Jamison at 15 months

My little Jamison, you have taken off this past month.  It’s funny, I had to look back at the big kids blogs to remember exactly when they started walking unassisted too, and you are following in their footsteps.  This month you started walking and running by yourself and you’ve even mastered standing up by yourself without hanging on to anything for balance.  Now you can bend down and pick something up and stand right back up and take off again.  Now you follow me all over the house and make it very clear when you want me to pick you up by stand in front of me and pushing back on my legs and then reaching up for me.  It’s adorable and some days I don’t get much done because you do this pretty much all day.  You are a snuggler and daddy and I LOVE that about you.  You will sit with us for a long time on the couch or wherever and play with one toy and just be content to be in the middle of it all. 

You are definitely a people person.  You like to be where the action is now and when someone walks away from you, you get upset.  This is especially fun when daddy and I are trying to get the house done and every time we go in to the garage you absolutely lose it.  These past 2 days daddy has left for work after you’ve been awake and you whine when you see him start walking away and then full on cry when he is out of sight.  It breaks my heart so I end up crying along with you and it makes it VERY hard for daddy to leave.  You are typically his little shadow every time he gets home from work now.  And you still say “Hi daddy” every time you see him.  He loves that of course and spends 90% of his time with you gritting his teeth because he can’t take how cute you are.

You say “hi” in the sweetest way.  I need to record it because your little voice goes up in the middle of the word, which makes you sound extra enthusiastic.  You also say “GOOK” for look now and you have your fat little finger out there pointing at whatever you’re gooking at.  You say kitty now too and love to see the neighbors cats and my parents cat.  And you are definitely babbling more.  You use different tones in your voice depending on what you’re talking about and you are good at pointing at what you want now too.  You sign milk and drink and all done and please and down frequently and sometimes you sign thank you as well.  He probably says about 8 words consistently and signs 5-6 signs as well.  We’re still working on these things, but I think this month was more of a physical leap with the walking and running than a verbal one.  Oh, and you also say gookie, for cookie.  You like gookies.  And you still say dog.  Or hi dog.

You absolutely LOVE water and you aren’t afraid of it at all, which scares me.  Even in the bath tub you frequently put your face in the water and love it.  When we were at my parents on the lake, you LOVED floating around in the water with us and even with your floaties on and being in a tube, you would still spend most of your time trying to put your face in the water.  And you love to splash too and got a kick out of it when daddy would make huge splashes.  I have no doubt that you would have gone off the end of the dock by yourself if we’d let you.  But we didn’t because it makes me extremely nervous.  You also loves anything that rolls.  You play with cars a lot and love it when we hook trains together and you can push around a whole bunch of them at the same time.  You love chasing balls and trying to kick them and you actually do manage to kick them at times.  The other day Ben made a garage out of his legos with daddy and you went sailing out of his room and a few minutes later came running back with 2 cars that you could push into the garage.  We think it’s pretty ingenious when you do things like this.  You are always watching very carefully how we make things work and then you try your hardest to do them on your own and 90% of the time you figure it out.

You are doing much better with going to bed now.  We put you down for naps and bedtime completely awake and sometimes you talk for a few minutes, but then you lay down and go straight to sleep.  I think I’ve had to get up in the middle of the night with you once in the past month when you were crying.  You couldn’t find your paci so I gave you them back and gave you a pat and you laid down and went back to sleep.  You are usually in bed by 830 and will usually stay in bed until 830.  Sometimes you wake up around 7/730 and play with your toys in your crib and then go back to sleep until 9 even.  It’s been nice.  And you also will stay in your bed from 1230-430 some days during naptime.  You’re not asleep that whole time, but you kind of wake up and play a little and then lay back down and sleep and wake up and play again.  It’s been nice because this is Abbie and Ben’s quiet time when they are in their rooms and it gives me time to clean or blog or quilt or whatever I need to do (which occasionally is nap).

I’ve changed your morning bottle to a morning sippy cup, but you still get 1-2 bottles a day – mostly at night before bed.  You drink just fine out of sippy cups though so that’s good.  You love trying to use silverware by yourself and are getting much better at using a spoon to feed yourself applesauce or yogurt or whatever.  If you see us using silverware, you want to use it as well.  You love popcorn and we have been letting you have it when we have it on Sundays and watching you closely.  Sometimes you gerbal it and stuff as much as you can in your mouth, but you are good about chewing your food.  You’ve found the container of goldfish in the cabinet before and brought it to me and pointed to your mouth so I would give you some, which was cute.  You have a full mouth of teeth and you use them well.

