Say Cheeeeeze

I mean seriously...who taught this kid to smile?????

Look at Andrew, all sweet with his hands folded quietly in his lap looking like a normal baby at the camera with that "what's that thing you're pointing at me" look on his face. Then there's Jackson. I'm afraid in wanting to document his 'babyhood' so badly, and taking thousands of pictures, I've created a monster, a total camera hog. I do like that you can see his new teeth though and it did stop him from banging that cute little hammer that makes a boing boing sound and lights up every time you hit something with it.

Trauma #1

Well we knew it was bound to happen sooner or later.....that dreaded question you ask yourself when your child gets sick and the doctor's office is closed. Do we make the trip to the ER or are we overreacting? We consider ourselves fortunate that this is the first time we have had to deal with this. By this time with my niece Emmy, my brother had made this trip at least 1/2 dozen times.

Anyway, Jackson's babysitter called Friday afternoon and told us he woke up from his nap with a fever of 103. Of course I freaked out but she said she thought he had gotten hot from his nap because his fever was down to 100.5 within 1/2 hour. John said he was fine on the way home but the minute he saw me he burst into tears. His fever was 100.7 and although I'm told that's not high for a baby I was still worried. I thought maybe it could be teething but wasn't really sure about that, and what if it was more serious, so we went over to Cook's trauma center. I highly recommend that for anyone with kids. We got in fairly fast and got excellent care.

The doctor checked him all out, ears were clear, throat wasn't red so they decided to take blood. That was heartbreaking. A paramedic and a male nurse had to hold him down while the phlebotomist tried to draw the blood from his right arm (I stupidly thought they would take it from his heel). She couldn't find a vein and I was getting frustrated watching her dig that needle around in his arm, he's screaming of course, so I think I said something like "how bout you take that out of his arm and try something else". I'm sure she wasn't too happy but I've had that happen before and it hurt me and I'm an adult, not a 9 month old baby. So the paramedic tried in his left arm and managed to find the vein quickly. Poor baby, he had to go through getting stuck twice..... but what do you do, they needed to determine whether he had an infection since the cause of his fever wasn't obvious. He screamed so much during that ordeal that he wore himself out and fell asleep in my arms while we were waiting for the results. The paramedic was so nice, he later told us he has a 16 month old.

The doctor said his white blood cell count was extremely low which signals he has a virus of some kind. She said a stomach virus was going around so expect him to probably start throwing up over the next couple days. So ok, we weren't looking forward to that but at least we knew what it was and we weren't sitting at home wondering what we should do for him. One of the other kids at the babysitter had a stomach virus last week but never ran a fever.

Since Friday he has run a fever anywhere from 99.5 to 100.7 but that's pretty much all that has happened, other than he is really tired. He'll be crawling across the floor and just lay his head down on the floor. Saturday and Sunday morning both he laid in my lap and watched a Dora video and fell asleep on and off. He never snuggles like that so he must be feeling bad. Other than the fever he hasn't had anything else wrong. He actually seems to feel better today so we're hoping we made it without going through the bad stuff. So I probably overreacted on rushing him to the doctor and I'm sure that won't be the last time. Jackson seems to play a little rougher everyday so before we left I did ask them if they did stitches there.......those of you with boys, they do!

We thank God there wasn't anything seriously wrong with Jackson. All I could think about after they took blood from him was I don't know how parents of critically ill children do it. I can't imagine having to watch your child undergo painful medical procedures on a regular basis.

I forgot to mention that we had plans to go out Friday night for John's birthday, which is today. My friend Teri was going to come over and watch Jackson for us after her daughter's christmas party at her dance studio. And we offered to let her son, Drew hang out with us instead of going to a party with a bunch of girls. Unfortunately he got stuck going to Cook's with us and was such a good sport. We tried to make up for it when we got home with pizza and video games but he'll probably tell his mom to wait in the driveway next time she brings him over just to make sure we're not going to drag him to another hospital!

9 Months Already

I can't believe Jackson is over 9 months old already. The past 9 months certainly went by faster than the 9 months before that. Today we went to the Doctor for his 9 month checkup. He tipped the scales at 21.2 lbs and 30 inches long. He's in the 50% for weight and 95% for height so looks like he definitely inherited John's height (thank you!). The only thing is his feet are really small - he's wearing 0-6 month shoes so I hope his feet catch up or he may just tip over, not mention look pretty silly.

Of course at the checkup they ask you all the normal questions about what they're eating, how they're sleeping, etc. She said she wanted him to give up the bottle by age 1 but I don't know that I'm going to stick hard and fast to that. I feel like I'm being forced to give up my little baby and I'm not ready for that. I'm sure he'll give it up before he goes to kindergarten and that's good enough for me.

