the life of baby jude

I celebrated my second Thanksgiving last Thursday. Last year on Thanksgiving, M&D gave me some sweet potato mush and probably a bottle of formula to wash it down. But not this year, dear readers. This year, I got to experience the gluttonous face stuffing that is Thanksgiving. I ate turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberries and some old faves-- pie and ice cream. Here I am mooching some of Grandpa Robo's pie. Surprised? I didn't think so.
There are actually more important things to celebrate on Thanksgiving other than delcious food, though. I got to see two of my grandparents this year-- Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Robo and Grandpa's girlfriend, Marion. They all came down to our house to see me (and M&D, I guess). Isn't that cool? We had a very nice day. The food that Grandpa and Marion brought was very, very delicious. I've been enjoying the leftovers for days. And despite having a broken wrist, Grandma drove all the way from Buffalo to spend the day with us. She also brought me toys, which is always nice. She's a very fun playmate and we got to spend lots of time together while M&D were out doing things without me. Of course, I'm still not sure why you would want to go anywhere without the likes of me, but that's besides the point. Grandma stayed a few days and we did tons of fun stuff. She even took me the playground! She also got up with me in the morning so M&D could sleep in. Even though she had a cast on her arm, she managed to keep up with me. And that's no small feat. Thanks for coming to see us, Grandma.
Anyway, Thanksgiving 2006 was filled with lots of love, giggles and game playing. I'm very thankful to have had such a special day, but even more thankful to have such wonderful people in my life-- and that includes all my family and friends. I have lots of people that love me and I gotta tell you, that's really something special. Almost as special as candied yams and ice cream.
: ) Just kidding.

I love to dance! No matter what the tune, I love to shake it and bop to the music. Here am I showing off tonight. Baby's got rhythm!


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I'm not bragging or anything, but I'm quite the little helper. I'm very handy around the house and I can tell that my good deeds don't go unnoticed. For instance, whenever I drop (read: throw) my paci or sippy on the floor, I alert everyone that it's gone missing with a loud, pronunciated, "Uh-oh!" Whenever I'm in the mood for an applesauce, I toddle over to the cabinet where it's kept and gesticulate wildly towards it while saying, "APPLE!" just in case M or D forgot where we keep it. I love taking all the tupperware out of the cupboard and rearranging it just so. My best trick, though, is throwing stuff in the garbage. I'm so impressed with myself when I do it, I even clap, just so everyone knows what an accomplishment it is. The best part is that I while I like to put things in the garbage, I know that it's something I should really avoid touching. Whenever I go near a garbage I say "Yuck" in my own special way (it's all in the throat folks) just to remind everyone how germ ridden it is. Then I wash my hands, of course!

Luckily for me, I had many chances to help out this weekend. On Saturday, Mommy and I took a day trip to see Grandma to help her with some things around the house. One of the tasks was taking a bunch of stuff to the landfill to recycle. Luckily for Grandma, the expert "throw-er outer" was there. I took much pleasure in recycling magazines, newspapers and paper bags. Oh, and I got to see a big bulldozer, too. I call all large equipment "tractor" but everyone knows what I mean. It's not like Mommy can tell the difference. Anyway, I feel kind of guilty, because I snuck in a snooze while Mommy and Grandma did some more chores back at the house. They seem a little relieved, though. Gee, I wonder why. I bet they were so lost without me.
On Sunday, we had lunch at Lucy's house. Evie and her M&D came, too. Mommy, feeling ever the mooch decided to make cookies to bring. Jude to the rescue! I bossed her around while eating chocolate chips and playing with rubber scrapers. Here I am trying on one of Mommy's silicone oven mits. Of course, I'm not allowed to man the oven quiet yet because it's "HOT!" (something I inform everyone of when I go near it. See, more helping). But it's fun to pretend.

