Seven Months

It's our first night alone in this house without Curtis. My little boy is sound asleep in his bed. He's wearing a sleeper that my parents said reminds them of the Hamburglar. Next time we visit Houston I'm going to show up with him in bright red and yellow. I'm putting off folding laundry and packing for a road trip so I can update this blog. This is the hardest post for me to do. Jackson being this old is giving me such a heartache. I know, it will only get worse. I'll try not to bore you with my anguish.

In case you don't have the pleasure of knowing Jackson as well as you'd like to, here are some things you oughtta know. He has a lot of feelings. And whatever he feels, he feels it passionately. He's very alert. He's really attached to Mom right now. His favorite playdate is with the kid in the mirror. He's outgrowing his bathtub. He's gaining physical strength and coordination. He can move from sitting up to leaning forward, from leaning forward to laying on his tummy, from laying on his tummy to his back. He's starting to get his knees underneath him. He's very quick to grab anything that catches his eye within arms' reach. He can scoot backward on the floor. He's finally playing nice with his toys. He loves veggies and doesn't care a thing about fruit. He's forgotten how to drink from a bottle. His hair is starting to curl a little bit. He made a "da" sound this week. He has many, many nicknames such as bunkin, munchy, lummies, and The Mister. (Can you tell which ones are mom's and which ones are dad's?) Thankfully, he does seem to know that he is "Jackson." A friend suggested we call him Jack-Jack. That's very cute, but it's just way too normal for this freak show family.

My heart is so full of affection for this miniature person who has taken over my life. Perhaps I resisted writing this because I have never been so in love and I don't have good enough words to spell that out in a unique way. Even now I've written 3 different sentences and had to erase them. Simply put, I'm happy and I love Jackson.

Boo for Bally's

I'm using my son's blog to vent tonight. It's been an emotional day. If you know me well, you know that one of my weekly highlights is going to my step aerobics class at Bally's on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It's the one thing that hasn't changed since I had Jackson. I go alone (since obviously the childcare is inadequate) and for one hour I don't think about anything but moving my feet on and off a step. Although sometimes I pray for the people in my class who aren't very good and ask God to help them get it. And when I think I'm really good, I pray for humility so God doesn't let me eat it in front of everyone. My instructors are Jeanne (Tuesday nights) and Jon (Thursday nights). They're amazing. Jeanne is really cool and fit, and her class is stinking hard. Jon's class is not as hard, but it's really enjoyable. I haven't been to class since that fateful day when Jackson had a fit in childcare and I was summoned out. So tonight I hauled my happy bee-hind over to Bally's and what do you know...there's no instructor. 20 minutes later a sub showed up. Come to find out, Jeanne is LEAVING us and we're getting someone new. Supposedly it's one of our class members. What?!?! I seriously got a lump in my throat and I pouted like a 3 year old for the next 30 minutes. I would've left, except I didn't want to be rude to the poor sub who happened to be there when they broke the news. I'm racking my brain trying to think of someone Jeanne-like in our class. Nope, no one. I imagined myself complaining, I mean addressing my concern, to the manager. But I honestly thought I would start crying. Can you imagine the laughs the whole staff would get out of that? Maybe I should have done it just to make their day.

Jackson is seven months old now. I should be posting the amazing new pictures we had taken of him and writing something wonderful about my little angel. I think I'm avoiding it because we are now over half-way to one year. I'm really in denial. It's going so fast. I promise I'll do a proper seven month update when I'm done grieving about Jeanne and about my baby getting so big.

Bed Head

Huge milestones, people! My son finally has enough hair to
A) Cover the bald spot on the back of his head
and
B) Have bed head.
Last night I woke him up from a dead sleep at 1:00 to feed him before I went to bed. He's been waking up at 1:30, so I was trying to beat him to it. Anyway, he had the craziest bed head! It was the sweetest thing! I wish I had a picture, but he probably wouldn't have appreciated a flash in his face in the middle of the night. By this morning it had flattened out a bit. FYI, in case you've never had this pleasure, babies are so sweet to hold when they're asleep. Why was I up so late, you wonder? I had some hot tea at about 10 p.m. and although I intended to have decaf, I must have inadvertently grabbed a regular tea bag. I was awake all night while my baby slept soundly. Dern.

