Simple Things

Today, Nana took the day off and Granddaddy and Whatshername spent the day at school taking care of Caleb and Marissa. I think Caleb enjoyed having them there, but I have a feeling Granddaddy and Whatshername probably enjoyed it more. Long before Caleb came along, Granddaddy has always been a big fan of babies. It's not uncommon to go to worship with Granddaddy back home and see him holding somebody's baby. While, I'm sure Caleb got a lot of attention from Granddaddy today, I'm sure he was tickled to play with Marissa too.

One of the things I love about Caleb, and the thing that he reminds me to do, is to find joy in the smallest events in life. Caleb has a number of rattles and small stuffed animals and he gets so excited whenever he sees them. He already loves to play and it is such a joy to watch him play. You can look at him in this picture and just see how excited he is to have his alligator rattle and his little dog. Caleb has no clue that the economy is in the tank right now. He just goes about his business eating, sleeping and playing and finding joy in all those things. He reminds me that I need to put the cares of the world to the side and just enjoy all the blessings I have.

Tonight, Caleb, Mom, Granddaddy and Whatshername picked me up from work so we could go eat at a German restaurant we discovered on Miami Beach. Granddaddy's a big fan of
German sausages, so whenever we come across a restaurant, we take him to try it out. The restaurant is located on the Lincoln Road Mall which is a street that has been blocked off to be a pedestrian roadway. The street is filled with shops, restaurants and clubs and is a popular place to visit. All of the restaurants have large outdoor seating areas and we sat outside.

Since have started feeding Caleb solid foods and are using the high chair, we have started requesting high chairs at restaurants. The high chair at the German restaurant did not have seat belts, so Granddaddy was keeping an eye on Caleb to keep him from falling out of the chair. Of course, Granddaddy's arm provided Caleb with a distraction and he was glad to have something to chew.

After dinner, we wandered around the mall for a little while. We found a store called Genius Jones which is a really cool store for kids. They had lots of really interesting and creative wooden toys some of which were really interesting to Caleb. We will definitely have to go back and visit. At one end of the mall, we saw a fountain and Granddaddy put Caleb's feet in. Caleb usually likes water, but he didn't seem too thrilled with the fountain. If you look carefully at the background, you can see half of another child. I didn't notice him, but his mother told us that he saw us taking pictures and he wanted to be in the picture. I'm sure Caleb will be like that. He recognizes the camera and he is already learning to ham it up when he sees the camera. It's making it harder to get candid shots of Caleb.

We stopped for some ice cream, but Caleb was starting to get cranky, so we decided to call it a night and head home. We were all a little tired. But once we got in the car, Caleb livened up and entertained Mom and Whatshername in the backseat. We have noticed that Caleb gets upset if he is overstimulated. He does fine for a while, but sometimes, in a loud restaurant or similar place, he grows tired of all the noise and once we remove him from the situation, he becomes content again. Lincoln Road is a popular nightspot and some of the bars and clubs were starting to play loud music, the crowd was growing and Caleb decided he had had enough. I guess he really is just like us. Sometimes he is up for a party and sometimes he wants to be a homebody and have a quiet evening with just us.