Daddy came in from mowing the lawn and gave Nolan a little yellow flower. He immediately ran off to sit in the corner with his monkey and shred it in peace. Notice the freshly trimmed hair: Nolan needs a haircut once a month now, and Jeremy says the way I cut it makes him look like a Romulan.

Nolan loves his stroller to death. We leave it out all the time because he uses it like a chair to hang out in. Mention the word “walk,” and he immediately climbs into the stroller, exclaiming “Wa! Wa!” He is especially fond of going on jogs with Daddy and Freyja, but he’s also been to the farmer’s market half a dozen times this summer with me, not to mention countless trips to the playground. This shot demonstrates how tiresome he finds the paparazzi—no flash photography, please!

We received a surprise package in the mail from Jeremy’s aunt and uncle containing a soft stuffed moose and a cuddly handmade blanket. Nolan was very appreciative, and immediately wrapped himself up in the blanket and pretended to fall asleep on the couch with his new moose, not leaving out Monkey, of course!

Nolan at his most impish. This child loves his mama’s baking, and is tall enough now to help himself to cookies and muffins cooling on the counter. He knows that he isn’t allowed to just help himself, though, since food sitting out on the counter is likely still hot from the oven. Instead, he does a little snacky dance, stomping his feet and waving his hands in the direction of the treat in question to let us know he wants some—and if we don’t comply within about 10 seconds, he tries to help himself anyway.

In his diaper-box fort.

Eating strawberry brown betty….yum!

Our little trouble-maker is now tall enough to reach light switches and the bathroom sink handles without help, and strong enough to muscle the cabinet locks open. We now have to keep the front door dead-bolted because Nolan realized he could just open the door and go take a stroll, a skill Freyja was all set to take full advantage of. He also discovered he can and throw all his toys over the gate and down the basement stairs (yay for gravity!) and climb on top of this end table for a different vantage point in the room.

Monkey has had a rough month, between being vomited on and dunked in the toilet. I scrubbed him to within an inch of his life with all-purpose cleaner, let him dry in the sun for two days, and he is now cleaner and less smelly than he has been for a year. This photo catches him with Nolan in a less-stinky moment; Nolan spent a good part of the day drumming on the bottom of that empty canister.

One of the big developments in the past month or so was finally weaning Nolan off of our fingers. He was so adamant about sucking on our fingers every time he wanted to cuddle that we thought it would be a much more painful process than it turned out to be. We had one or two meltdowns when our sleepy kiddo just wanted some comfort, but it has been over two weeks now and he doesn’t even ask anymore. We’ve consequently had fewer naps during the day, but Nolan is still our little cuddlebug. Here he waited expressly for Daddy to get out of the shower after a lunchtime jog in order to climb on his lap and pass out—I didn’t see Jeremy complaining.

Happy Father’s Day!

Nolan has recently decided that the couch is a comfortable place to take a nap. On days when he skips his nap, he starts fading round about 8pm. Several times he has climbed onto the couch by himself and snuggled down with his monkey to catch a few Z’s.

More often, he snuggles on my lap after dinner (usually the first attention he has gotten from me for an hour or two, thanks to my cooking obsession) and starts nodding off within a few minutes. I try to keep him awake at least long enough to change his diaper, and preferably his clothes as well, but lately he’s been evading my efforts. He’ll sit up and basically sleepwalk over to the couch, plop down, and be out cold within seconds. It’s pretty amazing, and a skill I wish I could master!

Just so you don’t think all Nolan does lately is sleep, here’s proof to the contrary. One of his favorite pasttimes lately is paging through his books, vigorously (and frequently chewing on their corners). I had to buy book tape to repair some of the wear he’s been putting on them, but at least he’s interested again.

I’ve had plaintive requests for more photos of Nolan, so here you go. In the photo above, he had just woken up, and was content for once to sit on the sofa cuddling with his monkey and blankie while I got him a cup of milk.

And then off to the races. Tons more climbing, in, on, and over. As you can see from the video Jeremy just posted, Nolan can even climb into his crib now, so nothing is out of bounds for his strong arms and legs.

