He's Growing Up So Fast

So many new things this week! All of a sudden, he's growing up super fast *sniff*. I know I've posted pictures of him on his tummy before, but I thought this one was pretty cute:

 Hmm, fascinating

One of the most exciting developments for me is that he is sometimes napping on his own now, woo hoo! For some reason, the only place he'll go down for a nap on his own is the couch, but hey, whatever works!

 Sleeping like an angel

Okay, 5 minutes after that particular picture he woke up (making a grand total of 6 minutes of nap time), but we're getting there. Although I will admit, I don't mind nap time snuggles with my babe (and a nap at the same time), so I'm in no rush with this one.

Probably the most exciting news this week is that:

Wait for it . . .

Drumroll please:

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap!

 Jackson started eating baby food!!!

 Carrot face! It's good for the skin, ya know

We were gonna wait until 6 months, since a lot of experts seem to think that it can help avoid allergies, but I tell ya, that boy was looking at me with his big blue eyes, smacking his lips together and generally looking like "mmmmmm, foooooood" whenever I would eat in front of him, so it was time.

Another small thing this week, Jackson is getting better and better at sitting up (though not quite there on his own yet), so we've switched from baths in the big bathtub with mom to baths in the kitchen sink. Warning: baby nudity ahead.

 He loved his first bath in the sink

And lastly, today he figured out how to pull off his socks (oh joy). So far he's only been pulling off his right sock. Repeatedly. Over and over. All day long (I think you get the picture :D).

Check out the sock-pulling action

Ohai Mom. Just workin' on my sock.

He is so cute, even with drool all over. No, especially with drool. Love that babe.

Cutey McDroolerson

First, a cute picture of Mr. Droolface:

This is so going in his yearbook

Jackson found his feet a couple of weeks ago. Here he is sitting in his Bumbo chair, trying to decide if his feet, Doggie, or the fire is more interesting:

I can't believe how well he's sitting up these days. That boy is STRONG! I forget, because I see him every day, but Brian and Cathie pointed it out to me when they were here earlier, working like rented mules (thank you again!). I will try to remember to get a new video of Jackson standing too, because he has gotten so much stronger in a week, it's pretty amazing (to me, anyway). And boy, when he arches his back when I'm cradling him, well I'm definitely getting some resistance training there, in addition to the rest of my baby weight training. He thinks he's getting rides, when in actual fact mommy is counting reps. Arm wrestle, anyone?

Jackson has also been greatly amusing himself with his new noise, which I can only describe as the dramatic gasp (it's on the next video). He loves it when mommy and daddy do it, but now he can do it for himself. And he absolutely loves the quilt that was made for him by someone my dad knows. He has tummy time on it, and we drape it over his play mat so that he can look at all the different colours and patterns:

Baby's first fort

Looks kinda like stained glass in here

All in all, a pretty good week so far. Some tummy troubles for Mr. Man, so a bit of fussiness, and he may be teething, but pretty much we have the cutest baby ever.

He's Got A New Trick

Look what this guy's doing now:

Whee! I'm so strong now!

Just like in the video, Jackon's continuing to be happy these days. Yay, yay, YAY!!! :D :D :D. What a relief!

On another note, it's been pretty darn cold lately, especially with the wind. Ben is still loving the snow and acting like a huge puppy every time we go out. I enjoy myself too, but I do need to suit up:

 That is me, under there, wearing all my clothes at once ;)

I dunno, can you see the water on my eyelashes and eyebrows? That was ice a minute before.

I'm thinkin' maybe I should walk the dog a wee bit earlier. Like before midnight. Just maybe.

Happy Jackson, v. 2.0

Jackson has been in such a good mood for the past 4 or 5 days now. Whew! Finally! Yay!!!! :D :D :D

Here's some video of Mr. Happy Pants:

Listen to him talkin' away

Ha ha, I want them ALL!

PS: oops, sorry Mom, made you wait.

Snow!

