Here's Arlo at 45 and 46 weeks. Only a week left until he's 11 months old!

He has picked up all sorts of fun new skills over the past few weeks--pointing at things, clicking his tongue and sticking out his tongue, going from all fours to sitting up (he got really good at this really quickly), and crawling! He started army crawling earlier this week, and on Thursday he switched to more standard tummy-off-the-ground crawling. He was a little slow at first, but he has improved dramatically over the last few days. He's also very very close to figuring out how to pull up to standing on his own. These are exciting times!

He has surprised us a few times with the extent of his understanding when we read him books. For example, whenever we read The Little Train, he'll point to his rocking horse when we get to the line about the train passing horses in the fields. And he'll wave at us when we read the line about the little boy on a fence waving to the train. It's just so cool that he actually understands the words that we're saying to him!

I think he's also started to say a few words, though they're not particularly intelligible yet. He has been saying "da da" for a few weeks now, directed mostly at Patrick. And this past week, he has been saying something that sounds a lot like "dog" when he sees dogs on walks and in the park. He's also working on saying "kitty" and "button" (two of his favorite things). I think I'm a little in denial that he'll actually be able to communicate with us soon. So exciting!

After having a beard for over 2 years, Patrick shaved during Arlo's nap last Saturday. He had some fun trying out different facial hair configurations.

Arlo was a little confused when he woke up from his nap to a beardless father, but he took it in stride.

Patrick and Arlo have been enjoying some father-son bonding time outside now that the weather is warming up. Patrick took Arlo into our backyard while he did some yard work on Sunday, and he brought my baby back all dirty! I guess I'd better get used to it :)

Today was the first sunny, warm day we've had this year, and luckily Patrick was able to stop working a little early so we could go out and enjoy the weather! We went to a baby group meetup at Sewallcrest Park and then picked up dinner at our neighborhood food carts and had a picnic at Piccolo Park. Anticipating the nice weather, I picked up some baby sunglasses at Piccolina yesterday. Arlo was confused by them at first, but he got used to them. That's one cool baby!

Here are some recent meals that we've enjoyed:

• For breakfast: rhubarb baked oatmeal, using the first rhubarb from our garden! Very nice. A good way to fancy up your morning oatmeal while still keeping it moderately healthy. I'd like to try this recipe again--it seems like it would work well with summer berries too.

• A very tasty all-buttermilk meal (to use up buttermilk leftover from twice-baked potatoes, which were very good): oven-fried chicken, sweet potato buttermilk biscuits, creamy buttermilk coleslaw, and a lemon-blueberry buckle (Rustic Fruit Desserts).

  

• A dinner using the halibut and samphire that we picked up on a recent visit to the PSU farmers' market: halibut with coconut-curry sauce, cilantro coconut rice, and steamed samphire with butter. Even without any added salt, the samphire was too salty for me, but it was fun eating something we'd never tried before. The halibut was nice, but the best part of the meal was definitely the coconut rice.

  

• Black bean burgers with lettuce and chipotle mayo, creamy nettle and potato soup, and long-stewed kale (Chez Panisse Vegetables). I used black beans cooked in the crockpot, and I felt that the burgers could have used some salt--they were pretty bland. I'd definitely like to try making them again though; they were easy to make, they were healthy (and vegan!), and they held together well. The soup was nice but not super exciting. We've tried the kale recipe before, and it was as good as I remembered it.

• Red split lentils with cabbage, Indian-spiced cauliflower and potatoes, and naan. A very nice dinner, apart from the naan, which was storebought and not at all naan-like. I should make my own next time. If we make the cauliflower again, I'd cut back on the cayenne a little bit. It had a good amount of heat, and I'm a wuss when it comes to spicy food.

• Tuscan meatloaf with mushroom sauce (we used ground buffalo instead of ground beef), braised cabbage, and mashed potatoes. The meatloaf was kind of time-consuming, but it turned out very well. The prosciutto makes it special.