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.

Is He or Isn't He?

Teething.  There is a lot of this guessing game going on lately in Jackson's world as he has had some uncharacteristically unhappy moments.  On again, off again fevers.  On again, off again screaming. On again, off again disinterest in his bottles. Or food. Sometimes there's a bump, sometimes there's a red spot. Sometimes not. 

Jason didn't get teeth until he was like nine months old.  I got my first tooth on my five month birthday. We are approaching Jackson's eight month birthday so who knows.  I'm in no hurry for it as most of my friends have had their wee ones struggle a bit. 

When the time comes, we're as prepared as we're going to be to help him through it. And there's always tylenol. 

Baby Pedicures Anyone?

Something funny we discovered recently was the damage he is inflicting on his toenails. See, he loves his jumperoo. Loves it. And he will only be able to use it a little while longer since he is getting to be in the weight range where its a no go. So far be it from me to deny him the jumperoo whilst in the jumperoo approved weight range. The issue is that he doesn't jump off the balls of his feet like you and I. He basically jumps off the ends of his rolled over toes. Yes, like a ballet dancer. I can't tell you how much that description troubles me....particularly since it is entirely accurate.

My work friends Megan and Justin used to tease me when I was pregnant about how they were going to buy the as yet undetermined gender baby Lew cheerleading outfits in the event that it was a girl. And how they would buy it theatre costumes if it were a boy. Let's be honest, if this kid wants to do anything other than play sports I am so screwed. Which virtually guarantees that he will want to do everything other than play sports. Cheerleading is fine...for other people's children. Ha.

We also need to have a long talk about Amish Friendship Bread. Jackson's former teacher Tiffany threw this bag of goo at me on December 7 when I picked up sweet pea from day care. I wanted no part of a bag of goo sitting around my house for 10 days while I waited around for December 16 to bake this stupid bread. But I accepted it, and did all the mashing and the adding of ingredients as was directed by the instruction sheet. Today was baking day, and blah blah blah after all the mashing and the adding and the mixing and the baking, the freaking things were sunken in the middle. I'm not happy about it. So hear this: don't give me any Amish Friendship Bread starter goo. It will end up in the Amish Friendship Trash.

Where's My Parade?

It's Saturday night in Longmont and we did a community thing and went to the community holiday parade. Jackson wore his very snuggly bear outfit to stay warm, which he did.

I don't think I can reiterate what a good kid we have and it may be a jinx to say so, but all evidence to date is to the contrary. He just chilled out and watched the parade. Every other kid was whining, crying or doing something other than chilling out and watching the parade. My friend has two nieces and niece 1 kept asking, while watching the parade, when the parade was starting. The first loud noise happened, Jackson was startled, and after that, he didn't flinch. He fell asleep in the stroller until the Longmont HS Marching Band came along.

Then he went to Chili's with his mom and dad and the only thing I could even describe as being remotely out of order was that he slapped the tiles on the table for a good 20 minutes. No, no toys, no food. Just want to slap the table, thanks. Oh wait, food? Okay I will down my bottle in like five minutes in an awkward place and position, and then inhale an entire jar of baby food all between when mom and dad order and receive their food.

Before we left he spent some time in the jumperoo. At one point he was just standing there staring. Which I now really need to remember means he's dropping off the kids at the Pampers. Because he finished staring and started jumping. When I took him upstairs for a fresh diaper before we took off for the parade he had kids creeping up the back of his shirt and I was at a loss for a plan of action. Good thing daddy was there to figure it out.

Sidenote: Jackson has a cold, which he had before the parade for all you cautious judgementals that read my blog. Of which I am guessing there are none. So he's been coughing and I have been trying to keep it under control so that he'll sleep, so I'm watching SNL. Amy Poehler came back for a couple of shows but at the end of weekend update she just announced that, no, really this is her last show. Boo to that...she is genius. I'm totally bummed. The Baby Mama is gonna spend time with her boy and be a baby mama. Oh and star in her own primetime show on NBC.

TGIF

It's Friday! Today was a productive day at work for me and a fun day as well as Jackson came to visit in the afternoon. He hadn't been to campus since homecoming on Oct. 4 when he was five months old so I decided it was time to return. What a difference 2.5 months makes as now he can sit up, creep around, play with stuff.

Uncle Mike and Uncle Justin were nice enough to hang with us for a bit, and Mike hooked up Jackson (or A-Jax as Justin calls him) with a new hat, which you see at left. Yeah, he's a badass. What are you gonna do about it?