"Jacksonator"

I haven't written a post about my favorite little guy in a while.  He's almost not even in the category of a little guy any more.  He's looking more and more like a grown up kid which makes me proud and sad all at the same time.  He is still as sweet natured, cuddly, and mild tempered as he has ever been.  Jackson can still play with any kid from one to ten and have a great time.  He is fine running the show or doing what everyone else wants to do.  He is learning the joy of sarcasm (thanks in no small part to his father) and makes me want to laugh and scold with much of what he says.  Here are some things about Jackson I've noted over the last two months:

• He loved the March Madness basketball tournament almost as much as I did and would watch all of the games with me.  I let him stay up until almost midnight watching one of the KU games with me and it was one of the coolest Mom/son experiences I've had yet.  Here are some of the comments he made within the first ten minutes of that game: "good hustle", "Nice rebound, do something with it", "let's rock and roll", "what are you waiting for shoot it", and the one I'm least proud of... "Oh freakin..." He completely understands the games and it is awesome to watch with him. At one point during the game he said "nice" when the other team did something good and I tried to explain to him that it wasn't good for us.  He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, " I know, I didn't mean nice, nice; I meant the bad kind of nice." I said, "Oh you mean sarcastic nice?" and he said "Yes, that kind."
• Jackson asked me if I was a teenager.  I told him no that I was thirty and you were only a teenager from 13-19.  He replied that he knew that but that I looked like a teenager still.  I asked him if he thought Dad looked like a teenager and he said no.  He got extra hugs that night :)
• The night I had him stay up with me and watch the game he looked at me and said, "Thanks for letting me stay up with you mom, this is the best night ever". I nearly cried and said to him, "Thank you for liking basketball and wanting to watch with me." He replied, "That's not something you thank someone for."
• Jackson is an awesome reader and has developed a real love for reading.  Recently in the car after getting a new book he told me he didn't want to watch a movie in the car, he just wanted to read.  That's a proud moment for a parent.  The next day he had another new chapter book from the book fair and I watched him get off the bus while reading and walk off the bus and down the driveway while never looking up from his book.  He had already read fifty pages since getting the book.  He looked so old reading and walking at the same time so absorbed in his book. I only later realized it was Captain Underpants and pretty inappropriate for a six year old.  I learned this after he told me an inappropriate joke about "Weenie the Poo" while pointing to a certain area to make sure I understood the pun and why it was so funny.
• Jackson is still super sensitive to others feelings and lately he has been trying to comfort Anna when she gets hurt which only leads to her not allowing him to comfort her or even worse, yelling at him because she is mad she is hurt which then leads to Jackson crying because Anna is crying and won't let him comfort her.
• Jackson is super polite and has taken to saying "Yes, Ma'am." all of the time.  I find it incredibly southern and charming.
• About a month ago Jackson started crying, I mean screaming and crying hysterically when Kurt would leave his room at night so that he could go to bed.  I finally came in one night and told him he had to calm down and then I would talk to him.  After he calmed down I went in and explained to him that daddy was never going to come back in and stay longer when he acted like that and that it would never work so he should stop.  He calmly looked at me and said, "Yes it does sometimes, it worked once. Once I cried and he came back in and cuddle with me some more" The power of intermittent reinforcement.  I explained that it wouldn't again for sure.  
• A few weeks ago when we were eating ice cream at the ice cream shop downtown Jackson looked out the window and started laughing.  I asked him what he was laughing at and he told me he was "Imaginating something..." When I asked what he said he didn't want to tell me but it was funny.
• Jackson has finally started to play pretend play on his own, thanks to Anna teaching him how and how fun it could be.  She usually takes the lead but I have seen him create some of his own play schemes lately.
• Jackson and I started a journal to each other to be passed back and forth and write things to each other.  He is really excited about it and made me pinkie promise him that I wouldn't forget to write him tonight.
• Jackson finally lost his two bottom teeth and was so excited about the tooth fairy coming the first night he didn't go to sleep until after midnight.

 Jackson played on a basketball team from Nov-Feb.  He really got the hang of the games by the end of the season and scored four points in their last win in the tournament in a nail-biter which went into overtime.

Overall, my sweet little boy is growing up into a big sweet kid way to quickly.  I love that guy and think he was born to be a big brother.  I hope he loves us the way he does now ten years from now and still wants to cuddle and talk at night before bed.

