James’ first sign

So, James was watching Baby Signing Time — I’m apparently the only person tired of the “Eat, Eat, What a Treat” song — and was watching the kids doing sign language for different foods and then decided to start knocking on his elbow along with the kids: the sign for “cracker.”

Luckily, Jenn had her camera handy.

I see a lot of crackers on demand in his immediate future.

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Tina Fey on parenting

I missed this at the time (I just don’t care about the Emmys), but it’s a goody:

“I thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities. Well done. That is what all parents should do.”

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Cat nap

Patch, the head mouser at Ellis Truss, and no particular fan of kids, sleeps with James during the work day on September 26.

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The first word

This afternoon, in the immortal words of Sir Mix-a-Lot, I “stopped at Taco Bell for some Mexican eatin’.” James took to it like, well, a kid to messy food, as you can see.

This was necessarily followed by a bath.

Lucky and Hanna came in to see what was going on and James took a break from playing with his armada of bath toys to stand up and see who it was.

“Cat,” he announced, articulating it loudly and clearly as he sat back down.

He’s been working on “cat” for a while now, but the T phoneme has escaped him until now, turning “cat” into “caaaaaaaaaaaah.” Not today. Today, it’s official: He’s got his first word, and it’s “cat,” with a T, thank you very much.

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The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

We’re back from Florida. The threat of a hurricane never ended up materializing in the Tampa area.