So then she asked us about all the other stuff he is doing. She asked if he was saying any words and he is. So far he says ba-ba, ball, bye-bye, mama and dada. I also got him to say uh-oh a few times the other day but have been unsuccessful since. She asked if he was crawling (oh yeah!) and pulling up (another big yes) and he's also learned to sit down. That only took about a week of him getting frustrated by being stuck in a standing position. I looked over one day and he was bending his knees and squatting down and from then on he has been able to sit himself down. Of course now it's up, down, up, down, up, down. She asked if he understood the word no and when he heard her say that he shook his head no so he answered her question. That was pretty funny. We were talking about a ball being his favorite toy and I told her John has taught him to throw a ball but she didn't believe me, but he really can. Of course it isn't much of a throw but if you roll it to him and hold your hands out he holds it up tries to throw it. No guarantee on where it will go but it's a good effort. Oh and yesterday I saw him try to clap and couldn't get him to do it again but then tonight every time I say "Yeah Jackson" when he did something he sat down and clapped for himself...too cute! So of course like all parents we think we have a genius on our hands. I told myself I would never be THAT parent but sad to say I am.

So today was a good day. We managed to leave the house on time this morning thanks to some help from John. I got so see my little man in the middle of the day. And we got to visit the doctor without getting shots. Yep, it was a very good day.

And we are so grateful to God for blessing us with such a wonderful, happy, healthy baby boy!

Water Baby

We have been super busy the past week, as I'm sure everyone else has too with Christmas just around the corner. I tried to get some good Christmas pictures of Jackson but unfortunately he either had a runny nose in all of them or was trying to kiss his Christmas puppy so none turned out good yet but I'll keep trying for that special one to send out with the Christmas cards. I did think this one was pretty cute.

Friday night John and I went to my Company Christmas party and Jackson stayed with our friends in Azle, Ron and Tracy. I called to check on him about 9 and all I heard was laughing and squealing so I know he was having a good time. We picked him up around noon and he must have just been completely worn out from playing with Tracy because he laid down for a nap at 3:30 and I finally woke him up at 6:30. He ate and played a little but then went right back to bed at 8. Next time he quits sleeping through the night I know where to send him!

My feelings weren't too hurt that he went to bed at 8 though since my Sooners played for the Big 12 Championship Saturday night and the game started at 8. (they won and set an NCAA record for the most consecutive games scoring over 60 points!) Tune in to watch them (probably get beat) when they play Florida for the National Championship on January 8th.

Anyway to my point of this post......Jackson absolutely loves to take a bath. He loved being in the pool last summer and I'm sure he will be even more excited next summer when he's a little older. He never has seems scared of the water and if you give him a cup he will fill it and drink the bath water. Of course he has no self control and dumps the entire cup down his throat so we don't let him do that anymore. Now he will get on his hands and knees and put his face in the water and lap the water up like a dog. Seriously we do give him water and milk to drink but you would think the kid never gets enough to drink. He also does the funniest thing when the water is running. He will try to grab the water with his fingers and put it in his mouth, then every once in a while put his tongue under the running water to try to get some on his tongue. It's so funny...if you have ever watched a cat try to lap water from a running faucet, that is what he looks like. I left the camera in the bathroom for several days to try to get video of this which of course then he stopped doing it and just kept giving me the goofy I know you're taking my picture smile. I do love this picture though since it's the only good one I have where you can see his little bottom teeth.

Anyway, finally I got a short video of him doing the drinking from the faucet thing although it's sort of hard to tell. Watch his mouth, you can see even though he's not close to the running water he's trying to lap it up. I didn't get a shot of it in this video but sometimes he will just stick his mouth right under the faucet and drink. I'm sure he'll be drinking from the hose this summer!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Well with Thanksgiving over, it was time to break out the Christmas decorations. In an effort to keep Jackson from bringing down the tree we put it back in the corner by the couch on top of a low round table. We strung all the lights and while the boys were taking Sunday naps I hung all the ornaments. I was all ready for them to wake up and couldn't wait to see Jackson's big smile and eyes full of wonder at all the lights. Baby's first Christmas - it's supposed to be a magical moment right?

What I didn't expect was his reaction. For whatever reason he is scared to death of the tree. Not the ornaments. I got him to touch one of those but he will absolutely not touch the branches of the tree, and every time I try to coax him into touching it he starts crying. We were a little disappointed in his reaction but after thinking it over for a while, maybe it's not such a bad thing that he doesn't want to touch it????

While picking up more decorations I couldn't resist this little puppy that sings Christmas carols. Jackson loves dogs and frankly John and I are tired or crawling around on the floor barking so I thought this would be the perfect little surprise. As you can see from the video, he seems to like it. Then just like he does with all his favorite toys he takes it down for a little lip lock at the end.