The crawling king!

I have been meaning to post for a while, but never quite find the time to do it. Now that the little man is able to crawl around, watch out world here he comes! As soon as he started crawling he started pulling himself up on things. Most of our pictures now are of him pulled up on some surface trying to grab what he can. It is a funny sight to see in the mornings. He loves to be able to pull himself up on the open dishwasher and also to check out what is in the refrigerator. So in the mornings we see him crawling between the two while Jeff and I are prepairing breakfast and packing Jeff's lunch. Jason gets mad when someone closes up the fridge before he has a chance to explore it.



It has really become winter here in the last week or so. We were so lucky it held off so long. There is snow on the ground and it doesn't look like it is going to get above freezing again until spring. In a way I am thankful that we have an apartment because we don't have to worry about shoveling the snow at all. One of these weekends I hope to take Jason and Jeff out to take pictures in the snow. I think we would have a lot of fun and it would be great to put in Jason's scrapbook.




Many people have asked us if we are going to stay in the apartment the whole time we are here. Most of the concern comes from the treacherous staircase. This thing looks like the stairs that the priest fell down at the end of the exorcist. We have looked around at houses/apartments for rent, but haven't been able to find anything good. Well we have found some places, but they are unfurnished and all of our stuff is in storage in the US. We looked at buying new stuff and the cost would be about $10,000. No Thank You!!! So for now we will carefully deal with the deathly stairs and the furnished apartment.

Go Big or Go Home!

Jason did go big this past weekend. Friday afternoon he was gnawing on my finger when I thought I felt something sharp on his gum. Sure enough there was a little bitty ridge of a tooth poking through. At first Jeff didn't believe me since people have told us he is teething for the past 7 months. Over the weekend the tooth emerged more. He has been dealing with it alright, but I think we have restarted some of our sleep issues.

Over the weekend Jason also decided it was time to get off his butt and go! Yes, ladies and gentlemen we have a crawler. He is still a little wobbly, but with the right motivation he will crawl. His favorite thing to go after is the Christmas tree and wires. I ran around the house yesterday baby proofing as best I could.

A while ago Jason discovered he could stand in his crib holding on to the railing. I though oh this is cute and he loves to do it. Now instead of sleeping he is standing and calling out for us all night. I am not sure he even knows how to get himself down. We may have to look into doing some more sleep training with him in the next week or so.

Nine Months Old!

Where did my baby go? I know I start just about every monthly post with this, but seriously he is looking and acting more and more like a little boy lately. Almost every morning when we go in to get him he is standing at the railing of his crib. Today he had not even been crying out for a minute when Jeff went to get him and sure enough he was standing up waiting for him. In fact when I want to get him into a better mood we go in there and he shows off how great he is at standing up.



Jason scoots around the floor like no ones business. He isn't crawling yet, and honestly I thought he would be. He doesn't let that stop him. Jason goes from the back scoot to the back crawl to sitting and scooting to get all around any room. He might be one of those babies who skips crawling to go right to standing. His next development is anybody's guess. Last week he just randomly started clapping. Now he has gotten the hang of it and claps when others do. It is the cutest thing and he is so proud of himself.

Tigger says Happy Halloween

Jason was the cutest little Tigger for Halloween this year. We didn't go out trick or treating because Jason didn't need to be out in the cold or the candy (neither did Mom and Dad.) He did wear his costume all day on Saturday and we got quite a few comments on how cute he is.



We also went to a Halloween party on Friday. There were 2 other Tiggers there!!! We were so surprised that Jason wasn't an original. Jason really did enjoy watching the other kids playing, especially the bigger ones.



Since Thanksgiving is celebrated early here all the stores are getting out the Christmas stuff. Jeff and I even went out and got a fake tree this weekend. Jason loves to run into it in his walker and we are trying to train him to stop doing that. I haven't quite put on the Christmas music yet, but I am seriously considering it.

Hit the panic button!

How did this happen? When did it sneak up on me? What am I going to do? It's only 60 days until Christmas! The only person I really know what to get is Jason and let's be honest he is just as happy to play with the empty box from the sodas. It isn't really helping that we don't live near any good shopping. I mean I love Walmart as much as the next gal, but who wants the blue light special as their gift? One of my friends said it best on Facebook when she wrote, "no target! how do you survive?!?!?" I am sure we will be spending many weekends in the next two months driving 2 hours to Timmins to search for gifts.



