FEAR!!! What is it??

FEAR!!! What is it??

(10/26/08 - 11/1/08)


Growing up I was a kid that was always afraid, I grew up in a very rural (OK the boonies) town where there weren't a lot of houses near mine and my house was in the middles of the woods. You would always get weird noises of animals coming from the darkness, the branches of the trees would cast eerie shadows on my bedroom walls, and the old house would creek and moan with the changing of the weather and temperature.

Was I afraid of these things because they were different? Was I afraid because as humans we are genetically programed to fear them? Or maybe it was because I watched scary movies, or saw my mother or sisters afraid so I LEARNED to be afraid......the truth is I don't really know.

This week with Halloween fast approaching the stores were in full display with there aisles of candy, masks, decorations, and costumes. As parents Paul and I have NEVER EVER scared Jacob. We have honestly sheltered him from anything that would scare him, and have never exposed him to any sort of masks, goblins, spiders, or weird creepy music. So when we were walking through different stores this week the pure fear that went through Jacob shocked Paul and I. It wasn't just a whimper or a quiet MAMA coming from the stroller it was an all out FEAR PANICKED SCREAM with Jacob physically shuttering and then trying to crawl and scratch his way out of the stroller and into my arms!

This happened a few times this week because you can't even go to the grocery store without some sort of Halloween decorations being up. First it was the big furry spider that had blinky red eyes, then it was the skull mask that was haphazardly askew on the under stuffed pillowcase body, then multiple times it was simply masks, or animated candy dishes that would shriek or cackle as you walked by them and set off their motion sensors.

No matter how you sliced it this week has shown me that fear MUST be somehow genetically ingrained in us. How did Jacob know to be scared of these things? Is he the only 14 month old that behaves this way?? Have I been blessed with a scare-dy cat for a child?? I would love to know if anyone else has had this problem? I am just glad that Halloween is over now so that all of these evil creatures can be packed away.......OH NO!!! NOW WE HAVE HUGE SANTA FIGURES TO SEE!!! Say your prayers people!!!!

Last year Jake was only 2 months old for Halloween so I didn't dress him up, I put on his BOO PJ's that his godmother got him and took a picture and Photoshopped him to look like a mouse! This year I have done the same thing because honestly he isn't walking yet, he doesn't eat candy (except for the occasional bite of some chocolate that I have) and he isn't really into anything. He loves the Backyardigan's and the Imagination Movers, but is obviously not asking for them nor will he understand that he would be dressing up as them. So I got him a "Pirate" shirt with the good 'ole "Jolly Roger" skull and crossbones on it and Photoshopped him to look like a Pirate!!!


As the Backyardigans say:

What do you do with a Scurvy pirate?
Load the cannon up and fire it!
What do you do with a Scurvy Pirate?
MAKE HIM WALK THE PLANK!!!

ARGH!! Happy Halloween Me Hearties!!!

Jake's Favorite Things!!

Jake's Favorite Things!

(10/19/08 - 10/25/08)

Jake has always been a very vocal and social little baby. He may not giggle constantly or let every stranger pick him up, but in terms of his "learning" he is ALWAYS watching. You can look at him and see that everything he sees or hears he is storing away for later use. Now that he is getting older (14 months old) and his body is physically able to allow him to form more words and get to where he wants to go or do what he wants to do the whole world is opening up to him.

Here are a few of his favorite things as a little boy growing up in the country:

1) Waving HI! and Bye-Bye! to people or as he likes to say (DIE and DIE-DIE), yes my little boy with all of the excitement he can muster tells you in the nicest way to DIE every time you enter or leave a room! He of course combines this with the ever popular backward baby wave!

2) Making animal noises! He has now up'ed his repertoire of animal noises from just a dog (baaf-baaf) to now ROOOAARRR for a lion, MOW (add an M in front of OW (ow as in a boo-boo)) and you have his version of MEOW for any type of cat!

3) Bringing his mother books to read and then only letting me read approximately 1-3 pages before he rips it out of my hands and gives me another book....this can sometimes happen 20+ times!!! My favorite time of day....NOT!!!

4) Playing with is Daddy, this is always his best time! Paul has the best imagination and can keep even the crankiest of Jacob's happy for a long time!

5) Going on walks outside in his new wagon! (You know the wagon that I was looking at when he got his first boo-boo).......

