It is unbelievable...

... that my baby will be one year old tomorrow! Where has the time gone, and where has my tiny baby gone??? Actually I really have no desire to go back to months 1-3--:)-- but these past few months have been so great, he's so wonderful right now. I just want to freeze time and not let him get any bigger. Tonight as I tucked him into bed I found myself having a hard time laying him down, knowing this was the last time I would put my 11 month old baby in his crib. This little one year old person in my life is so amazing, learning new things every moment. He is curious and studious and happy almost all the time. He loves his dog more than anything and by the way he smiles and waves when I get home from work, his mommy is a close second! He is communicating more and more every day, his babble is irresistibly cute, and he gives the best hugs. He inspires me to eat healthy foods and save for the future and live a better life so that I can make the best life possible for him...

wowowowow

a bunch of pictures ...at the Beachwood park, on a playdate with friends Haley and Grayson...

Poolside fun at buddy Devan's birthday party...

Silly family posing before we went to get ack's 1 year photos done...

And, Jack's first haircut! He loved the comb...

Wowowowow

That's Jack's new favorite sound to make. He's a jabbering fool these days, always coming up with new noises. And, the past few days, he is making these noises with tremendous intent, looking right at us, or an object, pointing at something. He is really trying to communicate with us. It is truly amazing to watch him develop right now...

We have had a busy and fun "last weekend of summer" (back to the real world tomorrow when both Nat and I start school again-- I am SO not ready). Yesterday, Jack attended a friend's birthday party for the first time: Devan, the son of Marie and Don, who were in our Lamaze class. We all had a great time. Jack spent most of his time in the pool, and I believe he tried to turn wowowow, his sound, into the word water. I am going to give him credit for the attempt, anyways. He loved the water and splashed and played happily there. Devan is adorable, and we also saw baby Lucy who we'd met at breastfeeding group ages ago.. In this small world we seem to run around in, she is related to Marie somehow!

We had to leave the party earlier than we otherwise might have, as we had made a date to go to the Greek festival with my mom. ..

The Greek festival is taking me into an "aside" here: I am not sure why, but the banner stretching across Mayfield advertising the festival has been one of the strongest triggers for my memories of that time "one year ago today". I remember so clearly seeing that banner go up and being terribly disappointed that we probably wouldn't be able to go, as Jack was due a few days after the festival (it was, after all, our official summer of festivals and we were, I might add, doing very well with our attendance). I was so sure I'd deliver early... and yet, there we were, standing in line for gyros with me two days before my due date, 7 days before Jack's birth. Swollen ankles, 45 pounds of pregnancy weight, Jack's head wedged securely in my pelvis, and there I was, standing in line for gyros. Our devotion to festivals was impressive...

It's been such a very different summer this year! Our Greek festival experience was different too... we were there much earlier, thanks to the Jackster, and so the lines were practically nonexistent. The irony of this was not lost on me, as I remembered those lines last year, and realized how much better equipped to stand in lines I am now. Thinking about it, I am in awe of my body, the way it would expand exponentially, harbor new life, nurture a new human being for 9 months and then feed him for 12 more-- and yet, one year after giving birth, I can feel so very "back to normal." If a bit saggy in places...

At any rate, back to Saturday:

Where's Spot?

That's Jack's favorite book in the world these days. He will consistently choose it out of any two books presented to him. He absolutely loves opening those flaps and finding the animals underneath. Over the past week he's also been getting into making animal sounds. He now tries to imitate 5 of the animal noises in the book-- slurping, for the bear eating honey; ssss for the snake; bmm-bmm for the hippo; rrrr for the lion, and of course, hh-hh for the puppy in the basket.

I just realized how incredibly tedious that in-depth record of the Jack's board book and animal noises might be for anyone other than me. Sorry about that. Mom moment.

It's been a glorious summer weekend, weather wise. the end of summer is flying by, busy with working in my classroom, watching the Beijing Olympics (the live events are always on later than we want to be up, but we stay up anyways sometimes), working on Jack's photo albums in anticipation of the big "One Year" celebration, going for long walks in our neighborhood, and going to a few last summer festivals. Yesterday we went to the Feast of the Assumption in Littly Italy. Fun, but very very crowded. We did eat some excellent stromboli. Today, after Jack gets up from his nap, we are off to Canine Fun Days, about which I am very excited. I think Jack "the dog lover" Morehouse will have a blast there, not to mention Corydon. Sadly, Melinda and Will have been busy with Will's family this week and haven't been able to play with us much. Well, not sadly for them, I guess, but we've been a little lonely...

