Category Archives: Jack

>Play Date with Pinchy

>Jack had a play date today with his friend Katie, who as you can see in the picture, was all over him. Jack likes to roll to his tummy, play for a while and then scream bloody murder. This is the reason that I have not been keeping up with the section called “Hours of Sleep for Mommy.” It’s just too depressing to keep track of the fact that I get up every three hours to flip my baby over onto his back. Katie, on the other hand, only rolls from front to back and never gets any tummy time at all. She is supposed to sleep on her tummy, so her mommy gets up periodically in the night to roll her from back to front. So, I had the brilliant idea to make coordinating velcro outfits for them. I figured if I attached them back to back, they would be an unstoppable rolling machine. We put Jack down on his back so he could show off his skilz and Katie was on her tummy. They just stayed there happily not rolling at all. There was a lot of “seriously, this never happens!” from both mommies. And now I have to find a receipt for a bunch of velcro.

Also, we biked all over town this afternoon, and I have a picture of the Dave-Luke-Jack train – the best I could do while we were all in motion. (This picture was taken last week – I should have taken one today since part of our trip was to Target and we returned with a box of diapers bungee-corded to the back of the trailer.)

>The Memorial Day Camping Trip Post

>I couldn’t really put Jack down this weekend because there weren’t that many flat places. (Also, the little girls would swarm, swarm!.) I put down the blanket, put Jack on it, tried to reeeeach for my magazine and in that time he rolled, rolled, rolled, grabbed some pine needles and tried to eat them. This happened twice. And that is when I realized that if there were any flat spots in our campsite that we would have parked the van in one and then we could have spread out and not slept all in the tiny down hill corner.

Wellington Lake in two statements:
1.) Slanted
2.) Grossest bathrooms ever

But we had a good time, the kids loved it, and it sure looks good in the pictures!

Jack and Bean and I hiked to the bottom of the waterfall, while the other, braver moms, with younger dogs took the rest of the kids way up high.

Luke, exploring:

The Sultan gets a diaper change:

Bean stole Luke’s sleeping bag, and then Luke stole mine and so on.

Putting your PJs on over your clothes for the next day is way smarter than putting your PJs on below your clothes, and then wearing them for 2 days, which is what we did. We have so much to learn from the other campers:

Perfect cast:

Fishing:

The only flat spot:

WORMS!

Fishermen:

And (Grandmas, stop reading now) Dave built a jump:

>MetaMegan: Now With More Milestones!

>We had a really fun weekend, chock full of new milestones! Jack started eating solid foods on Friday night. He was a little skeptical at first but by Sunday night he was very enthusiastic.

Jack also was able to roll back to front and then front to back. Again, not witnessed by me, but very exciting news. The rolling to his stomach and then yelling was getting old. He is such a big boy.

Other than that, my weekend was too fun, and nothing embarrassing happened, so there isn’t much to report. BUT, we had our neighbors over for dinner, and we decided we needed to build a corn hole set, ric-rac some corn hole bags, maybe fill the bags with locally grown organic corn, make some corn hole accessories, and play a lot of corn hole, so that should provide a lot of material. Stay tuned.

>Rolling, Rolling, Rolling Part 2

>Tuesday the daycare poured out a bottle of Jack’s milk because they tried feeding it to him and he fell asleep. When he woke up the milk had expired. I have milk issues people! You can’t just feed the milk to other babies or pour it down the sink! I furiously turned to the internets for backup, but the internets seem to think that the milk needed to be poured out or else it would be spoiled. This never happened when Dave stayed home with Luke! Oh, yeah, he probably did not concern himself with milk storage guidelines and that was fine with everyone.

I left work at 3:15 to nurse Jack. Another baby was being fed when I got there, and I kid you not, the bottle had 10 ounces in it. I struggle to eek out three 4.5-5.5 ounce bottles a day. 10 ounces? Are you kidding me? It turns out there is this stuff called formula. All the babies drink it. All the babies except Jack that is, which may be why they don’t realize I’ll have a minor heart attack if they waste any milk. Long story short, I am awesome.

But the point is, after I fed Jack, the oldest kid in the infant room, who is anxiously awaiting a space in the toddler room, kept coming over and putting a big cube on Jack’s lap. Then Jack pushed it off, then the kid put it back and I realized: It’s time to start teaching this kid to play ball!