6) Saying MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA upwards of 1500+ times a day!!! Please kid....go back to saying DADA like you used to!!! AAAAHHHHHHHHH


Those are just some of the things that take up my day, sometimes it can get very monotonous but now that Jake is older he can also play by himself. He has also started to understand the world around him more. Now that he has gotten older he has been able to connect the things around him. We have a fireplace that we have been lighting (gas fireplace, you flip a switch...how convenient) in the mornings when we get up and he has a book that also has a picture of a fireplace. He has been pointing to it and then pointing to our fireplace. He also the other day went and got his "This Little Piggy" animated stuffed animal when I was playing the game on his PIGS before bed.

He still isn't walking but has taken upwards of 4-5 steps by himself and when you are walking him while he holds onto your finger he isn't even using you as support. He is 100% walking by himself, but take your hand away and he falls flat it looks like he is doing the same thing with walking that he did with crawling. He didn't crawl until 11 months but could have weeks earlier and that is what is going on with walking too. It doesn't bother me in the slightest though because I know that he is physically able to walk and that it is all in his head!!! My little scare-dy cat!!

OW! That hurt!

OW! That hurt!!

(10/12/08 - 10/18/08)

It was bound to happen eventually, you plug all of the outlets so that your child doesn't get hurt. You put annoying drawer/door stops on all of the cabinets so that your child can't pull a pot down on their head, you rearrange and de-decorate your whole house and put up gates to quarantine off certain areas all in the hopes that you can keep your child from hurting themselves.

But the one thing you don't "baby proof" is yourself and of course what ends up hurting your child turns out to be something that YOU yourself accidentally do. This week Jake got his first official "Boo Boo" and it was all because of my lack of good judgment. We were taking a walk one day and I parked him on what I thought was a perfectly flat piece of real estate to go look at a tiny tykes wagon that my sister-in-law said that we could use for Jake when all of a sudden I hear a THUD and then WAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

I of course rush right over and pick him (and the stroller up) and see that he has a scrape on his upper cheek! HOLY COW!! It scared the "you know what" out of me! Trust me the yard wasn't sloped hardly at all but I guess those three wheeled outdoor strollers aren't very stable especially when you have a 14 month old in it who is very nosy and is trying to turn and look at what his mother is doing! Regardless I feel/felt so bad after it happened! How could this happen on my watch?

Since this happend I have been told by many many many parents that this is only the start of the "boo boo's" and that you especially have to watch out for boys cause they tend to be more into daredevil tactics then their female counterparts. OH BOY! I can hardly wait!!

This incident reminded me of when I was little, I was in kindergarten, and my sister and I were playing on our old rusty metal swing set outside. We of course were playing by ourselves and my sister got the idea that she was going to do flips over the side bar of the swing set so she needed me to hold this HUGE metal two person swingy thing that was on the swing set. I was doing a pretty darn good job when my hands started getting slippery and I let go of the swing. Luckily it missed my sister but instead of moving away myself I just ducked and bent over just in time for one of the rusty screws to hit me in the head. This is one of the earliest memories I have, of course I remember it in a really cool way, cause lets face it what's more cool then going to school and showing off a head full of stitches to your teacher and school mates!!!! But the other thing that I clearly remember is that right after it happened there was a lot of blood and my mom of course trying her best to find where I was hurt and trying to clean me up. She handled the whole situation very well at home, once we got to the hospital all bets were off though and again I CLEARLY remember the nurses having to get her to sit down because she was light headed! Up until the other day this has always been a little inside joke with my mother and I! I used to joke with her about almost passing out because of course I have good memories of this accident I remember the blood but not the pain!

Well Mom! I am very sorry about joking with you about that because my heart was pounding a mile a minute when Jake got hurt and he only got a shiner for his accident. I can honestly say that if he would have had his head split open and blood all over the place they would probably have to make me sit to keep from passing out too! I could never imagine the fear that goes through you when you think your child is hurt, it is a crazy ride!!

Jake of course is fine and his first black eye is healing nicely and is hardly noticable! Hopefully I won't be writing anytime soon about his next "Boo Boo"!

The Joys of Fall!

The Joys of Fall!

(10/5/08 - 10/11/08)


Oh the "Joys of Fall", we have the cooler nights, the milder days, the leaves changing, Fall Festivals, Halloween.........COLDS!!! UGH! Jake has his first cold of the season, and while it isn't a horrible one when it comes to colds/flu Jake is very very wimpy (probably not unlike most babies and some adults I know)! If all of the planets aren't perfectly aligned, if there isn't peace in the world and if Mommy doesn't fix things IMMEDIATELY! There is hell to pay!

