1.5 New Milestones

I can't believe I almost forgot to blog about this. I like using this blog as a record of the things that happen with Jack for my own personal memory as well, so I have to include it. Jack has never been a baby that puts things in his mouth at all. We of course take precautions to make sure there's nothing around to choke on, but I'm usually not overly concerned that he's stuffing things in his mouth. I hear and read horror stories of people's babies putting disgusting things in their mouths and always needing to be on the watch, but not at this house. Anyway, lately Jack has started putting a few more things than usual in his mouth...mostly his shirt, fingers, hat, and Sophie the teething giraffe. He looks like this a lot lately:


Nothing major, but a definite change in normal behavior. So my best guess was that he was finally starting the teething process. As I sat down to start this post, Jack pulled up on the couch next to me and smiled. I had to take a second glance, but I saw the very, very top of one of his bottom teeth just starting to break through. I'll be taking a bunch of pictures of his gummy smile in the time we have left, because I'll kind of miss it even though teeth are super cute too!

Another recent milestone is crawling, which I truly thought he would just skip right over. I believe it was August 16th or 17th of this month. As I mentioned before, he was crawling every once in a while on grass or while naked on our tile floor, but now he's using it much more regularly. He'll still drop into a commando crawl when he's accelerating to get away from me, but he crawls for most day to day stuff :). It's hard to get a picture of it, because he stops when I get my camera out, so here's the best I could do...an action shot chasing his wooden ball.

When Grammy Came to Visit

My lovely MIL, Ann Nichols, came to visit us all the way from South Carolina last week, and we had a great time. Unfortunately, a lot of her trip was spent helping me prevent dehydration and clean up disgusting diapers since Jack had a stomach bug. It was great having her help trying to force feed Jack. We were, however, able to slip in some fun and good meals out at our local French bakery (I think we went 4 times to the same place in the 4 days she was here).

Jack is a very lucky little man when his Grammy comes to town, because she showered him with some great gifts. One of my personal favorite purchases was more board books, because I was going a little nutty reading the same ones over and over again. Jonathan or I read Jack 1-2 books per night before bed, and I could read most of them without even looking at the pages. Now we have a little bit more variety to spice things up. We also found some great deals at Babies R Us on clothes since the seasons are changing, so Grammy helped beef up Jack's size 12-month wardrobe. She also got him a cute little ball cap. She actually purchased a blue one, but here's Jack trying one on at the store:
Jack's favorite gift of all arrived in the mail shortly after she left. Jack LOVES his 2 new Haba wooden block sets (Jonathan and I have fun with it too):

(Note the cute pair of shoes Jack is wearing in the above picture...little baby Crocs!)

Here's our cute guy snuggling up next to his Grammy:

Having someone always equiped with a camera was also nice, because Jonathan and I got some cute photos with Jack. It's nice to be on the other side of the camera every once and a while.

Jonathan hung out with us over the weekend when he didn't have to work, so we headed out to the beach. Like a few other blog posts, we headed to Laguna Beach again. We just never get tired of it, because it's so beautiful and has all the things we like to go to (ie 2 Starbucks).

Here's our first attempt at a Grammy beach picture with the little wiggle worm:

And one with a gorgeous back drop:

Overall, it was a great visit, and we love that she had the chance to come and hang out with Jack. He's growing up so fast, and we love that family gets to have a chance to be a part of it as often as possible. It's hard sometimes living so far away from family, but at least we live in a beautiful place people enjoy visiting.

Next up is a visit from my parents next week!

See Ya Later Alligator

It's been a little while since my last post, so I thought it is about time for an update :). Jack is majorly on the move these days, and I'm pretty sure crawling will be skipped. We know that he can crawl, because he crawls in the grass occasionally while at our Stroller Strides class, and he will crawl short distances when he's naked to avoid dragging his bottom half on the tile. He really just prefers to commando crawl...faster mode of transportation I guess. He's also obsessed with being in the vertical now. He cruises alongside all of our furniture, the stroller, kitchen cabinets, the baby gate, etc. Here he coasted alongside the chair and overtook Izzy's bed to explore the gas fireplace.
A few months ago Jonathan, Jack, and I were at a toy store in Newport Beach that has really neat toys that we loved. We decided the other day to go back and look around, and we came home with this fun little item...

It's a little hard to see, but it is a wood walker that has 3 alligators, and their mouths open and close as the walker rolls. There are also some wooden blocks on the back that spin. We tested it out in the store and Jack took about 5-6 steps holding onto it, so we just had to get it. Right now he'll use it to walk over (still slowly) and play with the trash can or reach something he can't normally get to via furniture. Soon he'll be leaving us in his dust and terrorizing Izzy with it.

One of Jack's other new toy interests is a little wooden tractor that Jonathan's grandmother made for him when he was 2. It's fun to have a toy that can be passed down to another generation.

We have also created a monster...a FroYo (Frozen Yogurt) monster. One of our favorite pasttimes is getting frozen yogurt, and Jack is joining us in the fun. He grunts and lunges at it now that he knows just how amazing it is. We're naughty parents that give in for a cute picture and gummy smile.

And how could I not include this picture?! Jack is in his Sunday's best at brunch over the weekend. This shirt makes us laugh, because it is just too adorable!

Today has not been such a good day for Jack. Jonathan left for the week on a business trip to Canada, and he had to pick-up his passport from FedEx this morning before his flight. On the way to FedEx Jack was crying, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong (I was in the back seat with him). All of a sudden he had 4 rapid projectile vomit episodes while in his carseat. He's had a very low grade fever all day. When I put him to bed it was at 100.8, so he got some Tylenol, and he didn't eat quite as much as normal before passing out from the day. I'm assuming he caught a little bug from one of the other kids at our Stroller Strides class. Last week a few people didn't show up, because their kids were sick.

Jack's 9 month birthday was this past Sunday (8/14/11), so we'll be headed to the doctor soon for his well-child check-up. I'll post updates on weight and height...I'm definitely interested to find out.