Growing Up, a Little Monkey Time, a Fight and a Bloody Lip

I haven't been doing a very good job of blogging lately so I decided I needed to catch up. Parker is just one week away from turning one years old. I just can't believe how fast this year has gone by. Over the past couple of weeks I've really noticed that Parker is loosing his babiness. He has really gotten walking down. He even attempts to run sometimes; he hasn't gotten that down yet. Personality has really developed. He is beginning to express his independence. Although he still eats a lot, he has become a little picky in what he eats. I have to start with the veggies first in hopes that he will eat some. I've begun the weaning process which I think is more emotionally hard for me than him. And with all his new found mobility and independence, Parker got his first busted lip last night. The accident that caused the busted lip wasn't that bad, but trying to get it to stop bleeding was awful. I'm going to have to buy some popcicles to have on hand for the next bloody lip. Today, we took the children's group from the church to Monkey Joe's. It is a nice, air conditioned place full of inflatables. Parker had a blast exploring in the toddler zone, which I think they call the Mini Monkey Zone. He crawled, walked, and climbed all around the pint size inflatables. He even met some friends and one enemy. That brings me to the fight part as the title suggest. Parker got into his first scuffle with a mean, bully kid. I had turned away for one minute to take a picture of the other children who were eating near by and when I turned back to check on Parker I see this kid, I'm guessing around 18 months or so, tackling and scratching my precious baby boy. I quickly put my camera down, took off my shoes, and jumped into the inflatable to safe my child. He wasn't crying, but he had a look of distress that said to me "Mommy, please save me from this thing." Poor thing had scratches on his face and neck and even lost his sock in the process. A minute later I noticed another mama jumping in the inflatable to save her child from the mean, bully toddler. Of course, the bully's mama was over playing cards with her girlfriends and was oblivious to all of this. Parker's getting tougher and being a little boy, I know these won't be the last of his injuries.

I tried to get a picture of his boo boos but it's hard to tell from this picture. This was after a lot of the redness went down so it doesn't look that bad.

P.S. I tried to upload some more pictures but it was taking forever so I gave up.