You know Paul and I are seriously starting to think that there is a conspiracy against us. I read other blogs of parents who have children right around Jakes age and of course I talk to other parents of children, and it seems that Paul and I just can't catch a break! We FINALLY got Jake sleeping well at night, starting to eat real food again, drinking out of a cup (and not just nursing) and now we have a baby with a boogie nose that wants to wake up every 2-3 hours!!! AAAAHHHHHH!!!! Please Please Please someone tell me that eventually all babies sleep???

But the ironic part to all of this is that Paul and I are talking about when a good time for Jake to get a sibling is, but with the way my luck is going I won't get Jake sleeping through the night until I am 9 months pregnant and then BAM!!! I will have another newborn.....

Are dark circles and puffy bags under the eyes in fashion yet??? Cause if they are I could surely be the poster child for them! I know that there is the flu shot out there for the little ones, but I have a real problem injecting anything into my child that isn't really necessary. Is it wrong for me to think things like "We didn't have the flu shot and we all survived"???? This is my new dilema....you go to your doctors and the first thing out of their mouth is "When do you want to get Jake his flu shot"....not "Would you LIKE to get Jake the flu shot" or "Have you thought about getting Jake the flu shot" but WHEN!!! They just assume that you are going to do it, and I for one unless Jake is getting the flu every other week am going to choose to just keep my child out of the cold, limit his exposure to germs, and hope that he survives the Fall and the upcoming Winter!

Hand in Hand!

We went to a wedding this weekend, and I just loved this picture that was taken of Jacob and his Daddy!

Assuming can be hazardous to your health!

Assuming can be hazardous to your health!

(9/28/08 - 10/4/08)

First let me say that yesterday was Daddy's birthday!!! Happy Birthday Daddy!

Growing up I was always told that you should never assume……you know what they say about assuming…..don’t you??? But as a parent isn’t it our job to assume? I mean hey, these little bundles of joy don’t come with instruction manuals, and they sure as heck don’t get born talking to tell us what’s wrong. We assume they are hungry, tired, or bored, we assume that each cry means something different and we try to help them accordingly. My life for the past 13 ½ months has been about nothing but assuming! And for the most part I think I have done a darn good job of assuming correctly.

For instance Jake inherited something from his father that is definitely a family trait. He has gotten A LOT of teeth in a very very short amount of time. He was our toothless wonder until he was 8 months old. Then between 8 and 10 months (8 weeks of teething) he got eight teeth! Trust me when I tell you that it was absolutely horrible and our once sleeping through the night munchkin started NOT sleeping through the night. But who can blame him, I mean I don’t have personal memories of teething but it can’t feel good and I am sure it hurts a good bit!

We got through that torture and were able to get some good nights sleep for about a month or so before teething hell part two started. To cut the story short Jake is now working on his 15^th tooth!!! Yep that’s right…..13 ½ months old and has 15 teeth!!! But the worst part is that he just started getting this second round about 5-6 weeks ago….so if you do the math…..OUCH!!! Especially since it has been all molars and eye teeth, supposedly the worst ones!! But my motherly assuming kicked in and the homeopathic teething tablets, Motrin, teething gel, and Tylenol were always at arms length and seemed to be doing the trick……SO I ASSUMED!!!!

Well I am about to tell you how the age old adage of “You should never assume, because it makes a *you know what* out of U and ME” is absolutely true….at least in my case!

**SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING**

In addition to teething I am trying to wean Jake so when he turned a year old I started mixing a little bit of whole milk into his formula bottle and hoping that he would at least cut out one feeding a day. He seemed to take to milk very well and even seemed to enjoy it and would on occasion drink upwards of 6+ ounces a day (trust me that is good for him). But for the past few weeks his night wakings have been coming more frequently and it had really started to take its toll on me. But ASSUMING that he was getting 6+ teeth and that they must really hurt, I just ASSUMED that it was wakings due to pain. However one night last week I was just baffled…..he was waking up every hour to two hours and was screaming (colic like screams). I had just given him a dose of Motrin about 2 hours before so it shouldn’t be teething pain….right???

Then it all hit me like a tons of bricks…….his bad night wakings, his poo diapers (sorry to get graphic), his eating habits……they all started changing since he has been a year old, and that is when I started to introduce milk!!! That day I rushed out and got some rice milk to just do a day or two test and VOILA!!!!! He slept 10 ½ hours the FIRST NIGHT!!! And since has only been getting up once a night for the past week. We are working on getting it down to no times a night, but hey when you go from 4-5 times and get it down to once you thank the Lord and don’t get picky!!

So the whole time I ASSUMED it was pain from teeth, which to my defense it could have been some of it, but it was also that the poor guy was having tummy pains too!!!!

I have added a new video to the top right!!!