Laughing? The jury is still out

 Well, we have a few big developments that have occurred since I last checked in.  First and foremost, our wee little Mino has fully discovered his hands.  He has always kinda liked chewing on his first when he gets hungry, but now, the right one is constantly in his mouth.  Even after he finishes eating so much that he pukes a good chunk of it out.  Zoop, hand in mouth.  This picture pretty much sums up what he has been up to:

 I put one up a bit ago of him holding a toy, but now he actively searches out what he wants to hit, or what he wants to hold.  It is so neat.  One of the things I dread most is putting the little guy in his eggshell to ride in the car.  He HATES it unless we are actively moving.  If I was a swift person, perhaps in one foul swoop I could strap him down then whisk him out and have the car in reverse in the span of 20 seconds, but lets get real.  I am not.  That takes me 5 minutes and he lets me know that I am waaaaay too slow for his style.  This sentiment is usually amplified when I get him after his day at daycare because he is usually hungry (because I tell them to hold off feeding him after  a certain time so I can when I get home) and I usually am interrupting his sleep.  So Thursday, I braced myself for the heart melting squeals but he didn't.  He sat there and played with the toy that we have had strapped to the egg shell since day one that mostly just makes it harder for us to put him in.  I spoke with his "teacher" and lo and behold no screaming.  Wild.  He plays now.  Awesome.  And now a snippet of my wise little man:

His Nana came to visit and brought him a little rattle that he manages to grab on to pretty well too:

He is also getting better and better about holding up his head and using his neck muscles.  The angle from which I am able to capture these is really not the most flattering, but who is looking.  Surely not his girlfriend Delia from daycare.  Yes, according to reports I get, he has a lady friend.

 

 So since he can manage to not flail about from his neck, he is able to go into some new toys.  The one we were most excited about was this one. . .a Jumparoo!  He has jumped a couple times, but totally accidentally.  As you can see, this thing is enormous.  I think we are considering moving just to accommodate all of his stuff.

 So daycare sent me this picture of him sitting in a bumbo chair.  My friend Becca had highly recommended this device so I thought, hey, what a great thing. .

 

So I tried and this is what I got:

 Another fun thing I get to look forward to each week is Tuesday nights because Martin picks him up from daycare so I just get to come straight home to my boys.  This week, they were all together cuddling:

The best part is that this is not at all staged, this is how they were naturally.  I do believe that I did something wrong raising those pets, here's hoping I worked out the kinks on them and Mino turns out OK.
I got this picture of Mino and Martin and I thought it was a great picture of the both of them:

 So, after having Mino I have been having a little trouble dropping all of my baby weight.  I read something that said it took 9 months to do the damage so give yourself at least that to undo it.  That is my mantra every morning.  Anyway, little Mino felt bad when he came out so skinny so he has decided to pork up a bit so that his mom doesn't feel too bad.  I love his little let rolls and chubby feet.

 The first weekend in February was the Hot Air Affair in Hudson, WI.  I had been hearing about this since summer time so was super exstatic to finally head over.  Then I read the schedule.  Balloon launch : 7:30 am, Saturday.  Not going to happen.  But as I was up at that time feeding Mino I checked the website to see if there was any weather issues and sure enough there was.  Our warm Minnesota winter has yielded some really foggy mornings with a warm air mass that moved in, so balloon launch was delayed to 3 pm!  Yessss, we were off in the afternoon to go see them.  We rolled in right at 3 and didn't see any balloons on the launch field so thought were were good as gold.  Turns out the afternoon launch was a no go too because there was too much mud.  It was 41 degrees and all of the snow had melted and the ground was warm enough that it was a mud field.  Amazing weather, too good for hot air balloons.  Two teams still inflated their balloons so we could see them which was neat. 

 

Dogs were not allowed on the launch field, I don't know if they have had problems with dogs thinking the balloons are large balls or what, but never the less, Portos got to stay in the car.  To our surprise when we got back he had made himself nice in comfy in the most luxurious seat in the car.

What a smart dog.  (Can you see his naughty ears??)
And a closing note of a cute Mino. 

 

Remember how I said there were two big developments?  Well twice now I have picked up the little guy from daycare and they have told me that he was giggling at something or laughing at something else.  I chose to not believe that I would miss my guys first laugh, so I figure that they were just misinterpreting his sounds.  But as I was changing his diaper tonight I do believe that I heard a distinct chuckle.  Twice.  I ran for my video but he wouldn't do it again when I got back.  Hopefully next post will be jam packed with Mino laughs.