No Jackson pictures, thought I'd warn ya right away :D. But some pictures of the grand-dog. The first snow was actually last night, but I didn't think to bring the camera until halfway through our walk. Oops. But I brought it tonight. Here's some pics of puppy and of our snowy walk tonight:

 Out of focus, but look how happy he is!

 What a beautiful night for a walk

 Note the "droolsicle" on the left :D

 Walkin' down the train tracks downtown

 Downtown's so pretty in the snow

 The old train station

Warming up after

Same Old, Same Old

Things have been cooking along pretty well lately. Jackson's been in a pretty good mood overall, and thankfully, HE LIKES THE CAR!! :D :D

Well. When someone's in the backseat with him, anyway.

Silly me, I drove Shawn to work today, since he had to take the truck in to get fixed (it's fine, BTW, something simple) and on the way home, with no Dada, Mr. Man screamed like he was being MURDERED!! Mom, Cathie, Brian, you know the scream I'm talking about. Ugh, I know he's safer there in the back seat, facing away from me, but if I could just have him in the front where he could see me and I could stick his nuk back in . . . well, I'd probably drive off the road digging for a nuk. I just hate it when he cries like that. I pulled over a bunch of times to calm him down and give him his toys back, etc, but it would just start up again as soon as I pulled away. Well, poo.

However, like I said, happy baby overall. I don't know where I thought I read about backpack carriers being unsafe until they're 1 year old, but I totally made that up in my own head. As long as babe's got a strong neck, he's good to go, so we've been using that (me around the house, Shawn on walks). Babe loves it.

 Mmm, tastes good too

 What a nice fall day. I shoulda brought my sunglasses.

Babe still sometimes has a "bonus" awake time around 2am, but hey, he's only 4 months. And he's usually pretty mellow about it these days. I took a picture one of those times, when I had just been heading to bed when babe woke up. Shawn stayed up with him, which is the usual routine.

Sleepy mellow guys, or is zombie baby just happily full of Dada brains?

Jackson is now sometimes ticklish. Or maybe he just finds the noises I make that day funny. Either way, this video cracks me up, and I love the way that bibs are toys to him now.

New Pictures and Video

Nothing earth-shattering this week, just thought I'd put up some new stuff, since I know some of you check here every day (*cough* Mom *cough*) :D

 All bundled up, ready for a walk

Obligatory nakey-bum picture, for future embarrassment

Just playin' with his new rattle. Look how well he can control his hands now!

Wow, Two In A Row!

I was shutter-happy tonight, so you get another post today!

Babe was in a funny mood today. He wanted to nurse and chew on things. All. Day. Long. It wasn't like when he was teething before, so I guess he's going through a growth spurt. That or he's a zombie:

Baby wants brains

And here's just a cute pic of babe in his jammies, cuddling with Dada:

 Aww

And here's poor Ben, who doesn't get nearly as much attention now that he's not the "baby" any more:

 

OMG did you say WALK??????

And a quick video. How do you cheer up a grumpy gus? Like this:

I Did It

It's been driving me nuts for a while now, and yesterday I finally decided to do something about it. Now, some of you will think that what I've done is a crime, but that's okay because look how cute he is now:

 Haircut boy

 Look, no more scraggly hair!

It's not the most even haircut, since he's worn off his hair unevenly and since it's REALLY HARD to cut a 4-month-old's hair AND make sure nobody gets stabbed in the eye with scissors. Don't worry, babe was not in any danger. Shawn, on the other hand, felt the need to get some distance between the scissors and his eyeballs more than once. But, I say again, everyone is fine. Although I miss Jackson's little baby scraggles already *sniff*.

What else is new this week? I tried babe in the backpack carrier, and he loved it!

 Whee! I'm lookin' at stuff!

 He had a ton of fun in there, and I got to do a bit of picking-up, although nothing that involved bending over. That backpack carrier is really comfortable! But I need to look up when it's safe to put them in there, I seem to recall reading somewhere that they're not supposed to get carried on your back until they're a year old. I imagine it has to do with how developed their little skulls and spines are and what happens if you happen to trip and fall with them on. So I won't be using the backpack again until I know more about it.