Every Christmas the most difficult person to buy something for should be the one I know the best: My darling husband. I would love to surprise him with something wonderful and thoughtful. My dream is to hear him tell me that I got him something that he loves so much, but didn't even know he wanted. It hasn't happened yet, but I keep hoping! This year when I have asked him what he wants he gives me a laundry list of what he doesn't want. He doesn't want books because he doesn't read. He already has more computer, board, Xbox and Wii games than he can play. He has tons of tools that are in storage somewhere. We also already have more DVD's than we have time to watch. What is a girl to do? Any ideas? If nothing comes to me he is getting warm socks :)

Our little guy is 8 months old! We celebrated with a feast and a national holiday of Thanksgiving. The holiday may or may not have been in place pre-Jason, but he is someone we are very thankful for. For Canada’s Thanksgiving on Monday we got together a couple of Americans that Jeff works with to have a nice little dinner party. I was pretty excited because that was the first time I have made a big dinner for un-related people (relatives are too nice and forgive you when you mess up all the dishes.) For some added fun our electricity went out about a half hour after putting the turkey in the oven. Eeek! Everything turned out okay and I haven’t heard of major cases of food poisoning yet.

We had our first real snow on Sunday. I am already concerned about the cold winter we are going to have. I guess we just bundle up and deal with it. There are some indoor mommy and baby activities planned around town that I think we will be taking advantage of to ward off cabin fever.

Jason always wants to be moving now. I mean he never really liked to sit still for very long, but now he really wants to go. He is struggling to crawl and our hard wood floors aren’t making it very easy for him. Every time he tries to get his knees under him he just scoots backward. The backward scoot has become a means of transportation, but it is made more difficult by the fact that you can’t see where you are going. We believe that it won’t be too long before he figures out crawling and Rachel’s life will never be the same.

Jason did have one milestone that I could have skipped. Our little boy recently had his first cold. The poor boy was all stuffed up and not very happy at all. It made sleeping through the night difficult when he had trouble breathing. I think we are past most of it now and there is just a little nose gunk leftover. Jeff caught the cold from Jason and was just as miserable as the baby if not more so. Jason is not a fan of loud noises and starts crying and freaking out a bit when someone sneezes. We are all glad that the family is recovering.

Baby babble

Our little man has been chattering away lately. His latest syllable is "Da" Jeff is so proud to hear him say DaDa. We are working on Daddy or Mama. Sometimes he just moves his jaw as if he was going to start talking. We try to get videos of this, but of course every time we turn on the camera he stops doing whatever he was doing.

adventures on the NJ turnpike

So on our way up north we were taking the New Jersey Turnpike. We had our truck loaded down with more than we came down with, including a treadmill. We put many of our loose things in plastic bins so that they didn't get wet when it rained. One of them held all of Jason's clothes that we brought with us, one held all his new clothes, books and Jeff's emergency tools and the last one held extra dipers, wipes and a couple of games and my slippers.

We were bouncing down the road when Jeff looks back and says "yup we lost one" What! One of the bins bounced off the bed of the truck and onto the road. I panic, but Jeff is cool calm and collected. We wait in this huge line to get off the turnpike to just do a U-turn after the toll plaza. On our way south I convince Jeff to pull over to the side and hop the barrier to gather up stuff that we can before it blows into the road. He got almost everything, but one of my slippers was in the middle of the road. He waited for an opening, but there wasn't a safe one so he had to leave it. On the way back north we saw the slipper again on the side of the road. The slipper was run over a dozen times and the sole was partially coming off, but we got it back!

Lesson learned: don't stack boxes up in the truck bed!

Virginia Visit

As you may have gathered we recently went back to the US for a wedding and to visit friends and family. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone and there didn't seem like enough time to do everything. Jason was pretty good driving down and we traveled through the night. We arrived on Friday afternoon much sooner than I had expected. That afternoon we ran a couple of errands and we spent the evening with my parents. Jeff went to see his friend Nate that evening and Jason and I went to sleep early that night.

Saturday morning Grandma took Jason and I out shopping and spoiled the little boy (and his mom) with a new winter wardrobe for Jason. I can't wait until he grows into those cute clothes. That afternoon we spent some time with Nate and met his little boy, T'iyler. T'iyler is twice as big as Jason, but was only born 2 weeks before him. That evening we got to catch up with Nathan and Christi, who was a natural with Jason!

Sunday we went to Jeff's old church and Aunt Karen got to meet Jason. We even got to see the pastor who married us! That afternoon we went to Nate and Heather's wedding that we originally traveled down for. It was great to see friends at the ceremony. We got to go bowling with Nathan that evening and hung out with the bride and groom at a bar later that night.

Monday we took Jason to the national zoo. It was nice family time, but a little disappointing as many of the exhibits were closed. That night we went out to dinner with Granddad Salomon, who was in town on business.

Tuesday morning we spent some time catching up on sleep. We enjoyed cuddling with Jason, but had to get started with our day. After lunch at home we went out shopping. We spent most of the day shopping and enjoying seeing more stores then we would have been able to find in all of Ontario. That evening we went out with Aunt Karen and Granddad Salomon again.