Yes, he can now climb onto the seat of our Bowflex without help, or even letting go of his monkey.

This funny toy is called a Bilibo, and Nolan is still getting the hang of climbing into it, and keeping his balance while spinning around on the floor. Monkey has had quite a few solo spins.

And when all else fails, he can always climb all over Mommy and Daddy, although serving as human jungle gyms gets old for us pretty quickly.

I wanted to include this one because I took this photo just after Nolan figured out how to cross his fingers.

Guess his wish didn’t come true… boring ol’ spaghetti.

And this is what happens once we get Nolan to hold still… the little guy really crashes hard.

In these photos, he had climbed up next to Daddy after a long day of skipping his nap.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nolan has been climbing all over everything lately: the furniture, the bathtub, the toy bin, the dog, me and Jeremy, etc etc etc. I’ve put together a little montage of some of his perches, just for fun. The one above is in his high chair, into which he has started climbing with no assistance.

I showed Nolan that he could put his favorite monkey and blankie into this bag to carry around, and he promptly did so, then climbed in himself.

In addition to the bottom shelf, Nolan has also been climbing into the middle shelf of this dresser, plus the top drawer of the nightstands (that one did not get a photo because I was seriously concerned that he was going to topple the whole nightstand with his antics). This was a natural progression, since he has been putting toys and shoes and such in the drawers for ages.

Another recent favorite has been the jumperoo, which Nolan has long since grown out of vertically. He recently realized he could climb into it without assistance, and then sit on top of the seat and swivel back and forth, kind of like he’s in a Sit’n'Spin. He sometimes tosses his monkey and blankie into the base of the seat to facilitate this, since they plug the leg holes of the seat.

In the past two days, Nolan has been climbing onto the back of the sofa pretty frequently. All the better to see the dog running around in the back yard!

Nolan hasn’t quite mastered this one yet—the photo doesn’t show it well, but his feet were dangling in the air and he was really straining with the effort to pull himself up by his arms. He made it with a little assistance from Daddy, and then we whisked him off to his high chair for lunch.

Nolan turned the big 0-2 last week. We were lucky enough to have a visit from Uncle Shaun for the big event, which made it extra festive. We took Nolan on a shopping spree to Toys R Us to pick out presents, but he really only got enthusiastic once he saw the cake. I made a chocolate peanut butter cake for my tiny chocoholic, and he was trying to get at it most of the afternoon. Finally, when I set it on the table to take some photos before slicing, he saw his opportunity and pounced, stealing an early taste of the chocolate glaze.

We all really liked the cake. Jeremy took some video of the carnage; maybe he’ll post it here later.

This year, Nolan got a ball, several toy cars, and a Mr. Potatohead for his birthday, and he’s really enjoyed playing with them all. Mr. Potatohead is the clear favorite, in part because he has a storage compartment in his backside.

This little monkey rug was part of his birthday package from Grammy Rita and Grandpa Nelson. As soon as I set it on the ground, Nolan promptly sat down on it and rolled all around. Guess he approves!

Nolan took to his Uncle Shaun immediately, as in the first moment he stepped through the door. They’ve gotten in lots of good playtime; here Nolan was sharing his teapot and cup, a favorite game.

My big boy is such a good climber now that he can get in and out of the rocking chair without help. He likes to sit in it while I put away clothes and diapers in his room (I keep it turned against the crib so it can’t rock backward too much).

Thought this was a funny shot of Jeremy and his posse. Usually when Jeremy tries to lay on the couch with Nolan playing or cuddling on his chest, it weirds Freyja out, like her alpha male is being dominated; she comes to me for reassurance and tries to climb in my lap. This time around she climbed on the sofa with Jeremy and physically tried to protect him from Nolan, just by insinuating herself between them.

Here Nolan was watching an episode of Sesame Street when Jeremy came in and found him lounging in the chair sideways. I love the way he stuffed his fave monkey behind his back for a pillow.