Three Months Old

Lila turned three months old this week. She weighed a tiny 10 lbs 9 oz, and 22.5 inches long finally gaining an ounce this last week which is the only weight she had gained in a month. She has had a really rough few months with three ear infections (and I'm pretty sure today makes four), severe reflux, lots of food allergies to things in my breast milk, a hernia, two rounds of thrush, and a final diagnosis of delayed gastric emptying. She started on a new medicine to push food through her stomach quicker and she has seemed to eat much more this week so we are hopeful that she will start to put on some weight. With all of her problems it would seem impossible for Lila to have hit any milestones but she is one of those tiny little wiry babies who hits their gross motor milestones early. She rolled from back to front for the first time at six weeks. We thought it must be a fluke until she did it again a couple of times the next few days. She then rolled front to back at eight weeks. She is occasionally cooing with vowel sounds and makes the g sound a lot. She is surprisingly smiley in between her bouts of screaming and even though it is short lived I think she is going to be a really happy little baby when we get this all figured out at some point. She has started to bat at toys but hates to be laid down for more than 3-5 minutes. She is a rock star on her belly and can push up on her arms and hold her head ninety degrees. She is in love with the living room ceiling fan and it receives more smiles than any of us. She gazes at it lovingly. For fun one day Kurt came over when she was staring transfixed and span the blades suddenly. She jumped and looked shocked and scared. It didn't ruin their relationship though, she still stares happily at it. Bath time is Lila's favorite and sometimes I give her a bath just to calm her down. She goes from screaming to silent and kicking around like crazy in the water to screaming when I take her out. She must be reminiscing about all that extra fluid she was hanging out in a few months ago. Here are some pictures from the past two months.

This is the only place Lila occasionally hangs out that isn't Mom or Dad's arms.

Relaxing in the tub at exactly three months old.

Rocking out tummy time.

Staring at her best friend the fan.

Introducing (3 months later) Lila Jane Baker

Lila Jane Baker born on 12/21/11 at 12:33 am weighing a generous eight lbs. eight oz and 21.5 inches long.

The pictures below were from her first photo shoot with Nana when she was about eight days old.

Looking at these pictures now I can't believe how chubby those little cheeks were, she so quickly thinned out after that.

Meeting the siblings...

Little Lila was finally born the 21st of December. I tried my hardest to get her out by the 20th so she could have as much distance as possible from Christmas, but the 21st it was. The labor wasn't that bad when compared with the others, however if you take into consideration that I had been contracting about every nine minutes around the clock since the Friday before (she was born on a Tues) it was kind of a long ordeal. To fully understand how happy I was to finally not be pregnant you would need the perspective of this picture...

This was taken the Saturday before she was born. The day when out on a date with Kurt, a person actually slowed their car, rolled down their window and asked me if I was having twins. At that point it is time to be done. Here's the run down... By Monday I went to my doctor begging for mercy due to the constant contractions and the pulled muscle in my belly, I mean really even muscles have their limits. He checked me and said I was a 2 and agreed to an ultrasound in the morning to check her size. I also talked him into stripping my membranes. By the next morning I was having even less contractions but thought my water might have broken. Turned out it hadn't but I was a four. Progress. The ultrasound estimated 8.8 and that I had way too much fluid. He told me to go the hospital around one and give them the story and he would check me. I arrived and was still a four, fearful of being released I reminded him that I was Group B strep positive and would need antibiotics. That was the key and I got admitted. After walking around some more I got going and he came in to break my water. This turned out to be a flood and ruined more than one nurses pair of shoes. Eight hours later, an epidural that only partially worked, and two and a half hours of pushing later and out she came. It was love at first sight helped also by the euphoria of no longer being pregnant. She was a super cute baby who looked like she was already a couple of weeks old from the time she was born. She was quite the screamer and pretty much screamed the whole first thirty six hours which it turns out was a little prep course for what was to come. We got to come home on the 22nd and had a wonderful Christmas with Nana and our sweet new present. I'll follow up with more on little Lila's (aka screamy Joe) next two months in another post to come. We are so happy to have our sweet little Lila complete our family.

Halloween 2011

So what if it's March and Halloween was five months ago? Here's some pics from trick-or-treating and homemade caramel apples.

