Crazy Walking

I can't believe how much Jack has improved at walking in just the last week!

He has these cute little Vans shoes from Kevin, Marcy, and Bremen that finally fit him (they are a size 5!) We tried them out now that he is walking, and he was not happy. He refused to even stand in them. He cried until we helped him take them off his feet.

Rough Day for Little Man

Jack had his 1 year well check doctor visit today. He is getting so big! His weight seems to be going up as always; he is 26 lbs. (89%) He has nearly a 19 inch head (89%) and his height is now a smidge under 33 inches (off the charts again!) With all of his crawling and walking, he really isn't the chubba bubba he was when he was younger. Some of the pants I have bought him will fall right off him now!

He was very upset about his shots today. He did very well the last time, but this time, it wasn't the pain as much as his feelings that were involved. He had a blast playing at the doctor's office, flirting and showing off his new tricks. When they held him down for his shots, he was stunned. He cried the way he does when his feelings are hurt. It just killed me. He was so upset. When I took him home, he still let out quiet muffled sobs in his sleep while he napped.

I also have to share what he did after his nap. Most of you know my son's obsession with his blanket. My robe is made of the same material. I mistakenly left it laying out this morning and Jack was having fun playing with it. He buries his head in it and laughs. He drags it around. He plays with something else, and then gets a glimps of it and rushes over to grab it again. Well, while this was going on, I was cleaning the kitchen. I heard Jack crying and found him like this. (I swear I did not put it on his head, he got stuck on his own.) Mean mom that I am, I first went and got the camera to film it before I helped him escape.

Anyway, he is extremely fussy now and running a fever, so this evening is going to be a challenge. Poor man, teething and shots!

Jack's First Birthday Party

Stuart and I had decided against a big party for Jack long before he was born. We thought it would be a lot of trouble for something that is really meaningless to the kid. We were determined to just have a simple birthday cake at home and get some pictures of that, since really, the first birthday is just one big photo opportunity. Well, our friends and families were really appalled at our decision, so we relented and threw a small party for Jack. We thought it would at least be nice to get some great first photos and then have a chance to catch up with people we don't see much since Jack was born. It really was a good time. Here are some of the highlights:

Quietly opening gifts with mom and dad:


The girls did all of the decorating for the party:



We requested no gifts on the invitation, but were ignored. Every time I was asked for gift suggestions, I replied that Jack didn't need anything, since he usually just plays with pots and pans anyway. So, it appears that my family thought it would be funny to give Jack miscellaneous kitchen items. They were a hit! Jack especially loved the martini shaker from Aunt Marcy and Uncle Kevin. What is that all about? He wouldn't let go of it and held it through the opening of all the other gifts.



He had a Jack-in-the-box cake, which he loved to play with, but refused to eat.

Of course, we have video too:






Rest assured that my nieces and nephew, Kailee, Caitlin, and Ryan had no problem eating his distroyed cake when he was done playing with it.

A quick pic of Papa with all the girls:

I was surprised at how good Jack was for his party, considering he had skipped his afternoon nap. It worked out well for us, however, as he fell asleep while drinking his bottle at 6:30pm. This allowed us to visit with guests until 10:30pm (a rare late night for mom & dad!)

He went to sleep so early, he didn't get to open a couple of his gifts from late arrivals to the party. It turns out his favorite didn't come until the next morning. His own inflatable ball tent. He loves this and plays in it constantly!

A good time had by all. I can't believe our little baby is growing up so fast. He is such a little boy now!

Karen's Birthday

So, we went to dinner to celebrate Karen's birthday Friday evening. She decided on the Cheesecake Factory which always makes everyone happy. What does a 14 year old want for her birthday? Clothes! Of course, we are not cool enough to pick out clothes for her, so she ended up with gift cards and has been happily shopping ever since.


Karen, Dad and Jack,
waiting for cheesecake.
Doesn't she look cute?








Jack thought the menu
was especially tasty!







Glam Girl and her dad
hanging out at Jack's party.
(I'll post party pics and video
tomorrow.)

Jack is 1 year old

Friday, Jack turned one year old. I really can't believe it has been a whole year since he was born. For those of you who don't know, we really did some major celebrating in our house last week: my birthday was the 21st, Jack's was the 22nd, and Karen's was the 23rd. Not only are the girls with us for these events, they also have a friend who came down this week as well, so we have a house full of teenagers! We gave Jack a couple of gifts the morning of his birthday, but the rest of the evening was a celebration for Karen. Since Jack's birthday party was Saturday, we wanted to ensure we dedicated some time specifically to Karen's 14th birthday celebration. Anyway, there are a ton of pics and video that I want to post, but I will have to do it in stages, because I am just too lazy to sort through everything right now.

I'll start with the presents Jack got from his us on the morning of his birthday. He really wasn't all that interested in opening them and it took some coaxing to convince him to do it.



