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Just today he has made the leap from walking sometimes to choosing to walk most of the time.  Count this as the official day!!!!

Jess says, "This was funny. He was getting into every locker and closing the door, then you could just see his tiny hand before he'd open it again. I only managed to get the camera out for one shot before the game was over."

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I love how Art calls every meal dinner.  Breakfast, lunch... It's all dinner.  "When I finish my dinner can we..." and he'll be sitting there with oatmeal and orange juice.  And snacks have specific names.  Dried mangos are a treat, not a snack.  He told me that today.  

After dinner Tsundi joined Art and I for a walk to the park. They had an enormous amount of fun. I enjoy watching how Tsundi and Arthur play and communicate, seeing as neither of them can understand much of what the other says. Although Tsundi has started to speak a bit more English. "Come on!" or "Push!" or "Chocolate!" One of the playground highlights and something Art often asks for is a game we play on the bridge. Art says, "I'm going to go on your bridge, Papa!" and then of course I say, "No no no, I'm going to get you!" It's very exciting to run across a bridge when someone below is pretending to grab you and eat your fingers and toes. So exciting that other kids want to play, and at one point there was a gaggle of 6 or 7 kids screaming and prancing across the bridge as I reached for their tasty feet. A fascinating thing about Tsundi is that he always has something in his hands. Always. Rocks, sticks, food, trash, shov...

This huge ugly plastic playground thing we were given from our neighbors (Thanks Becca and McClain!) has never been much of a hit with Arthur. Until this year. Both Lewis and Art can't seem to get enough of it now. Arthur has learned to climb high, through, and up. Lewis is seen here standing right where he always does, in the doorway. He loves opening and closing this door, and can do it many times without complaining.

Jessica just sent me this funny email... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Jessica Parker" Date: Apr 28, 2009 11:17 AM Subject: seaweed To: "Ben Garvin" Art's watching a nature show - "Seasonal Seas" - and I was in the kitchen. He says, "Mama, can I have some seaweed?" I chucked and brought him some. Dolphins were passing a piece of seaweed to each other and Art said, "They are playing a seaweed game and so I wanted to have some seaweed!" --

Lewis can be a real pain during meals lately, but it's all good.  He just wants to feed himself  from every utensil and cup available at the table.  No, really.  He grunts and whimpers and we just keep offering him all sorts of thing.  My shiny spoon, Ben's fork...By the end of one recent meal Lewis had drunk from every cup at the table and from the small pitcher for his extra water.   Anyone who's eaten a few meals with us knows that the person who sits next to Lewis is responsible for refilling his cup with a little water over and over.  His cup skills are really good, but now he's discovered that it is lots of fun to put things into his cup and to pour the contents of his cup into other things.  I guess the novelty of drinking from the cup is long gone.   He's actually getting quite proficient with a spoon and fork.  And it's a good thing, because he really will not let anyone else feed him.  Just this morning I gave him oatmeal with blueberries in it ...

Lewis walks real far. I want those guns. Art was curious about this image and asked what was going on. "I think he might have a boo boo and she's trying to make him feel better."

  Art and I returned home today, and Lewis can walk, mostly. I'd still say he doesn't officially walk, just temporarily transport via his feet, only to crawl again.

This photo was taken with my new and quite fun phone called a Google G1 ( click here to see ). It's google's attempt at the iphone, and it's super cool for google freaks like me who use gmail/calendar, etc. I took this photo and immediately sent it to the blog via the phone. I expect I'll be doing this quite often, although the photos won't be toned or look as nice as usual. But they'll be about as new as possible!

Today we spend quite a bit of time with Art's 5-year-old friend Amelia. Her and her family are from England (near London) and they're staying in the same building. We spent most of the day with them today, morning and after-nap, then we all went out for a nice dinner. They were both delighted to have someone to be silly with, scream, dig sand, feed the birds, run, swim... Art gives Amelia a cracker to feed the birds.

We played alot in the sand today and yesterday, building things, destroying things, burying things. Papa in the ocean.

Lewis can get himself down from a couch or bed.  He knows how to turn himself around so his feet go first!  But he's walking today.  No.  He seems to have forgotten that he was walking so well on his own the other day and he's a four-footed animal, again.  So you get to see his first steps after all, Ben!!!  Looks like he's going to do a replay for you!