You can point to your nose, ears, eye, hair, belly and fingers most days.  You love bringing me books and pointing to things and have me tell you what they are.  You are much more interested in books at this age than Benji was but not as much as Abbie was.  You are kind of a cross between the two of them, which is funny.  I think we will have some jealousy issues with you once baby #4 arrives, but I am hoping my lap will be big enough for both of you.  You are a kind boy and when friends bring their little ones over, you are gentle with them and more than happy to give them your toys, but you’re not too excited when I hold them.  You want me to pick you up too, which is really cute.  And you LOVE going for walks.  You are a happy clam when we go for our nightly walks and you have your little fingers in the point positions incase you see something you want us to notice.  You like looking at the planes and the moon too and frequently point them out.  You also finally like going on bike rides in the seat on the back of my bike.  We rode you around a campground for a few days this summer without your helmet on so you could get the feel for it, and now you love it and don’t even mind the helmet usually.

You are my favorite little thing ever right now.  You are so sweet and happy 90% of the time and you’re a very content little dude.  We have a lot of fun with you and couldn’t imagine our lives without you.  You are at a really fun age and you make us so excited to have one more baby.  We couldn’t love you more if we tried.

A trip to my parents

We always love going to visit my parents in southern MO.  They live on Table Rock Lake and have lots of toys to play with and space for all of us to stay with them when we visit, so it’s more relaxing than going to a hotel and everyone having to share a hotel room.  We wear the kids out at the lake every day and have fun in the boat and on the jet ski.  Branson is close by and there’s obviously tons to do there as well, although we didn’t go there much this trip because I’m pregnant.  They live like 15 mins from Silver Dollar City so next time we’re there we’ll go there again, but being pregnant and going to amusement parks don’t go too well together.

 

 

Ben is by far, our most cautious kiddo.  He was so excited to go to the lake but then when we got there and it was time to jump off the dock, he wasn’t super excited about doing that.  It took us a good 10 mins to get him to jump in the first time, but after that he probably jumped off the dock at least 250 times while we were there.  He also actually rode on the jet ski and on the tube behind the jet ski too and loved it.  I like that he’s cautious and not a crazy dare devil like some boys are.

Jamison, on the other hand, is crazy.  He would have easily gone sailing off the dock by himself without hesitation.  His adventuresome spirit makes me so nervous because you have to watch him like a hawk.  We made sure we always put his life jacket on him before we got anywhere near the water or the dock and we had him wear his floatie thing and sit in a tube.  When he just wore his floaties, he’d have his mouth in the water the whole time.  He still would almost tip the tube over trying to put his face in the water and he loved splashing.  That boy is going to keep me on my toes, that’s for sure.

 

 

Jamison loved the boat rides and so did the big kids.  The second night there they fell asleep on the ride home from dinner.  That’s always a good sign that we’re wearing them out.  I wish we had a lake so close that they could go swimming in.  They loved it.  Jamison didn’t even mind wearing his life jacket in the boat too much.  He fell asleep a few times in there too and Ben would go underneath the front of the boat and fall asleep on the bed down there.  I used to do that all the time too, so I’m not surprised that he did.

My mom borrowed a high chair from a friend and they have some toys at their house for the kids to play with.  I would love to have a big house like they do someday, especially when we have grand kids, but I guess even before then.  The 2 of them probably don’t need anywhere near that much space, but when you have 4 kids, you do need space.  (And 3 dogs.)  J was fascinated with my parents cat, Lucy.  She wasn’t super fond of him, but he learned to say “key” (kitty) when we were there and he loved following her around.

 

My cousins came to visit from central IL while we were there too, so it was good to see them.  Their kids are 14 and 18 and it seems like the last time we saw them they were Abbie’s and Ben’s ages.  My kids loved spending time with their kids and Mark and I enjoyed talking with Marc and Alli too.  It was a nice visit, but very short.  I wish we could see them more often.

 

I had 2 requests while we were there.  I really wanted to eat at the Crap Shack since we don’t have any of those near us and I wanted to go to the quilt store in Branson that I love.  I got to do both and my mom and I had a good time wandering around the quilt store while the kids stayed with Mark and my dad.  I could spend HOURS at that store looking at everything they have to offer, but we only spent about 30 mins there and I only bought one package of pre-cut Tula Pink fabric.  I added it to my collection.  I still have all the fabric I bought on my last visit there 2 years ago…  I tend to hoard fabric.  It makes me happy.

 

Getting home was a bit of a mess.  We were supposed to fly out at like 9pm but the plane we were supposed to fly out on hit birds on the landing into Branson, so they ended up cancelling the flight around 11pm and rescheduling it for the next morning at 10am.  We had to rent a car and get a hotel room near the airport, which was okay, just kind of expensive, but we made it work.  And we were able to have breakfast with my parents at Cracker Barrell the next morning before we flew out.  The kids did great on the flights, despite us having to hold Jamison in our laps because we didn’t buy him a seat.  Abbie was fine saying goodbye to my parents, but as the plane was taking off, she was crying.  I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn’t want to leave.  =(  Breaks my heart so then I sat there and cried too…  ugh.  I wish we lived much closer to them so we could see them more often.  Someday.