Pretzel-Wrapped Hot Dogs

At the dining room table I sit, laptop in front of me, empty plate to my left, and to my right, a one-year-old boy munching on a pretzel.  My wife ordered pretzel-wrapped hot dogs, and they are absolutely phenomenal.  Just thinking about them makes me hungry again.

Anyway, my son Scott is a little over a year old now (his birthday was last Saturday).  It has been an absolutely amazing year, watching him grow, become aware of his surroundings, recognize people, and more recently he has found his voice.  He doesn't yet know what to do with it, except to use it to create high-pitched shrieks early in the morning until someone gets up to make him a bottle of milk.

A few months ago, this kid couldn't chew because he had no teeth.  Now he has seven teeth, and even more growing in.  We have completely taken Scott off baby food, because we now prepare him real food which his mom mashes up and stores in tupperware containers for dinner.  So far, his favorite dish seems to be pasta and tomato sauce.  I've never seen a baby try so hard to pick up and eat slippery pasta with his bare hands before.  That's another thing.  He hasn't learned how to use a utensil yet, so anything big that he gets fed usually gets chopped into smaller, more baby-friendly pieces.

While I'm sitting here typing this, he's next to me, gnawing away at the pretzel-wrapped hot dog I gave him -- or, rather, just the pretzel part of it.  The pieces of hot dog are just laying on his tray getting colder, and every few minutes I stop typing and sneak one.  I'm not a bad guy for doing it.  It just seems as if he doesn't like the hot dog bit.

I don't know why, but when he's cranky, nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- calms him down like an episode of Dora the Explorer.  He literally would stop everything he's doing just to watch this show.  I don't get it.  But he seems to really enjoy "¡No hicimos!" (means "We did it" in Spanish).  I just hope his first word isn't in Spanish.  But if Dora isn't the show of the day, we usually go through other shows on my Xbox 360's Netflix app.  Most of the time, Dora is the winner.

Anyway, that's all for today.  I have to go change Scott's diaper and then he and I are gonna sit back, relax with a bottle of juice, and drift to Never Never Land for now (And no, I don't mean THAT Never Never Land....sickos).