Crawling!

Eight Months and on the move!

Jackson is 8 months old today, that sounds so old, he is 2/3 of a year already, we can't believe it! We are enjoying parenthood and our time with him more and more with each passing day and I cannot express enough how absolutely amazing it is to watch a person develop from just a brand new newborn into a little person with wants, needs, expressions, personality, tastes, likes, dislikes, etc. It is such a joy having him in our lives! We are so fortunate to have such a happy and healthy little boy. Today we are proud to announce that he officially began really crawling. Up on all fours, moving in a FORWARD motion (all this past week he has been struggling to get the coordination down and had been going backwards or off to the side) but tonight while playing in his room before bedtime and listening to his music (the wheels on the bus is now his favorite song) he just hauled off and crawled across the room! I got all kinds of toys out and put them at all ends of the room once I saw him do it once just to make sure I was really actually seeing him crawl and time after time he got up on all fours and just took off across the room to get whatever toy I put out......time to child proof the house, he already figured out how to dismantle his night light and take it OUT of the outlet before my eyes tonight...uh oh.....

where have the last two weeks gone??!!

Where in the world have the last two weeks and for that matter, the month of JANUARY GONE?? We've been sick this month, and it is like the past few weeks did not happen and suddnely I woke up today and it is January 25th,ugh!! Jon turned 29 on Friday, and Jack was good while we went out for a quick bite and celebration Friday night at Beef O'Brady's (local sports restaurant Jon likes) despite the fact that I was still feeling quite under the weather. It was so bad, that I woke up Saturday and instead of just my left ear being clogged, BOTH ears were totally clogged and I was still majorly congested, I had a hair cut and color and went despite the fact that I felt like I should have been driving to the hospital, not the salon but I had already cancelled once due to sickness, priorities!!!

I got home and Jon said I needed to go to the clinic so I took a nap for an hour and then got up and drove myself to yet another walk in clinic (why do these things always happen on weekends)!!?? I got ear drops, a nose spray and another prescription since the z pack was not responding to the cold that has been plaguing me. The ears did seem to get better and maybe it was the placebo effect of having seen a doctor but I did start to feel better last night. Then I woke up this morning and the ears were both clogged AGAIN. Seriously, the doc I saw yesterday said if the ears have not drained somehow in a few days I will need to see an ENT to do some sort of procedure to get the fluid out of my ears........eek, I don't have time for this but I have to be able to hear! Doing business last week was interesting and miserable at the same time. I'm hoping for a better, healthier and more normal week this week.

All in all, despite the cold still hanging on we had a good and relaxing weekend. I got caught up on the laundry and the house is clean again and stocked with groceries again, we were really getting down to bare bones around here after the past two weeks of me being out of commission. In the midst of it all I got a sweet momma mobile volvo station wagon, and we still have the saab to clean up and turn into the dealer, we need to take a picture with our new wheels and we'll post that soon, it's just been too crazy to even do that. It is white with tan leather and very cute, the V70 which is their biggest wagon so we have lots of room to grow in this car and should have it for a long while! The first day I drove Jack in it I could tell he knew it was not our usual wheels, funny to see the look on his face but now it is like that is the car he always been in!!

Today we mostly hung around the house and got our chores done and tried to rest up for the coming week but we did find time to enjoy a gorgeous warm winter day here and get out in the sun and attend the Sebastian art and music fair down along the river. This is comparable to the ann arbor art show as far as quality of artists, but about 1/4 the size. It was great and we even got some Christmas surprises for next year to take north.

Jack is developing more and more each and every day. We put up a small book case in his room today and arranged all of his books and some stuffed animals to make them more accessible since he is now more and more into the books and toys and playing in his room. He has a cd player in his room that he LOVES, he loves any music we put on for him. Favorites include Jimmy Buffets greatest hits that we listen to during the week in the mornings when he is getting up and dressed, and also a nursery rhymes cd where kids sing all kinds of songs, a favorite is John Jacob Jingle Hymer Schmitt for now........he can now get himself from a laying down to sitting position and can pull himself up to a standing position in his crib. He is even so smart as to use pillows and the bumper in his crib to "stack" and make himself taller.......uh oh, I took the decorative "Jackson" pillow out of his crib once I saw how he was using it....he can also crawl now, although he really only goes backwards and not forward yet and today we watched him master opening and closing the cabinet door on the bookcase in our family room. This exercise entertained him (and us) for about 30 minutes this afternoon, just opening and shutting the door and being so proud of himself. We are working on teaching him some basic sign language, mostly just the symbols for "milk" and "more" for now. I want to teach him "bed" too. The book we have said these are the three most common so we'll see how that goes. It is a real joy to watch him grow and develop day by day and see what he figures out how to do next! Here are some recent pictures of bathtime, getting ready for bed and play time on his car. Have a great weeke everyone..........