So I know this isn't news, but babe continues to be really really long. Here's a picture for perspective:

Look at me, I'm too long for the playpen this way now!

I know, the picture's dark, I'm still getting used to my camera. But his head is touching the other side of his playpen. And that's a 12 month sleeper he's in. Cathie was saying that Uncle Evan was like that as a baby too, and he's around 6'4", I think. Looks like I'll be yelling up at my teenager ;)

Action Jackson

Okay, I've been promising a post about all the new things he can do now for a couple of days, so here it is :D

It seems like overnight, Jackson started doing all sorts of new stuff. For example, he finally likes tummy time! After months and months of him completely going on strike whenever I'd put him on his tummy (he'd put his head down and start to scream), now we have this:

And I haven't mentioned it specifically before, but Mr. Man has some pretty darn good head control now. We no longer have to be ready to rescue his head. Which means, it's Jolly Jumper time!

He's looking at his shadow. He loves shadows.

And one more cute picture. For those of you who don't know, we use cloth diapers, which we absolutely love, but they're pretty bulky. We call him "little peanut" sometimes, because he kinda looks like one with that huge diaper on. Because of this, it's sometimes hard to find pants to fit him. But, thank goodness, they make a product called Babylegs, which look like this, which is to say, really cute:

Look at my Babylegs!

Now he can be a peanut all he wants, and his legs will still be warm. And yes, I know, his hands are blurry. Action Jackson does not have time to stay still for photos :D Oh yeah, and this was the only picture where his legs weren't blurry. He is definitely into kicking now. He likes to put his feet on things and touch them, just like with his hands.  When you sit next to him, or when you change him, he puts his little feet all over you. Little monkey.

Halloween

We had a really busy Halloween! We had at least 70 kids at the door. Did we buy enough candy for 70 kids? Erm, no. Whoops. So some kids got quarters instead. It was a total surprise, having so many kids come this year. I'm sure we didn't even have half that last year, and yes, last year we DID have enough candy for a small army. Halloween. Ya never know.

A couple of the cute little trick-or-treat-ers wanted to come right in our house, and would have if their parents and I hadn't stopped them. It was pretty funny. Boy were those kids not shy at ALL.

Ben was pretty good. We used tonight as an opportunity to brush him up in his manners about the doorbell, i.e., stop barking after we tell him one time. There was freeze-dried chicken involved, so he caught on pretty quickly. And no, we did not dress up the dog, but look what I did find in Zellers:

 

 I think he knows he's cute

  

Two cute snuggly doggies

I think Jackson got a kick out of all the little kids. He seemed very fascinated when we'd answer the door. Whether that was the kids or the costumes, who can say, but he was happy. I also got a couple of pictures of our double-sided jack-o-lantern, just for fun:

Two Videos

Okay, so this first one is going to make the ladies very jealous, but try not to hate me too much :D.

This was taken earlier today. And no, this was not staged/forced at gunpoint/whatever, this is just how awesome my husband is!

BTW, I just got that sling in the mail from a mommy I met over the internet that lives in the US. It's awesome.

But on to more cute baby stuff. I did finally manage to get one actual laugh on video:

Jackson is one tough baby to impress. He was laughing lots before I picked up the camera (of course), but I only got the one good chuckle before he was utterly unimpressed by me making a fool of myself. And yes, that is my bandana he's using to teeth and yes, it did go back on my head afterwards, baby slobber and all. Hey, at this point, slobber is nothing!

Videos To Come

Blogger isn't letting me upload my videos for some reason. Once I get that sorted, I'll post what I wrote last night. So my apologies in the meantime.

