Walkin' and Sighin'

It's official, Riley can walk.
He currently chooses not to, but the genie is out of the bottle.

One evening late in the week, he just started taking smaller steps than normal which helped him stay upright.

Three or four times he would take 4 or 5 steps, pause, then start up gain and take 5 or 6 more. It was far more purposeful than his prior stumbling just to keep from falling.

Unfortunately though, now he refuses to even try again, and sits down every time we stand him up. Oh well.

He's also started to develop good dental hygiene and loves playing with the power toothbrush that I don't use anymore.




Saturday morning he got to hang around with Mommy while Daddy headed up to Chicot with the boys to find out how out of shape he is.
No surprise, I found that I have the speed of cold molasses, the balance of a 10 month old and the endurance of a bottle rocket.

(L to R: PK3, YJames, Pec, LT, BW)





Then the whole family headed to a Lady Cajuns Softball game, a first for all of us.








He, of course, sported a cool Cajuns shirt.





Unfortunately, the crowd noise upset him a few times (which never happened at football games or festivals), so we did lots of walking around.
He even offended Amanda's mom by crying every time she held him, but it was just bad luck on her part.

Granny Lynn found him a softball that distracted him for a while.





and after I cleaned it up, he tried his best to eat it.





then he showed us his Robert Barone like tick, in which you must touch everything to your forehead before throwing it.





After the game, we triumphantly returned to Coyote Blues for the first time since the whole dairy thing went down.

While he still can't have cheese directly , Joan did go straight for her Shrimp Diablo Quesadillas.

Riley, not to be outdone, put a whoopin' on some poblano rice and charro beans.






Sunday he got his first birthday present a little early when Granny Lynn got him/us a membership to the Zoo of Acadiana.






He is still a little too young to pay attention to most of the animals, but did give them his stare when they fit into at least one of a few categories.

1. They were close to him





2. They were huge.




3. They were audibly fighting over food; or





4. Daddy dangled him over the enclosure.





We didn't drop the $2 on the train ride, but he did get to ride a concrete deer. Quite an adventure.





while there, we had the good fortune to see, and even photograph the rarest beast known on the planet, scientific name Cuddluponus Rileyevans, known to the common folks as "The Cuddly Riley."





Since we have the membership, we'll get to see how much more he fills in the lion cut-out 12 months from now.




For anyone interested, Zoo memberships are $10 off this month.
And a membership here is honored at the BR Zoo too, along with other small zoos around the country.


Mr. Active has also learned how to reach from his bed to pull books off of his bookshelf, but hasn't quite figured out how to, or doesn't want to, bring them into bed, so he just drops them and expects you to pick them up.






If he damages his 20+ year old Brer Rabbit book that I had to scour the internet for, I'm gonna have to throw him in the briar patch.


Now for the random pics that I like this week.


Here he is pointing to his favorite toy, the electrical outlet.
His hair looks like he may have already had some contact with it.






Checking out Mom & Dad's old law school pad in BR, now inhabited by Caroline's fam.






Riding cousin Caroline's manly pony.





Jamming some tunes





and reading Freakonomics with Uncle Paul.




and in closing, I usually try to make the title make sense in some quirky, ironic or sarcastic way. Not this week though. This week's title is a Bluerunners song. If you've never paid attention to them, you should really check out Live at the Triple Door, or Honey Slides.
If you can't get into either of those discs, you are dead inside.