Julia's First Day of School

Julia finally had her first day of school today!  We switched her to a Monday/Wednesday program, but last Monday was Labor Day and then Wednesday she was recovering from a stomach bug.  So on Thursday once she felt better, we created a post-it note count down of days to build up some anticipation and she finally got to peel off the last sticky note today!

Jarret stayed home long enough to attend the drop-off with us.  We were both amazed at her bravery!!! For the past two years, we watched Julia approach the drop-off with tears, fearfulness, shyness, and clinging to us (even though she always ended up having a great time, but still...no parents wants to watch their child go through that.)  This morning instead we watched our beautiful, maturing 3-year-old daughter walk in with smiles and boldness this morning.  

Daddy walking his kiddos into school.
Julia loves to ask to ride "the special way" on the stroller.

She wanted to only make silly faces, but when I kept
telling her "Don't you smile at me!" then she finally complied.

I was trying to give instructions to Julia to smile, and
instead it resulted in a goofy picture of me.

It seemed like her reaction was, "O.K. I'll take
a picture with you people, but WHO are you again?!"
I also love that out of all the backgrounds we could have taken
this picture in front of, we managed to take their picture with
the toilet behind them.  Great scenery.

Her new teachers for the year, Ms. Jan and Ms. Melissa!

She gave us joyful hugs and kisses bye, and then had no concern about walking away from us.  THESE are the years I want to savor!  What a wonderful balance and blessing of a child who still enjoys and needs the bear hugs and kisses from mommy and daddy, yet enters school with boldness and excitement.  What a great start to the school year!!!

Jackson at 10 months

Photo Shoot
Here are the results from Jackson's 9-month photo shoot attempts #3 & #4. I'm still not thrilled with any of them, especially with the effort that went in to trying to capture any decent shots. Some of the shots & poses had such potential, but my kids were just not up for smiling much.

Here are the ones we felt were decent, but not in love with:








And here are the big time losers:

Milestones, Fun Times, & Learning

I take back what I said last month about Jackson figuring out how to suck from a sippy cup. He did it great for that one day and then hasn't done it again. So we let him drink from our adult cups or from a sippy cup with no valve.

He is definitely saying "mamama" for me and "nigh-nigh-nigh" when he's tired (for night-night).

He *loves* being upside down. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for my sake of watching him try it, this will serve him well in wakeboarding.

Therapy Updates

Occupational Therapy - Tummy Time, Crawling, & WALKING!

• Our OT left the organization and a new one hasn't been assigned to us, so we went the entire month with no therapy appointments.
• He is still not crawling in the traditional sense on his hands and knees. However, in this past month he has learned to army crawl pretty darn well. When combined with a few well-placed rolls, he can now certainly get where he wants to go.
  
  


• He pulled up and cruised for ONE day: July 30th. He has never done it since because...
• Around the same time he discovered he could walk by holding on to both of our hands. This became the theme of August: All the child has wanted to do is walk, walk, and walk some more. If I sit him on the floor, he cries. If I lay him down, he cries. If I pick him up even, he cries. This is not all the time, mind you, but it happens extremely often. Enough that we say he has just been flat out frustrated this month. He grabs for our hands all the time and gets mad if we don't let him holds our hands to walk. But man, the moment you let him grab your hands he is a happy camper and off to the races!
• By the end of the month, he was walking extremely fast holding two hands and quickly learning how to walk by just holding one hand.
• He took his first steps by himself the last week before he turned 10 months! Jarret and I were sitting across from each other practicing with him, and he was able to take a couple of steps. We've tried it a few more times since then, and he is able to take a couple steps. We are doing all we can to aide him learning to walk since we feel this will help him be less frustrated.

Eating/Food/Nutritionist Appointments

• It's now unbelievable to us that we even needed Jackson to see a nutritionist. This kid eats anything and everything! His new favorite food is blueberries - eats them whole and tosses 'em back like candy.
• He also had his first ice cream cone. Here's a pic of Jacob and Julia taking turns sharing their ice cream with him:
  
  
  

Sorry, those are all the pictures. I did terrible with the camera this month!

