Appetite for Destruction

Jack is pretty proficient at crawling and pulling himself up to standing.. he is quickly figuring out how to gracefully get from standing to sitting but he isn't quite there. So he is moving even more quickly than before but with one important difference. It seems that now when Jack enters a room, he surveys it to find the most dangerous object with which to play and heads straight for it. His room has lots of nice toys and a chair to climb on but he always goes for the space heater or the cord connected to the space heater. It reminds me of the view of the Terminator's brain ..constantly assessing what will cause the most damage. I am not sure why babies evolved to do this.. although now that I think about it, maybe it was the parents who evolved. I suppose if you couldn't figure out how to watch your child you weren't going to be ultimately successful at reproduction.

Jack's mean face. I think he is mad because he threw soup on his face:


Jack with straight hair:

new talents

Jack and I are both expanding our skill base. Jack sleeps mostly on his stomach now. Generally, we have to change his diaper in the middle of the night otherwise he wakes up completely soaked. Whenever I try to roll him over, he rolls back onto his stomach. So now I just change his diaper in the face-down position. It was challenging at first but now I have mastered it. He never even wakes up. It's like I'm the clint eastwood of diaper changing...or the yoda of diaper changing or whatever. you get the idea.

Not to be outdone, Jack has started pulling himself up to a standing position. Everywhere. He is no longer safe alone for more than 10 seconds because he doesn't really know how to get out of the standing position so he inevitably ends up falling and hitting his head which is distressing for all involved. He is not yet the michael jordan of baby-standing but I am sure he is well on his way.

Here is the requisite baby butt shot. baby butts are so darned cute..

Gums

When I was pregnant I learned quickly that I was better off not reading any books or looking anything up on the internet regarding pregnancy or labor. It was all bad news.

Sadly, however, I have not been able to ditch the few baby books around my house that tell me where Jack should be in the 80 different kinds of developing that he is currently doing and will do until he is like 22. So this is going to be a long 22 years of worrying. Basically, according to the books, Jack is a little behind in a few things.. for example, he has no teeth. I don't know any babies this age that have no teeth. So I look in the book. What does it say? Most babies have teeth by 10 months. Then I think, do I know anyone who never got their teeth? Really, I have never met anyone without teeth so I am pretty sure he'll get them. But since everything is controlled by your DNA and the DNA arrangement we get is seriously more random than the lottery, it seems theoretically possible that at least one person has never gotten their teeth. But I hope not.

On an unnrelated note, here is Jack in one of his favorite shirts:

It's the 70's Baby!

When I went home I got baby pictures of my brother, sister and me. I wish I had one of Ryan -- he is working on it.

me (10 months):


my sister (13 months):


my brother (12 months):


Everyone says Jack looks just like Ryan but I think he looks at least a little like my side of the family.

Weekend in AZ

Last weekend, Jack and I traveled to Arizona. The last time I took Jack on a plane, he was 4 months old. It didn't occur to me until the morning of my flight that things would be different this time. jack moves all the time now unless he is asleep. so i bought baby benadryl just in case I ended up in some desperate situation.. plus I thought he had the sniffles so perhaps I could justify drugging my child. Not surprisingly, no one sat next to me. A woman my mom's age sat down in the aisle seat of my row and told me later she sat there because she knew there would be no one between us. She really helped me out because Jack was a wiggle-worm the entire time.

When I arrived my mom and stepfather and brother met us. They dropped me off at the house of one of my high school friends and took Jack back to their house. Then 3 of my high school pals and I went to Prescott for the weekend. It was a lovely weekend of just sitting around, drinking mojitos and enjoying the sun. I slept in until 9am. It was pure craziness. My mom had a good time too.. although she was not that into waking up at 5:30.

Here are some photos of the events:
Sitting:


Hiking:



Sorry these pics aren't great but you get the idea. I snapped a couple of my brother, dad and stepmother but then got lazy about photo taking (sorry mom!):




Once I got home I went through a little mini-depression then I had a realization. I profoundly miss my old life -- the life before Jack where I did mostly whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. At the same time, I am so happy Jack is in my life. He is a small package of joy. I realized these two things don't really contradict each other -- its not either 'I miss my old life and regret my decision to have a child' or 'I love my child and have no desire to return to my old life'. It's that I miss my old life and I love Jack's presence in my new life. Both at the same time... sort of a strange paradox.