When It Rains...

It pours! Jackson seems to literally be doing something new everyday. On Friday it was crawling. Then yesterday, he successfully pulled himself up to standing. Jason and I joke that it seems like everyday he is doing something new, but seriously....everyday he is doing something new. It's so cool.

He had never even really tried to pull himself up. He tried Saturday night, he tried Sunday morning, and then finally yesterday afternoon he did it. It's crazy. How fast they learn is really something to see.

Next we hope he will get a job.

We're Mobile

Jackson has officially crawled. It's not Pampers commercial quality crawling, but it was crawling and he is still doing it today. It happened last night, and we happened to catch the occasion on video, which we are pretty thrilled about. He starts and stops and has some Army-style crawling in there, but he still did it and it's very fun. There are other videos of it on You Tube.



We have been continuing our babyproofing as we rented a storage unit and put lots of things in it that were either cluttering our existence or would have been hazardous to our wee man and could be replaced with other things in the house that were less hazardous. For example, we now have the coffee table that was in my parents house when I was a baby. It's a funky old table and it's tiny and light, but it's easier to move for us and smaller so we have more room to play on our main level.

8 Months Later

So our boy is eight months old today. It seems more noteworthy to me today because it's a Friday and he was born on a Friday...even though it's not. I simply cannot fathom that it has been eight months since Jackson joined us. It often feels like he squeezed out last week, though his father would disagree with me.

Anyways, Happy Eight Months Jackson...we love you plum :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! We celebrated by being asleep at midnight. Hooray us.

Today we really wanted to get out of the house so we took a trip to the mall. It's so pathetic, but what can you do. So we took Jackson to the play area at Flatiron Crossing. I take him all the way to the back no one is ever back there except crazy little kids that almost trample him. It was a harrowing experience for his father, who had not yet dared to enter the kiddie area at our mall.

We were going to sit down, and this man turns to his wife after watching some kids play in front of him, "Thank God we only had girls. What would we do with boys?" because there was some boisterous play going on with the wee lads. I thought about that statement, and what prompted it, and you know what, I say WHATEVER to that.

I was a freaking maniac as a child. I do not know how my parents survived...or I guess more accurately, how I survived because I was a Grade A pain in the ass. Apparently I required constant interaction and didn't do a lot of playing independently. My brother on the other hand...we would have to go into his room to make sure he was still alive because he did so well on his own. He would sit on the floor of his room and play with toys by himself for hours, and then just fall asleep on the floor for his nap. He has always done better taking care of and entertaining himself than I ever did.

Anyways, it seems that is rocking milestones daily! Today he pulled himself up to sitting from laying down for the first time that we know of. Any bets on when he'll crawl?

Year In Review

Oh it's the last day of the year, so I might as well get on the bandwagon and do my Lew family year in review.

January: Introduction of Little Man blog. I get a new job as Director of Strategic Sales and Communication at CU Athletics. Jason wins dodgeball championship.

February: Another month with a grand total of one blog post. Jason assembles Little Man Lew's crib and other accoutrement for his room. Double root canal for me.

March: Baby shower(s) with Chickfila and CU. Amazing childbirth classes, where we meet friends Beth and Steph and husbands. Juno. Dedication to an epidural. Painting the room. WNIT. Visits from Jason's family.

April: Baby Mama. First kid born from childbirth class. Braxton Hicks. Baby pool at work. CU football spring game featuring debut of Ralphie V. Our last month of a two person family. At last doctor appointment on April 30, we schedule induction for May 6. We didn't need it.

May: On day two this month we welcome Jackson Conrad Lew to the world. Home at last. Circumcision (ouch). First trip out. Lews visit. First Mother's Day! Jason back to work. Big 12 Track! First online videos of Jackson posted. Meeting the Anhold family. Baby Bjorn trips. Jason's birthday.

June: Lifting of head. One month old. First trip to IBM and to CU main campus. First girls night out. First smile! First Father's Day! Lew and Davis families visit. Mom back to exercise and first soccer games. Cooing. Mice at work. Baby class reunion, take 1.

July: Shots. Fourth of July outing in the park and fireworks. First time sick. Escaping the swaddler. Ed and Kristen's wedding. Blackhawk. Mamma Mia. My birthday. Turned around in the crib for the first time. Football 101. First time sleeping through the night (930 pm-6 am!)

August: First studio photos (ha!). Back to work for me. Boulder County Fair. First time rolling over. Sick again.

