Jack's first haircut

On April 22nd Jack got his first haircut....without me.  I'm not going to lie... I was furious!  Brian cut it in the bathroom while I was cleaning up after dinnertime.  I had no idea that Jack was getting a shaved head until they came back into the living room afterwards.  My poor baby.  Good thing he's cute because his haircut WAS NOT!  Brian used a #1 to buzz Jack's hair with so it was super short.  It was also patchy and still had some long wispies.  I almost cried. 

I wanted to take Jack to Hargrave's Barber Shop which is an old-fashioned barber shop owned by a distant relative.  I wanted to take pictures.  I wanted to be there to experience my only son's one and only first haircut.  I wanted to see his reaction to the buzzing of the clippers.  I wanted it to be cut just a little to shape it up.  I did not want him to be taken to Hargrave's Butcher Shop! 

Oh well.  Brian and Jack had a father/son moment.  If nothing else it was definitely MEMORABLE!

Mom, look what Dad did to me!

ALL of his hair.  Where's the superglue so I can put it back???

Jack at thirteen months

Words that he says:  Dada, Halle (hi-eee), Jack, hey, hi, banana (baaa), here (hih), thankyou (thih-thoo) firetruck (iii- uh).  He still refuses to say mama.

Lazy boy is not walking.  He will pull up and cruise while holding on, but his preferred method of transportation is crawling.  He started bear crawling last week, so I think he is really close to walking. 

He loves to go outside.  He loves to play with sticks and play in the sandbox.

I'm sure I'm biased, but he seems bright.  He figures out how to do stuff.  He knows how to knock a ball off of the tee using a bat (while sitting of course....because he's lazy.)  I've seen him try to dribble a ball after he saw Halle doing it.  He attempted a push-up after seeing me do one.  And he's been doing the swiping motion on my iPhone since he was six months old.  It's intriguing to watch a toddler figure things out on their own. 

He eats, and eats, and eats.  The boy can put away some food.  Which is probably why he is in the 92nd percentile for his weight.  He's got a big ole head-  97th percentile.  And he's a shorty-  14th percentile.

Bath time is a favorite of his.  He loves to make big splashes and play with his bath toys. 

His poops are like clockwork.   Two every single day....Before 10 am.  Is that a guy thing? 

He sleeps about 12 hours at night.  He loves his big teddy bear and his blanket.  He sucks his thumb while he sleeps. 

He says vroom vroom when he plays with cars.  This is my favorite thing to watch him do.

he is pushing the ball around with a bat

Jack cruising around the table.  He always has a plumber's crack so I decided to keep his diaper up with suspenders.  ;)

Just enjoying being outside.  He will sit outside for hours playing with grass and sticks and dirt.

Straw Drinking Lesson

There's probably many ways to teach a baby how to drink from a straw.

But just in case you wanted to learn the Bobbie Hargrave method (tried and true 3 babies in a row), here it is......

Baby age: 12 months
Time this method takes: approx 30 seconds

1)with one hand hold drink of choice and stick straw in baby's mouth
2)with other hand pinch baby's nose completely shut
3)keep holding nose as baby flails around because he/she doesn't like the nose pinching
4)try not to poke baby in the eye with the straw while the flailing is occuring
5)keep holding until baby is forced to take a breath through mouth
6)baby will then involuntarily suck in the drink
7)baby gets surprised that the drink is coming through the straw and will either a)get scared or b)be pleasantly surprised.  do not be alarmed if the baby gets scared.  this is only temporary.
8)baby overcomes the initial reaction and enjoys drinking from the straw.

Congratulations on completely this lesson.

 Now go put those baby nose-pinchers to use.

Four Words

Jack has four words. His first word was mama, but he has since retired it.  :(  I can't get him to say it for anything.  Boo!

His four words are "Dada," "baba" for bottle, "Hi-ha" for Halle, and "i-yah" for the rest of the English language.

Depending on the word he is trying to say, "i-yah" sounds different.  For example, a brush may be "i-YAH" and car may be "IIIIIIIIIIII-yah."

"I-yah" sometimes comes out sounding like a Karate chop.  You know, like "Hi-yah!" but without the h.  He says it likes this when he's really excited.

Congratulations, now you know how to speak Jack.  