Jackson at 9 months

Photo Shoot
Was supposed to happen Friday (when he was 2 days past 9 months), but we cancelled and will make a separate blog post next week when we reschedule.

Stats

• Weighs 18 lb, 15 oz (25% - which has been consistent since his 4 month appointment)
• Measures 29 1/2 in tall (90% - which has been consistent since birth). Most all of that length is in his torso, so even 12-month onesies fit tight, but pants/shorts are still very long on him.
• His length is the EXACT same as his daddy at 9 months, and his weight is actually 7 ounces greater than his daddy at 9 months. That's amazing since Jackson's weight-to-height is 10%, so that means Jarret's was even lower. We're talking about some seriously long and lean boys!
• Wears a size 2-3 diaper

Sleeping

• Still sleeps through the night great. Goes to bed between 7:30 - 8:30, depending on how long his naps were.
• Takes a morning nap about 2 hours after he wakes up, and takes an afternoon nap about 3-4 hours after he wakes up from his first nap.
• Still sucks the middle two fingers of his right hand when putting himself to sleep (he can also suck these fingers when he's hungry)
• Has become very flexible and adapts well to being pushed past his typical nap times. He won't fall asleep out and about, even if he's exhausted, but as soon as you get in the car or crib he's lights out. See the two pics below! We'd been out late for dinner and shopping with J's folks. Jackson didn't fuss a BIT, but fell asleep on the way home. Even after getting him out of the car, he stayed asleep which is almost unheard of with him. We rarely get a snuggly baby like this!
  
  

Happy Boy!








The Love of a Sister
Jackson your sister is sooo good to you. Yes, she struggles with occasionally taking a toy away from you, but even then it's often because she thinks that toy isn't appropriate for a baby. She gives you giant smiles, hugs and loves on you, talks to you in baby talk if she thinks it'll make you smile, and does most anything to get a laugh out of you. She helps, too - she'll get diapers & wipes, throw away diapers, get burp cloths, go grab a toy for you, etc.

You two still absolutely love to jump on the bed together or dance around a room together (you being in Mommy's arms of course). And one of the things you guys have always loved to do is lay beside each other and "talk". Here's pictures of how this particular sequence went - Lots of mutual "talking" and then a little too much enthusiastic lovin' from Julia:





I tried to get a video of you guys "talking", which really just means the two of you take turns screaming back and forth at each other. This video doesn't measure up to the volume or duration of these talking sessions, but it gives a glimpse. WATCH HERE. (There is sound, so you have to make sure both the computer and Vimeo volume is turned up.)

Milestones, Fun Times, & Learning

• When lying on his back, he likes to hold toys between his feet which leaves his hands free to actually plat with the toy. I've seen him do this with probably a dozen different toys.
  CLICK HERE to watch a video of him doing this.
  
  
  


• Jackson has moved up to a big car seat! This is actually overdue and probably should have been done a while ago because his shoulder straps in the infant carrier have been too far below his shoulders.
• He figured out how to suck from a sippy cup. Yay!! I'd been giving him a cup for over a month, sometimes with the valve in and other times with it out so he'd understand the concept of what should be happening. Finally after a little more than a month of trying, I heard a real sucking noise and watched as his face showed surprise when he got water in his mouth.
• Wearing daddy's hat:
  


• Swing time!


• Fully engrossed in TV time with his best buddy:


• We had lunch downtown with daddy this month. Julia snapped a pretty darn good picture of the 3 of us, other than it being a little crooked. She even reminded us to say cheese and smile.
  

