Week 45 - Two small steps.....no giant leaps!

Week 45 - Two small steps.......no giant leaps!

(6/22/08 - 6/28/08)

As the dreaded day of "mobility" approaches the nervousness and fear of this milestone is slowly kicking in. At 10 1/2 months Jake is still not officially crawling but has now gone from a stationary blob to one that can butt scoot with a purpose in life and get to places fairly quickly and get his hands and mouth onto and into things that his parents would rather he not.

For the past month Jake has tried to "traditional crawl" by rotating his legs to the side, straightening his arms and rocking up onto his knees (there is a video of this). But he has one leg that keeps getting stuck. Well the other day he finally got it unstuck and actually took "two steps". The event shocked me a little because I was clickity clacking on my computer (much like I am now) and Jake was doing his nightly winding down process of taking all of the books off of the bookshelf. I realized that he was right at my feet and when I looked down he was in a traditional crawling position and in a shaky yet determined way I saw it unfold......it was like it was in slow motion.....he moved one arm, then a leg, then wobbled a little, then the other arm, then the other leg. He then fell down onto his belly, but you could tell from the HUGE grin on his face that he was very very proud of himself.

To help the little tator tot along, I decided to put the two stuffed animals in his bed down at the opposite end. This morning when I went in to get Jake he was on his belly and all of the way down at the opposite end of his bed playing with his animals!

I am afraid, I am very very afraid!!! Paul and I are going to Home Depot today to finish getting the rest of our baby proofing items. Like gates and drawer pulls. YEAH!!! (NOT!!)

Week 44 - THAT'S ENOUGH! SERIOUSLY!!!

Week 44 - That's enough! Seriously!!!

(6/15/08 - 6/21/08)

First let me say that I am the proud mommy of a 10 month old (6/19/08)!! It will soon be time to start the planning for the big one year old party!

This week was Father's day! Paul had a great first Father's Day. The weather was absolutely fantastic so we went over to the in-laws after church for a brunch celebration. Afterward Paul and Jake hung out in the baby pool, flew the kite, and blew bubbles! Overall if was a very nice Father's Day!

Now onto what I really want to talk about. You are reading a blog that is being typed by a woman who feels like she could very well be turning 70 this August instead of 32, and who swears could hear the gray hairs coming last night around 4:00 AM. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ALREADY! If there is a tooth fairy out there, PLEASE for the love of all that is holy stop giving my child new teeth!

I read a post from a fellow reader (LIAYF) last week and he was talking about how their son was sleep trained and sleeps through the night and even puts himself to bed. Now this young man is turning one in a few days but they have had success with his sleeping since around 6 months. Paul and I too have always had it very easy when it came to Jake's sleeping habits. I do rock/nurse him to sleep every night, but he would sleep 10 hours so who really cares, I surely didn't. Well the hell that is my sleeping schedule all started about 2 months ago when my gorgeous all gums tiny tot starting getting his first tooth. The first one was bad (so I thought at the time) it required some Tylenol, and a few trips out of bed that night. But as each new tooth has come in (now 9 in all) they have each gotten progressively worse. I am sure in part to the fact that Jake is tired of not getting a full nights sleep as much as his mother is.

Well let me tell you, if the teething Gods are waiting for me to cry uncle....here it is.....UNCLE!!!!!
Last night Jake went to sleep late due to the fact that a shopping trip went long and he fell asleep in the car for a very late nap which he usually doesn't take. But it wasn't a big deal, so he fell asleep at 9:00 instead of 8:00....WHOOPIE! Paul and I headed upstairs to read and watch some TV around 10:00 and finally went lights out around 10:30 ( I know, what a crazy life we have on a Friday night). The rest is how my night went....Up at 11:30, 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30 and finally up for good at 8:15. Now in between those waking times, Jake would fall back asleep, but his mother (who finally came down and slept on the couch at 3:30) couldn't for her life get back to sleep. So in total I probably got 2 hours of sleep!

I AM DONE!!!! I plan on taking a nap as soon as Jake goes down for his. I hope he take one that is at least 2 hours long!

Wish me luck!!

Week 43 - The Jake/English translation dictionary!

Week 43 - The Jake/English translation dictionary!

(6/8/08 -6/14/08)

I have decided to talk about my sons "language" this week. Since most of the time babies talk in "baby talk" that only a mother or father would understand I thought that I would type up a "Jake/English Translation Dictionary" for everyone. Jake has really become very very communicative over the past month and between verbal and nonverbal cues that we get from him it is really exciting to see what he is going to say or do next! Here is what we have so far, not bad for a baby who won't be 10 months old until the 19th!

Daa-E = This one is quite obvious, it's DADDY!!! (I guess Mommy is chopped liver!)