Here I came to check on Nolan because he was being a little too quiet. Turns out he was helping himself to an apple off the bowl on the table, and had already eaten about half of it. He was so proud of himself! The only way we know when Nolan is hungry is when he starts trying to graze—but usually he goes for cereal or dry pasta from the pantry, so the apple was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

We were invited over to Aunt Marty’s house for a lunch part in honor of my cousin Kim graduating from Navy boot camp and recovering from heart surgery. Nolan had a great time exploring and giving everyone kisses. Here he was playing on an exercise ball with a little assistance from my Aunt Stacy.

We were lucky enough the past few weeks to have some beautiful weather, a sunny little break from the rain. For a week or so, Nolan and I just took short rambling walks around the neighborhood, but then he started wanting to be held most of the time, so we went back to using the stroller and took the dog along as well. Freyja loves going to the park to chase balls, and she knows we keep them in the bottom of the stroller, so she won’t relax on a walk until we arrive at the park. After a few throws, she calms down a bit, and is happy to hang out with us on the playground, on top of or under the equipment.

Nolan has definitely grown since last fall, because he can reach the rails and get up the stairs at the playground so much more easily. His confidence in climbing has also greatly increased over the past few months, and he had a great time playing at the park. Stairs are always a big hit, no matter where they are.

Some of them are still a bit too tall for him though.

At one point, Nolan jumped off this ledge, which is about waist height for me. He dangled by the rails to slow his descent, and actually landed on his feet, none the worse for wear. I wasn’t able to get to him in time to stop him, so I kept a much closer eye on that ledge after that, and he didn’t make any more solo jumps.

Next to climbing the stairs, the slide has become Nolan’s favorite playground activity. Last fall, he was very uncertain about the slide: he didn’t seem exactly scared, but he wasn’t having much fun going down either. This time around, Freyja showed Nolan how to go down the slide, and he thought it was so funny watching her that he decided to give it a try himself. Soon he didn’t even need my help going down (just with climbing back up the slide for another go).

Picture him saying “Whee!” here.

The hair-do was courtesy static electricity, which really builds up on those plastic slides after a few rounds.

Here he was introducing himself to some new toys. Grandma Leah and Grandpa Dan sent these adorable puppets, which immediately got cuddled. The owl’s beak was too tempting for Nolan, like a little thumb; he started sucking on it right away. The moose got away with some big hugs.

It took Nolan a few tries to get the hang of ripping open his packages; he kept wanting to do it using his tongs, which have never been dethroned as the alpha toy. He used them to tear paper, surgically remove toys from their packaging, and manipulate their parts.

Grammie Rita and Grandpa Nelson flew in late in the afternoon, and we drove up to get them. Once I got dinner going (a standing rib roast with all the fixings) and a few snacks out to tide us over, Nolan opened more presents. What he was looking at there is just the packaging from a toy, which he particularly loved because it opened and closed like a book and had images of recognizable Sesame Street characters inside.

The next few pictures were taken after church the Sunday after Christmas. Nolan got to try out the church nursery for the first time, and he behaved beautifully while we were otherwise occupied; we were told that he went around kissing all the other kids.

You can also sort of see our Christmas tree, which I fashioned from a tower of boxes and a swath of green cloth. After these photos, we disassembled the “tree” to get at the boxes, which contained Nolan’s last few presents, building blocks and a little car and gas pump. And since there is no soundtrack to these still photos, just imagine the earsplitting shrieks of joy that Nolan was emitting during the entire photo session. He had a great time sitting in the big boy chair.

We had great fun with Grammie and Grandpa, including trips to Toys R Us and OMSI. Nolan was particularly enamored of his Grandpa, but Grammie was able to steal his attention sometimes too. They were very impressed by how much he’s grown since their last visit: walking, running, climbing; starting to drink from big boy cups, wielding tongs with great proficiency, giving wonderful kisses and hugs (complete with a pat on the back), and saying lots more words, with a few handsigns thrown in for good measure.

This last photo was taken the morning after Grammie and Grandpa headed back to Colorado. Nolan (and Freyja, for that matter) was eagerly looking out the window, expecting their arrival again.