Monkey had a Darth Vader theme for her third birthday. She loved Darth Vader, and wanted to celebrate her birth with the leader of the Empire. So we got her Darth Vader goodies, and Death Star pez dispensers, and R2D2 rings, and invited children to defeat the rebels in style.

Why do I bring this up now? One of her presents from that long ago birthday was a stuffed Vader (courtesy of Uncle Devon.) Stuffy Darth has slept on her bed for three years, and she has conquered many a nightmare by pressing his chest and hearing him say “You don’t know the power of the dark side”.

Darth now hangs with her brother. We discovered that Otter likes him the other day. We also discovered that Darth, much to his evil chagrin I am sure, is baby safe. He has no small parts that can be chewed off. He is soft and cuddly. His mechanical breathing soothes the baby.

So there it is. Darth Vader is baby safe. It really makes the character a lot less intimidating doesn’t it?

Otter is nine months old now and is all over the place!!

He can’t crawl yet, but he can scoot across a room in the blink of an eye, especially if there is a speaker cable or electrical cord he could chew on, a trash can he can tip over and rifle through, or a plastic bag he can play with!

Yes, the warning labels on plastic bags were made for my son, and children like him! He is fascinated by almost anything that would prompt me to say “No, no, honey, you could hurt yourself.” Safe, developmentally appropriate baby toys hold no interest for him.

He also has 300 hundred hands, though 298 of them are invisible to the naked eye. I am convinced it’s a new step in the evolutionary process. He can get into anything and everything. His reach is far longer than I think it is, so he will suddenly lunge onto the side of a soup bowl or a glass of milk and splish… we go through a lot of laundry these days.

Luckily I am paranoid and keep all truly hot and sharp things out of my reach, much less his.

I am going to be led quite a merry chase by this young man over the next few years (or longer).

Otter had his first egg yolk the other day, he was not thrilled with actually eating the hard boiled egg yolk, but he was thrilled with the tactile sensations the yolk introduced.

Otter enjoys his first egg yolk:

He is also sleeping on his tummy a lot now, which is an amazing shift for the boy who spoke out publicly against tummy time. He is less vociferous now, and even enjoys it during the day from time to time. That is a good thing, as almost all his reaching attempts result in a downward schlump into tummy time.

“da,da,da,ya,ya,da,sssththss,eh” He says to me, which I believe means “Quit blogging Mother and pay attention to me!”