P.S. If you have some time, click on Kat's blog. You will be moved by her tribute to her husband. She's an amazing woman! If you really want to be blessed, read her January archives too. What a special family.

Silly Stuff

Top Ten Moments with Jackson Last Week:

10) Diaper explosion #71 - they're getting more deadly all the time!

9) Sitting on the curb together at El Fenix because he wouldn't stop yelling and there were no benches to sit on. Curt had to finish his meeting.

8) Learning how to pick his nose without instigating a meltdown.

7) Feeding him his first taste of fruit.

6) Gotta love our weekly stroll to church while wearing 4 inch heels. Am I ridiculously vain or a hip mom?

5) Hearing "babababababababa," which is an obvious precursor to "mamamamamamama."

4) When I picked him up at the nursery and it was apparent that he only wanted Mom - sweet feeling.

3) Family outing to Grapefest where we ran into the Hartsfields. Ella and Jackson played in the misters.

2) Being sprayed when he sneezed with a mouth full of oatmeal cereal.

1) He played with a toy for an hour without getting mad at it.


This is for Uncle Wayne - I love playing piano with my feet.



Daddy's teaching me to like the Cards


Snotty boy



Fascinted with my tongue today

My Kryptonite

I've learned over the last few days that snot is my kryptonite. I've had all manner of gross things to deal with since having Jackson. But snot is the one thing that makes me gag every time. Mucuous...yuck! It's the reason I don't like to eat or look at custard. The texture is too similar. To make matters worse, Jackson thinks he's dying if I try to wipe his nose. And he'd have you believe the nasal suction bulb was a torture device. Between his screams and my gags, we are a sight to see.

How could Mommy ever gag at a face so sweet?

Labor Day Weekend

Happy Labor Day!
You'd think that on the day I don't have to work that I'd peel myself away from the computer and go outside. Well, it's wet outside and I don't feel well, so here I am with my Dell. It's been a great weekend though. Curt's mom came to town and stayed with us. Jackson loved having his grandma here and, of course, Curtis and I were delighted to have her in our home. We did our favorite things...watch movies, eat good food, and shop. She babysat for us one night so Curt and I could have a date. We went to see The Illusionist. It was so nice to go out and know that he was in the care of his grandma.

Jackson came down with his first cold this weekend. Mainly he had a snotty nose. I think it's coming over me, too, now. I guess this is the first of many bugs we will share. We are well into solids at this point and it's greatly helped our daily routine and the depth of Jackson's sleep. He is taking two good naps a day and sleeping much better at night. Praise the Lord! Twice a day he eats cereal and veggies. Curt was right about this being the start to weaning. We've eliminated two nursing sessions from each day. This is not a bad thing, but I can feel his dependence on me lessening. It's a weird feeling. He can sit alone and entertain himself for quite a while now. And he doesn't need me for every single meal. I have a little more freedom if I plan outings when he eats his solid food. One really great, life-changing thing about solids is that we can take him to restaurants. Yay! We can feed him his dinner in a high chair while we sit at the table. We even went to Papasito's on Friday. Ole'!

My son is pretty quirky already. As I've said before, he does NOT play well with toys. A lot of times people don't believe me and try to test it out. No matter what it is, after 2 minutes, somehow the toy becomes set aflame with the fires of hell and he descends into a screaming fit - Amageddon, as Curt says. Jackson is now old enough to go in the child care at my gym. The other day I got called out of my aerobics class because he was inconsolable in the nursery. They handed him to me red-faced and breathless from screaming. He had some foreign (meaning not ours) toy in his hand. "You idiots! He hates toys!" I said. Not really, but I thought it. And there's no telling what kind of germs were on that toy. No wonder he has a cold!


Beckham and I have the E.T./Elliot bond going on.


What's on your face, Dad?


I'm a mess but Grandma loves me.


I feel the same about this sippy cup as I do about toys. Hate 'em all!







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