Little baby tantrums!

Well, in the last week, we've gotten into a fun new phase: little baby tantrums.  Actually for quite some time, when we wanted to put Eric down somewhere, lie him down to change his diaper, put him in his swing, etc., he started to cry out.  It was usually a brief shriek, but then he would stop.
Over the last week, though, he's started to throw little fits when he doesn't get what he wants.
So, I don't let him electricute himself on the computer power cable? Waaaaaaaaa
I don't let him pull out all of my hair? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I take the sippy cup away from him when he starts to throw all of the water all over the place????
Well, I'm sure you can guess the reaction!

 Not only does he cry out, but he often clenches his little fists, tightens his face all up, and screams!
It's mostly when he's tired, but I'm not sure I like the new behavior, especially since it seems like he's started with the tantrums a bit early.
On the other hand, he's also picked up a couple of endearing new behaviors.

 It's lots of fun to see him go crazy on the swing.  We actually had to change the way it was connected to the ceiling because he plays on it so hard now, that he actually pulled the swing out of the hooks it was on.  Mauri has now fixed it with boat parts that are meant to hold several tons, so unless Eric jumps hard enough to pull the ceiling down, I doubt we'll have any more problems.

 Anyways, he hops on the swing to make it swing back and forth very quickly, and also likes to make it go around in circles. It's lots of fun to see.
When he's in a good mood, I ask him to give mommy a kiss, and he opens his mouth and looks at me, and waits for me to give him a kiss on the lips.  Of course then I cry out "what a good boy!!  You gave mommy a kiss!!"  He then laughs and gives me a big smile.
When he's not in a good mood, though, I ask him for a kiss, and he turns his head! (waaaaaaaaaaaaaa)

What else is new?
Mauri's mom tried to teach him a song from here the other day: "Palmas, palmitas, que viene papá..."  It's like pattacake.  Anyways, Eric can't clap his hands, but I think he has understood the concept because when you sing him the song, he holds his hands together and smiles.
As for the drama from the other week?
Well, so far it doesn't look like Eric has the chicken pox, although every time he got a new little pimple, we were starting to wonder.  It seems that neither of the kids at the nursery school were positively diagnosed with it either.  They were said to have some sort of viral infection which may have been chicken pox, but maybe not.

Eric and I have been on some new adventures.  I don't know if I've written about it here yet or not, but my plan is to make Eric a special cake decorated with fondant for his first birthday.  I've never made a cake with fondant before, so it will be interesting.
I knew that there was a small store here in Denia that had baking accessories, so I went there in the off chance that she might have the cake boards and dowels used for supporting layered cakes.  She had cake boards, but said that they weren't really necessary (you can just use a paper plate, for example).  She also suggested using straws instead of dowels for supporting the upper layer if my cake is only two layers.  I started to talk to her about it, and it turns out she has several types of sugar paste, along with a lot of other fun things that I can use for the cake.  I ended up buying some sugar paste to play with.
She also has a blog with lots of good regional recipes, and cute ideas.  The blog looks relatively new, and yet it still has quite a bit to see since it seems she's constantly updating it.  It turns out that she also teaches classes about making fondant cakes, and one will be given at the beginning of June.  I'll have to give it some thought, though, since it will be all day on a Saturday, and that's when I have the time to be with Mauri.  Plus, I'm not used to leaving Eric with anybody for long periods of time yet.

 Anyways, while I was there, to keep Eric occupied, she blew up a balloon and tied it to his stroller.  He had lots of fun playing with that.  I was a bit afraid, though, that he would pop it and start screaming.  Lately he's been very sensitive to sounds, and gets easily scared.  So, although I let him play with it over the last few days, once that one lost it's air and shrunk, I haven't blown up any new balloons for him. 

 As long as I'm posting videos, I'll post one that shows how bath time has evolved.  Eric loves bath time and loves splashing around.  Lately he loves to splash all of the water out of the bathtub.  Mauri thinks we should start bathing him somewhere else, but I don't really see any reason.  So we have to mop up a bit of water afterwards- no big deal.  It's just too convenient to be able to bath him at waist height in our big kitchen sink.

I'll also post a video that shows what a good eater Eric is.  He's very good at opening wide and eating all of his food.  He's not good at sitting still while he does so, though.  Here you can see that I filmed while feeding him at the mall. 

 When it's not very nice outside, I like to walk around the mall with him in his stroller.  I order myself some coffee and sit to feed Eric.  You can see in the video that Eric keeps kicking the phone that I'm trying to tape him with, and can also see that, as usual, he has taken one of his socks off.  At one point in the video he makes a face after eating a bite of pumpkin because he doesn't like the stringy texture of that part.  It doesn't stop him from wanting to eat more, though.   

There have been some nice days outside, but there have been a lot of cloudy, rainy days too.  This week the cooler weather has come back.  Whenever the sun comes out, I like to bring Eric outside to play.  He especially likes playing with Sheena, and laughs at her when she plays with the frisbee, and when she gives him kisses.

 Hopefully the weather will get better this weekend because we are having a get together to celebrate Eric's birth with Mauri's parents' friends.  I'll let you know how it went next week.