Milestone update:
*Jack is pointing at things (with his index finger rather than his thumb). He likes to point at the hat on each page of "Blue Hat." (this is another board book, recounting the exciting adventures of a blue hat which falls overboard into the blue sea... on each page there is, yes, a blue hat.)
*He can now go DOWN the stairs, kind of sliding on his belly. Very exciting. He's not totally a free man yet-- he doesn't know to turn himself backwards at the top.
*I am not sure I've mentioned recently just how CUTE he is right now. So social and interactive. He is jabbering all the time with great intention. It's impressive just how many inflections one can put on the syllable "da".

Stick!

Little man Jack is becoming a real talker. We have been pretty sure that he's saying something like dog-dog for a couple weeks. And, last week, he started approximating "uh-oh". But on Sunday he added another very clear word-- "stick." His affinity for stick-like objects is well known. Don't let this boy see a broom handle or a spatula; he won't rest til they're his. He also likes to share sticks with Corydon-- he gets a big kick when we let him hold the stick she has just fetched. Sunday, we were playing with Cor over at Melinda and Will's, and when we handed the stick to Jack he said, clear as day, "stick." Well, kind of clear as day. The "st" part of the word came out much more like a "d" sound, making the experience very funny as well as very exciting. :) He continued to say the word throughout the evening. Too cute. He is also now saying "uh-oh" very clearly and spontaneously, in response to things being dropped. He says the "oh" with a little "oooh" to it, like a British accent, which makes him absolutely irresistible. And, he will "pant" in response to us asking "what does a doggy say?" He's so smart.

I've been back at work the past two days for trainings and it's been weird to be away from Jack all day after having so much time with him recently. It's really hard to leave him in the morning. He is so engaging and sweet and huggable. While I am at work, I'm fine, I don't pine away or anything-- but it's awesome to come home and have him reach out and smile and be so happy to see me. He is giving the best hugs these days. Big, whole arm squeezes. He says "mmmmm" when he hugs, be it one of us or a stuffed animal. Have I mentioned that he's cute?

Quick update

My cool new "signature" that shows up on my chat boards. It's supposed to "animate and go through several pictures of Jack in the circle, but I'm not sure it's working on this site...

Yesterday Jack climbed up the entire flight of stairs. Twice. He is a climbing fanatic these days. We really need to get a gate.

Yesterday Jack also started saying "uh-oh". Except, most of the time, he says it with his mouth closed. So it is more like "mmm-mmm," with the exact intonation of "uh-oh." Its really cute. He has also taken to gesturing at things, with his hand out, palm up. He looks like he's trying to be Vanna White, showing off the prize packages. He's very emphatic. Then, when he wants something, he starts opening and closing his hands in it's general direction, doing it faster and faster til we figure out what it is he wants. I am looking forward to pointing!

This morning, clear as day, he said "dog". He loves that animal!

11 months old

Thought I'd post a couple recent pictures that show some of Jack's new "skills." One thing he loves doing these days is holding things in his mouth. This can be toys or objects, as is the case with the chopstick above. Nat demonstrated this trick to him one time and now anytime he has a stick or a straw he puts it in his mouth sideways and puts his arms up to show off. He thinks he's pretty funny, an idea which we encourage by laughing at him each and every time he does it. When he wants to be extraordinarily cute, he crawls around with the object in his mouth, pretending to be Corydon. It's hard to handle so much adorability.

On the other side of the coin, he also has taken to holding food in his mouth. In particular, food he doesn't like. I am not exactly sure what he's holding in his mouth in the rocking chair picture (my chair from when I was little, by the way), but it's likely to be a fruit or vegetable.. At any rate, he has been known to hold a piece of food in there for up to a half hour, along with a substantial quantity of drool. He's becoming familiar with being held over the kitchen sink while we dig out the morsel in question so he can move on with life. Toys and random objects held in mouth: adorable. Food and drool: not so much. Sigh.

I am finding it is both exciting and tiresome to live with an 11 month old baby. Exciting because it seems that he is developing new skills every hour (see the bulleted list below). One can almost watch the neural paths develop. He's always been an attentive kid but now there is attentiveness with intent. He watches and watches as we talk or press a button or make a noise or motion, then he tries it. Sometimes he's right on and he's got it right away. Sometimes he's not even close but you know he's working on it. Plus he's really getting a sense of humour. He jokes around, doing things to make us laugh, engaging us in games of peek and chase. He thinks anything placed on our heads is hilarious and he's very ticklish. He has a lot to say these days even if we can't understand it.
The tiresome aspect is that with all this learning and emerging individuality comes a baby who is often tired or frustrated, who now screams and arches when we tell him "no" because he has such definite ideas about what he wants to do. He can get into an amazing amount of trouble with his desire to climb combined with his lack of caution. And, to top it off he is getting his molars and is in pain off and on throughout the day, which manifests itself as whining and indecision. My least favorite new habit of his: he will come over and grab my legs and whine to be picked up-- not bad in itself-- but then, when I pick him up-- he'll immediately whine to be put down. And once he's down-- you guessed it... I am perfectly aware that he is not doing this to annoy me; in fact, I am learning this behavior is usually indicative of being tired or ouchy. But it is still guaranteed to get me in a bad mood.
All this said-- I do think the excitement wins out. He is a pretty engaging and amazing creature these days.

