Bibliophiles

We take books quite seriously in our little Milner household.
We love them.
Alan and I have always loved to read books together on long drives and quiet evenings at home and North has caught on to this trend in a big way. He LOVES his books and is always asking to be read to. He loves nothing more than curling up on a lap and looking through his favorites.
Because of this, we are ALWAYS on the lookout for great children's books that we will all enjoy reading.
His attention span is of course, that of the average 1 and a half year old (which is to say quite SHORT) and so, finding good books that we will all like can sometimes be tricky.
As it turns out there are lots of pretty dreadful children's books out there in the world.
And many wonderful ones that he's just not ready for yet.
But there are also lots of great ones just right for him now.
You just have to find them.
Or hear about them from a friend.
We've had a pretty great few weeks for finding new (to us) books and rediscovering old favorites and so I thought I would share our favorites to capture how we are spending our time lately and maybe get some suggestions from friends and blog readers on what your favorites are?
This week we were introduced to the books of Kevin Henkes, by my boss who let us read through "Julius, the Baby of the World" and "Chrysanthemum". North was a big fan while we were borrowing these books and so, we will definately be placing an Amazon order soon to get some copies for ourselves. They are full of clever writing, delightful illustrations, and lovable characters.
Other books that top North's current favorites list are:
Where the Wild things Are (STILL--which he calls "max book"),
Creature ABC (a beautiful picture book of animal photographs laid out in alphabet format),

Creature ABC

The Lion and the Mouse (a wonderfully illustrated picture book of the fable--this year's Caldecott Medal winner),

The Lion and the Mouse

and several books that were childhood books of mine that my parents recently passed on--namely:
Over in the Meadow (the song is one that they sing at North's daycare and we sing at bedtime and so finding a copy of the book in our library was a great thrill),
A pop-up tour of Walt Disney World (totally random but he loves pop-up books and it is amazingly well done),
and Volume 1: Poems of Early Childhood from the Childcraft series that we inherited from my grandmother (complete set of the 1949 edition).

Childcraft Vol. 1

Additionally, my parents unearthed a great collection of books with accompanying records that I loved as a kid. We have lots of great titles from Alan's and my childhood like "Star Wars" and "The Black Hole", which have fabulous sound effects within the readings. So far, Alan and I are still more excited about these than North who is still learning what a record player is and is kind of freaked out by the sound effects.
We also recently picked up a copy of "The Little Prince" in its fairly new pop-up format which he is still too young for but which is an absolutely gorgeous book that I can't wait to share with him.
So that's what we are reading lately--how about you? What are your favorite children's books? We are always on the lookout for suggestions and would welcome some in the comments to this post!

Reading with Grandma

In today's daily picture sheet from North's caregivers there were pictures of Grandma who visited Bloomington for work today and was able to stop by N's daycare for a visit while in town! Looks like they had a fun time reading.

We love Bloomington

There is a lot about Bloomington that we absolutely, positively LOVE.
It really is an amazing community to live in.
2 items on the rather long list of things that we love about this town would be: the awesome restaurants available to us and Wonderlab. Both of which we took advantage of this weekend.
First up the restaurants. In what other fairly small town could you find Eritrean, Dominican, Tibetan (served up by the Dalai Lama's nephew no less), Cajun, Afghani, Italian, Moroccan, Thai, Turkish, Indian, Irish, and Greek all within easy walking distance of one another? No matter what your palate, Bloomington has a great restaurant serving your favorite food--you just need to find it. We eat out pretty often and Bloomington is a great town for this.
One of our favorite, weekly stops is "Taste of India" which is one of the many Indian restaurants in town. It always has great food and a delicious lunch buffet that North (and Alan and me right along with him) really enjoys. North is often a pretty finicky eater but he can eat his weight in Chicken Tikka Masala (I am not exaggerating here--he ate FIVE bowls of it on Sunday). Here are some photos from our weekend stop.
After gourging on Indian, we all headed to Wonderlab to get some of our energy out.