So, after dinner Jack sat on my lap, and Luke rolled us a ball. Jack picked it up, and threw it back. It was the greatest thing ever! Except when Luke got tired of rolling and felt the need to toss it so it landed exactly on Jack’s legs where he’d have an easy time picking it up. OK, that was fine, but when Luke missed it got a little worrisome. Luke was also constantly correcting my method of teaching Jack to roll a ball. I finally said, “Do you know how to roll a ball? Who do you think taught you? Yeah, that’s right, I did. I know how to teach someone to roll a ball. Do not question my methods.” Then when Jack spit out the pacifier in favor of gumming the ball, it was all over. You know, for someone who has had everything he ever wanted all to himself for 5 years, Luke isn’t that great about sharing his toys. Oh. Yeah. Got it. It’s only gonna get worse, kid.

>Man of Many Hats

>On Saturday we walked to breakfast and it was sunny and sort of warm. After breakfast it was sort of windy and cooler. On the way to the farmers market it appeared as if we were entering a rain cloud, but really, it was hail. I guess we missed the snow. We waited in the car for 3 minutes until the sun came out and Jack and Luke and I hit the farmers market. When we got home it was warm again, but still sweatshirt weather. Then it was tee-shirt weather, then back to sweatshirt weather. And do you know what kind of weather that is? It’s bonnet weather. Yes, bonnet weather.

When I was pregnant with Luke, and on bed rest, a really nice co-worker made us dinner once or twice a week. She was so nice that I invited her to my baby shower. In addition to a touch of pre-term labor, I was also afflicted with that other pregnancy thing. You know the one. Where you think everyone is as excited about your pregnancy as you are? Yeah. Poor lady. Anyway, she knitted a very beautiful yellow sweater, with a matching bonnet. I thought a bonnet was an odd choice for a baby boy, but she explained it this way, “It may seem old fashioned, but boys can wear bonnets too.”

And I have to say, Jack wore the heck out of that bonnet on Saturday.
Do I like this bonnet?

No, I love this bonnet!

Here is Luke, not a fan of the bonnet!

And here are some of the other hats/ensembles that Jack rocked on Saturday.
Here he is in a sweater that was maybe my brother’s, or maybe mine or my sister’s. No one knows. Also, his Boulder hippie hat.

And here is his Yosemite Sam look. He says, “Put me back in my bonnet!”

>Happy Mother’s Day

>
A year ago today, after months and years, and a harrowing first trimester, we announced to the world that we were expecting another baby. That was a very happy Mother’s Day for me. Not as happy as today, of course, since I have had 6 months with one little miracle, and 5 years with the other. Thank you family for another Happy Mother’s Day! I am so lucky.

I was not as lucky with my Mother’s Day gift ordering, which I proudly announced had been completely taken care of last Monday! Moms, your gift will be late. But for a preview, please click here. (Hint – don’t order any yet.)

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

>Weekend Recap

>

“Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.” OK, it was one of those weekends, but we had fun. I actually fed Jack this morning at 6am and the next thing it was 9:45 and the boys were home from the first trip of the day to Home Depot and they had a latte for me. I don’t think I have slept that late in years. (Of course I fed Jack at 11pm and 6am, but I feel very lucky.)

We took a lot of pictures this weekend and posed for a lot of pictures this weekend. I can’t wait to see how they all turned out. We gardened and painted at the daycare work day and then gardened all weekend at home too. The school Luke will attend in the fall has a community garden, and I came just short of volunteering to help out. But I thought, “Ugh I have to work in the daycare garden. I’ll just wait until next year to work in the kindergarten garden. But then I remembered that Jack will be at the daycare for another 5 years so I might as well volunteer now and figure out how to manage.

Segue to big news! Luke had kindergarten orientation on Friday. I think I was more nervous than he was. I had to describe Luke and I tried to describe him in an accurate, non-bragging manner. I said, “He likes to be outside; biking, hiking, and skiing. He also likes to build things and read books. But he doesn’t know how to read, but you know what I mean.” I felt very proud of myself when other parents were naming each individual word that their child can spell, but also sort of dishonest when one of the parents said their child was into “all things that fight, like knights, pirates and star wars.” Oops, I forgot about that sort of thing. But we both liked the teachers and the school so I think it is going to be great. The photo of Luke and I was from our big day.

>Da da da da AAAA Da Da

>I have spent this week trying to capture Jack’s babbling on video, but it’s been complicated. If he sees the camera he just stops talking and stares. Also, if I am talking to him, he stops talking and stares. So this leaves me with two options. I can pretend to ignore him and secretly aim the camera at him and hope to record the video without looking when he starts to babble. This has resulted in a 2 second video of my lap while I say, “What, it’s just starting now! I missed the whole thing?!” Or I can get someone else to try to get him to talk while I hover in the background. This has resulted in a video of Luke saying, “Jacky’s tummy looks like Mommy’s.” and then I can’t turn the camera off fast enough.

