Beef & Banana Cream Pie!

No, not together! That would be gross! Let me explain. Aunt Leanne, better known as Cheeseburger Head, gave Jack his very own food name! Yeah Aunt Cheeseburger Head! She named him Banana Cream Pie! She gave her own darling niece Josie the name of Catfish with Ketchup! I am tickled pink with her permanent and non-negotiable name for Jack!

Banana Cream Pie!

And now, here's the beef! As in beef in beef broth. This is his first taste and you can see the drool running down!
It's safe to say that he loved it!

And I was clearly not shoveling it in fast enough!

He gobbled up the whole jar, along with the carrots and bananas-in honor of his new moniker!

"Mmmmm, mmmmm, good!"


And now for some practice at self feeding!

UP!!!!

I'd been feeling particularly blue about the election results this morning and I didn't think anything could cheer me up. I am sorely disappointed in my state. I'd had such high hopes...but it's to be more of the same. With higher taxes.

Laurie arrived to do Jack's vision therapy. Jack loves her and he loves the new and different toys and activities she brings for him to play with. We started talking about the election results and I got blue all over again. While Laurie and I gabbed and finished cups of coffee, she handed Jack to me. I laid him belly down on the couch next to me.

And he did this!
And while Laurie encouraged him with toys, he started rocking back and forth on his hands and knees! Laurie and I clapped and cheered to beat the band!
After Laurie left I put Jack on the floor. He flipped onto his tummy and got his butt up in the air and his knees under him to do more rocking! I know this looks like forward motion, but he's rocking forward before the back swing!

Here he is showing off his excellent form!


And some serious rocking!
Before tuckering out for a nap! Too bad that chubby thighs aren't this darling on grown-ups!

I Voted!!!

Did you???

The Boy Is Trying To Kill Me!

So what's wrong with this picture????

THIS!!!!

and this...

...and most assuredly this!
The soggy sock.


The Poddest of Pods and The Pea-Pod
Brothers!

Once The Pod went to bed and The Podlet was wide awake, I placed Jack far away from socks, except for the two he had on his feet but had yet to try to pull off to snack on, and put him on his tummy about midline in front of the couch, in the middle of the wide swatch of lavender carpet, that while perfectly fine in The Girlie's faerie room, is rather unbecoming on top of the rug-over-hard-ceramic-tile-on-top-of-cement-slab living room floor. It's there to protect his melon. So, that is where I put him while I ran to the bathroom.

I'm telling you, I barely sat to conduct my affairs, but in the time it took me to quickly pee, wipe and wash, he managed to roll far, far away from the soft cushioned surface I lovingly and protectively provided him with, and pulled off both of his socks.

This is what I returned to...
...another sock dangling from his mouth! From now on he's either going to have cold feet or I'm going to start stapling his socks on!

He's a very bad boy. Hence his Daddy's new name for him, Danger Baby!

What do you suppose he's up to now?

"What? You don't trust me?"

"Because you shouldn't!"

It's not bad enough that he used his arms to pull his head into the gliding mechanism of the ottoman, then he extended his legs to keep it there. The ottoman is now in the garage until further notice! Along with all of his socks!

Halloween!

I'm not entirely sure why I thought we needed so many pumpkins...but here they are, ready to gut and carve!


This is one of the Middle Little's creations.

Here you see one of The Girlie's pumpkins on the left, The Middle Little's on the right, and one of Jack's pumpkins smiling from the pillar.

Jack in his Skelly-Bones costume...with his eyes, of course, closed!

The Middle Little in his alien costume!

Yes, that's a girl in there. My Girl. In a horror flick costume. Who is this kid???
These are the only two pictures I have of The Older Littles, but in my defense, the instant we got home, they took off to raid their loot! Once they'd consumed 12 pounds of candy each, they weren't going to hold still for pictures...but the sugar crash, when it came, had them sleeping really well!

Since The Olders were hiding in their rooms, "secretly" gobbling up candy, The Beloved and I took pictures of Jack!
Here he is getting a helping hand from Daddy so he doesn't topple into the flower bed!

This is The Middle Little's other pumpkin - same theme!
"What happened to your guts???"

"Don't be grumpy pumpkin...

"...I'll share my candy with you!"

"Dude! Cheer up!" You can see my attempt to copy Jack's "Pop-eye" face onto the small pumpkin over his left shoulder.
"I brought my little pumpkin over to cheer you up!"

"Hey! Little pumpkin...go sit next to this grump...
...and spread your smile to his face!"

Blue raspberry Dum-Dums!

"Hey Mom! Candy is gooooood!"

"Thanks Daddy! I kept hitting my nose instead of my mouth!"

Here's Jack's candy poured out all over him! Notice that the costume feet are just hanging, because Jack's actual feet are a good 6" inside the legs!

All Jack was really interested in was this crinkly Teddy Grahams package!

CANDY!!!!

Jack and his pumpkin smiling at each other!

Despite the pumpkin being nearly full to the top, Jack kept picking it up and rolling over with it! His arms have gotten much stronger lately. Later this evening The Girlie squeaked "Look at him! Look at him! Look what he's doing!" And look we did! Once his jammies were on Jack was on his tummy playing. And then he lifted up on his forearms, lifted that belly off the floor and started rocking! He wasn't quite up on his knees, but he was rocking none-the-less!

Look at all that loot!

I love the naked little toes sticking out!

And here is a pic of the back of the costume!

We'd started our trick-or-treating with Jack in my arms to drink his bottle, but he was too, too interested in the goings on to eat. So, into his stroller he went. I sat his pumpkin in there next to him and he went door-to-door pounding on his pumpkin, with very little interest in the candy being tossed into it. He smiled at every one who came out to coo at him and say how sweet he was! He pooped out about the last ten minutes, but once we were in the house he woke up, finished his bottle and was ready to check out all that loot!

It's interesting to note that with both of the Older Littles, every time I tried to enlist The Dear Daddy's help with photo propping, he'd roll his eyes and would only go along with a few feeble attempts after much badgering. With Jack, he's right there, setting up photos, adding props, encouraging Jack to go along, making suggestions, lending ideas...he's a changed man!

I read recently that approximately 75% of marriages do not survive a diagnosis of autism past the first year. And an overwhelming 80% of marriages are strengthened following the birth of a baby with Down syndrome, and those marriages remain stable for the long haul.

I'm giving us odds of 2 X 75, for two kids with ASD, to equal 150 points to the positive, because we survived it. Twice! Add 80 for Jack's Ds, for 230. I'm giving us another 100 points for the surprise pregnancy, and another 1000 because The Dear Daddy rocks fatherhood so well. So...we've got a surplus of 1,330 percentage points. And I counted on every single one of them when I had to tell The Beloved that the engine light was on in the van this morning on the way home from driving The Girlie to school because she missed her bus! Oh, how I do love a good run-on sentence!