If you asked 100 random people off the street to describe the funniest thing they have ever seen, chances are good that none of the descriptions would include reference to an empty Quaker Oats container or a free Allstate teddy bear. If he looks a little young, it's because this footage was shot on New Year's Eve. Those two baby months are equivalent to ten adult years.

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Not being dancers, ourselves, we still wanted our boy to learn some rhythm. Before he could even stand, I tried showing him a few moves. When he first began to dance on his own, Gavin's favorite dance move was subtle bum bouncing. For the last couple of weeks, he has been raising his arms and either walking in wide circles or standing perfectly still (prompting me to nickname that move 'The Stickup'). Tonight he adds spinning to his repertoire. He gets dizzy a couple times, which we all find amusing enough for a giggle. The high-fives are brand new as well. I asked him for a high-five just yesterday, and he responded appropriately.

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Having tried many times before for many months, Traci wasn't really expecting Gavin to accept when she tilted her banana in his direction. He never does the expected, though. He leaned right in and took a huge bite! After we were sure he wasn't going to choke on his ambitious introduction to the yellow fruit, I fired up the video camera to capture any exciting moments. Turned out not to be too exciting, just a kid eating a banana - but the question is, is it more interesting than whatever you were putting off doing when you sat down at the computer just now? Speaking for myself, I particularly enjoy the look on his face. It seems he doesn't like the banana, doesn't want to be eating it, but feels guilted into doing so by repeated attempts, or maybe even yesterday's song.

Gavin's reluctance to vary his diet has inspired me to do the following hatchet job on a masterpiece of songwriting.  It occurred to me that perhaps Gavin's refusal to eat wasn't just a whim, but some purportedly sage advice passed through generation after generation of toddlers. If you aren't familiar enough with the song to sing it in the shower, you won't find this terribly amusing, so I'm posting this mostly for country music fans.

The Toddler

On a warm summer's evenin' on a stroller bound for nowhere,
I met up with a toddler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a starin' at our own wiggling footsies
'Til development overtook us, and he learned to speak.

He said, "Son, I've made a life, out of readin' parent's manners,
and knowin' where the treats were, by the way they held their eyes.
And if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of 'nanners.
For a taste of your formula I'll give you some advice."

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a pacifier and latched onto it tight.
And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.
And I knew that he was poopin, as his skin turned red and bright.

"You got to know what to chew on, know what to spew on.
Know when to crawl away and know when to run.
You never count your cereal when you're sittin' at the highchair.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the eatin's done.

Ev'ry toddler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to eat.
'Cause ev'ry meal's a winner and ev'ry meal's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to poop in your sleep."

And when he finished speakin', he turned back towards his footsies,
Capped off his pacifer and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness the toddler, he digested.
But in his final words I found a Puff that I could keep.

"You got to know what to chew on, know what to spew on.
Know when to crawl away and know when to run.
You never count your cereal when you're sittin' at the highchair.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the eatin's done."

Today, Gavin went to Smithfield with Mommy and Gmummy to shop at the outlet mall. Smithfield is an hour-long drive east of Raleigh on quaint country roads, not that Gavin enjoyed the scenery much since he napped both ways. Mommy was on a mission to buy Gavin new pajamas since he seems to have had a growth spurt and all of his PJs are bursting at the seams. 

Gavin tested out some patio furniture at Carolina Pottery (think Old Time Pottery but with even lesser-quality merchandise and horrible lighting).

See, Mommy. You can sit in this chair on the patio and eat your breakfast in the morning like you always say you will and Daddy never believes you!

In the Gap ... Lookin' for pajamas, lookin' for pajamas, on a mission to find pajamas...

Those are shorts, Dear. The weather won't be warm enough to wear those for another eight months.

Does it look like I'm laughing at your joke, Mommy? Cuz I'm most certainly not.

After scouring four stores of toddler clothes, we returned home with just one pair of pajamas - spaceship pajamas! Mommy certainly couldn't pass those up!

While stranded at home all day since we took Puddy, Daddy enjoyed the peace and quiet, and cleaned up quite a bit. He moved Gavin's books to a storage cube on the floor where he can pull them out himself since he couldn't reach them on the high shelf we previously kept them on. After no less than ten minutes at home, I think Daddy was rethinking the whole idea...

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It's not every day that Gavin gets a visitor, so perhaps he feels compelled by the opportunities he does get to make the visitor feel welcome. How do you make someone feel welcome? By laughing at their jokes, of course! Personally, I think he over-does it. As you can see, he's in an otherwise normal mood, except he substitutes these banshee laughs for what would normally be average baby giggles. He has let out an occasional happy noise like this before, but never so many in one sitting. There are a lot in this video, and none of them are shown more than once. 

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Gavin invites me to play one of his favorite games: name things that he points to. His favorite word is "pillow", which would make him laugh back when it was the only word in the game. Now he points to all kinds of things, including himself. Obviously, I had gotten out the video camera to capture a cute play session between Gavin and Burt, but the Name Game is fun, too, and probably more educational than watching a cat instinctually decimate a feather boa that behaves like a flying snake. In the end, my "talent" both leave the "studio" in favor of the poorly lit and video-unfriendly living room.

