Crash! Bang! Rip!

Austin is officially a toddler. He has become more and more comfortable in his abilities and that leads to some unfortunate occurrences. The last two Sundays have resulted in some pretty big 'boo-boos'. Two weeks ago he decided to play with the big kids. He went running down the ramp at church chasing a couple of the other boys (1st and 3rd grader), and CRASH! Apparently he hasn't refined his stopping technique. The results of the big crash were 3 separate 'skid marks', 2 on his forehead and one on his nose. Here is a pic for your viewing pleasure, it looked worse the next day, I should have taken another picture then.

Then the next Sunday we were home from church and unfortunately it is hard to keep a sick toddler from playing. Austin went running to get his football and tripped over one of his shapes that blended in with a play mat, and BANG he fell right into his pumpkin (you know the traditional trick or treat pumpkin) face first, well more like chin first. He managed to split open his chin, it looks pretty rough. I'm wondering if his cleft chin will be even more pronounced.

This morning he decided to test out his fine motor skills, unfortunately they are working well. Last night I took some Nyquil, as desired I got good sleep for the first time since Sunday. The bad news is I didn't pop out of bed when Austin woke up like I usually do. Austin isn't a screamer when he wakes, he is usually content to play with his crib toys and sing to himself. This morning he found something else to do when it took me too long to get in there. I don't know when he woke up, but I didn't wake up until 8:00 (he usually wakes between 7 and 7:30). When I went into his room I found a rather large section of wallpaper torn back from the wall. Hmm, wonder what I'll be doing this weekend. For tonight, his crib is pulled away from the wall.

So those are some of the not so cute results of him exploring and learning. Now on to some of the more amusing. Austin has a healthy appetite, so much so that it doesn't matter how long it has been since he has eaten, he will go into the pantry and find one of his snacks and bring it to me. The skill Daddy is most proud of is his spiral, our 16 month old still seems to have a natural ability for football. He loves to play chase, he will stand next to the ottoman and look at you until he gets your attention and taunt you into chasing him around and around. The game isn't over until you pick him up and throw him on it (gently, of course) and tickle him. He still doesn't mind bedtime. If you tell him it is time to go night-night, he will go straight to Daddy and make a kissing noise. He give a kiss, gets a kiss then reaches for mommy. Then, he waves to Daddy until he is out of sight. He has learned how to throw things in the trash and put things in drawers, sometimes trash ends up in the drawer over the trash can, fortunately it is usually just paper. I keep one cabinet with Tupperware within his reach, he likes to play drums on the smallest container there. Oh, and my all time favorite... when we read him Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear he always kisses Teddy Bear on the page with hearts, sometimes he kisses him on every page, but he always makes sure to kiss the page with hearts. I'm not sure where that come from or if he knows that hearts signify love, but that is pretty interesting. He has a couple of sets of stacking cups, these are his absolute favorite toy not a day goes by that he doesn't play with them. Lately, he has realized that some of them fit perfectly on his feet. He has had a couple of ride on toys since Christmas and got another for his birthday. He just figured out how to get on and off by himself. And this week he has finally learned how to get on facing the right direction.