A Clever Lad

Today was a beautiful day in Atlanta, so we decided to spend as much of it inside as possible. Actually, we had some cleaning and a few errands to run, so we didn't get out to the park. We started by going to Crib It, the children's furniture resale store, but we found that the prices of the used stuff there were the same as the prices of the same things new, and they weren't in great condition anyway. We knew we were in trouble when we saw the nice shiny new cars parked outside.

Sort of across the street from the store, though, is the brand new Ikea that is scheduled to open on 29 June. It looks like the building is completely done, and when we first caught a glimpse of it, Patty nearly fainted from excitement. [Note from Patty: Isn't it beautiful?!!!] It's only about a 5 minute drive from our apartment - entirely walkable. They say that it has parking under the building, but we didn't see an entrance. It must be a clever design, because that would mean less green space (not that there is any in that area) taken up by parking and less walking to get to the store. Maybe they'll have our high chair in stock at this one!

We had to go to Wolf camera to reorder some reprints. The last time we were there, we ordered a ton of reprints, mostly to replace ones we'd given away, and some to send to Jack, but they left out a lot of them. Anyway, we think we paid for them originally, so they comped all of our digital reprints, even the few we added to the order. A few pictures in the original order we'd gotten printed in time to give to Mom A and Grandma and Grandpa, but we forgot to give them to them. Oh well, we'll have to mail them.

Since we were in the area, we decided to check out another resale shop, Sweet Repeats. This one just has clothes, but there were tons of clothes there. They said that they can't even accept all of the things that come in there. It's in a pretty wealthy area, so we figured that there might be some good stuff. We got the Chipster a pair of khaki shorts and two light button-down short-sleeved plaid shirts. We actually passed up a Ralph Lauren outfit - gasp! - because it looked a little too well-loved. We had originally hoped to find shoes there, but there weren't any that we liked in his size.

We stopped at home for Gabriel's lunch and nap, and then we went back out to Whole Foods for some restocking of his shelves. We made him some apples, pears, corn, and turkey to freeze and bought him lots of jarred things, as well. We also had a fantastic dinner for ourselves. We had chicken in a garlic/white wine/fire-roasted tomato sauce with angel hair pasta on the side. We may have to make our own spaghetti sauce from now on. Even the chef had to admit that she was impressed with herself! Matthew followed up dinner with some white chocolate pudding with chopped chocolate chips mixed in, with homemade whipped cream on top. It was the perfect completion of the meal.

Gabriel continued to amaze us today. While we were eating our lunch, we heard him straining to reach something in the kitchen. By the time we got there, he was eating some corn puffs out of a baggie. He had gone to his diaper bag, gotten hold of the baggie (which was probably because he liked the texture of it), somehow gotten it open (it was the foldover type), and was eating his snacks out of the bag. Not only was he clever enough to get those snacks out and figure out that they were food, but he also was feeding himself without our help. Up until now, we laughed when people (family, of course) suggested that he was a super genius. Everyone thinks that about their kids, and it's rarely true. Now we're starting to wonder if they're right, ha ha!

Later, at the store, he was holding the first shirt we were going to buy for him and standing in front of Matt, when Matt let go of him. He stood there long enough to be official. He can stand on his own! He did it again a few minutes later.

Since we put the pillows in his bed, he has been going to sleep on his own - sitting up on his own from lying (which, by the way, is another new ability even though he doesn't seem to be able to do it anywhere other than his bed) and playing with his angel until he gets tired, and then laying down and going to sleep. It's amazing. He's also happier during the day and napping about 2 hours total contrasting with the 3 hours he was unhappily napping before. We can see the difference in his face. Of course, we don't get a nap in the afternoon anymore, because he doesn't nap long enough, but it's a tradeoff we're happy to make.

We apologize for the absence of Gabriel pictures today; we took a couple when he got the snacks out of his bag, but they were with the film camera.