Jibba Jabba

I'm posting this on Monday, Memorial Day.

From what I understand, based on Latin root words, Memorial Day is a day when people are off of work to help them remember how much they wish they were retired.

Don't need a special holiday for that, but I'll take it.

Blogwise, I seem to have fallen into a formula, most of the time, where I talk about Riley's development, then give a run down of our week, before sometimes topping that off with random pics that didn't really fit anywhere else. Boring huh?

Yet this site still gets a couple hundred clicks a week. (most of those are my mom, but a stat is a stat)

Oh well. No originality in my veins today, so let's get formulaic.


On the developmental front, Riley's vocabulary is developing at a surprisingly rapid pace. I guess it isn't surprising though, considering that his mom was using clear sentences at 18 months (from what I've been told)

He only says a couple of words really clearly, but he says a lot that are mostly there.

Even though the exact pronunciation and second syllables aren't there, he uses the sounds in appropriate context, which makes them understandable.


Off hand, he's got: Mama, Dada, light, knock knock, bye bye, milk, nap, book, ball, bird, boom, shoe, plane, Jeep, and Jimmy.

If you just put him in an empty room and heard him say "dim," "pay" or "deep," you wouldn't think anything of it, but when he does that while pointing at Jimmy, a plane or a Jeep (mine, Nonnie's or anyone he sees around town) you know that he knows what he's saying.

I think that's ahead of 14 months on the milestone chart, and since I think good language and reading skills are THE most important tools anyone can have, I really hope this is a sign for his aptitude. (I promise I have better language skills than I demonstrate here.)


In addition to the words he says on his own, he's also parroting like crazy. The pressure is really on to clean up my vocab. ( I won't incriminate Joan.)


Unfortunately, the ever expanding vocab has been accompanied by the discovery of the tantrum. Maybe thanks to an incident described below, he's at least smart enough not to have a "throw yourself on the floor" tantrum and opts for the "carefully lay on the floor" tantrum instead.

Time to do some reading up on how to handle that, since punting him over the fence, my gut instinct, is probably not pediatrician (or cop) recommended.


He had plenty of reason to cry early in the week. Last Sunday, he had his worst injury to date. While still in his pajamas, he fell in the kitchen and split his lip. I was about as far away from him in the house as you can be, and still heard the sound of skin on tile.

We rushed in there and, given the amount of blood, were sure he had knocked out a tooth. Thankfully, all 8 are still there, but his lip was terribly disgusting.

Here's a shot of it after a couple of days of healing, and once the ground beef in cottage cheese look had subsided.




Saturday morning started out nice with a calculating squirrel trying to eat from the squirrel-proof bird feeder, with us only 10 feet away. After a battle with the cardinal family that claims the feeder, and repeated attempts & failure the squirrel finally gave up.





On trying to leave though, he was accosted by another squirrel and they fought, just feet from me, for another 5 minutes.




The best part was that Riley sat quietly and watched them, as he does the feeding cardinals every morning. Sitting quietly is unusual for him, but if nature does it, I'll give him all he can take.


After being out of the groove for a couple of weeks with vacation and recovery, we got back to the Saturday swing of lunch at Johnson's.

It doesn't get more local than eating jambalaya, boudin, and boudin balls, drinking Abita (root beer) and listening to zydeco on KRVS, while sitting out on a porch under a fan. I love it.





Riley, as usual, had his fill of fun playing with Ms. Claire at the register. She lets him push the buttons and open the drawer. It's not a service offered to every customer, but Riley seems pretty non-threatening.
He is thoroughly impressed with himself when he does it, but doesn't quite understand why he doesn't get to play with the register at every store we go to. Hopefully he'll learn before he gets too big and ends up with a Tazer in his back.






Then Ms. Claire elevated herself to goddess status when she gave him his first ring pop. He was hesitant initially, but then made all of the mess you would expect a one year old to make with a sucker that barely fits in his mouth. He was about as happy as can be.





After a good nap, it was time to head over to uncle Jake's house for a little engagement shindig.

The centerpiece was a pretty impressive pig roasting method.



The pig was mounted to a motor and the swine flew around and around till crisped up and ready for the table.


Sunday was a milestone. Riley made it through church for the first time without either falling asleep or having to be taken out. He's never bad, just a little too talky for church.

But I guess one of the advantages of going to the 8:30 service, where the average age is 70+ years, is that many of the folks can't even hear him.

Later in the day, we took advantage of a break in the weather to head out to the zoo. Of course, when I asked him if he wanted to go to the zoo, he proudly pointed at his shoes. You can't ask for too much.

He's getting progressively more interested in the animals every time we go, and I think he actually recognizes a few.




He is also becoming a slide junkie and even got cocky enough to race another kid. They were tied 2-2 after 4 races, so we called it a day.






This trip also marked his first encounter with an aggressive animal when the Caracal did not want us anywhere near its cage.


(I tried to think of some kind of joke playing on caracal & carousel, but, for the readers who don't know me personally, I'd rather you just think I'm a dork, than know I am.)


He finished the day off with a visit to Royal Panda where he was able to have his favorite dinner (or any meal).... a bowl of ice cream.


That's all I can think to say this week. Pretty sad, huh?


To complete the formula though, here's the randoms:

King of the Hill




Hi-5 with Ms Sylvia





Stealing Anthill's phone





Hangin' with Nonnie and Poppy





If the weather allows, be sure to check out Downtown Alive this week.
The openers, The Howdies, are a pretty good, old country outfit, whose drums are held down by an old family friend.
Then if you like the band, head over to AAA and the drummer (Austin) will poke holes in just about any part of your body, for a small fee. Multi-talented.