have some fun crawling around exploring. There was an orange cone in the park covering what looked like it used to be the base of a flag pole and it being bright and perfectly at his level, Chance made a mad dash right for it. This forth picture is of Chance turning to give us a little look after we told him "no" and to not going over to the orange cone. He didn't stop going toward the cone he just gave us a look and kept right on going. Most of the time he stops when you tell him no but when he is that far away (like 20 feet) No doesn't have the same effect.

Baby Lei

While in Hawaii we bought a lei to match the one we got on our honeymoon. We had accumulated so many things while in Florida we had to have Mom send us a box of our things through the mail. We just received the box and I couldn't resist putting the lei on Chance's head. He thought it was fun and started clapping. He claps and laughs everytime. He has started clapping a lot. I can't tell if he is going it because he really thinks things are fun or funny or just when he feels like clapping for some other reason. He has also learned what fun it can be to clap while in the tub. It makes a big splash. He wondered around the house for a while wearing the lei. The second picture is his "Hey, look at me I'm wearing a lei" face.

Babysitter and the Door

Today I left Chance with a baby

sitter for the first time. A babysitter taht isn't related that is. I hired a sitting service, the same one that sits for a lot of the hotels in the area. They are a 24 hour service so I thought they would be great for when Scott and I want to go out at night too. The woman was very nice and I felt comfortable with her. I had a doctor's appointment this morning at 9:15am so Chance had just woken up when the sitter arrived this morning. Having never left him before I was a little nervous but she was professional and friendly and immidately started tlaking to Chance and playing with him. I kissed him and told him I would be back soon and left. She said he didn't cry much when I left she started playing with him and he was fine. There was a six hour minimum

with the sitting service so I decided to take the extra time for myself. I didn't do an excellent job with this because I jsut went shopping and bought stuff for Chance but it is a start. I want to get a baby sitter once per week just to give me time to get out of the house to myself as well as do things like doctor's appointments and things Scott and I want to do when he is here. When I came back home (an hour early) Chance was sleeping but he must have heard my voice because he woke up, the sitter went in to get him as I was still putting down my things and he came ot with a huge smile on his face. He bounced up and down and smiled at me and then she put him down and he crawled right over. When she left he crawled after her to the door and when she shut the door he whined like he didn't want her to go. We waved bye through the glass door. I think he had a good time with her.

He is learning so many new things with all the crawling and today he opened and closed the door to his bedroom at least twenty times. He had a lot of fun until he pushed it close and couldn't open it again and then Mommy had to open it back up for him to play some more. I also put my head band on him which you can see in the last picture. It doesn't make him look girly just cuter.

The Clap

Ha ha ha (sorry adult joke). Yesterday After dinner I gave Chance a cookie. Needless to say he loved it. It was bath night so I didn't worry about a bib and just let him have fun. He didn't need me to break it into little pieces he just played and ate. He made a huge mess of himself and the surrounding area. While he was playing with chocolate all over his hands he began to fling his arms about kind of like a bird and then he clapped. When his little hands clapped together it seemed like the noise scared him but then it was great fun. He clapped and clapped and laughed. I clapped with him and told him he was doing a great job. We clapped and laughed together. He didn't do it again yesterdeay but today he has clapped quite a few times. Each time he thinks it is very funny. He starts out clapping with one hand open and the other in a fist then the fist opens up and when he makes the first clapping noise he smiles really big and bounses up and down, he is very happy with himself.

9 month check-up

Today we went to the doctor for Chance's 9 month checkup. He weighs 23 pounds and 11 ounces and he is 30 inches tall. To put that in perspective the average baby his age weighs 19 lbs and is 27 inches. He is doing just fine. He was happy and awake and he talked and talked to the nurse and the doctor. He is working on waving and showed the doctor how he claps with my hands. He crawled around for a while and pulled up which impressed the doctor too. He has a little rash on his face and they gave me a cream for it which should make it go way.

His next appointment is set for December 19th for his one year old check-up. He didn't get any shots today but he will at one year.

Chance gets into everything.

He has lots of toys that he plays with everyday. We put them away every night and every morning when he gets down in the floor to play he pulls them all back out again. We gave him some bowls to play with and this day I put one on his head he wore it for a while before pulling it off and tossing it aside.