OK, let's try again...

He finally did open them and he even seemed to like them!

Remembering Jack's Arrival

The day before Jack's birthday, I thought I would share the story of Jack's arrival, since it all began one year ago today.One year ago today...

I had scheduled a half day of vacation for my birthday. I worked from home in the morning, just attending a few virtual meetings and getting some work done. I was 11 days away from my due date. 5 days earlier, at my last doctor visit, we were advised that the baby was nowhere near ready to come and I should anticipate going beyond my due date. Both Stuart and I had expressed some concern about that due to the baby's size. (My doctor estimated that Jack was already about 8 lbs.) She agreed to schedule an ultrasound the next week to see if she could get a more accurate read on his size to see if I might need to be induced at some point. (I was really fearful of giving birth to a 10 lb baby!)

I had a leisurely afternoon, taking a long shower, doing my hair, having a pedicure, all in anticipation of going out for a birthday dinner with Stuart. We were going out for Mexican food. (My favorite and something Stuart doesn't care for at all, so it was a special treat.) We were having a great time at the restaurant, and Stuart was being very complimentary (I think you have to be with a woman who is 8 and 1/2 months pregnant; it's the law or something.) We even joked with the waiter about the tableside guacamole and asked him to make it extra spicy to help encourage me to go into labor. We talked with a family at the next table briefly about the anticipation of the baby to come. I decided to go to the bathroom before our dinner arrived since I knew I would have to go soon enough anyway and I didn't want to interrupt our meal. On the way to the bathroom, my water broke! (The waiter apparently did a great job with that guacamole!) I was in the bathroom for a very long time, trying to clean up, but it really was difficult as I didn't realize the flow of water just wouldn't stop...no one told me about that! Apparently, while I was gone, the couple at the next table expressed concern to Stuart that I had been in the bathroom for awhile. When I came out I calmly told Stuart that my water had broken and we would have to go. Stuart was extremely excited and told everyone around what had happened and why we had to leave. (Even strangers at other tables as we walked out the door!) This was about 6pm.

As a side note: the restaurant charged us for dinner we had ordered that had not arrived. We never even got to eat it! Needless to say, that wasn't very nice of them!

Anyway, I had only had a contraction or two, but nothing severe and finally convinced Stuart that we had time to drive home and get our bags before going to the hospital. Stuart was hysterical at the house, running around in a frenzy. (He had been through this before and I hadn't so it was comical that I was the calm one!)

At the hospital, I was told that my contractions were only 10 minutes apart (I really couldn't feel them, I swear!) so they asked us to walk around the hospital all night to get things moving along. Even as they got more frequent, they really weren't bad. Finally, after about 4 hours, they decided to give me pitocin to speed up the contractions. Woah baby! I felt the contractions then! They wanted to wait on the epidural until I was further along, but after hearing me for about 2 hours after getting the pitocin, they decided the epidural was in order! Can I say how much I loved the epidural?! (Of course, it did make me throw up the guacamole, so that wasn't fun!) Stuart and I both slept through most of my labor that night. (as much as I could anyway, it is surprisingly hard to sleep when your legs are completely numb.)

The next morning they said I was only dilated to 4 cm and still had quite a bit of time. For some reason, however, moving from 4 to 10 took no time at all and I was ready to go at about 10am. My doctor happened to be down the hall for a scheduled c-section with another patient. They let her know that I was ready to push. She said it was my first and it would take awhile, so she was going back to the office and would return for the delivery. They turned down the epidural just enough so I could feel pressure, but no pain. (I have to say how great they were at this hospital. I couldn't have had a more pain-free delivery.) In fact, I would tell the nurse when I thought I was having a contraction, and she would confirm it on the monitor for each push. The pushing went so well, that after 20 minutes, they asked me to stop so they could get the doctor back to the hospital. So, we waited for the doctor before I resumed. (all in all, less than 45 minutes of pushing!) I had heard horror stories about pushing, with the epidural being too weak, allowing you to feel everything or too strong and you couldn't really push well, but they did a great job there!

Baby Jack arrived at 11:05am. He was beautiful, little cone head and all. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and one of his arms, so he was a little blue, but perfect.

It was certainly my most memorable birthday!

Easily Entertained

Jack did not get tired of this. We could have played the game all day!

Family Vacation

We took a short family vacation to Sedona. It was very relaxing. We stayed at the Hilton, which was great because we had a 2 bedroom suite which allowed us the space we needed with Jack. Stuart really wanted the girls to have a chance to do some things they haven't done before, but pleasing teenagers isn't an easy task. They did do a jeep tour, but really had no interest in anything else and spent much of the trip reading in their room. (Hard to impress girls that age!) Anyway, we still had fun hanging out at the pool. It had several waterfalls and a large shallow area that Jack could crawl around in, so it was lots of fun. I enjoyed the poolside restaurant service.