September: First solids (cereal) and first real food (sweet potatoes). Attempt at first CU football game. More sick. Maybe rolled from tummy to back, maybe not. Baby picnic, take 2.

October: Real roll over from back to tummy. Uncle Eric and Aunt Jennie's wedding. Meeting his great grandma Dot and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. Grabbing feet. Raspberries. Real rolling over. Jason to Indiana. Halloween and trick or treating.

November: Six months old. Second studio photos. Election! Sitting up on his own. Horrible, horrible sickness hits entire family. Stage 2 foods. Splashing in the tub. Thanksgiving and first meats.

December: Attempt at Cheerios. Photo with Santa. On again, off again 10 pm bottles. Light parade in Longmont. Tortured toenails from jumperoo. Teething..is he or isn't he? He is. Throwing up in mommy's mouth. Christmas! Almost crawling. And on the last day of the new year...clicking his tongue and using his pincers on cheerios for the first time.

Happy New Year...I will miss 2008, the most special year of my life.

No News is No News

Not much going on in Jackson land really. He still has his two lower front teeth that are just sitting there. Tiny little nubbins that if you feel them with your finger they are for sure the tops of his teeth and to an unseasoned veteran of teething they feel like they are through to me. But they haven't sprouted upward yet really.

Last night we had ridiculous winds that continue still in Boulder. So I didn't get much sleep but Jackson and Jason both did. I was so desperate I even attempted to sleep in the spare bed in Jackson's room while he was in there, but no dice Chicago. Jackson didn't seem bothered by them but for the second night in a row has awakened at 5:30 am with a ridiculously full pee diaper that I can't blame him for not sleeping through.

Public Service Announcement

I hate Microsoft and Microsoft/MSN customer service. Without going into too much detail, I tried to cancel a monthly service I had subscribed to for $14.99 a month on November 13. I have subsequently been billed twice by them for it and it was not until I called my credit card company to dispute the charges did I get the phone number. Not that I didn't try to find a phone number or an email address or a contact form for MSN Games for like an hour. F. Not even by Googling it could I find a phone number.

So I called Microsoft MSN customer service and blah blah blah after talking to a supervisor I got them to give me back one of the two disputed months of charges and she would not cave on the other. So I'm going to weigh my options and have yet to decide if I'm going to call my cc company and make them dispute the charge or call back Microsoft MSN customer service and make them give me the charge, but in the meantime, for all of you out there googling those jerks here are two Microsoft MSN customer service phone numbers that I couldn't find:

Phone number to contact MSN customer service (JUST PRESS 0 when you call): 1-800-386-5550
MSN Billing Inquiries (1-866-672-4551)

Tell them I say hi. Jerks. We now return to our regularly scheduled topics.

Attempting to Crawl

Key concept here is attempting....

First Christmas

It was Jackson's first Christmas. Obviously. And judging by the photo at left, I would say it was a success. Jackson did well which isn't altogether unexpected considering he didn't know what was going on really. By the second round of presents after a fantastic morning nap he had figured out 1) to pull the paper off and 2) how to pull the paper off, but he just did it because he liked the sound, not because of what was inside. Last night we went to Aunt Rita and Uncle Willy's house and had a full table with all the cousins and their kids and their kids kids. It was lots of fun. We spent the last few days in Lakewood and will probably head north tonight. My brother gets back from Kansas today as well. Jackson did beautifully all week really.

He actually started doing some things this week he hasn't done before. He was never one for repetative sounds...but of course now it's dadadadadadadadada and gagagagagagagagagaga all the time. Missing from this list is mamamamamamamamama but someday it will join the ranks. He also made his first efforts at crawling forward...doing usually one arm and the opposite leg before collapsing into a heap of giggles and drool. He also has the very top of a tooth coming through on the bottom left front...we'll see when it decides to actually appear as it apparently has a shy streak because it's up, it's down, it's up, it's down. When it's up, it's interfering with him wanting to eat anything but it's nothing a little T to the Y can't fix in 15 minutes if needed.

Hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and look forward to a Happy New Year!

Grossest Thing Ever

Jackson threw up in my mouth. I figured I would just cut to the chase on this one. I was laying on the floor, he was sitting on my chest and he was dancing and I was singing. The word I was singing was "Goooooooooooo," and the next thing I knew, regurgitated beef with carrots and corn, winter squash and formula were in my mouth.

There's really not much to say about this other than I'm scarred for life.