Monday, May 18, 2009

Quick Update

I'm sitting here watching Jack eat sweet potato puffs. Ben is taking a nap.

Jack's two front top teeth are going to come in just any second now. I can see them under his gums (which are red). He's been a bit cranky the past couple of days but is happy and laughing today.

It's so cool to see in his eyes that he understands more now. He has also been trying to do things that make us laugh - like if he does something and we laugh, he does it again to see if we'll laugh again. Too funny!

He is an eating machine but has gotten taller instead of fatter. He's in 18 month clothes at 9 months old. WOW. I need to get him a couple of 18 month jackets and elastic waist pants and try to find some shoes to fit him 'cause he can FLY in that walker.

He is now able to sit up without falling over and can go from sitting to his knees (or one knee) and get back to sitting position, or lying on his tummy. He can get up on hands and knees and rock but doesn't do it much. No crawling yet...

He is sleeping about 12 hours at night without waking and taking 2 naps per day. Wish we had gotten this lucky with Ben. =-)

Speaking of Ben, he is such a little sweetheart. He is still the most polite child - always says please and thank you without prompting (well, we sometimes prompt for the please) and it is rare that I have to send him to time-out. He has been practicing pronouncing his words too - if you repeat what he says he will try to say it the correct way. Still working on his "guh", "juh" and "chuh" sounds (they currently all come out like "schuh"). Doing great with forming complete sentences though!

Okay, Jack wants my attention so I'll catch up more later and post more pics.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day

As I type this Jack is flipping around in his crib. He likes to work his way around and turn on his musical toys. We'll think he's gone to sleep and then this music starts on the monitor. He is now pushing himself up on his hands and knees and can also get on his hands and knees from a sitting position (no crawling yet). He mostly sleeps on his tummy now which made me a little nervous at first, but Ben did the same thing and hey, we all slept on our stomachs from birth anyway.

Ben is saying the funniest and cutest things now days. Yesterday I put in "Pride and Prejudice" for the 900th time. Ben heard the music and turned around and walked over to me and said "Mommy, no this movie". =-) "No this" is how he tells me he doesn't want to watch or do something. I wish I could remember all the funny things he says and does. I need to keep a notebook handy so I can write them down as they happen to post later.

Here are a couple of pics from this week. Hope all my Mommy friends have a fantastic day!



Friday, May 1, 2009

Flippy/Pinchy and Talky Talkerson

Jack

Rob has been working with Jack on crawling. This morning he said he actually made it up on his hands and knees! What this has lead to is nap time fun because Jack keeps flipping over on his stomach and pushing up instead of sleeping. We have had to wait until he falls asleep on his stomach and then flip him over on his back at night. During the day I let him sleep on his tummy and just keep checking the monitor every 10 seconds.

He is also Mr. Pinchy lately. I think he has the hang of the "pincher grasp". They say that is an indicator of when to start solids, so I started giving him sweet potato puffs and apple/strawberry puffs. He thinks they are need but weird when he goes to swallow them and they aren't quite liquid like his baby food. Keeps him occupied for quite awhile though!

Speaking of swallowing, I heard him choking on something last night and turned into super Mom, ran over and had him upside-down with my finger in the back of his throat within a millisecond. Turns out Ben had given him his new baby shoes which I hadn't taken the tag off of yet and he had proceeded to chew on it until he got it off and into his mouth where he was gagging on it. He also had a big wad of it stuck to the roof of his mouth. WHEW.








Ben

Ben is talking up a storm and using more and more complete sentences. He still misses consonants quite a bit so I think probably only Rob and I know what he is saying most of the time, but it's neat the way he tells me about everything going on or things that happened while I was out of the room, or while someone else was with him.

Yesterday I heard him count to 14. He won't do it if you ask him though. Makes me wonder how much he really knows. I can quiz him on like 1 thing every once in awhile, but if he knows you are trying to quiz him he says "No Mommy, no." Funny little guy.

I took him to Wal-Mart with me the other day and asked him "Ben, do you want to pick out some big boy underwear?" to which he answered flatly "No." So then I said "Ooooh... look Ben! Thomas the Train underwear! Do you want some Thomas the Train underwear?" Response? "No." Well I bought them anyway along with some rocket glow in the dark ones and tried to get him interested in them when we got home. He was mostly interested in opening the packages and that was about it, but he did want to try on a pair of the rocket ones - over his PJs. So, I thought "what the heck" and let him do it. I figure some interest is better than none.

I have not tried potty training yet, but got lots of advice from the checkout lady at Wal-Mart. She was actually very nice! I think I will try stickers as a reward, and if that doesn't work I'll try chocolate.


Ben put his bunny to bed.


Letting Jack play with his toys.


Family

We all went out to dinner with some others from the chocolate group to the restaurant where Matt works (last night). Here are some of those pics...