Hooray!!!

I don't have time to write much because we're off to playgroup as soon as Jack wakes up, but 

WE'RE MOVING HOME!!!  

The basics (I'll fill in more later):

We'll be living in St. Louis.

Ben will be working for Bryan Cave.  

We leave April 9! 

Dancing (and Possibly Walking) Away

I apologize for his outfit here and in the dresser-clearing video--I know it's horribly ghetto (I think the British word is naff, which I find hilariously great) to have pictures and video of Jack in only a onesie, but he seems to lose his pants constantly (usually by stepping on them and then getting horribly frustrated and stuck), and frankly he never does his cutest things when it's convenient, so I'm lucky even to catch these moments.  Still, I feel slightly bad that he has such adorable clothes but is only ever pictured wearing T-shirt onesies.  

At any rate, Jack has been up to some exciting things this week.  Hopefully soon Ben will be over his latest rough patch at work (he had worked over 40 hours by Wednesday afternoon this week--by Tuesday night if you count Sunday in this week) and I'll be able to start writing on more than a weekly basis, but for now here's what Jack's been up to:

Babbling.  This is all very cute.  I love hearing him starting to say "mama" and "dada" even though he doesn't know what it means.  And I think it's very clever how he already has the cadence of conversation down.  

I did not, however, particularly appreciate it on Sunday in church when 1) Jack was talking away, 2) everyone was staring (including the lady behind me who couldn't understand why I refused her offer to give Jack a candy bar), 3) Ben was working and suddenly couldn't make it to the early mass that we went to (although I didn't get his message saying this before church and therefore was watching for him to come in until the very end), and 4) (the most devastating) I looked in the diaper bag and realized I didn't have any binkies with me.  A little overwhelming.  But it's especially adorable when Jack does a barbaric yawp with his whole body--he pulls himself up from the hips until he's about 2

 inches taller than normal, at the same time squawking and grinning fervently.  He's in mid-yawp in the first picture and just finished in the one below.  Also note 

his adorable new big boy sneakers.  I got Ben and Jack a matching set for Christmas.  They're still a little big but the others are now a little small.

Putting things inside other things and starting to use stacking toys.  "Things" sounds vague, but I really can't get more specific than that, because everything is going on or in something else.  The thermometer goes back in its case.  Tupperware lids and other random safe kitchen tools that I rarely use go back in Jack's drawer in the kitchen.  The Ella's Kitchen screw top goes back on the lid to the packet--usually before Jack's done eating it.  I am very appreciative of this development, although it does need a little refining before it will actually be helpful to me.  Apparently Jack is convinced that the magnet that opens the childproof cabinet locks belongs inside the washing machine.  Just have to keep an eye out for that one so that the magnet isn't stuck inside the running washer when I need to clean up.  The stacking rings that Nonna and Pops got Jack for Christmas are starting to see more use; Jack can now play with them for more than the three seconds it takes him to take all the rings off.

Continuing to take things out. 

 And apparently the contents of our second desk drawer belong on the floor.  All of the contents of the desk drawer.  All day long.  Folded laundry is meant to be piled on the floor, much like I used to think piles of raked leaves needed to be jumped in.

Playing jingle, jingle, jingle.  This is the game wherein Jack goes to the door in either my arms or his daddy's and tries to pull the keys out of the keyhole.  We have a skeleton keyhole, which adds a little challenge to what would normally be a very mundane effort.  This is usually closely followed by the beep-boop-beep-boop-beep game--when Jack tries to operate the telephone in our entryway that opens the downstairs door for delivery people.  And that is almost always followed by the "Who's coming?" game--when Jack attempts to look through the peephole.  

The last game has been stalled a little because someone on the managing board of our building decided it would be a good idea to install motion sensor lighting in our hallway.  I wouldn't complain too much about it except that 1) our hallways are eerily dark even in the middle of the afternoon, 2) the lights are about 1/3 as bright as the inadequate lights that were previously in there, and 3) the lights (like all British lights it seems) take about 4 seconds to turn on, which doesn't sound like much but feels like an eternity since that's about the same amount of time it takes me to walk to the end of the hallway.  And this is the future we as Americans face since Congress has bizarrely decided to outlaw incandescent bulbs in favor of buzzing, flickering, harsh glow compact  florescent bulbs.  Despite a growing environmentalist streak in me, I'm still firmly against bad lighting.

Um, yeah, so Jack...