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Gavin endures his turn entertaining the group, then hands off the toy and sits down to let someone else take over.

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Being such a big boy, Gavin doesn't need any mamby-pamby cuddling while he drinks his bottle. He can hold it himself, thank-you-very-much. We still like to make it comfortable and ensure he doesn't choke, so we prop him up on a couple of pillows for each of his feedings. He knows he's supposed to be on the pillows to receive the bottle, but is still unsure of how to get there and what position to assume.

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Yes, even though I know he understands a handful of words (monkey, bath, splash, Mr. Sucky), any given day would find me less surprised to spot a hairy ape-man running back into the forest than to hear my son attempt deeper communication than his ubiquitous ambiguous inquiry, "hu-uh?" As such, I'm resorting to posting this little snippet of video that is itself reminiscent of many Bigfoot-sighting videos, and would cause even an amateur cinematographer to throw-up a little in his mouth. Slap on a couple scopolamine patches if have 'em, and watch Gavin communicate.

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I am, by no means, a car buff. Nonetheless, any father would be proud of a one-year-old son making siren noises while playing with his emergency vehicles. The kid learns fast.

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We thought Gavin's previous aversion to the fluffy white stuff may have been due to the relatively mild amounts of snow we'd gotten. When this big snow came along on the 20th of January (yes, I'm a little behind in my video editing), we were excited with the prospect of teaching our son the fine arts of snowmen, sledding, and snow-angels. He would have none of it, clinging to his mother and refusing to be put down amongst the abominable accumulation.

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Having more room to move and less leaves to play with, Gavin does a bit better at soccer than his last attempt.  In case you couldn't tell, it was a rather windy day. The wind roared into my microphone even with the cat-sized windscreen.

Gavin has become quite adept in the art of spoon-feeding. Every morning, he feeds himself about one-third of his bowl of oatmeal.

Then, the 13-month-old in him takes over and he squeezes the oatmeal between his fingers while Daddy feeds him the rest.

It just feels so ... interesting!

That leaves us with one filthy boy. So, what are the parents to do? Into the tub!

I really didn't see what the problem was, Mommy.

Admiral Turtle oversees the cleaning process from the side of the tub.

Gavin conducts top-secret government-funded fluid dynamics experiments for the Navy after the cleaning process is completed.

Petty Officer Construction Man couldn't observe the current experiment because it was on a need-to-know basis.

At its conclusion, Gavin destroyed all evidence that the experiment ever took place.

Gavin is always more than willing to splash on cue. And when we ask him if he wants to take a bath, he always walks right to the tub in our bathroom and stands patiently while we gather towels and strip him down. He may not speak words like "splash" or "bath" yet, but he definitely understands them!

This shot doesn't even look like Gavin. Strange.

It's tough being a baby, splashing around in a bathtub every day as he fulfills his duties for his country.

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For a couple of months now, it's been standard procedure to give Gavin a spoon to hold while he is fed. It gives him something to fiddle with and keeps him from grabbing the spoon that's feeding him. His morning oatmeal is his daily chance to do something with his spoon. Lunch and dinner bowls are kept out of his reach, but oatmeal being easy enough to scrub out of carpet, breakfast is served from his suction-bowl stuck to the high-chair tray right in front of him. For the first month, he would drop his spoon and put his hands in the oatmeal. This past month, however, he has been agitating the oatmeal with his spoon, but has refused all of my attempts to guide his spoon to his mouth. He seemed in such an agreeable mood today that I thought I'd try guiding his spoon hand again. He surprised me by allowing the demonstration, and then floored me by following the lesson with his own scooping and scarfing. He giggled the first few times oatmeal entered his mouth on his spoon - he must have thought it was funny to be eating from a utensil he thinks is designed for entertainment. "Sure Dad, your spoon is for eating, but to gain sustenance from my spoon, that's hi-freakin-larious!"

What is that on Gavin's hand?

A stamp? A heart stamp? Like the one that the nice ladies at the library give to all the little kiddles when Rhyme Time is over? Surely, that can't be the stamp. Gavin doesn't let those ladies stamp his hand, after all. He's too shy for that.

But, it's true! The third time was the charm and Gavin enjoyed Rhyme Time this morning while sitting on Daddy's lap without any crying or comfort from Mr. Sucky. Before we know it, he'll be teaching the other kids the butt bounce dance and saying "hi" with his signature lip lick.

I have no creative segue to the second topic of this blog entry, so I'll jump right to it. This afternoon, I noticed the tree outside my office window was covered with tiny pink buds. We've been having warm spell (despite having snow flurries six days ago - I don't get this North Carolina weather!) and it would appear that this tree thinks Spring has already arrived. At quittin' time, we hightailed it outside for some pictures.

