Today Tim surprised Lex and me by taking the day off from work.  To celebrate, we spent the first half of the day at the children’s museum and the zoo.  Our friend Steve works at the museum and he gave us a personal tour.    

Lex hanging out with the big kids:

A toy drill press at the ‘Bob the Builder’ exhibit:

“painting” with water:

And yes, that IS an AC/DC shirt that Lex is wearing.  We always said he was cool.  

A boy and his wheel barrow:

Fish!

We enjoyed a “nutritious” lunch of chicken strips and fries at the zoo.  Lex dipped his fries in ketchup for the first time and loved it.

a hawk on display at the zoo:

wrapping up the day with some lap time:

Suddenly Lex likes books.  (it’s about time!)  He has a few favorite board books, and several times a day he brings them to me so I’ll read them to him.  He sits down in front of me and studies my face as well as the pictures in the book.  His favorite books have pictures of babies’ faces and they only have one word to a page.  Needless to say, they get a little old when they’re read for the twentieth time, but I’m thrilled that Lex is finally showing an interest.        

Other than his new interest in books, Lex continues to love climbing.  In the picture below he’s perched in the window sill.  He also loves to spin in circles (he goes left…just like Apple!) and he figured out how to walk backwards the other day.  

This morning Lex was playing in the corner and all of a sudden I heard him say, “uh-oh.”  He purposely dropped the large spoon he was playing with into a nearby speaker.  I didn’t even know the speaker hole was that deep!  Luckily tonight Tim was able to retrieve the spoon, and no harm was done.     

Besides “uh-oh,” Lex is constantly saying “no!”  He doesn’t necessarily say it angrily or defiantly…I think he just likes the word and the power it seems to give him.

Today we had a fabulous Mother’s Day lunch with Aunt Winnie at the manor.  Instead of the usual buffet, we were served prime rib and then lemon meringue pie for dessert.  Yum!    

We gave Aunt Winnie an orchid corsage to wear for the occasion:

Here’s my two favorite guys all decked out in their Sunday best:

Lex admiring Aunt Winnie’s necklace: (note the similarity in hair color!)

We gave Lex a chance to run and play outside while we were waiting for the meal to arrive.  He is definitely finding it harder and harder to sit through an entire meal without roaming.  

Lex is looking like such a little boy these days.  Where did my baby go?

And finally, to completely change the subject: last Christmas Santa left me a Paula Dean magazine in my stocking.  There was a recipe in it for “Chocolate Covered Almond Coconut Cake” and I’ve been dying to make it ever since I read about it.  So for a Mother’s Day treat, Tim and I finally made the cake.  It was a LOT of work.  We started the thing on Saturday and finally got to sample it this afternoon.  It’s a delicious cake, but I’m sure we won’t be making it again anytime soon!

Somewhere in the picture below there is a monkey holding a banana.  I’ll let you decide who I’m talking about:

I finally broke down and bought Lex some plastic food so he has something to stir while playing with his favorite wok.

All of a sudden Lex is showing an interest in his stuffed animals.  They’ve been in his room forever, but now he wants to get them down and give them all hugs and kisses.  He even hands them over to us so that we can do the same.  It’s definitely adorable…  

The only other thing I have to say is that I’m sorry I ever bragged about Lex’s sleeping on the blog.  As predicted, he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since my post.  He is once again waking up multiple times a night.  I don’t know why.  Pick a reason:  teething, recent vaccines, nighttime separation anxiety…who knows.  And he’s still fluctuating between one nap and two.  Hopefully all this sleep stuff will settle down eventually.