Today Arthur seemed to finally be feeling alot more ok about being in Florida. Less reserved, more affectionate, more silly. MORE SILLY! We went down to the ocean in the afternoon and played in the sand and water. A 5-year-old girl was there and she and Art had a fun time screaming and splashing, although Art would insist I or Nanna stay near. He was timid about waves. In any event, it was fun to see him fully enjoy the ocean in all it's saltiness and vastness. I got to body surf some, too, as Nanna watched the bug. But the moment I'll remember is after Nanna left and Art and I sat on the beach together. He sat on my lap, and waves rolled over our pasty white legs as I piled sand on his feet. His feet slowly disappeared only to reappear from the rush of a wave. We sat there, mostly silently, for 40 minutes, playing with sand, pouring water over our toes, sitting on the beach. It was the sort of moment I had idealized in my mind when it comes to oceans and 3-year-olds, and it wa...

Jessica has often told me that her and her sister Emily were allowed to pick out an indulgent sugary cereal when they were on vacation to the cottage in Wisconsin. While Art wasn't there to choose, I got him some lucky charms and explained how when mama was a kid she got fun cereal, too. he immediately had two bowls.

when I was a child Josh and I often slithered under the covers to retrieve hidden books. We were 'book worms'. I've been doing this with Art lots at home, and here he is being a bookworm with Nanna.

we took a half hour trip to a small and quite wonderful zoo today in Sanford, FL. Art had a fun time.

We have lift off.  Lewis is walking more and more.  As long as he's not thinking about it he will walk across a room.  But then moments later he might stand grasping a chair and whining, waiting for someone to assist him.  He clearly has not realized that he can do it on his own yet.  It's actually kind of funny.  And he's really into feeding himself.  Today he pretty much spoon fed himself split pea soup.  I was actually thinking that split pea soup is a great first-self-feed food since it can be so thick and just sticks to the spoon.  He did quite well.  He's got the cup thing down, too.  I've already stopped giving him a lunch bottle.  He takes a good 1/4-1/2 cup of milk at the table in a cup.  Still in increments, of course, but he's able to manage more and more at a time.  In fact, he really likes to chug his milk.  You can clearly hear a glug-glug sound while he drinks.   Well, it's been a busy weekend.  Lots of family in town and I spent nearly...

Since Jessica isn't here I've noticed my posting has become more prolific, in part cause I know how much she digs seeing what we're up to. Today was sorta fun, but also a bummer at times cause art stubbed his toe, twice. One on each big toe! And each time is started to bleed and it upset him quite a bit. I realized that he's grown up in Minnesota where he always wears shoes or socks, and to suddenly be barefoot is something new and unpracticed for him. I wasn't there when he stubbed his first two, but the second toe was injured on a flat sidewalk--nothing to bump into. I think he was just being silly and sorta dragging his foot. Anyway, we strolled down to a surf shop and I bought him some watery-type shoes he will wear ALL THE TIME now. And he got a train that he's had fun playing with and wants to show Mama when we get back. Between his toe-stubbings he had a fun time playing in the ocean. "I didn't know that water was salty, Papa" he said after ...

If ducks eat chicken eggs, do you call it cannibalism?

Jess says, "He likes to crawl up and into this chair and as soon as he is oriented he leans back and relaxes, like an old man in his favorite recliner or something..."

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4184753&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

There is nothing more wonderful than listening to Arthur eat. I realized this is likely not true for people who aren't his mom or pop, but Jess and I have both agreed that hearing his little mouth eat something tasty is really quite wonderful. This is the sounds of Art blazing through a bowl of strawberries. http://www.bengarvin.com/eatingsounds.mov

Our neighbor and Art's new best friend Tsundi has been over at our house every day lately. They're like two tiny little tornadoes that sometimes stop to pee or eat some cheese. It's very fun to watch them together. As we wrote earlier , Tsundi recently moved back home from India and doesn't speak English, at least not much. They often try to imitate each other's language, sort of blabbering nonsense words. My phone calls home have been more interesting as of late because of the funny moments Jessica describes about their time playing together. When I called home today to see how things were going, she answered, "Jessica's house of English Immersion." So funny. Jess adds, "They actually didn't stop to eat the cheese. They just kept running laps in the house and would pause briefly for "Cheese please!" and then take the cheese and run again."

We went to Armatage park over by Art's friend Evva's new house the other day. Check out the huge slide! This was in the "big kids" section of the park. First he saw the big slide that was almost as tall as this one and he couldn't wait to go down. Once he came to the bottom I pointed to the even higher slide and he was so excited! I think he went down twenty times. Meanwhile, Lewis was entertaining himself on the groundlevel. He found this overturned traffic cone and started crawling in. This is actually a dramatic reinactment. It was so funny I had to document it, even though the documentation is staged.