Before we get to the hat, I must point out that Jack is turning into quite a personality. Today we were meeting Julie and Mac and Claudia for lunch, and Jack and I were waiting at the table. I decided to get out the camera since pictures have been scarce these days, and Jack looked over at me, without prompting and smiled:



So now you can see all those teeth that he uses to gnaw the sides of the crib. (yes, he is ingesting paint, and yes, this does concern me.)

After his moment of posing, he went back to eating peaches.



Then his friend Mac showed up and tried to explain that the water came out of the other end of the sippy cup:



It has been so fun to see these two interact and realize there is another one like them out in the world. For Julie and me it has just been nice to commiserate about the challenges of raising a baby.

And now on to the hat. Joe mentioned the other day (after quite a bit of prodding), that he might like it if I knit him a hat. There is nothing in the world that makes a knitter happier than to knit something for the man she loves. But of course I couldn't just KNIT the hat, I had to do some research, ask a lot of probing questions (which I recognized may have decreased the enjoyment of the potential hat-wearer just a tad), and then knit a prototype. Luckily Jack is a willing model, mostly because he has no say in what he wears.

So here is the first attempt at a Peruvian Chullo Hat with Llama motif:





Tomorrow Jack goes off for a visit at the grandparents, while Joe and I head out to watch the Notre Dame game. I'm sure there will be some fun pictures.

And a big thank you to those who were worried about us during our short blog hiatus. It's nice to know there are family members out there concerned about our well being. I will promise to be better with updating!