Some things I love about Anna right now

I keep thinking I need to write down some things about the kids right now because you forget so quickly. Here are some things I love about Anna right now and then some things that I don't love quite as much, but are still Anna right now.

• Anna has discovered her love of princesses and we have started watching the princess movies together on Friday mornings. She loves being told made up princess stories as well as telling them to us. Before every nap and bed time she will ask "Can you read me a princess story". She almost always chooses for the princess to be named Mommy. I won't lie, it's kind of flattering :) She has also recently began to sing princess songs about Princess Mommy which are very cute.
• Anna will randomly yell out "Hey mom, guess what?" When I ask what she says, "I love you."
• Anna always wants Daddy when she gets hurt, I am not sure why as he gives about one quarter the sympathy that I do but she wants him every time. The second she gets hurt it's "I need my daddy, I need dada to hold me."

That was the beginning of a post from October that I never finished.... aw the guilt.

Anna's first date with daddy. She was his date to his company Christmas party.

I thought I'd leave that intro and then just add on from here. She has since dropped the princess stories and now here night routine consists of three songs from each of us which always consists of at least one Old McDonald song where she fills in ridiculous items and you have to quickly think of what they would say, here are some common fill ins : big fat sheep, big fat baby sheep, a wall, the fan, lips, lipstick, baby wrapped up asleep and laying next to me, eyelashes, hair, the list goes on and on. Almost never are there actually animals on this farm.

Poor Anna has had quite an adjustment since the baby has been born and has thrown some killer tantrums lately. I feel like we are on the downside of that and she is adjusting a little better now. She has however thrown out some very non-suddle hints that she needs some attention like the baby by pretending to be a baby lately. She has asked to be rocked in my lap and tonight went so far as to pretend cry throughout our night time routine after she was made to wait while I fed the baby. When I tried to leave she told me I couldn't because she hadn't stopped crying and needed to be patted. When that didn't work she said she was hungry and I knew where we were headed. Sure enough when I told her nothing else to eat she looked at me a minute and then said she wanted to drink some milk from my boo boos. When I told her no those were just for Lila she said, "how about just pretend, you can pretend and it can be pretend milk." Poor attention deprived girl :( Here are some other little anna tidbits...

• Anna adds "Please, I'll be your friend" when she asks for something she really wants.
• Anna carries her "baby lila" around everywhere and will come running when she says she is crying and give me a talking to if I move her or my baby lila wakes her up when she is sleeping.
• When Anna has to go poop she always makes a big ball of toilet paper and covers her nose with it the entire time so she doesn't have to smell what's happening.
• Anna has taken to wearing her all time favorite dress as much as humanly possible which is 24 hours of the day at least a few days a week, the only problem is it's a 2T and isn't going to get on and off much longer.
• We recently got a new cat and Anna plays with him like a sibling. Last week I watched her try to play hide and seek with the cat and place him somewhere to hide when she was counting and he obviously didn't understand the rules. She has also put a walkie talkie by his head and gone into the other room to talk to him annoyed that he wasn't responding. She will lock the cat into the playroom with her and make them cake and cupcakes to eat. The cat is perfect for Anna and will follow her around the whole day not the least bit annoyed.
• Today Anna asked me if I was happy to be here with her. I said of course I was and asked her why she would ask me that. She replied " Because I just want us to be happily ever after."

My six year old may be smarter than me...

Jackson said to me today as we were enjoying some ice cream, "I think kids may be smarter than adults." Hmm, I asked him why he thought that and he said, "Because, we are in school and know lots of things and adults aren't." I explained to him that we all used to be in school and then gave myself a little pat on the back by explaining to him that Mommy had lots of school and college which was even harder school. He did not seem convinced and thought for a second and then said, " Well, then tell me something you know." I wasn't sure what he was going for and frankly felt a little put on the spot. "About what?" I asked. "How about some things that I don't already know about bats?" Umm, I was in trouble. " How about that they bounce sound waves off of objects so that they no where things are as they fly in the dark?" "I already knew that." I thought that was pretty good and had nothing else. He proceeded to rattle off a list of little known facts about bats being the only mammals that fly, the foods they eat, etc... "Well you do know alot about bats but adults know lots of stuff about other things too," I told him. "Like what, tell me something you know?" I don't know why but I could think of nothing relevant that I could possibly know. Jackson decided to fill in the topic, "Why don't you tell me something about elephants?" I stared at him blankly feeling dumber by the minute. "How about how they are the only mammal that cannot jump?" Oh. He then said, "I think maybe it's that adults used to be smart when they were in school too but that you guys forgot all of that stuff you learned because it was long ago." I could only agree with him. Next time I'm going to through some multiplication tables at him to level the field a little.

