Close call!

Jackson has been a great little helper lately.  Oft times when he's ready to move on to a new activity he'll say, "Hey mom, let's clean up the blocks and then we can go outside and draw with chalk!"  (or whatever it is that we're doing). I'm glad he's picked up on the cleaning-up-one-thing-before-we-move-on habit.  ...now if I could only do that myself.  But that's beside the point.
He is also a great laundry helper.  He loves to sort the clothes into darks, lights, and whites, and surprisingly he does a great job.  He'll sometimes ask about things, like whether a grey t-shirt is light or dark.  And I'm not sure either.  He also loves to toss the clothes into the washing machine for me.  This morning he was sitting on the edge of the washing machine tossing things in as I handed them to him.  The washer wasn't quite full so I was going to run to the bathroom to get some towels to toss in.  I asked if wanted me to get him down or if he could sit there without falling off.  He wanted to stay.
I ran to the bathroom and grabbed the towels and the laundry in our hamper and then I heard Jackson yelling for me in a panicked voice.  Eeek, I shouldn't have left him sitting there!  So I dashed back to the laundry room, expecting to see him slipping into the washer or about to fall of the edge.
Nope, he was still sitting there, pointing into the washer.  "Mom!  There is a spot on those pants and you forgot to spray it!  Hurry! You need to spray the spot, Mom!"
Whew!  That was close.

at a loss

Crestfallen.  Disheartened. Discouraged.  Heartbroken.  Depressed.  Downcast.  Down in the dumps.  Disappointed.  Low.  Blue.  Bummed.  Despondent.

...All of that, and more.

I just went to the dentist.  It's been a while...like 2 1 /2 years I think. Jack went last week and, to everyone's surprise, was cavity free.  I've never had a cavity in my life, but still get nervous every time that I'll have one, and yet, deep down don't really think I will.  And every time they start focusing on one little area and scraping away I worry. Anyway... So tra la la, I go to the dentist.  Hygienist surveys my mouth, does x-rays, cleans my teeth (I gag on whatever nasty flavor the toothpaste was...After gagging I asked what the flavor was and she said she thought it was cherry or something.  I tell her it is gross...she doesn't get the hint and switch to a different kind.  Note to self: request mint next time.), she tells me to floss more often, and tells me several times that I have nice, healthy teeth and that it doesn't look like it's been so long since I've been to the dentist.  She looks over the x-rays and says it all looks good, and says the dentist will be in soon.  Dentist comes in...she has braces...that's weird.  Anyway, she looks at my teeth too, does a little scraping and poking, I tell her about the little chip that bugs me and she says she can file it down if I want her to. And then, it happens.  She finds a little spot and focuses on it.  Really, I don't think too much of it... and then... she says the "C" word!  NNNNOOOOoooo!  It's just a tiny little hole...barely even a cavity...will take less than 30 minutes to fill, probably won't even have to numb me... but a cavity nonetheless.  So next Thursday morning will find me in the dentist chair, getting my first filling of my life.

What a year this has been!  Two of my records, dashed. Broken.  You may recall my more than 20-year streak of not throwing up was broken in November.  Now every time I start to feel yucky I worry that I actually might throw up because turns out I am human and am capable of doing so.  And apparently my teeth can get cavities too.

  ...I feel like I should just throw in the towel in life.

Clayton this week

 Clayton has hit several milestones this week that I wanted to be sure to note...



First of all he started CRAWLING on Monday afternoon.  I knew he was close, but he never did the scooting or army crawl thing.  We were in the kitchen and he just decided to go for it!  I dashed for the camera and recorded his first crawls (is that a word? Like first steps, but not steps...) but for some reason the camera froze mid-recording and it didn't save the video.  So I've got the second and third and fourth times instead, but it was all pretty much the same.  He would get so excited that he could move that he would just start laughing...it was pretty cute.  Every once in a while this week he'll kind of forget how to make himself move forward and will just rock back and forth and fuss, but then he gets it again.   I've tried several times to upload a video of him crawling on here but it isn't working.  A picture will have to do.