But I got a couple good ones at dinner tonight. Jack was getting sort of frustrated by this point, so his babbling is on the screechy side, but still so cute.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1153219832777339232&hl=en

>Hall Of Mirrors

>Dave spent a night in Arizona last week, so I took the kids out for dinner. We had sushi because we are a good yuppy family. We were seated in a tiny booth and the wall next to us was one giant mirror, and when Luke turned to say something to me he got distracted. “I thought there was a boy at a table next to us that looked just like me!” Luke likes to look at himself in the mirror. I give him the option of taking his time outs in his room or mine and he always picks mine. Recently, he was crying quite dramatically and Dave gave me the “What the heck?” look. I said, “Five bucks says he is standing in front of the mirror.” Oh yeah, Dave, you owe me 5 bucks. But back to dinner. Soon he noticed there was a mirror on the other wall too. “I can see myself over there! And I can see six Lukes!” (Reflection of a reflection and so on.)

I didn’t plan on the meal taking quite so long, but what with the mirrors and the chopsticks, and the looking at yourself in the mirror using chopsticks, it was quite the leisurely affair. And this meant that Jack wanted to eat, and yeah, I didn’t bring his/my privacy blanket. No worry, the linen napkins were on the large side. So I was trying to feed Jack, and I had us covered with a linen napkin, and I looked in the mirror to my right and we were clear, and I looked in the mirror to my left and we were clear. I looked back to the right, and back to the left. Clear. I made eye contact with the waiter, and if he’s able to make eye contact, then good, he’s not seeing anything else. And I look down and make eye contact with Jack, who has stopped eating and casually tossed off the linen napkin. And I don’t need to look in the mirror at the 6 copies of myself to see that I am exposing myself to the entire room. I covered Jack up and started over and the entire process was repeated about 3 times.

I am not the most modest person in the world, but I think all the mirrors did me in. Because the next day I was pumping in the lactation room and I heard someone talking really loudly, so loudly it seemed like they were in the room with me and I thought, “Oh. My. God. I forgot to shut the door. I am in the lactation room, pumping, and the door isn’t even CLOSED!” But the door was closed. I think I was just delirious because it was late afternoon and all I had packed for lunch was Luke’s leftover kid’s meal, which was a tiny square of tofu and about 7 edamame, and I had eaten it at about 10:30. And someone was talking really loudly right outside the door.

>Day at the Park

>Today we did some yard work, played some baseball in the yard with a few neighborhood kids and then headed to the park for a family outing. Very All-American. I can’t believe I didn’t think to make apple pie today! But I did make granola yesterday so, close enough.

We packed some snacks, the stroller, the sling, sunscreen, a picnic blanket, a magazine for me to read, and Dave’s fishing stuff and headed to the park. The picture above is from two summers ago. Good times.

This park has a great playground and the first thing Luke wanted to do was talk through the intercom. You can’t see from one speaker thingy to the other, which I guess makes it more interesting. We had this conversation:

Me: Hi, can you hear me?
Luke: Can you hear me mama?
Me: I can hear you, can you hear me?
Luke: Yeah.
Me: This is fun. What do you want to do next?
Luke: Dada
Me: Daddy is fishing. Do you want to go on the slide?
Luke: Dada.
Me: Are you saying dada?
Luke: Mommy, I’m behind you. A baby wanted to use the intercom, so I let him.

Nice – he left me talking to a baby.

Then Luke wanted to be pushed on the swings, which was really fun. I had Jack in the sling, and every time I pushed Luke, Jack laughed hysterically. So cute.

Then we walked around for a while, picked the perfect spot, laid out the blanket, got Jack out of the stroller, started to get the snacks out, and “Mama. I have to go to the bathroom.” Okaaaaay. So I packed everything and everyone back up and we walked all the way to one end of the park where the bathrooms are, but they were not yet open for the season. So we walked all the way to the other side of the park where there are two porta potties and three young baggy pants wearing gentleman. As we approached, I saw one go in one of the bathrooms and one start to go into one of the bathrooms but then change his mind. We had this conversation:

Me: Is that bathroom really gross?
Young Gentleman: Yeah.
Me: OK. We’ll wait.
Young Gentleman: Well, uh. I think it’s gross. You might not.
Me: Do I look like I have lower bathroom standards than you do?
Young Gentleman: Sorry.

Regardless, I am glad I had Purell with me.

In other news, we went to see our friends’ brand new super cute 8 pound 6 day old baby. It’s been a little over 5 months since my 6 pound 10 ounce baby was born and I have a good memory, but I don’t believe Jack was ever that small. I think my friends’ baby maybe really only weighs 4 pounds, and they are just a little confused. Or else the gravitational pull on the earth has shifted and 8 pounds is different than it was 5 months ago. That might explain my own weight too!