Duh-Duh-Duh (Always in 3's) = We are about 85% sure that this is Jake trying to say Quack-Quack-Quack (we always say it in 3's) because he pretty much always does it when you ask him what a duckie says or if you hold up his rubber duckie in the tub, or his duck toy that he has in his toy box.

BBRRRRRRR = He always does this when playing with one of his cars. Whether by playing you mean chewing on or actually rolling is up for debate. But we always make vroom sounds and this is his way of "vroooming".

ZZZZZZZZZZ = Whenever he sees a bee or a fly or anything that might "buzz" he makes this sound.

Some nonverbal communication that he now does consistently is waving bye-bye. Of course sometimes he waits until the person has already left, but most of the time he will wave bye-bye if you say it and wave yourself. He has also started handing you toys if you ask him to see something that he is playing with. Last but not least he consistently points to something if he wants you to look at it, or if you are supposed to get it for him.

It is so funny, I am trying to think back to the day when he went from a helpless little baby to a little man who could communicate his wants and needs without just crying or fussing. I really like being able to "talk" with him and communicate things with him. The days are so much more interactive!

He is still trying to crawl (on all fours) there is just the problem with that one pesky leg that keeps getting stuck under him. I think it is frustrating him a lot because he has resorted to butt scooting now and not really working on the whole "traditional crawling" thing. He also loves to stand now, he isn't pulling himself up because frankly he can't move himself to anything to actually pull up on, but he likes to stand at the tub and watch the water fill up at bathtime, and likes to stand at the coffee table and try and pull down all of mommies decorations.....bland blah house here I come!!!!

As you can see from the picture above, we got Jake his very own pool. It is an awesome pool. I went to Toys-R-Us and they had TONS! This one was only $25.00 and is big enough for two adults, and Jake. It comes with a slide, blow up turtle and dragon, rings for ring toss, and five plastic balls to play with! Jake loved it, but that isn't a surprise since he has always loved the water!

I have added a bunch of new pics to the family photo album (link at the top of the page)

Week 42 - This is one HUGE bathtub!

Week 42 - This is one HUGE bathtub!

(6-1-08 - 6-7-08)

We have set off into a new realm of fun activity this week.........dum dum dum.....THE POOL!!!! Jake and I went with Paul on one of his trips to D.C. this week. It was a convention that required him to be gone from Monday to Wednesday, so since he was going to be so close (within 1 hour of home) we decided to make it into a family trip. Of course I packed like we were leaving for 3 weeks, even the doorman at the hotel had a smirk on his face. But hey, for a 9 1/2 month old you need a lot of things. You need the portable crib/playpen, toys, at least three diapers a day, clothes, PJ's, pool floatie, sunscreen, pool toys, food, bottles, and that is just what we needed for Jake!!!

There were a few downsides to this trip, especially considering that this was Jake's first trip from home where he didn't have his own bed and surroundings for more than a few hours. The first major problem that we came across was the sleeping arrangments the first night. The room had two queen beds in it. So we got Jake to sleep at his normal time, put him in the crib/playpen and then quietly watched TV and caught up on emails and such. Two hours into his usually 10 hour sleeping schedule he woke up. I rocked him back to sleep and put him back to bed, an hour later....WAAAHHHH......again I rocked him back to sleep and tried to go to sleep myself. After two more of these 1 1/2 hour sleeps, I just snapped!! I told paul to scoot over (I had been sleeping in the other queen since I was gettig up so much) I put the extra pillows all over the other bed and put the little 31 inch crankypot to sleep in a huge queen bed all by himself.........

***sun is rising, yaawwwwnnnnn*** WOW, did he just sleep the rest of the night without waking up?? Yes INDEED!!!! Needless to say the second night we put him to sleep in the bed from the beginning and he slept all night, only woke up once around 1:30am. I guess the mattress on the bed was more comfortable than the playpen even though we had bulked it up with about 3 blankets. Plus I guess it seemed weird for him to be about 5 inches off of the ground. I know I personally can't sleep on the ground/floor in a sleeping bag because the level of being so low screws me up!

Now onto the fun part of our trip! SWIMMING!!! I got this awesome floatie for Jake a few weeks ago because in addition to this trip his Aunt and Uncle have a pool that we can take Jake to this summer. This particular floatie not only has a place for his toys to stay where he can reach them but also has a canopy that you can attach so on those particulary hot days (like today and tomorrow are supposed to be 101 and 102) I can feel like he is more protected.

He didn't like it too much when we first got in. It was an indoor pool so the water was warm but with all pulbic/hotel pools you could smell the chlorine the second the elevator doors opened! Once he got used to the floatie and we started having some fun, he was kicking his legs and splashing around! We had a lot of fun!