Saturday, July 11, 2009

awesome barbecue day!

Today we went for an afternoon barbecue at my aunt Cyndi's house. It was wonderful! We swam, played with her five dogs, and had very yummy food. Alex stepped up as grill-master at the last minute, so spent his day cooking over a hot grill with only a six-pack of Sam Adams to comfort him! :P He had a lot of fun doing that. I think it's his favorite place to be. :)

There were a million little highlights but the main excitements were 1) a pool! and 2) horses!






That's right, Jack rode a horse. :D Don't believe me?



More on this tomorrow. I wanted to get the evidence posted right away!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

beach trip!

It is such a nice day today, after a two-month block of rain, that Jack and I decided to walk to the beach!

It's kind of a long walk, about 2 1/4 miles:


It took us 45 minutes to get there! During the walk we admired the trees and fire hydrants, threw an apple into a pile of sand (Jack's idea, not mine!) and met a little dog named Eddie, who was all too happy to give Jack slobbery kisses! Alas, I didn't get pictures of any of this. :P

I remembered to get the camera out eventually, though!

Here he is on the sand at last! And picking out a rock to eat:

Here he is after having thrown the rock for not tasting good after all. He decided to go check out the wet sand instead:

Watching an upcoming wave: (I was actually impressed that he felt comfortable enough to sit on the wet sand, since on previous visits the waves have been very scary!)

After this picture I figured he was brave enough to put his toes in the water. Well we actually got in up to his knees! No pictures, since I was too busy keeping him upright. :) We played in about 20 waves before he decided it was time to go back up to the sand and watch some kids playing ball.

Then we met Daddy, who came to drive us home!

Eating a cracker and looking at the waves:

Talking to a nice old man:

Testing out Daddy's hat: (He was willing to leave it on his head once he figured out it was keeping the sun from his eyes!)

...for a while, anyway.

"See, Daddy? THIS is what you do with a hat!"

ten months old

Jack is finally at the longer-out-than-in milestone. This is pretty important!

He weighs 20 pounds and is 2 1/2 feet tall. Wow! Right now he's occupying himself by "cooking" on the kitchen floor -- using a frying pan, a small pot with lid, a whisk and a potato masher. He's very diligent! One of these days I'm sure a custard or something will appear. :)

He now spends his days cooking, organizing (an activity in which many things find their way to the floor), investigating the many doors and making sure they open and close correctly, throwing and chasing his balls (the racquetball is his favorite) and taking at least one long walk per day. We frequently go to the library so he can charm the librarians!

He also likes to do chores, to feed snacks to me and Alex, and to brush my teeth at bedtime. He makes sure we're taken care of properly! He is also capable of giving me a really stern lecture, complete with arched back, furrowed brow, and gutteral, disapproving syllables, if I'm doing something wrong like making him wait until his daddy is awake before it's romp-on-Daddy time.

He can say da-da, kitty, doggy, and mommmm (with a growly bit at the end). And yesterday he revealed that he can say "go go go go go go go!" because I was taking too long getting ready for our shopping trip!

The point being, of course, that if all this has happened in ten months, we have a hell of a ride coming up! :D

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

oh my goodness, we're in trouble now!

I got up early this morning and was doing some cleaning and stuff while Jack and Alex were still asleep. Well, around 7:00 (Jack's usual wake-up time) I heard a little "mhhuuhh!" (his normal wake-up cry) and went into the bedroom expecting to find him sitting up, rubbing his eyes, and giving me a goofy, tired smile (his normal wake-up greeting).

WELL.

He was standing on the floor holding on to the edge of the bed. That's right, he climbed out of bed on his own!!! (His crib is pushed up against our bed with one side open, giving him the perfect escape route!) And he was surveying the room carefully, deciding where to go next.

I blame Alex, who decided this week to start teaching Jack about furniture dismounts. He was showing him "Okay, you put your feet over the edge, then turn on your tummy and your feet hit the floor first," while coaching him through the motions.

And of course, as I typed this he tried to dive head-first to dismount from the couch. What are we going to do with this boy??

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

"bye bye!"

Every time we leave a place, I wave Jack's hand and tell him to say "bye bye!"

Yesterday he actually waved at the librarian and said "biiiiiiiiieeeee!"