Bedtime stories

Finally! Our sweet little baby boy allows us to rock him to sleep (or, only partially asleep as the books instruct). Sure, the chair moves so fast it leaves the ground, and you have to go "wheeeeeeeeeeee" instead of hush as he feels the wind in his hair, but somehow, it works. He is such a sweet little soul!
Harry is also very into reading. Some may disagree, but he seems to hand me his two favorite books (Hey! Wake Up! by Sandra Boynton and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd). We keep them in a basket with his toys on the floor. He crawls over to it and dumps it out and picks up a book and pushes it over to us. Then he sits up (with our help) and quietly looks at the pictures as we read. He definitely reacts to some parts (Shout out loud: Good Morning Sun! Happy Morning Everyone!---we are required to shout) more than others.
Along with looking at the pictures in the book, for some time now, I have to show him the back of the camera after I take his pictures on the digital. After having posed for so many hours, he must have figured this out pretty easily. He also seems to recognize his own picture. I had a dream last night that his first words came out in a sentence: Is that a picture of me? although, to be fair, he does like other pictures of babies, particularly the screaming baby on my Official Seal of the Democratic Party mug.
I also never mentioned much about Harry's Thanksgiving. He was such a trooper over our travels to NJ and PA. He used to be rather unhappy in crowds, such as at our dinner table, but he does rather well now. Filling his cheeks with turkey helped, but when things get overwhelming, he puts himself in time out. We go to a quiet room and he just sits, for about 5 minutes. He then has energy again and can happily re-join the group. It is really very cute.He seems to have done this at home, in his swing, since he was a newborn. His swing has always been his happy place. He likes to sit back and gaze at the fish swimming overhead. I think it is great that he has his own little healthy coping mechanism. What a genius!
We realized yesterday that Harry's swing is the only item he has really had since he was born. He grew out of the car seat, the cradle, the bouncy seat...His stroller used the car seat in the beginning, and it took a while to use the Baby Bjorn. Sadly, he will likely be outgrowing the swing soon. I guess we will finally need to invest in a hammock!