Cabinet Climbing

Dan and I enjoyed watching this scene while cleaning up the dinner dishes last night. It is apparently no longer satisfying for Cal to just reach inside the tupperware cabinet. He has started climbing inside to retrieve the lids and containers he is after.

Here is the play-by-play:

Reaching for the lids on tip-toes first......must use the most efficient means possible.

Climbing on in. The door closed once when he did this, but he remains undeterred from his mission.

Victory. Now, off to find the perfect place to put them. Maybe the toy basket, a chair, or the Little People school bus.

Here's a video of the little scavenger.

Little Hall of Famer

Calvin is happily working his way into his Daddy's shoes by trying out every sport he can lately. It's been quite entertaining...

Golf

Though Dan is very protective of his golf clubs, he is happy to let Cal test them out. Calvin knows what a golf club is and will retrieve it when prompted. His favorite club already is the driver. He likes to carry it around, bang the head on the bathroom tile, and hold it while getting his diaper changed. These are some pictures of Cal's first golf lesson with his Daddy.

Baseball

I found this baseball bat at a garage sale for a quarter, and Cal carried it around the whole sale...ignore the Red Sox logo, and this video is pretty sweet.

Basketball

We're pretty sure Cal is going to be a point guard someday....he is a ball-hog, he's a little rascal, and he enjoys putting things into containers. This picture looks like he's well on his way.

Cal seems to enjoy passing the ball already. He walks around the house and yard throwing balls and retrieving them over and over again.

Swimming

Our neighborhood pool opened this weekend! I bought this little floating suit for Cal hoping that it works for the summer. He sure enjoyed wearing it around the house...we'll see how it goes over in the pool!

Car Racing

What used to be tentative enjoyment has turned into pure elation. When Dan says, "Let's go for a ride," Calvin immediately goes to his car and sits down. He then whines until Dan takes off. My favorite part is when Cal helps out with the engine noises.

Bird/Dog.... Watching

Cal has quite an ear it seems. He often stops what he is doing to listen to the sounds around him. This happens most often with birds and dogs. He'll freeze for a couple seconds, tilt his head to the side, and then respond with "ish, ish, ish, ish." I'm not sure how that resembles a bark or a tweet, but apparently it does both.

Hair Cutting-if golf counts, so can this.

Calvin got his second (and much-needed) haircut this week! I think that Grandma and Grandpa came into town in the nick of time. We think he is a pretty handsome little man!

Two Easter Eggs

Though we are far from family in Indiana this year, Dan, Calvin, and I had a lot of fun celebrating Easter with each other and friends in Durham. Calvin hunted his first easter eggs, and he performed about as we expected.

While other kids were scampering around collecting as many eggs as they could find, Calvin found two, one for each hand, and happily walked around holding them for the rest of the "hunt."

Calvin was fortunate to come upon a container (a basket) belonging to one of his little friends. We didn't bring a basket of our own for him knowing that not much collecting would be going on. He enjoyed taking his two eggs and placing them into and taking them out of her basket.

Dan was home for the weekend, so it was really fun to enjoy this as a family. Calvin enjoyed showing Dan his two eggs while shaking them and saying "da" and "dis."

While Calvin liked the candy inside because of the rattle it made, we enjoyed eating his candy. We kind of wished he would have been more enthusiastic about acquiring it for his mom and dad. =)

We had another egg hunt the weekend before Easter, too. While the weather was a little cooler, the performance was exactly the same on Calvin's part. Here are the two chosen eggs from that hunt.

And Cal playing while holding the egg halves afterward...

A Day at the Beach

Calvin and I took a day trip to the beach last week with my friends Jenny and Kim and their babies. This was Calvin's first trip to the beach since he's been old enough to actually enjoy the sand and water. While he was tentative of both initially, he grew to enjoy the sand quite a lot. The water made him cry....it was really loud and cold.
When we arrived, I put Calvin down on the sand in his little sandals, and he stood motionless, not sure what to do with the movement under his feet. Eventually, he was comfortable enough to dig, play, and eat it.

Calvin enjoyed the washed up sticks and shells near our blankets for a while. His face was covered with sand because he kept putting the shells in his mouth.

He then moved on to bigger and better things like buckets and shovels. Though he didn't understand the concept of using a shovel to put sand into the bucket, Calvin enjoyed putting the shovel itself into the bucket and taking it back out. Close. =)

Calvin and I took a walk down by the water. The little guy kept stooping down to run his fingers through the sand. It was really cold from the water, so maybe that is why he liked it so much.

The walk proceeded very slowly because of all the interesting kids to look at. This was the scene for much of the "walk." The remainder looked like the video following it.

I have to say that the beach with a one-year-old was a totally new experience for me. Usually I would have been excited about the book or frisbee I brought, the long walk, or the tasty snacks. All the while I would have been minimizing how much sand was on my blanket and in my bag. This time, sand was in my food, there were no long walks, reading, or frisbee playing, but it was even better. Other than the meltdown on the drive back to Durham from waiting too long to take a nap, this was a perfect day at the beach!