We didn't get any family pictures and the few we do have of the girls, I was asked not to post here because they didn't like them. So, this is all we have: Stuart and Jack hanging out by the pool. I can't wait for Jack to be old enough to hike!

Family Visit

My brother Kevin came for a visit from Slovakia. His wife Marcy and son Bremen have been here for awhile, but Kevin was only able to get away for a week. I don't see family very often so this was a nice treat. (Even those in Arizona are not often seen as the 45 minute drive to our house seems to be beyond the limit for most.) Jack just loved Bremen. He chased him all over Grammie and Papa's house.

Jack loves girls, but is sometimes pretty nervous around men, but he took to Kevin pretty quickly.

Why wouldn't he? Kevin is so much fun for the kids to be around, mainly because he is a big kid himself.

WALKING BABY!

OK, we have had a very busy week: the girls arrived for their summer visit, my brother Kevin came to town for a very short stay, we took the family for a brief vacation to Sedona, oh, and I cut off all of my hair (not exagerating, a good six inches gone! I'm in mourning at the moment, but more on that later.) Anyway, I have lots to share on all of these topics, but that will have to wait because Jack is now walking! He is limited to about 5 or 6 steps at a time and he looks like a little drunk, but we are loving it! When he does it, he looks around, waiting for the applause and cheers that he gets in return, it is so cute. He also does not have the ability to stop himself, so he walks very fast until he falls into something or someone. I do love that Heather and Karen got to be here for the event! Sorry for the short video, by the time it occured to us to start filming, he was getting pretty tired of being forced to perform.

Stuart took the first video and didn't realize he had the camera sideways. (Sorry, but I don't have the ability with our current software to change the orientation, so it is a bit difficult to view.) Don't worry, I took the second one and it is much better.

Thanks to everyone for their warnings of things to come now that Jack is learning this new skill. I really do love that I have so many people who have set great examples for me on how to manage my crazy little boy. I just want to say thanks to Jamie, Marcy, Kim, Becca, and especially Sheri , for their blogs. You are all great moms and I appreciate being able to read your updates and crazy stories for inspiration and support. (Charlotte, I would thank you, but you seem to have abandoned the blogging world, what's up with that?!)

Time to Explore

Jack can no longer be contained.
Hmmmm. What are they hiding in here?
This looks like fun.
Yummy oatmeal. Don't worry, I'll get it myself.

Jack's Room is Done (Maybe)

Jack turns 1 year old on August 22nd and I have just finished his nursery. Truth be told, it was 95% completed before he was born. (I only stopped then because Stuart made me.) It was cute, however, it didn't reflect my entire vision. Part of the problem with waiting until you are 36 to have a baby means you put a lot of thought and planning into your vision of the ideal room. The major murals were completed, but because I am a perfectionist, I wasn't satisfied. I just completed some minor additions that I feel made a big difference to the end result. Here is Baby Jack's Dr. Seuss room. (You will notice, he did not like hanging out in his crib while I took the pictures.)






Once I finished painting, Stuart did agree that the additions made a difference, but suggested I must be done at this point. I am done. But, I can't help but think of the blank space next to the door where a stack of turtles would fit perfectly.... (I know, I need professional help, I'll consider that.)

As a side note, see if you can name all of the books referenced in the murals.

Kung Fu Baby

Mean Mom

What do you do when your baby has gotten stuck and is clearly in distress? Get the camera out to capture his pain on video.

He did figure it out eventually, but that didn't stop me from filming.

More Teeth

We went out for breakfast this morning and Stuart noticed that Jack had 2 new bottom teeth. We swear they weren't there last night when we brushed his teeth. In fact, there were no signs of swollen gums on the bottom to hint at their arrival. Instead, we were anticipating the addition of 2 of his top molars (they are taking forever!) How did we miss these new ones? They just came out of nowhere. As for the molars, one is barely exposed and the other is just taking it's time. Current count: 9 teeth (with one due to arrive soon!)

This being said, why does my son still not want to feed himself?! I mean he has all of these beautiful teeth to use, but no, he can't be bothered with this new step. Instead, he waits for us to put everything in his mouth. And the table food he will eat one day will be flatly refused at the next feeding. Don't get me started on the bottle weaning. The first 4 days were great and then we hit a road block. The cup is fun to dump out and throw, but drinking? Who wants to do that? I swear we will be feeding this kid until he goes to kindergarten.

Crazy Sleeper

This is Jack taking his nap yesterday. He is a restless sleeper. He used to snore in his sleep (got that from dad!) Now, he rolls all over the place. He gets tangled up in his blanket. He bangs his head on the crib. He moves all over the place while he sleeps. Lately, he has begun to talk or sing in his sleep. It's very cute.