getting better, slowly and steadily

We have had quite a week, actually more than a week as this started last week Saturday so now we've been through two weekends and one full work week (or lack thereof due to the mass illness in our house of both Jackson and mommy). Jack is definitely starting to act like himself again today, he is playing more and less fussy and taking longer naps than normal to catch up on the lost sleep. I just PRAY that we all will stay well now for a long long time. My nose is still pretty congested and Jack and I both have quite the cough but I think we have finally turned the corner. Here are some pictures from the week, poor baby taking his first breathing treatment and feeling lousy, cuddling with daddy, and then today in his comfy Browns gear from Papa, relaxing and playing with his toys as he is starting to feel better. He has a choo choo train from Great Grandma Lynn that he now knows how to start by pushing the right button to make the balls come out, and he has a basketball hoop that he now knows to throw a ball through to make the "yeah" noise. The funny thing is, he takes the balls from the train toy and then throws the balls through the basketball hoop in the other toy!! Tomorrow is MLK day so we get one more day off, although I have to go to the podiatrist to get my toe nail fixed, ugh and I have a ton of work to catch up on so I think Jack will go to school for at least part of the day so I can do the doctor's appointment and my work and Jon can go to work too. My office is closed, but his is not. Have a good week everyone...we're expecting mid 70's today, but in a few days we will have frigid temps for Florida, lows at night in the mid 30's, the heat will be on!!!

surviving the week

We are continuing to survive the week of sickness. Jackson does seem to be doing better today, the fever is down and does not seem to be spiking as often or as high, phew, we were still up a few times last night and did a breathing treatment around midnight but that was a better night than about the previous 5. He is still really really congested though and when he coughs it takes it all out of him. Jon has him at the doctor now for a re-check, I now have the full-blown disease so am home from work again today, ugh. I am hoping if I rest today we will all be well enough to go back to work and school tomorrow, I have deadlines at work to meet tomorrow as well as a client appointment I cannot miss. Good thing this upcoming weekend is a long one due to MLK day on Monday. I will have to work on files this weekend to catch my hours up, but that's how it goes. We did not have any plans anyways. Right now we are focused on getting healthy, I really hope that Jon does not get this bug. Last time Jackson was really sick Jon got it and I did not, I have it this time so hopefully it misses him.

what a day!

So I ended up staying home with Jackson today, he was just so sick and pathetic, I could not leave him, plus none of us got any real sleep for the past three nights so there was just no way I could go to work. Jackson is still running a very high fever and very very congested in the nose and chest and all around miserable so I made an appointment with our ped today. We saw her at 1:30, she tested him for RSV and the flu, he has RSV for the SECOND time, different strain this time (lucky us) and this time it is worse than the last time he had an upper respiratory virus. He has no ear infection this time, so no antibiotics since RSV is viral and not bacterial. His chest and wheezing were pretty bad though so he had a nebulizer treatment in the doctor's office, and when she still did not like the rate of his breathing and his overall looks after that, we got to do the added exercise of going TO THE HOSPITAL for a chest x-ray. They made me sit with him, sick as a dog, in a waiting room full of people for over an hour before the x-ray. We waited so long (and this is after already having been through the ordeal of being at the ped's office where we were for over an hour) that he fell asleep in my arms in the lobby, and slept through the first half of the x-ray! He only woke up when we had to turn him on his side for the side shot. After the x-ray we had to wait about another hour for the x-ray to be ready, then go back to the ped (luckily her office is right next to the hospital) and have her read the x-ray and go through it all with us. She was livid when we got there that they had made us wait so long for the x-ray with a baby when she was trying to rule out pneumonia and told me she personally called radiology and gave them hell so that made me feel a bit better. When all was said and done, Jackson does not have pneumonia (phew) he is likely going to be an asthma kid as every single thing he gets settles deeply into his chest (just like me) and we are now the very proud owners of our very own nebulizer machine, complete with a pacifier adapter for him to take his treatments, the paci hooks up to the machine and tubing, and then the treatment mist comes out the top of the paci and he breathes it in....genious!! He also has the mask and another attachment but for now the paci works. He has to have the treatments every 6 hours or so. He will be home with Jon tomorrow as he is still running a rather high fever due to the RSV but after that if the school teachers cannot give it to him, I will have to go at the end of my lunch hours and give him his treatment. I am hoping they can do it, I do have a note from the doctor, but the rules are funny about administering medicine so we'll see. He has to go for a re-check of his lungs and ears on Wednesday morning. What a fun week we are having and I am feeling like I am starting to come down with the cruddy cold, ugh.