Anna's first day of preschool.

Anna had her first day of preschool today and was hamming it up for the camera. Kurt had to make her just hold her lunch box and smile for one picture. Anna was not at all nervous about going today and has been asking ever since Jackson started when she could go back to school. I asked her various questions about her day when I picked her up. After a few she told me "Mom, I'm tired, I really don't want to talk about it anymore, why don't you tell me about what you did at work today." Um, ok.

No it's not twins. Yes I'm 22 weeks pregnant

My best friend Ella convinced me that I would enjoy looking back and having a good laugh about how gigantic my 22 (23 tomorrow) week belly is. Let's take a look at the difference three weeks makes shall we?! Here's a picture at five months ( I actually looked back to make sure it wasn't a four month picture and I was mistaken. I wasn't.) which would only be three weeks ago tomorrow.

Let's fast forward a measly three weeks for a shot at 22 weeks 6 days.

Um yeah, ignore the horrible picture late at night in my jammies and direct your eyes to the eight month pregnant belly stuck on someone who is only five months pregnant. You can feel free to laugh and drop your jaw, I myself could not stop laughing at how ridiculous it was when Kurt was taking the picture. I have officially decided from this point on that I will be lying to strangers about the due date which I have now bumped up to around Halloween. I'm hoping that will put a lid on the comments for now. After that point I will have to go with the lie of having twins which will be the only plausible explanation and will keep people from the most annoying question ever asked a pregnant woman, " Are you having twins?" with the unbelievably inconsiderate follow up, "Are you sure?"

Summer Bucket List 2011

The first day of summer Jackson and I sat down and wrote a summer bucket list of the stuff that we wanted to do over the summer. I'm very glad we did because there were many times I didn't want to do stuff because I felt so sick but the fact that it was on a list compelled me to do so. There were many times that Kurt asked, are you sure that you want to do that and I would reply, "It's on the list, we have to." Kurt has since decided he should really start using my obsession with completing lists in his favor for things he would like to be doing. The need to cross off things on a list led to a really fun summer even with all of the throwing up and feeling exhausted on my end. Here's the list and then I'll do posts of the things which I have pictures for.


The List
lake beach
zoo
beach
game (Jackson's must on the list, x-box not board games)
sleep in
campout inside
roast hot dogs and marshmallows
outside movie night
get new flowers in front yard
go to a carnival/fair
make ice cream sandwiches
go to Monkey Joe's
go to Marbles Museum
pool
campout outside
Christmas in July

It was a pretty good list and we accomplished all but going to the zoo and sleeping in. I told Jackson I wasn't giving him credit for sleeping in unless he slept until 8. His response was, "Mom that's never going to happen, we slept until 7:30 at the beach, you better take that it's the latest we've ever slept." I should count it but 7:30 really isn't sleeping in for the summer. I, on the other hand, definitely met this criteria numerous times thanks to my sweet husband who gets up with the kids pretty much every morning. I guess pregnancy does have some perks.

For the items with no pictures, camping out inside and outside was done by the boys and ended up being soggy outside and more fun watching movies from laying inside of the tent upstairs. We went to the pool a few times with friends and had a great time. Jackson definitely did his fair share of gaming on the x-box especially during sleepovers on Friday nights with dad and Saturday mornings. I think I have at least a few pictures of everything else so, I'll post those in separate posts.

It was a great summer and went by way too fast. It was one of the best summers I remember and we did more family stuff together than we have in years. There is something about having a kid in school that defines summers in a different way and makes them feel a little more magical. It was one of the hottest summers on record though, so I couldn't be more ready for fall.

First day of School

Jackson started First Grade this year which was considerably less traumatic (for me, neither was traumatic for Jackson) for me than last year. It was no big deal this year except for being sad to part with him all day long. Jackson got one of the teachers this year who moved up from kinderdarten last year due to so many first graders. He is still in the Kindergarten cove area and right next door from last year, so not much of a transition. He is doing great so far and catching up on sleep on the weekends with three hour naps :)