Dancing.  This is probably my favorite development.  In an effort to help him learn balance (since he wasn't standing on his own very much), I started standing Jack up in front of me while I kneel down and vigorously moving his arms along to the beat of songs.  He gets a little off balance but manages to stay up.  Since I've started doing this, any time Jack hears music he starts bopping his head and shaking his body.  Still a little early to tell whether or not he has rhythm (I hope), but really funny. 

Standing.  Until last weekend Jack had been very reluctant to stand.  It's not that he couldn't, he just didn't seem to have any reason to.  He can hold onto any object he wants with one hand while cruising around the couch with the other.  And if he wants to go somewhere furniture won't take him, he had his walker to use.  His walker use is really cute--he uses it like an old person would use a walker to go from place to place, but when he sees something interesting in 

the room (a floor lamp or the open dryer, for example) he makes a detour.  But on Sunday he decided to try it out.  He was moving the childproof lock magnet from the metal bar on the cabinet door to the washing machine and back again, when he decided to stand back and admire his work.  When he realized that standing back and admiring his work got me to admire his work, he did more of it.  So for about 15 minutes he repeated the process: stick, stand, get praised, move to the other side.

Walking?  When Ben got home on Sunday, I had Jack show off his newly appreciated standing skills, and as he was doing it, I think he may have taken his first step.  It was stumbling, but he put one foot in front of the other and Ben and I looked at each other and said at the same time, "Did he just...?"  So I think he did.  He's done a few repeats since then, but only in the process of falling, which I suppose doesn't really count.  But for the record I think it's as close to a first step as we're going to get; if his slow but sudden leap into the world of the crawling is any indication, this baby's milestones may be a bit hard to date.

The Best Valentine's Day Present Ever

Last night Jack slept through the night for the first time ever.  And when I say slept through the night, I don't mean the technical definition of sleeping through the night (midnight to 5 a.m.) that people on babycenter.com refer to.  No, I mean went to bed at 7 and got up at 7.  I mean 12 glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep.  And I was asleep for 7 of those hours, also uninterrupted.  It's a beautiful, beautiful Valentine's Day.

Oh, and I stepped out of the shower this morning to find that Ben and Jack made me some delicious pancakes.  What thoughtful guys I have.

Digging Through Part II

See the post below first for the beginning of the story.

As you can see, our boy takes his job of emptying his dresser very seriously, and he never give up.  Wonder where he got those traits?

Oh, and the most amazing thing happened last night.  Jack went to sleep at 8:30 and didn't wake up until 5 a.m.!  Incredible.  And right in time--although I'm grateful that he has only been waking up 3-4 times a night regularly, I was just saying yesterday that I was starting to get a bit tired of cheering that fact.  It's good, but it's not great; it's not really where he should be and it's not where my sleep deprived body needs him to be.  So I'm hoping this is a sign of more good nights to come!

Digging Through

Sunday afternoon while Ben and Jack were playing in Jack's room and I was pureeing pears, I suddenly heard tons of laughter, so I went to check it out.  This was the chaos that I saw.

Peace

This has been a terrific week for Jack.  I mean, really wonderful.  He has been eating and he has been sleeping.  Sounds basic enough.  But he's been doing both really, amazingly well.  At nap time (around 10:30 and 2:30, although he's pretty flexible about it), I read him a book and then Good Night Moon, sing the lullaby Ben wrote for Jack, then put him in his crib and close the door.  It's as easy as that and I don't hear a peep from him for at least an hour!  Bedtime is just as easy with slightly more ritual before we start in on our books.  I can't tell you how much easier this is making my life!

And mealtimes are much better, too.  After discussing with Stacy the stress of meals, she suggested that I pay close attention to any tension I might be communicating to Jack.  I realized that there were some clues I was giving that might make him a little nervous, but I wasn't quite sure what to do to relax.  Then last weekend Ben pointed out that even though Jack's weight looks less than stellar on the percentage curve of the growth graph, he's really only about 3 pounds away from what would be considered perfectly normal growth.  Even on a 17 pound baby, that's nothing!  It could be a difference caused by weighing him pre- as opposed to post-meal or pre- or post-dirty diaper.  So I've relaxed a ton, and, at least partly due to that, Jack has been a spectacular eater this week.  He's started to love oatmeal with yogurt and fruit for breakfast, and today and Wednesday (no-meat days because of Lent), I had fish and chips and gave him an entire fish of his own (with breading peeled off) to eat.  Both days he's finished it!  I feel a growth spurt coming on, so I'm getting serious about lifting weights again.  Hopefully he'll give me a little lead time.

