Catching some zzzzzzs...

At home Jackson takes two naps a day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. It breaks up the day nicely for us, and allows an opportunity to get a few chores done around the house.

At school, Jackson is too interested in what his friends are doing to fall fast asleep in a room with the lights on and 10 other toddlers running around. In the last few months we've been noticing that this has become a problem. After three nap-free days in childcare my little gem is a bear, crabbby as can be. It only takes a day to get him straightened out again, but the third evening is rough!

This week, Krystal, Jackson's teacher, tried a new approach. Instead of transferring him to a crib when he was sleeping she has been getting him to lay on a cot at school and fall asleep! I don't know how she does it, but yesterday he took almost a two hour nap. Yay! My little boy, a big guy, napping on a cot like the other toddlers do. I'm a proud mama.

Birthday Shots...

Not the kind of birthday shots you are thinking!! Shots of Jackson's first birthday have arrived. I am using ones that Mom took of the birthday cake fun. We have discontinued heating our upstairs and while we are saving a load of cash, picture downloading is not happening. Our computer is upstairs, and I just can't bring myself to go up there for the time it takes to download the pictures off the camera. It was a brisk 41 degrees in our upper level this morning. Imagine putting on frozen underwear each and every morning... it's not fun.


Jackson had a blast with his cake.


But he really didn't like it when dad put a birthday hat on his head!

And the doc says...

Jackson had his one year check up today.

Here are the stats:
30.5 inches long (70%)
22 lbs. (50%)

My baby is going to be one...

I took Jackson's 1 year photos yesterday. I think the photo shoot went pretty well, I snapped the shots while Ron kept dragging him back to set!

What a Mom will do...

Jackson had a stomach bug last Thursday and woke up throwing up, the poor little guy. Ron settled in with him in the chair only to get thrown up on. We did get off a little easy as I had fed Jackson bananas and toast for dinner so the mess was easier to take care of. After a couple rounds of clean up, I got Jackson to sleep in his crib, but was worried that I wouldn't hear him if he got sick again. So like any other mother would do, I slept on his floor. Ron came in the next morning and captured us on camera. Surpisingly, it wasn't all that uncomfortable, and it was kind of nice being so close to my baby that I could hear him breathing.

He's feeling better now!

We forgot the bubbly...

This year we tried a new way to bring in the New Year. We invited other friends with kids over to welcome 2008 when New York City did, 11:00 p.m. I thought that we'd get kids to bed and then have some adult time playing games, but no such luck!! Grayson was the only one that slept, but was awake in time to ring in the new year. I guess there was too much excitement for the little ones to want to miss. The picture is of our friends Emily and Jerry's little one, Maddie (2), Heather and her son Grayson (1.5) (Russ joined us for a little while but had to cater to the super dedicated exercisers at Lifetime), and Ron with Jackson. Our friends Jason and Darcie joined us after picture time with their two girls Elise (3) and Anja (2mos). It was an event to remember!

And the next morning I realized that I never even got to open the bottle of champagne that I ran out to get earlier in the day... bummer. We'll save it for another celebration. Maybe I'll pop the cork after all our guests leave on Jackson's birthday. I hope happiness and health for all in 2008.

A quick learner...

I am so impressed at Jackson's ability to pick things up lately.

When I was pregnant Ron and I decided that we would teach "Baby Boy Horwath" sign language. It seemed like all the hip parents were signing to their children. I had done some research and read of the benefits of being able to communicate with a child much sooner than vocal language is learned. When Jackson was 7 months we signed up for a baby sign language class knowing that 7 months was the perfect time to start teaching an infant. We learned 30 or so signs and practiced them back and forth. We started Jackson with two signs. "More" and "Milk". For about two weeks we were so good at using these new signs with Jackson, but feeding times got busy and Jackson didn't immediately pick up on them and Mom and Dad got impatient, so we sort of threw the signs out the window for a little bit.

A few weeks ago Ron started signing with Jackson again and I made a point to help in the effort, and voila! It's working! Jackson now knows the signs for milk, more, AND all-done! What's next?

Learn your baby signs>>