Monday morning he figured out how to sit himself up on his own.   It's kind of weird to walk into his room when he wakes up and see him sitting up in his crib.  

He has also picked up on signing his first word this week too.  I haven't really been all that consistent in signing to him, but he picked up "more" and uses it now.  He also recognizes the sign for "fan" and looks up at it when I sign it but he doesn't do it yet.  I'm going to have to check out a book from the library or something to refresh myself on all my baby sign language.

Also, we had our 9-month check-up this week and so his stats are as follows:
Weight:  17 lbs, 13 oz,  8th percentile
Length: 27.25 inches, 14th percentile
Head: 44.45 cm,  23rd percentile

New drivers

(...I put this up on my other blog, but just thought it was so cute it was worthy of being on this blog too...)

Two boys enjoy a ride in the car shopping cart at Kroger today.  Those things are not fun to push around the store, but it to makes it worth it to have Jackson willingly stay in the cart!  Clayton didn't last the entire time, but he had fun sitting next to his big brother for a little while.

mess

I was already running on very little patience this evening, just counting down until an early bedtime.  (Jack being out of town tends to do that to me.  Gone three days to High Adventure river rafting with the Young Men.)  I'm not fixing a real dinner tonight...leftovers are on the menu.  I offer everything in the fridge to Jackson (minus the brownies) and he chooses a peach yogurt.  I open it for him, get him a spoon, and sit him at the table to eat it while I scramble some eggs for myself and mix up Clayton's oatmeal.
Got food for the rest of us made, so I took Clayton into the dining room to put him in his high chair.  What?!  Lovely.  Peach yogurt finger paint all over Jackson's place mat, and a yogurt runway for the airplane spoon.  Great.  Clayton is really hungry and fussy, so I decided to give him a few bites of oatmeal before I cleaned up Jackson's mess.  Meanwhile Jackson is asking for a piece of paper to draw on. Then I set down the oatmeal bowl on the table, tossed a few cheerios on Clayton's tray to keep him happy for a minute, and went in the kitchen to get a cloth to clean up the masterpiece.  Come back in the dining room to find that Clayton had somehow reached the oatmeal bowl and dumped it out all over himself & his tray.  Sooo...I took away the bowl, wiped up the majority of the oatmeal, and then turned to Jackson.  Huh?  He was coloring on a carrot. I guess he didn't see the paper I put in front if him??

Off to early bedtimes...Clayton fell asleep quickly, which I figured he would since his afternoon nap was very short...but I think he was only out for about 30 minutes before I heard from him again.  Now he's been crying off and on for the past 30 minutes.   I put Jackson in bed, but really wasn't too optimistic about him staying there...last night he was in & out of bed until 10:30 (he took a nap yesterday, like the 3rd one since we've been here).  So far he's gotten up once and requested to sleep on the floor.  If he gets up again, I'll put him back in there with the  threat  promise that I'll lock the door next time he gets out.  

I'm just running low on patience this evening.  Can you tell??  I like to think that I'm a fairly calm, rational, non-violent person, but when these little people try my patience so easily I have to wonder.

4th of July

Being new to the area, we really weren't sure what to do for the Fourth.  We asked around a little and looked online to try and find things going on.  We ended up going to Raleigh to a little fair thing that had vendors, hamburgers, live bands, and a little kid area with bubbles & sidewalk chalk.  We were able to set up our chairs right by the car to watch the fireworks when it got dark and then make a quick getaway. I even attempted to catch fireflies at dusk as we waited for it to get dark just like in the good ole' days.  It was late for the boys, but they did pretty well.  Jackson's attention span didn't last all that long once the fireworks started, but he had fun drawing with the chalk.  I love fireworks!

 

We were invited over to go swimming and have dinner with some friends in the ward.  I didn't get any pictures of the people, but here are the patriotic strawberries I made.  They didn't turn out as lovely as the magazine, and I really not a fan of eating chocolate- (or white chocolate & blue sugar-) dipped strawberries, though I enjoy making them and think they are pretty.

9 Months of Clayton

Clayton is 9 months old! So hard to believe!  I've really slacked in my duties of recording his month-by-month progress, so I'll attempt to make up for it here.

