Videos around the house

These are some silly little videos where we were trying to film some of Jackson's first steps on his own. Though we didn't really succeed, we captured some of his other behaviors, mostly related to him crawling around and being wild. One of the videos has a sad ending :(

 

 

Children's Discovery Museum

 Dan and I spend Saturday with Jack at this cute little children's museum in San Jose. It actually had plenty of activities for crawlers, on up to probably 10-year-old's, so I'm sure we'll be going back over the years. Here are some highlights from the day.

 There was a big crawlers-only play area for Jack with stairs and ramps to work on.

 Dan and Jack checking each other out. There is glass in front of Jack, so he's not about to fall.

 Dan's taking calls and Jack's wondering what's up.

 Fun rippled ramp that was easier to crawl down head first than normal stairs, though he did wipe out a few times when he went too fast.

 Eager little dude.

 Pushing the buttons makes the birdies talk!

 Lots of levers, handles and buttons to work on.

 A mirror box. Jack smacked his head on the mirror trying to crawl through the box.

 Stuck in the box

 Giving himself a smooch.

 Taking a break for story time in the "forest"

 Dan kept playing with this ramp.

 And Jack really wanted to help.

 Climbing on the dragon.

 Up the back

 The "Water Works" area. The 4 and under version was much more tame than the big kids area where balls were flying.

 Grateful for the strong chlorine we could smell.

 "Don't eat that" - that's all I say now-a-days.

 Loves to get wet.

 A break for a snack.

 Watching him drink from a straw just melts me because he seems so grown up.

 Chillin' in the garden

 Gears! If gear 1 has 12 teeth and a diameter of 6 inches, and gear 2 has 24 teeth and a diameter of 12 inches, what is the gear ratio???

 He's calculating...

 "That's easy Mom, it's 1:2. Give me something harder, or I'll eat the gears some more." My little engineer.

No No No

Just a little fun head shaking. I apologize for the awful music playing (my least favorite American Idol was performing and Jack was saying "no").

Planes, trains, and automobiles, plus a pony!

I know, stupid title, but I couldn't help myself. Dan and his dad drove down to LA this weekend to help his brother move and ended up flying back up on Sunday. Jackson and I decided that we would be no help with the move, so we spent some time in Santa Rosa checking out the local scene at Howarth Park. A train, pony rides, a carousel and so much fun.

Ponies with Grandma and Papa Bear

 Getting his shoes adjusted for the train ride

 Inquisitive on the train

 Mom and me

 Wave to the train.

 On the pony. He was very shaggy and his name was Rusty.

 The pony went fast and I had a hard time keeping up!

 Petting Rusty

 With Auntie

 Kiss from Uncle Dubb

 Carousel with Auntie.

 And the third type of "horse" of the day.

 Go buckaroo!

 Loves to go high on the swings

 Walking practice. I call him Frankenstein because he doesn't bend his knees.

  Trying to get him to take steps. So far we've witnessed 3 independent steps.

 Being upside down makes anything better. He also got his first taste of frozen yogurt that afternoon and seemed to like it.

 Reading time at Grandma's house

 Auntie introducing technology. She lets him play Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. Dan and I don't have smartphones, so he normally isn't around such interesting gadgets.

An Amazing Day!

Jackson wowed me today by hitting 2 huge milestones, all before his 2:30 nap! First off, he had his very first steps today! It was about 1.5 steps on his own from holding onto my knee to grabbing a hold of the bathroom cabinets, but they were independent steps, so I'm counting it as "First Steps." He can also stand without support for 5-10 seconds until he grabs hold of something or falls on his bottom.

Secondly, I introduced Jackson to the potty today. I just wanted to get him familiar with his little potty chair and show him that sitting on it is fun. We read books and talked while he sat for a while and he seemed to really like it. The second time I put him on the potty, he actually went potty! I did not expect him to actually go for a while still. He grabbed himself and made it squirt all over both of us, but most of it ended up in the potty, so it was a wonderful achievement for him. I'm sure we have many "exciting" potty experiences ahead of us.

 At 9 months

Park Play - Part 2

We hit up another park this afternoon and it was sunny and wonderful outside. I took way too many pictures, so here is a sampling of the best ones with some commentary.

Baby and Mommy, determining whether the stick is delicious. It must have been because he wouldn't give it up.

 

  Baby's learning to walk. We went from the picnic blanket (where the picture is being taken) to the corner without stopping for a sitting break.

 Climbing up on Daddy. Look Daddy, standing with no hands!!!

 

 More practicing and balancing.

  He's blowing us away with how stable he's getting and how he wants to try to take steps on his own.

 Love these duck lips. He also uses this face to spit out food he doesn't like without bothering to open his mouth.

 A silly series of pictures on the slide

 Handsome men. I'm such a lucky lady to have these two at home.