Once we got to Lucy's house, though, Mr. Nice Joodles went bye bye. I am certainly lacking in chivalry because I insisted on stealing everyone's toys, not to mention Evie's pacis and snacks. I also showed Evie my new trick of pretending to give her something and taking it away just as she reaches for it. You should've seen her face! I must admit, I feel a little guilty, though.Evie and Lucy are so very sweet and cute and don't deserve such antics. I'll try and tone them down the next time. It was a very fun afternoon, of course. Evie kept trying to put various "hats" on Lucy, which the grown ups thought was very funny. Lucy also has very cool toys and books. Mommy tried to get me to eat some of Lucy's mommy's chili because she couldn't stop talking about how delicious it was. While I wasn't into that, I did take full advantage of the tortilla chips that were out (when I wasn't eating poor Evie's cheddar bunnies that is). We were all pretty tuckered by the time we left, because it was meltdown city towards the end. But we all had a very good time-- as we always do when we hang out with our friends. Oh, and Lucy's mommy has another little baby in her tummy! Isn't that great?!?!?

Oh, and even though it portrays me in a slightly bad light, here's me doing my "sucker" move to Evie. Hey, no one said toddlers had manners!

No matter if it's warm or cold outside, or the flavor is vanilla or mint chocolate chip, I LOVE ice cream. Honestly, though, how could you not? It's so creamy and delicious! I just love it. Not to mention, everything that Daddy eats ALWAYS looks and tastes better than anything that Mommy presents to me. It's funny to see Mommy dance all about the kitchen during dinnertime fixing this and that to get me to eat. And then... I gorge on ice cream. There's always room for it. I could see a bit of envy in Mommy's eyes as Daddy and I chowed. Sadly, she doesn't have the metabolism we do. Daddy's lucky, though, because he gets to eat a lot more ice cream than I do. I think I heard talk of childhood obesity.... Anyway, here's my face after every spoonful. So yummy!

Besides the ice cream, my weekend was rather boring. Mommy is battling a pretty painful sinus infection, so we laid pretty low. I'm not sure what a sinus infection is, but I heard lots of, "Jude please be nice to Mommy, she doesn't feel well" and, "Jude, must we read 'Where's the Kitten?' again? Mommy feels really sick!" I could tell something was not right, so I was an extra good boy for her. I'm nice like that. It seems as though these sinus infections are on par with teething, because she was whining a lot like I do when I'm getting a new tooth. The highlight of the weekend was probably when I got my new pair of sneakers. They're Vans! They're kind of grey and with velcro. Oh, and I got a cool new pair of grey cargo pants to wear with my new kicks. You know baby Jude-- always stylin'.

In other exciting Ford news, Mommy got a new job. She is working a Organon, the pharmaceutical company as an executive secretary. She seems to like it very much and I heard talk of a pay increase. I also heard talk of M&D wanting to save a lot more money now that Mommy's bringing in more. Sigh, I was hoping for new toys. But here's something cool-- you know Uncle Florian, Evie's Daddy? He works there too!

On Saturday, Mommy bought me a spoon specially designed for little guys like me to feed themselves with. She also got me a training fork with my favorite fuzzy pal-- ELMO!-- on it! This is all very exciting. In my efforts to become a big boy, I am learning how to get food on the spoon or fork and then into my mouth. This takes way more coordination than I originally thought. Let me tell you, it's waaay easier to just sit there and open your mouth and let M or D do it. But this is just something I gotta learn how to do. I know, eventually, I'll be a pro. For now, though, I get a lot of food on myself. I think that's part of the fun, though.


I did discover, however, that just putting the cup of applesauce right into your mouth works pretty well, too. Classy moves, no? I'm a little guy, but Mommy what's your excuse for doing this?

As you may or may not know, Uncle G owns a contracting business and his star employee is Daddy himself. Here I am attempting to take the Essex work truck out for a spin. I'm practicing for when I'm a big boy and I can help out for real. For now, I'll just sit on Daddy's lap and steer, pretend to shift and eat crumbs out of the console. Notice how I'm even wearing the signature orange. Yeah, that's not a coincidence.

On Friday, it was pretty darn chilly. In fact, it was the coldest morning so far this fall. M&D and I thought it was the perfect day to unveil my cold weather look. What do you think of my orange puffy coat and Snoopy hat? Pretty cool, right? Blustery weather, I'm ready for ya!!! However, I think my carseat has to be adjusted accordingly to accomodate the hugeness that is my winter jacket.