Ferocious!

As we are quickly approving his first birthday, Ronan is becoming quite interactive. You can tell that his little brain is understanding more and more of what we are saying. Which not only means I need to get serious and clean up the language, but also that I can teach him cute things like this! And yes, that is a snow brush he is playing with...don't ask why.

Fun and the Zoo

We had the best day at the zoo yesterday.  My friend, Abbey, set up a tour with her friend, Jess,  that is a zoologist at the Columbus zoo.  She works with the Asian/Australian animals, which means a lot of apes.  We had a guided tour of the Orangutans, Bonobos, and Gorillas.  It was fascinating to watch the animals interact with a human that they know.  When they saw Jess through the glass, they would come up and interact with her.  The Bonobos liked to stick their bellies against the glass to get a "belly rub". 

After the apes, we went over to meet the Okapi.  This was our favorite because they are really gentle and we could touch them!  Ronan got a kick out of seeing them up close and personal.  The Okapi have tongues that are 12 inches long and they would lick your face if you put it against the fence (see video).  Ronan even got a little kiss.  We didn't get it on video because it was such a surprise.  I was holding Ronan a little too close and that long tongue popped out and gave him a good slurp on the side of his face...it was hilarious.  He just looked confused by the whole situation. 

We then headed to the Koalas and were able to see them up close...although touching is against "zoo laws".  After the Koalas we headed to feed the bird.  The birds really loved Abbey and they had some nice quality time (see video).  They loved me less and one bit me. 

Here are the videos we took of our fantastic day.

Loverboy

My new favorite Ronan trick.  He's quite the Casanova.

Random Shots

It's hard to believe that it is July and Ronan will be 11 months next week!  We have been having a great summer.  Lots of traveling, swimming, and learning new tricks.  Ronan loves swimming and has no fear of the water and even puts his face in the water. He has finally started crawling a little more, although still drops to his belly and army crawls when he needs to get somewhere fast.  It seems that all he wants to do is pull up to stand...and grab things off tables to throw on the ground.  The most exciting development is that he has pretty consistently been sleeping through the night for almost a month!!!  I guess he just needed those top two teeth to pop (maybe they are his sleeping teeth?)

I left my camera in Cleveland a couple weeks ago, so here are some pictures that I took with my phone.  Not quite the same, but let's be honest, Ronan still looks darn cute. 

Grabbing a beer after a long day

Excited about his bow tie bib

Cute face, cool hair

Helping mom with some chores

Bad phase.  He started pulling up in his bed and refused to go down for naps/bed.  He would just stand in that corner, and when we helped him down, he just got right back up and screamed.  Thankfully this only lasted a few days.

A couple more vacation pics.  Sleeping in the car...could this possibly be comfortable?

Kicking it with Grandma

Grissom keeping an eye on the sleeping baby

Ronan and Artie continue to be the best of pals, sort of.  Ronan has a great interest in Artie and likes to bang toys on him and try and crawl over him.  We are working on "gentle touches".  Artie likes to try and herd Ronan and gets very upset if he gets too close to the stairs or other dangers.  They both like to be close to each other.