weekend fun

We've had a fun weekend with our visitors, Jason and Jessica from Columbus...they were SO happy to escape winter and another massive snow and ice storm to swap it out for the sun and the beach. Here are some pictures from our afternoon today, the beach was more crowded than we have ever seen, it was unseasonably warm this weekend and the past few weeks, almost like late spring/early summer here. It won't last long, the high is 60 on Friday with lows in the 40's, that's cold considering we do not have furnaces in our houses here!!! Have a great week everyone, poor Jackson is fighting another nasty nasty cold that he woke up with on Saturday, hopefully the time passes fast as that seems to be the only cure for this, he will be home with daddy tomorrow continuing to fight it off, he is pretty miserable but the fresh air outside today did him some good.

recent pictures of the little man

and here are some pictures of Jackson just playing at home with his new things from Christmas!

Pictures, finally

Here are some pictures of our re-arranged furniture and rooms. You can't get the full idea unless you've been to our house before, and we're still hanging some pictures, etc. The new tv in the living room will be hung on the wall, but the mount has not arrived yet so for now it is sitting on the buffet on it's stand. We have six chairs for the kitchen table and only really need four now so the leaf is stored away, but we still have six chairs out....have to find somewhere to store those extra two chairs! Jason and Jessica are coming for the weekend tomorrow and we are excited to see them! We'll post pictures from our visit. Have a great weekend everyone, TGIF, this was a rough week getting back to work full time and back into the swing of things.

New year brings new inspiration for projects!!

Those of you who know me know that I do NOT need a new year to inspire me to work hard and take on projects but.......it does not hurt either!! We are in full project mode at the present time at our house. With Jackson eating several meals a day in the high chair now we were in desperate need of more usable living space and mostly an eat in kitchen! I had a little brainstorm around Halloween or so and talked Jon into flip flopping the family room (our back room off the kitchen) with the front living room. The living room is the biggest room in the house and we rarely use it and did not even have enough furniture to really furnish it correctly. So...yesterday we made a trip to Orlando to buy some additional furniture and when we got home we took the big sectional from the family room and after A LOT of attempts, settled on a position for it in the living room, moved the piano to a different wall in the living room, and also moved the crystal and silver cabinet to the dining room where it belonged, took the leaf out of the dining room table to make more space in there and voila.......we bought a white pedestal 6 top kitchen table and 6 matching chairs and cushions and put it where the couch used to be in the family room, and then split the space with two khaki recliner chairs and a table between the two chairs to make a casual sitting area for us in front of the built in bookcase. Now the front room is for entertaining and watching tv with larger groups, the back room is more of our family space and it works really well for us. I am EXHAUSTED, as is Jon so we will post pictures later on! Have a great week everyone. We're crossing our fingers that our Christmas gifts finally arrive tomorrow from Ohio....UPS is SLOW, they were dropped off last week SATURDAY........per the trackign info., they are supposed to get here tomorrow. Let's hope so!!

Happy New Year!

Here's to wishing 2009 brings great things for all of our family and friends.....other than the birth of Jackson, 2008 was pretty rough and a year a lot of people want to forget. We can only hope 2009 brings a little bit of relief:) We're home today just enjoying our house and another day off. Most of Christmas is put away, we've got to get the bins back into the attic but it's all down and packed away safely for next year. We're anxiously awaiting the UPS delivery tomorrow of all of our gifts...it will be like Christmas all over again:) Have a great day everyone.