New skills:
*imitating a dog panting when we say or point out a dog (we sometimes have to pant first to show him, sometimes he does it on his own)
*Saying "hi" more often (though still only on his own terms)
*Vocalizing a TON, jabbering away to himself, often with a look on his face that seems to say "I MEAN it!!" Sounds he produces a lot: nee-nee, ni-ni, dis, dat, di-di, be
*Chasing and being chased. He's discovered the "loop" around the first floor and delights in racing after us, or being chased as we dramatically "run" very slowly after him. Giggles and furious slapping of hands on the floor. It's a riot.
*Turning pages of books. While his attention span for books is brief, for the 3-4 pages he'll attend to, he really attends, touching the pictures and turning the pages.
*Jack has discovered money. Last night he spent quite a while holding and playing with a few coins with Mike. He only tried to eat them twice. :) He would hold a coin in his fist when open his hand flat and look at it with amazement. His fine motor skills are really pretty good, I think, from the way he was picking up dimes off the floor.
*Novelty. Anything in the world is interesting to him, for approximately 30 seconds. Then, we better come up with something new for him to explore. Exceptions to this are brooms or rakes or anything with a long handle, for which he has infinite patience and attention. He's a funny duck.

Stan Hywet

We had the loveliest spur of the moment trip to visit Stan Hywet Hall yesterday. It was a stunning day and I can't think of a better way to spend our afternoon. Jack was a remarkably good baby during our self-guided tour, despite the fact that I am sure he was very bored. He did enjoy going up-- and then down-- a couple of stairs in the music room. He also loved crawling ALL over the place in the grassy meadows. He was a little dynamo. Every time we go down to Stan Hywet we ask ourselves why we don't go more often... we've pledged to go at least once more this summer.

August!!

Can't believe its been so long since I've posted... or that it is getting so close to the end of summer already! Sigh.
We have just enjoyed a lovely visit from my dad and Anna. My dad was with us from the 23rd and Anna joined him on the 25th, straight from Brazil. Most of our time was spent-- you guessed it-- watching the resident baby with rapt attention. :) Jack adored his grandparents and really liked having double the adults around to cheer him on. We had some nice outings together: We spent an afternoon at the lake and Starbucks with my dad, Anna and I got a couple of shopping trips in, we had a great dinner in Little Italy and enjoyed a tour of Lakeview Cemetery. We also went down to Strasburg for a visit with the family there (see pics above). They prepared a veritable feast for us and we relaxed in Diana's backyard for the entire afternoon. Jack loved playing with his cousins-- Emma was a real "little mommy" and spent a lot of time taking care of him. He acted like such a big boy, standing next to the slide, playing ball, watching the big kids. We also may have found Corydon a boyfriend-- a neighbor of Linda's has a lovely black and white boy and the owner is very keen to breed them. We shall see if we're up for puppies! :)

Jackster continues to turn into a little boy at a great rate. Here are some of his recent accomplishments and cute moments, in convenient list form.
* Today he pulled up to stand on 2 different pieces of furniture and actually took a couple of sideways steps to move along the chair. I can't believe it-- non-stander-mouse is actually standing! We are in trouble now...
*Speaking of trouble-- little man is learning how to have a fit when we take away a toy he wanted. We have to be very careful to replace the thing we are taking with something of equal or greater interest, or we get the high pitched wail. And god forbid we move him away from something or try to keep him from crawling somewhere. He is getting quite the temper...
* He is, all of a sudden, really trying to imitate words. He is looking right at our mouths when we talk (sometimes) and then he'll approximate the vowel sound of the word. He is really cute when he does this to "sing along" with the diaper time song.
* Sometimes, it really does sound like he's saying a word... but its always just a one-time thing so I can't be sure. Some things I've "heard" recently: piggy, one, dog, get down, hi dad...
* I AM fairly certain he is saying "hi" now. Though (like waving) he will only say it spontaneously and won't repeat it when we ask-- but it is right on, a very quick little "hi"-- and adorable!
*Today he also learned to pant like a dog when I say or show him a picture of a "doggy". Again, adorable.
*He is giving very satisfying hugs at bedtime and today he gave a hug to his turtle from Brazil and his puppy dog toy. He also gave me a nice kiss (no pucker, just a lot of wet mouth --:)--) on my request the other night.