Oh, and Jack's wave has now added a new dimension of urgency to his "pick me up" signal.  When he's on the floor wanting to be picked up, Jack gets up on his knees and thrusts his arms over his head repeatedly--a fairly universal sign for "pick me up."  But now that he's learned to wave, he's started bouncing up and down and waving his left hand, as if to indicate that he's really serious this time.  Adorable.  I've been trying to get good video of it but have thus far failed because as soon as he sees the camera, Jack's desire to grab it supercedes his desire to be picked up.

This afternoon we're off to playgroup.

A Week of Learning

Jack has developed a ton of new skills this week.  It's seriously been one of the most amazing developmental weeks in a long time.  And all of this despite his injury and a yucky cold that kept him down all weekend.  Friday morning at about 1 a.m. Jack developed yet another one of his unfortunately frequent high fevers.  Every time I checked from then until Sunday afternoon, his temperature was above 101, and it spiked up to over 103.  His accompanying stuffy nose kept him from sleeping well all weekend--Ben and I took shifts sleeping with Jack--but it's finally started to clear up for good this afternoon.

I was terrified that he was developing an infection in his toe.  But an NHS doctor assured me that it looked fine.  And he added as a parting comment that I needed to make sure and look after myself as well.  I'm pretty sure there are notes on Jack's file saying that I'm a hypochondriac about my baby and that I'm teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown.  Last time I went to that doctor's office, I said that Jack wasn't sleeping and he sounded like he was in pain.  The doctor I saw that day told me that 1) you can't tell whether a baby's in pain based on the way he cries, and 2) no babies sleep and that if I ever talked to other mothers I would know both of those things.  I was highly insulted as I do, in fact, talk to other mothers and 1) every single one of them has scoffed at the doctor's statement about not being able to distinguish pained cries, and 2) all their babies wake up at most 3-4 times a night, still worthy of complaint (say your baby wakes up 1-2 times a night and you'll get absolutely no sympathy from me), but not like Jack.  I like Dr. Hay better--I just wish he wasn't so hard to get in to see on short notice.

On the sleep front--knock on wood--Jack has made great strides.  Before his injury last Wednesday, Jack had started going to sleep very easily and slipping back into sleep quickly.  He was still waking up 5 times or more a night, but he was causing less fuss.  Sometimes I was able to leave his room after only a minute or two after just laying him down and without even patting him on the back!  That wasn't true every night, and he was having at least one wake a night that was longer and louder even than before, but it still seemed like progress.  Tonight he has resumed that pattern of going to sleep immediately, and so far he's been asleep for over 3 hours straight with no waking!

On Thursday Jack started waving.  His first wave was to Kaia as she and Stacy were leaving after a pre-dinner quick catch-up.  At times his "wave" looks more like he's shaking his fist, though, and only his smile indicates he's not angry!  

On Sunday Jack added a semi-regal looking wave to one of his favorite activities--trying to push his stroller--and I was able to snap a picture of it.  

Ben thinks Jack's desire to push his stroller indicates he's ready for a little brother or sister.  I'm thinking he may have to wait a while.

The wave also occasionally morphs into and out of a modified version of pointing that also just started this week.  I say modified because instead of using his index finger to point the thing he wants or is interested in, Jack uses his entire fist.  But as usual, his actions leave no doubt about what he wants.

Sometime on Friday Jack went from mostly saying "mamamamama" and "dadadadadada" to also saying "nananananana," 

a development my mom, Jack's Nonna, is thrilled about.  None of his sounds are real first words yet, because he doesn't seem to connect the sounds to any meaning--for instance he has used "nana" to indicate everything from his banana to the humidifier to the trash can--but it's still exciting to hear.

Also sometime on Friday Jack and I were listening to a James Taylor CD, and Jack started shaking his Cheerio container along to the beat!  Who knows whether or not that was intentional, but he seemed to be enjoying himself and for once was content to play with the container without having some Cheerios in hand.

Today Jack finally started to develop a concept of putting things into containers.  Taking things out has been a favorite pastime for several weeks now, but finally things are starting to go back in again.  Not where they're supposed to be, but I expect we'll be working on that for approximately the next decade.

Monday we went back to the doctor to have Jack's toe looked at again, and he said it's fine.  The bandage is off and it doesn't seem to be hurting him much at all.  Thursday, the day after his

accident, I was determined that Jack should have a day of rest.  It was storming outside, so it looked perfect for a sleepy, cookie-baking day.  Jack didn't seem to think this was a good idea.  I hid his walker behind the curtains, thinking that it would be best if he stayed off his feet as much as possible.  Not only did Jack find the walker, but when I took it away again, he started climbing the curtains.  Literally.  Somehow I don't think this is going to slow down his march toward independent walking.