Gavin was excited to walk around in the grass for a bit while the ground wasn't covered with white stuff. We don't take him out much on the lawn because it's small and sloped so it would be easy to end up rolling down the hill into the parking lot.

Gavin lost his train of thought for a minute here...

Here's the signature lip lick that was mentioned earlier. Gavin sweeps his tongue across his upper lip like he's just finished a yummy bowl of ice cream. He uses this as a greeting and to make us laugh.

It's official: Gavin is now the son of two old geezers. Mommy joined the 30s club today. Ooh! Cake! I love the feel of grown-up food oozing between my fingers!

After a morning of handbell ringing at Aunt Kristen's church, we hit the mall. Mommy was helping Daddy select her birthday present: a new purse and wallet. Gavin was thrilled to shop at the mall and ditch the stroller since there were four pairs of arms to take turns carrying him. This kid was SO happy all afternoon!

No less than a minute into browsing the purse department at Macy's, Gavin already offered his first suggestion. Here, Mom. This one is perfect for you. Now, where's that new LEGO store?

There's that baby who keeps following me again...

These wallets are SO last season!

It was almost like this one just jumped right off the shelf and into my hands, Mommy. Honest! That's because it's hideous, Dear, and it wants a home. Not ours.

The miniscule arachnid ascended the drainage duct ... (read full lyrics - copyright © 2008 Gavin's Dad. All Rights Reserved. Do not republish, distribute, or print without copyright holder's express written permission under punishment of tickling)

After feeling the fabric of every garment in Ann Taylor Loft, Gavin tried on some new rock star shades with Gmummy and Aunt Kristen.

Gavin has been nuts for books lately. His tales book has literally been destroyed. Seriously, Daddy had to duct tape it back together! Sounds like a punchline for one of Jeff Foxworthy's redneck jokes. Aunt Kristen found an alphabet book by the same author that's over twice as long and four times as touchy-feely. Gavin is in one-finger-touch-test heaven!

Gavin easily persuaded Grandpa into reading the book to him after we arrived at the GG's for cake.

Today's the day I'm going to stop fooling around and dive right into grown-up food! I think I'll start with this carrot cake...

Last week, Mommy and Daddy vacationed in the Outer Banks for a few days to celebrate their third anniversary. Gmummy had a vacation of her own caring for Young Master Highsmith for nearly three whole days. While we were gone, she posted occasional updates on a custom Twitter-like program that the family uses to keep in touch throughout the day. It makes the distance between Florida and North Carolina seem shorter. Gavin has his own screen name and it's the duty of his caretaker du jour to post updates on his activities. We were delighted to log on from afar on Thursday night to read this lengthy update of our little munchkin's day. Perhaps only we will find it amusing and utterly adorable, but as parents, we feel compelled to shove the perceived cuteness in your face at every opportunity. Just be grateful we're not at the watercooler where you work, brandishing bandoleers of wallet photos.

This is the schedule that Daddy left on the fridge. Daddy gets all Clark Griswold-like whenever Mommy asks him to complete a simple task like writing up a rough schedule of Gavin's day and a few simple instructions for things like washing diapers. Note that the schedule is even in military time. Somehow, we forgot to even tell Gmummy that the cats need to be fed (of course, she did anyway) and we kind of feel bad about that ...

Has it already been one month since Gavin's first birthday? As of today, he is 13 months old.

Gavin likes to arrange his toys on window sills throughout the house. He calls this piece, Toys in Sunlight.

Gavin has long enjoyed tearing the rings off his stacker toy. Only this week has he started putting the rings back on.

Um, I'm not sure what to say about this one other than to remind everyone that Gavin's father is the one shaping and molding him every day while his mother works.

Gavin is coloring more and more. We still haven't been able to throw any of his creations away. I'm sure we'll have an entire file cabinet full of his artwork by the time he's three.

Gavin still loves Burt. And, remarkably, Burt still adores Gavin.

We enjoyed another mild (temperatures in the low 60s) weekend by returning to Blue Jay park yesterday for a walk in the woods and soccer practice. We took a different trail that led to the lake and let Gavin walk around on the sandy shore.

That mischievous grin ... he's up to something ...

... Ah, he spied a pine branch and once it was his, he wouldn't let it go!

The fam ... and Gavin's branch.

Sufficiently warmed up from our walk in the woods, we went to the soccer field to run around in the big, open space.

Oh, yeah. This kid's got talent!

Aunt Kristen cries, "Holding violation!" or whatever the penalty for carrying the ball is. We don't know anything about the sport of soccer, really. We picked up the ball a few times to kick it high into the air and after Gavin saw us do that, he wouldn't dribble the ball anymore and insisted on carrying it around.

Mommy is getting a little behind with the blogging. We played soccer at the park again today and have many more photos and video to come as well as a pile of development updates to document. Until we find the time to prepare a full blog entry, here's our little soccer star in action:

This photo is also too adorable to pass up. Gavin was playing peekaboo with my coat that was draped over my desk chair. The lighting was horrible but the subject was too cute so I had to scramble for my camera!