Moving Forward

This post reminds me of a funny story that Brian has shared with me several times.  I love hearing Brian give his account of it: 
When Brian was a teenager, he owned a truck.  Being the typical teenage boy up to no good and being bored one day he decided to take his truck mudding.  He ragged his truck out that day.  I don't know exactly how he did it, but his mudding excursion ended up breaking his truck.  Scared to death of his dad finding out that his recklessness caused the damage, he managed to get his truck to a car wash to clean it up.  He washed away all of the dried clumps of mud from his truck until it was sparkly clean and beautiful.  To hear Brian tell it, it was spotless, and there was no trace of evidence.  He told his dad when he showed up, "I don't know what happened to it.  It just broke down."  Except Brian forgot one teeny-tiny detail.  He forgot to wash the whole undercarriage.  The entire bottom was still caked with mud.  Well his dad, being a smart dad, figured out in no time that Brian wasn't so innocent in the matter.  He was one pissed off dad. 

This was the problem with the truck.  It wouldn't drive forward.  It only drove in reverse.  His dad, very angry, his left hand on the steering wheel, his head turned over his shoulder, resting his right arm over the bench seat, drove that truck from the car wash. all. the. way. home.... in REVERSE!  He drove several miles.  He drove down Cypresswood, across 249, and into the neighborhood, periodically glaring at Brian through the front windshield as Brian followed behind in his dad's car.  He got majorly grounded for that one.  Ha!  I love hearing Brian tell the story. 

So I don't know if my husband passed on his irreversible misfortune (see what I just did right there?), or if this is something common with babies, but my children seem to get themselves stuck in reverse when learning to become mobile.  Arden and Jack, especially, had problems going forward in the baby walkers and while crawling.  They would see something in front of them and try to go toward it.  Their mind would say go forward but their bodies ended up going backwards instead.  This caused them lots of frustration.  For the past month Jack has been sliding all around the floor, pushing himself backwards.  He would get so mad when his object of desire kept getting farther and farther away.  He then learned that if he wanted something all he needed to do was turn AWAY from it and go backwards to get it.... pretty comical to watch.

I have a baby calendar that I keep track of Jack's baby milestones with.  I had been impatiently waiting to mark the calendar with the "crawling" sticker, but didn't feel right denoting the achievement with him still in crab-mode.  These are the things I stress about.  I know, I need help.  So, finally on Saturday, to my delight, I added the sticker; he actually moved FORWARD!  Yay!  He crawled!  It's only an army crawl, but it's a start in the right direction. 

 

I have a really cute video of Arden stuck in reverse-mode at Jack's age, but unfortunately wasn't able to load it on here.  So here's a few more pictures of Jack in his crawling endeavors. 

Trying to crawl

planking

his expression is funny

And finally just a sweet picture of Jack when he fell asleep in his walker.  such a sweetheart

 

   

Jack's First Word

Brian and I have been battling to get Jack to say his first word.  Brian tried hard to get Jack to say "Dada," and of course I was working on "Mama."  We would o back and forth, "Say Mama!  Mama, mama, mama, mama."  Brian would retort with, "Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada!." 

Well Jack finally picked a side last week.  He said "Mama!"  More like "Mmmmm mammm muh."  I don't care, I'll take it! 

Brian's argument is that Dada is harder to say.  I say he's a sore loser.  :)

Six Months +

Jack has had quite a few firsts recently.



First time in a playground swing 9/23



First time to hold his bottle 9/25

First time in a jumper 10/1



First time to sit in a high chair and first time to taste ice cream.  He attacked this poor cone. 10/4

First time to eat finger foods 10/13

First time to sit like a big boy in the shopping cart 10/14

And just a few more pictures because he's so cute.

Jack at 4 Months

I can't believe time has gone by so quickly. Jack is almost five months old! These past few weeks as a four month old have been very busy for this little guy. He has had a lot of "Firsts."

Jack has learned to roll onto his tummy.  This is his preferred way of sleeping now.  There is almost always a leg or arm hanging off the edge.

He also rolls from his tummy to his back.  Here is one of the first shots of him learning how to do it.

I happened to get a picture of Jack noticing his toes for the very first time! 

First Vacation.  Jack and Dad hanging out at Gigi's condo on Lake Conroe.