Settling

After 5+ days back home, I'm finally starting to feel settled. Sure, we still have plenty of work to do (you should see the kitchen!), but I'm finally starting to feel relaxed and excited about our summer in New Jersey. We even started back up with our music classes today, which felt great (for me).

I haven't mentioned anything about what Augie's doing in so long, and as yesterday he reached the 17-month mark, here are a few updates:

• last week at Grandma & Grandpa's, he added a new word to his repertoire: "uh-oh"! He now has four words: "mama" (used indiscriminately for me and James), "baba" (sometimes used to refer to James), "da-da or dad-dad" (used indiscriminately to refer to any of his four grandparents), and "uh-oh" (used properly to refer to dropped items); it's possible he's also saying "bah" for "ball"
• I can just see the tippy tops of two new molars popping out. I realize this isn't really something that he's accomplished, but it's still a development (that's been affecting us deeply around here
• he's regularly waving bye-bye - to people, to the water that goes down the toilet, to the blinds when we pull them before bedtime or naptime, to his dinner when he's done eating
• he's starting to take more interest in other kids; sometimes he takes things from them, sometimes he gives things to them, and sometimes he tries to kiss them
•  he's feeding himself with utensils with accuracy (though he sometimes still uses his hands, and he sometimes dumps his food in his lap); he's also mastered drinking from a regular cap
• he's starting to have more and more preferences, and has begun to really let us know when something doesn't make him happy. By screaming. Loudly. He hates having his diaper changed, and having his shoes put on, and getting dressed in general
• he's starting to hug and cuddle us more (though not all the time), and as a corollary, he's starting to push us when he's unhappy. He's especially fond of pushing my face  when I won't nurse him overnight. I am not fond of this.
• he sleeps in his own bedroom for the first time, and for the most part he sleeps through the night (not infrequently, he awakens somewhere around 4- but usually goes back to sleep, with or without nursing) 

Oh, I'm sure there's so much more! But that's all I can think of right now.