North loves Wonderlab and is always equally fascinated by the exhibits he's seen lots of times and the brand new ones. He never wants to leave once we get in to the building. So glad we have such an amazing local resource.

Our own private zoo

Today we went to the zoo.
It was a nice day- no wind and warm temperatures as the snow begins to melt and spring starts to think about reappearing.
We anticipated that there would be a pretty big crowd joining us in seeing the animals today since it was the first warm weekend in a long while.
We were delightfully WAY off there.
We pretty much had the entire zoo to ourselves which was absolutely AMAZING.
Dolphin show?-we had the front row to ourselves. The WHOLE front row. North wants to switch around in the seats every 5 minutes?--no problem. And we were right up front so he got to see everything. He LOVED it.
Penguins?- Just us. North ran around like a maniac chasing them.
Sea lions? -Again, just us. They actually chased North back and forth across the glass and seemed as delighted to see him as he was to see them.
Tigers? Bears? Pet a shark? Every animal, every habitat, it was just us and so we could stay as long as we liked and stand where we wanted and North could run around where he felt like and laugh and talk with the beasties and no one else was there to make him shy or embarassed. It was such a great visit.
And every animal habitat seemed open just for us. North took to calling all of the animals his. "My tiger"; "My panda"; "My shark"; "My bear"; "My snake"; and given we were the only one there hanging out with them, it kind of seemed like they were there, putting on a little show, just for us.
The downside is we forgot our camera--so we missed getting some great photos of the day. But we did snap a few with our phones.

Walking around the zoo.
Note the complete and utter absence of anyone else.
You might notice that trend persists throughout every single picture we took today.

Desserts--North loves the lizards and tortoises.

Befriending the meerkats.

"My snake!"

Seal lions!

"My tiger!"

"My bear!"

The brown bears were super playful today.

Checking out the petting zoo.

Where we got to pet this guy! (amongst other animals)

This llama really likes to gnaw on wood. Including the gate of his enclosure.

N is always way into the Oceans house.

An eel swimming by.

Petting the sharks.

"My panda".
Unlike his "Kung-Fu Panda" counterpart, this red panda did not seem to know much about being a kung-fu master.

We also stopped by the White-River Gardens since admission to them is also included in our zoo pass and we had never been before.
I think North enjoyed the exotic plants.

Snuggly days at home...

The week has been a bit disjointed in our little world, with normal routines set aside for a few days of snuggling up around the house.

On Monday, Bloomington was blanketed in a lovely (and thick) covering of snow.
North and I opted not to trek to campus and brave un-plowed roads and so instead, I worked from home and he got to play around the house and have a bit of a Pixar day. I can happily say the "Cars" obsession has passed but preference is now shown for "Monsters Inc." (sigh).
At 5 pm, we took a break from work and play and headed into the front yard to get out of the house and enjoy the snow with Ender. North was delighted by her hopping through the drifts like a bunny and thought it great fun to throw snow at her (which she enjoyed catching and eating out of the air).

Monday nap (during Monsters Inc. of course)

My 2 snow bunnies

Snowball on the camera!

Tuesday was a fun and normal day at daycare. They played with trains, and painted, and their science project of the day involved making flubber. In our daily picture sheet, his care-givers shared the recipe, which I thought I would share with you:

Flubber Directions
In a large container combine:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups white glue
food coloring

In smaller container combine:
1 1/3 cups warm water
3 tsp. Borax

1. Mix contents of each container thoroughly.
2. Pour contents of small container into the large container.
3. Gently fold the mixture until only about 1 Tbsp of liquid is left. Flubber will be sticky for a moment or two. Let excess liquid drip off then Flubber is ready! Stretch it! Bounce it! Roll it!

After daycare North began to not feel well and developed a fever.

