I feel like we are watching Ian's neurons firing. It seems like he does something new every day. Yesterday, he started stringing words together a bit more. Our routine every day is that he puts on his hat before going out, but as soon as he gets in his car seat, he takes it off. He usually hands it to me and just says, "Ah-tuh." Yesterday, he said, "No ah-tuh."

As predicted by all the child development books, he is definitely getting more frustrated by his lack of ability to communicate at times. He has taken to lying down on the floor and throwing a tantrum. I suppose it must be like being in a foreign country where you know some of the words but you just can't say them correctly. He gets so mad if we don't know what he wants. He gets even more mad if we don't give him what he wants.

And the facial expressions these days are priceless. He has this frowny look that basically says, "What's the matter with you? Are you kidding me with this? That's not what I want!" And whenever anything doesn't go his way -- he can't the top off a bottle, he can't get a puzzle piece to fit, etc. -- he says, "Ow!"

He has started to ask for Elmo and Ernie and loves watching the muppets on Sesame Street, although he clearly favors Elmo. Over the weekend, Tia Cindy and Uncle Dennis took care of him while we went to my 20th high school reunion (I know, I'm getting old) and they bought him an Elmo DVD. Apparently, he made them watch it so many times that they now have it memorized. On Sunday morning, he went right to their TV remote, picked it up, pointed it at the TV and said, "Elmo?"

I also tape a couple of shows on the Disney Channel for him. One is a 5-minute show called "Go Baby!" which uses still photos of two babies to create an animated show. "Baby" is the main character and he has a friend named "Sophie", who just happens to be played by my friend Eric's daughter (real name is Christine). Ian seems to enjoy watching the babies do their thing. I also tape a show called "Charlie and Lola", based on British children's books. I started taping it because I liked the show -- love the British accents and the characters are cute. Ian seems to like it a lot, too. Charlie is the big brother and Lola is his "small and very funny" little sister who is always getting herself into situations.

Apologies for the lack of photos, but we're still playing catch-up. Will post soon!