Wednesday we went down to Newport News to visit Aunt Julie. It didn't take nearly as long to get down there as we thought and we enjoyed seeing her again.

Thursday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa Comer came home early and we all went to the American History Museum. We also got to go out with them and Uncle Brian and Uncle Kevin. That night we picked up a treadmill from Karen to bring with us up to Canada. After we put Jason to bed we got to visit with Chris. We were having a ton of fun, but had to go after not too long since we had a long drive the next day.

Friday we started up north with a stop in Connecticut to see Cousins Chrissy and Gary. They had a great time meeting Jason. After telling them that the little boy would be good a dinner out he proceeded to prove me wrong and fussed much of the time. That evening we got in a couple more hours of traveling before stopping for the night.

All day Saturday we spent driving and finally arrived home around 10pm. We even hefted the treadmill up our treacherous stairs. We spent most of Sunday unpacking everything and putting the house back in order.

Competition

I never considered myself a very competitive person. I wasn't into sports and I didn't really care about winning. Except maybe at life. It really hit me when I was getting ready to get married and was posting on The Knot chat board. A commonly asked question was "how long have you and your fiance been together?" I was always proud to tell them that when we were married we had been together 6 1/2 years! Oh wasn't I special? Did that mean that we were more in love? Or just that we had weathered the tests of time better than many high school sweethearts. It felt great to be the first one of my friends to get married. I still judge every wedding we go to against ours.

We were also one of the first to buy (and sell) a house and move away from our home town. Then we started thinking about having a baby. We had a hard time conceiving and after a miscarriage we found out we were pregnant in June of 2008. I was so excited and some part of me felt special because again we were the first of our friends. Then Jeff went to Virginia to do some recruiting at his alma mater. His best friend met him there with his new girlfriends and guess what? They were pregnant and due a couple of days before us. What is going on? That isn't the way you are supposed to do it? Well they did have a boy and they had him at the end of January and we had Jason February 12th.

Now the competition is between babies. Jason had to go for shots last week and as we were getting ready to go a Grandmother, Mom and baby walked in with a four month old girl. She asked how big Jason was. When I answered 16 pounds she said that the little girl was even bigger than Jason is. At this point I feel a little riled. Yes, I know my baby is a shrimp, but he is my shrimp and is developing just fine. It could have been linked to the fact that the Doctor (quack) said he was concerned about him not gaining lots of weight, but he doesn't see many babies and those that he does are formula fed. Jeff convinced me to calm down and not worry too much about it because Jason did double his birth weight by 6 months and is on the way to tripling it in a year.

Then I see all these babies younger than Jason getting teeth and working on crawling and meeting lots of mile stones before Jason does. I worry that he is falling behind. Even though all the books and experts tell you over and over again that each baby is an individual and meets the mile stones at his own time. I worry because that is what mothers do.

So when did I become so competitive? Why is it that we worry about what other people do? Are we all just trying to keep up with the Jones'? Or is it just me and my personal issues?

And just so that you don't miss out on the cuteness I have included some photos from our 6 month photo session.

Getting ready for our trip

We are so excited for our trip down to Virginia starting later this week, but less than thrilled about the 20 hour drive to get there! As I am trying to find ideas for how to occupy our 7 month old while he is awake, a life saver came through! Our friend was caring for a baby full time for about a month and bought some toys for her. She won't need them any more so she asked if we wanted them. SCORE! New toys that Jason hasn't seen to occupy his time.





Now we just have to deal with the issue that he only nurses and refuses to take a bottle. Hopefully he doesn't keep that up on the road, because it will be a lot longer trip if we have to stop every 2 hours during the day. Since you can't drive and have the baby out of the car seat and I am not flexible enough to nurse him while he is in the car seat we are hoping he will take a bottle. On the way up here he was willing to take pumped milk, but he was a lot younger then. He also kind of zones and doesn't eat as much when we are driving as he would normally, at least he did.





We also have the issue that everyone wants to see us. Jason has 2 aunts, 2 uncles and many friends in Virginia that he has yet to meet. And who wouldn't want to meet this adorable little guy:

We just have to find time to fit them all in! I think we have figured out a schedule that will hopefully work. I hope no one feels left out. Of course everyone has full time jobs that they have to be at during the week, but that is most of the time we are free. We are planning on getting photos done of Jason on one of those days and I hope to go shopping some new clothes for him (don't tell Jeff.) I'm working on a packing list, but I know I will forget something. When it was just Jeff and I, we needed so little. Now that we have the baby it feels like we need a ton of things just for him.

Well the baby is up, guess I better go get him.