Therapy Updates

Occupational Therapy - Tummy Time & Crawling

• An OT visits our house to work with Jackson every 2 weeks.
• His 4th appointment was the day before he turned 9 months old.
• He is still not crawling or cruising.
• He HAS become more willing to voluntarily turn over onto his belly to look for something/someone or to try to reach something/someone.
• Typically he still only stays on his tummy for the minimum amount of time needed to accomplish his goal, and then he immediately rolls to his back.
• He is *trying* to pull up and *trying* to scooch. The therapist and his pediatrician both agreed that the issue keeping him from succeeding at these two goals is lack of strength in his shoulders and upper body. His legs and abs are strong plenty strong enough. The remedy, they say, is to practice, practice, practice which is super fun for Jackson and I both, lemme tell ya!
• If sitting up, he can pull up to a standing position by simply holding your hands and using all of his leg strength to finish the job. But if trying to pull up to a piece of furniture or a taller toy, he must a combination of pushing up on his legs and pulling up with his arms. His legs are very much trying, and his hands are sometimes reaching but they don't truly grasp and pull like they should.
• As for scooching across the floor, the therapist noticed at his most recent appointment that his legs are moving back and forth while on his belly. Since his arms aren't doing any part of the work of reaching or moving, his leg work isn't getting sufficient traction to help move him anywhere. So she suggested that we put our hands behind his feet to act as a wall for him to push off of, and sure enough, he was able to scooch forward just a few inches in order to get to the toy we'd put in front of him.
• The issue of his upper body strength also affects his ability to cruise. Because he's not used to using his hands and arms to support himself, he ends up using his tummy/chest area to lean against objects while standing and then uses both free hands to play with the toys.

Eating/Food/Nutritionist Appointments - His eating has improved SO much!

• He'll eat baby pureed food happily and easily from a spoon when I give it to him, which was the issue that raised the red flag since 5.5 months. No more gimmicks or tricks to get the spoon in his mouth. No more just eating 5-6 bites -- now he'll eat a whole serving.
• Otherwise he's eating all sorts of solid food quite happily: diced fruits, bananas, bread, scrambled eggs. He especially loves yogurt melts, Nutrigrain bars, Cheerios, graham crackers, and sharing a bowl of Quaker oatmeal with mama. He'll eat peas, green beans cut in half, and diced carrots, but he doesn't act nearly as enthusiastic about these as he does the other foods.
• Once we use up the few containers of baby pureed food I have left in the pantry, he'll be on table food only.
• He does really well at holding a fork and feeding himself a diced fruit or veggie that I'd put on the fork.
• At times, he's finally beginning to eat more of the quantity of food I'd expect a boy his age to eat. I'm just thrilled he's now very receptive to the idea of eating. We think it was all a matter of figuring out his personal preferences, which was simply that he'd rather feed himself than have you do it for him.
• Had to include one picture of our messy cute baby! He actually loved the pureed carrots.
  

Other Stuff
Jarret and I both think that in this particular picture Jackson shows strong resemblance to his daddy. In the past couple months, we've gotten more and more comments from strangers about how Jackson is a mini-me of Jarret. At Chuy's several weeks ago, we got out of the car while a lady next to us was as well. She saw Jackson first and ooh-ed over him. Then she looked up at Jarret, and with a shocked face exclaimed something to the effect, "Yep, you are definitely his daddy!"

The kid is a scratcher. Has been since birth. We do our best to keep his nails cut short and filed very well, but he has always managed to find a way to maul himself. Scratches all over his nose and face as a newborn, and now these last couple months it's been inside his ears. The doctor said there was no sign of ear trouble, but simply that "some kids do that". It's awful to find him, his clothes, and his crib sheet with blood everywhere!



Letter to our Littlest Love
Jackson you have become such an incredibly happy, easy going baby who is such a joy. We truly would love to freeze time with the stage you're in. We almost never hear you cry anymore. We are learning that you really can go with the flow so much more easily than your sister could at this age, which is a great gift. We can wake you up from a nap and, no exaggeration, within 10 seconds you give us beaming smiles. You are a sweet delight to all of us. We are very blessed with you and love you tremendously!