First, a cute picture of Jackson all bundled up after a bath:

Aww

Jackson had his first bath with mommy in the big tub last week. He loved it! His plastic baby tub is definitely an awesome thing to have (it's shaped like a reclining chair on the inside, sort of, so he can't slip down), but only his bum is in the water. When he was in the big tub with me, he was in water up past his belly button for the first time ever. He liked it immediately, and became little Zen baby while he soaked with me. Definitely was glad Shawn was home to help, though.

Well, I think it's happening. My own hair's been falling out for a couple of weeks now, and thank goodness I was warned this would happen, otherwise I would be freaking out, so much is coming out every day, but it looks like Jackson's hair is also coming out. What do you think?

Two weeks old

Last week. I'm not imagining it, am I?

There's some shorter, fuzzy hair along with the really long thin stuff, which may be new hair, or may be short hair I never noticed before. Oh well. Good thing I was warned about this too, or I'd be wondering why my 3 month old is going bald.

Jackson's all of a sudden doing a bunch of new things, so I will have another new post as soon as I get pictures. He's getting so big! And he's only got about an inch and a half before he goes into the big boy car seat (still rear facing).

Thanksgiving Visit

Grandma, Uncle Chris and Auntie Mel made the big drive for a visit at Thanksgiving. It was a great visit. Short, but really good. Did the turkey thing, went to Davison Orchards and hung out. It's too bad that it had to be so short, but we were really glad to see them and that they drove all that way to see us. Here are some pics from the visit:

Jackson and Uncle Chris

Grandma getting morning cuddles

Jackson has discovered his own hands and other people's hands too. He is fascinated by everyone's long fingers.

See?

Wow, interesting

Also, while they were here, Mel and Chris gave Chris' favourite pet truck a super exterior detail. They waxed it and painted all the trim, the bumpers and the rims. I will update with a shot of the clean, shiny truck when we get a sunny day.

Workin' on the truck. Doesn't it look shiny?

The truck really does look a million times better. Thanks again you guys!

Baby Pterodactyl

Check out this little guy. His new thing is screeching:

Go, baby Pterodactyl, go!

Sorry the video's so dark, but that's because it was taken at 2:30am this morning!! For those of you who have been hanging around this babe lately, you will know that this is the happiest he's been in at least a week. Every night, for at least 3 nights now, we get this. But boy is it cute. It's pretty much impossible to be mad when he's being so cute.

Also, the first half of the video is him getting over his camera shyness. What you see in the second half is what he does for about an hour straight (at 2am, grrr), then he just conks right out and goes back to sleep.

Silly baby.

More Food Craziness

Time for a happy post.

So, sometimes when Shawn and I see something in the store that is totally ridiculous, we kind of HAVE to try it, just to see. Like those Pillsbury cookies in a tube that you slice and they have pictures on? That kind of thing. Anyway, so we were food shopping in walmart, minding our own business, when we look in the dairy case and see this:

What is it, you ask? Why, it's pancake batter. In a can. Yep. For real. You know the really funny part? It's organic. Why, why, why????

Anyhoo, so one Saturday we decide to try the thing, because how can you NOT try pancakes in a can? So here's some shots from when we did that:

Blastin' the Batter

This is when I started to get a little scared . . .

So how did they turn out? Well, this is what they looked like:

Pancake . . . ish . . . type entities


Real pancake for comparison

But I'm sure what you're all wondering is, how did they taste? Well:

At first I was like

But then I was all

They were GROSS! Like really really gross! (big surprise) You have no idea how hard it was to smile for the camera for that first shot. Ew ew ew! They didn't even taste like pancakes at all. I don't even know what they tasted like, other than a skunk beat to death by a salmon. Nasty evil can-cakes! Shawn tried them too, but I didn't think to take pictures. I was in shock.

We made normal pancakes after that. And strong coffee.

Oh, btw, how was Jackson while we were goofing around with cans of "food"? He was being a super happy baby in his sproingy chair. What a guy!

So, a good time was had by all. Jackson had fun toys and funny parents to entertain him, and now we can say that we tried can-cakes.