Happy Skills

That is, skills that make us happy. Jackson's include:

Being healthy


Keeping a line of drool always at hand


Giving kisses


And getting into everything--via the booty scoot (scooting while sitting)






Mine include practicing my new found stay-at-home-mommy skills :

Quilting (at it's most basic level possible, using free fabric)





And photographing:



And despite my snobbish feelings against the cupcake fad, I even pulled a few of those out this week too. Super yummy recipe found on my amazing friend's recipe website. No beautiful food pics. Sorry. I'm still working on my food photographing skills.
[Biggest hurdle is taking the picture before I consume.]

Grateful

My parent's car was broken into last week and their laptop was stolen. My dad, said it was the biggest blessing. Amazingly, the thief stole a brand new $600 laptop that had no valuable information, and left the $4,000 Saxaphone that was sitting in the front seat.

It was a story I needed to hear.

Jackson's 3rd time sick in 3 weeks makes for a really grateful mom.

Grateful he was healthy the first 9 months of his life.

Grateful I get these cute smiles when he's not sick:

(Don't mind the food stains all over the sides of his high chair. Washing it 1x a week is plenty)

Grateful we can sleep in until 9 am when he's awake with a fever for long chunks at night.

Grateful for internet that allows for rescheduling in an instant.

Grateful for 60 degree weather in the middle of February.

Grateful for baby Tylenol.

Grateful for a small house. Less cleaning, less distance between my bed and Jackson's at 3 am.

The Sound Industry

In the realm of creating sound, the little man has a lot to live up to. We did not name him after Jackson Browne but, he has shown all sorts of signs that show great potential of a music themed career (unfortunately for Mark, there are fewer signs of his professional athletic potential).

He's got great ears. When my friend Jenny babysit Jackson a couple weekends ago, we were all worried how it would go. Not because of Jenny's capabilities, but because of Jackson's attachment issues. Thankfully, Jenny reported he did quite well. She had her itunes playing for most of the evening, and she said all fussiness would stop whenever a reggae song would come on. Case in point. Great ears.

Of course he also responds well to vacuums. He even manages to use his hands to respond to the various innuendos and dynamics of the buzzing sounds.

(you may want to turn down your volume before starting this one)

Besides being a great audience member, Jackson has moved into the sphere of improv performing. He's making spontaneous sounds on purpose. Like clapping. It's taken a while to figure out how to hit all the chub together, but he's caught on and seems to enjoy his mad skills.

Along with clapping, he's making vocal sounds. Some are more interpretable than others. This growl does not have a consistent meaning yet. But hey, who said music had to mean something!

I love hearing his music babble. His little tones go up and down as he says baby jibberish. A few weeks ago in church he took to singing as loud as he could during the opening hymn. I was so proud. He also loves singing into his sippy cup or bottle. It doesn't make for the most effective source of liquid but it sure is cute.

On the speaking side, he is saying "ma ba and da" all the time, and we're pretty sure he now associates da with Mark. Phew! It was a huge relief to have Mark be the first to have a name. Jackson is now capable of calling for Da, and not Ma!

Potentially Embarrassing

We were able to capture Jackson's signature move on film. There have only been a few times in his life when this wasn't a reoccurring event throughout the day. It stopped when rice and bananas entered his life, but carrots get everything going again. Since carrots are cheap, easy and my personal favorite, we eat a lot of those, which means a lot of this:

Along with pooping, we do a lot vanity checks. Jackson has yet to leave the stage of self fascination. Mirrors are still the most exciting thing man could have created.

The only time he doesn't want to look into the mirror is when he gets to take a bath. We'll stand at the bathroom mirror, and I'll ask "where's Jackson" in that high mommy voice, expecting him to glance excitedly at the mirror, but instead I am completely ignored. He looks straight at the water pumping his arms and legs in excitement. Definitely the favorite time of the day.


Another favorite time of the day is when we get to be social. Jackson and I stopped by our next door neighbor's house last week for their daughter's 1st birthday party. Now, we are aware of Jackson's tendency to hit on older women...


...but we learned he's not so used to the younger gals coming after him. The birthday girl, Samantha, came over to say hi to Jackson. Jackson was all excited to have a new friend, and started chatting up a storm and reaching for her. Suddenly, SHE started leaning in toward him. "Oh she wants to give him a kiss!" her parents commented. So she gave him her version of a kiss. And then another, and another. After about 10 kisses, Jackson looked quite flabbergasted at his new roll as the sought after man. Though we did not capture the moment there, his face looked somewhat like this:

I think he'll need some time to digest this new roll.