Harrison thinks he is hilarious.
The first year of being a mom (and actually about the 5 months before I became one), I stayed brushed-up on milestones for Harrison. Lacking much, if any, experience with kids, I wanted to know what to expect. He was pretty late on things physically which got me all wrapped up and worried about him. In the end (through a lot of self-coaching), I realized, well, every child does everything differently and on their own schedules. But as a first time mom, and potentially a very competitive mom, I want my child to achieve these milestones early. Harrison didn't really do anything early (except sleep through the night, which I am uber-thankful for), and I was always searching for excuses. It's funny how motherhood will bring you face-to-face with your sin. I have often reflected how this competitive trait of mine would manifest itself in me as a mother. I don't think it’s pretty. However, I do think that coming to the realization that every child is different and no matter what Harrison does, I am going to love him unconditionally, will help me to avoid the pitfalls of the competitive mom. I do know that is something that I will have to be aware of the rest of my life, as I am sure it could show its ugly head at any given moment (on the soccer field, in high school, etc). As our lives have been in transition the past couple of months, I don't think that I have even picked up a book about toddlers since he turned one. I do enjoy the books, but not reading them has been freeing. I think I've hit a milestone as a mom, and hopefully not just temporarily.
Harrison, on the other hand, has shown a lot of interest in wanting to feed himself. And this is a milestone that, frankly, I don't have the patience to work for with him. We already have all of our meals down to a science. Harrison learning to feed himself triples the time and the mess. When we were with Nana, she had the patience to work with him on it. And now, he really wants to try to feed himself even if crumbs only make it into his mouth. The other night, Harrison fed himself spaghetti and ruined his clothes, but got about 70% of the food in his mouth. I thought that was great. I have no idea when the self-feeding milestone is supposed to be met, but I would say that Harrison is almost there. For the record, I find it very frustrating that he insists on feeding himself. I guess it is good for me. Add patience to the laundry list of milestones that I am learning (and re-learning). As an aside: I had a really cute video of Harrison feeding himself, but it won't upload.
I have been itching to get some new pictures of Harrison taken so I asked one of my dearest friends, Margaret, to take some pics for us. I mean, she couldn't really say no...Harrison is too cute. We braved the heat this past Saturday at Alhambra Hall and had the time of our lives. One really funny story did surface from the photo shoot. As we were just walking out onto the open lawn, there was a guy doing push-ups that donned a hat and headphones playing music (super loudly, I hope). Harrison saw him and ran up to him saying, "Dada, Dada." Harrison got right up next to him and gave him a good stare-down waiting for him to respond. The guy did, with an embarrassed laugh (which I was doing on the side too). Harrison legitimately thought this guy was Adam. I'm sure he thought that I trained my child to go up to strangers so I could find him a daddy. I was so mortified. Anyway, here are just a few of the amazing pictures that she took. I am not even sure how I am going to decide which ones to show, because they are all so good. Obviously, the ones that are in the blog title are my favorites too! Thanks Marge! They are fabulous! 