On Wednesday he was still feverish and grandma came over to spend the day with him so that I could head to work. I think they had a nice day snuggling and getting some rest. By days end his fever had broken and he was clearly beginning to feel like his old self. That evening after I got home from work he surprised us all (including himself) by peeing in his potty for the first time!

Since he had not been fever free for 24 hours, he couldn't yet return to daycare today (Thursday) and so grandma offered to again hang out with him so that I could head to work. They had lots of fun playing and exploring. North discovered some new books that grandma bought him, learned how to use a record player (my childhood player) for reading along with some old books of mine, and also developed a great love for icicles (which are in ample supply around our house this week). The highlight of the day was that North pooped AND peed in the potty during the day with grandma today! And then he and grandma called me to tell me about it - so sweet. I never thought I would find someone's bowel movements so interesting and exciting. Yet here I am typing on the internet about them. While he's still not ready for potty training quite yet, he's catching on what his tiny toilet is for, and starting to warm up to the idea of using it. Exciting times.

North's current fascination (cold! sharp! sparkly! what's not to like?!)

Bowls of all sorts (Super-, snack, and toilet to be more precise)

The past week has been a pretty good one in the Milner household.
Last weekend North spent Friday night with Grandma and Grandpa, and Alan and I got to have a date night--which ended up getting a bit snowed out but, that was fine. We had a chance to eat at one of our favorite, not super baby-friendly restaurants before the storm hit, Farm, so that was great. Alan got his favorite, The Lugar Burger (voted the best burger in Indiana by Food Network), I got an amazing Mack & Cheese dish, and we both split our favorite hummus in the world--Farm's White Bean Hummus. The chef also sent us out each an appetizer of a salmon belly sushi dish which was amazing.
Grandma, Grandpa, & North seemed to have a pretty great time together as well and beat the snowstorm in their trip up to Indianapolis.
Sunday, North, Alan, and I headed to our friend James's place to watch the super bowl and eat an obscene amount of football game snack foods. The football game was pretty disappointing with the Colt's loss but North was pretty into being around a large number of people all yelling at the tv screen and wearing the same outfit as him (which involved a colt's jersey and jeans). At several points he yelled "go go go" although he tended to be late in his declarations and was typically doing this during instant replays. Still, he's catching on and his excitement level would have made his grandma proud.
The snacks were not a bit disappointing. Our friends it would seem are snack food connoisseurs. Let me give you a run-down of the snacks because really, it was a bit awe inducing.
Carrie brought pretzels with white chocolate and blue M&Ms melted on top (both delicious & festive)
Tim brought little smokies
Josh brought bacotots--which I'm pretty sure he made up but, were quite yummy, bacon wrapped tater tots
Alan, North, and I brought chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies
Mike & Jessica brought a giant Mad Mushroom order of cheese sticks
Jimmy supplied chips, veggies, and dip
Louis and Leah brought blue rice crispy treats and the ingredients to make blue Tom Collins
Colleen brought bbq wings and drumsticks
Kevin brought chili-cheese dip and nachos
And Will outdid everyone by bringing a bacon explosion.

The Bacon Explosion

Lots of people dressed very similar to one another (including N)

Note the belly -- he likes to snack

and be tickled

Lots of sweets

On Tuesday North and I were snowed in and skipped out on driving to work and daycare. We had a great day snuggling up and staying warm. During the day, North practiced his skills of climbing into his own crib and turning on then off then on then off then on...every light-switch he could lay his little fingers on.

This is him proud of himself for having gotten into his crib and turned the light on. He remembered this light-switch throughout the night last night each time he woke up. I found him at 1 AM this morning hanging out very much like in the photo above (except in his PJs and screaming for me to come get him).

He also decided for the first time yesterday that he would give his baby toilet a real serious effort. He wanted to take off his shirt too (rather than just his pants) but kept his socks and sunglasses on (he's very fashion conscious). He sat there for like 30 minutes and said "poop!" about every 5 seconds. He never pooped though. Or peed. Just hung out being a ham. Maybe tomorrow...