-Clayton isn't crawling yet, but he's moving.  He goes from sitting up to forward on his hands and knees to reach things or to move around a bit, and then back to sitting.  Mostly he scoots & turns while sitting up, but it works for him.  He doesn't go all over the place, but will move a few feet as he's playing.

-He loves baby cereal, especially the Beechnut breakfast banana oatmeal stuff.  He's kind of hit & miss on eating baby food from a jar, but prefers green vegetables to anything else.  He loves finger food though- puffs, cheerios, soft peas & other vegetables, fruit, leaves--anything he can pick up and put in his mouth by himself.

-We've made some great progress on sleeping.  He was doing well, and then with all our traveling and moving our schedules were totally thrown off and both Jackson and Clayton had to re-adjust.  I'm happy to report that he's doing great now...he usually sleeps through the night without waking up, about 7 pm to 6:00-7:30 am.  Sometimes he does wake but usually goes back to sleep on his own.

-He naps twice a day, around 9 am and 12:30 pm.  Naps are getting longer recently, which is great.  He was doing the dreadful 20-30 minute nap thing, but now he'll usually have one 1 1/2 hour nap a day, and the other may be shorter.  When it is the afternoon nap that is shorter things get kind of rough around 4pm, but we manage.

-He LOVES his big brother.  They are interacting more these days and it is fun (usually).  Jackson's new favorite thing do to with Clayton is to push him around the house in the laundry basket.  Clayton loves it.  There's also a budding sibling rivalry going on too though... Clayton has decided that he doesn't like it when Jackson takes toys from him, and Jackson doesn't appreciate that Clayton can move around enough to take the cars that he is playing with.  So it begins.

-I'm afraid he has a milk allergy or lactose intolerance.  About two or three months ago he started actually drinking formula (he'd totally refuse it before) and would down several ounces, but then would throw it all back up again soon after that.  A few weeks ago when I was at my parent's house he got Jackson's milk sippy cup after dinner and drank a little, and then was up for hours that night screaming like he was in pain.  And last week we gave him some cheese baby puff things and he loved them and ate a bunch, and then when I went in to check on him before I went to bed, he'd thrown up all over in his crib.  ...so I don't really know what to make of it all...I guess I'll mention it to the doctor when we go for our check-up and avoid milk until then.  Anyone with experience on this??
-Clayton likes books.  He likes to look at them by himself and he likes to listen to me read to him.

-He loves the bath and gets excited when we go in the bathroom and I start undressing him.  He loves the rubber ducky and likes splashing in the water.  Usually Jackson & Clayton are in the bath together.
-He has two teeth, the bottom middle ones.

-He's starting to pull himself up to his knees
-He loves to put things in and out of containers, and often does it with the Mr. Potato Head parts, Mickey & Friends, and cars.


-(Clayton, don't read this part when you grow up and can read...or at least wait until you have kids of your own so you'll understand) ...I feel like Clayton definitely doesn't get the attention that Jackson did (does?)...I guess that goes with being the second child.  Hey, I'm the second and I survived.  But really most of my time is filled with playing with Jackson while Clayton tags along.  He's there, he's not neglected.  And he's being entertained by watching.  But it's definitely not the same as it was when I only had the baby to take care of all day long.  I do make an effort to play with and interact with Clayton one-on-one (beyond the feeding, diaper changing, etc) but it really takes a conscious effort.  That's kinda sad.
-He's generally a happy little person and loves attention from other people.

-While he's still a momma's boy, no doubt, he's doing a lot better at being ok with going to other people.

-His hair definitely has a lot of red in it these days.  It was reddish when he was born, but then he lost that hair and the new hair was just blond, then round three of hair looks quite red most of the time.
-He loves sippy cups.

-Clayton likes to click his tongue and likes us to copy him doing it.
-He likes music and will sing and dance along sometimes.
-He's in size 3 diapers and size 9 month clothes.

-We'll get the official weight & other stats when we have his dr check-up in a few weeks, but from our scale at home I think he is about 18.5 lbs.

-We like him a lot.