Reflections of, the Way Life Used to Be

So we're approaching Jackson's second birthday in a couple of days. It's been an interesting couple of weeks as my friend Kami is at BCH on bed rest while she awaits the arrival of her twins hopefully not for five or so more weeks. So I visit when I can, and her room is just three doors down from where we had Jackson almost two years ago. So I've been experiencing some serious de ja vu.

I went back and looked at my blog entries from two years ago at this time and it's amazing to me how different life is now, and how remarkably funny I was back then (kidding). Jason and I will sometimes reflect on life before Jackson came along and how basically we did absolutely nothing. Sure, Jason finished the basement, we played some sports, went to work, etc. But honestly...we did nothing. We had to have. Because there's no way we were doing anything before this because now we have no time because we are parenting. Life was carefree.

Sure, we had to be careful about what I was eating and what we were doing but at the end of the day, we would go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning and the only people we had to worry about were each other. And since we were both grown ups, Jason could roll out of bed, get a shower, get dressed and go. I could get up and do the same, and we didn't have to synchronize our watches and discuss our plan of action. Now everything is a plan, everything is a conversation. No decisions are made without determining what the plan is with Jackson and how our decisions and plans affect what needs to happen with him. It's something that you can't really understand until you're doing it.

So there's all these new responsibilities that at times feel inconvenient and cumbersome, but then there's all these new experiences that light you up. This morning I was getting Jackson dressed after breakfast and I gave him a high five for doing a good job. So he hops down off my lap and dashes into the kitchen and says, "Daddy! Five!" That seems like such an insignificant little thing, but what Jason and I know is that Jackson is now using our names to get our attention to do things that he would like to do. Daddy, befast (that's breakfast for those of you who don't speak Jacksonese). Mommy, bath. Mommy, out (of crib please). Daddy, sit down! Before it was all grunts and one word stuff, and now, it's Mommy, more meat please. Kids are cool.

Run Around

Last week Jackson really started to put things together and speak in concepts. As opposed to just up, all done, mommy and daddy. I went in to get him out of his crib one morning and he goes, "Fan, fan. Run around, run around." and made a gesture with his arm and hand of something going around and around. He says things like more please as opposed to more or please. He can say Thank You Daddy instead of one or the other. It's very cool. He loves up and down. We went over a hill this morning and he goes DOWN!!!! Followed by a Mr. Miyagi impression of paint the fence (up....down....up.....down). He knows that the green light means go. It's very neat to watch him put these things together for himself.

Heartbreaker

I mean this is in the most heartfelt way. The first time I took Jackson to day care in August of 2008, I sobbed. I sobbed pretty much the whole first week, and then gradually became okay with it as I felt like he did.

Today I took him to school, and he didn't want to go. He didn't want to get out of the car. He didn't want me to put him down. He didn't want to let go of my leg. He didn't want me to put him down again. When I left, I handed him to one of his teachers, Miss Patty.

Big fat tears started to roll down his cheeks and his face got red, but he didn't do the demonstrative, screaming crying. He just quietly cried and was clearly sad to see me go. It totally and completely broke my heart and it felt like August 2008 all over again, only much worse.

Worst Blogger Ever

I'm the worst blogger ever. We have had so many exciting things with Jackson, and I completely suck and haven't documented jack (pun semi-intended). To try and fit in everything he's been doing in the past couple of months would be pointless, but I'll try a condensed version.

Physically: He jumps. He doesn't jump well, but he jumps. He's also scaled his way out of his crib one time, so we put up a gate at the top of the stairs. He hasn't tried it again thankfully so we haven't moved him to the big kid bed just yet. On occasion he will fling bowls at my head from the backseat. Which is impressive, but not that funny. He actually can throw balls pretty well and loves to play basketball on his little hoop and race his cars.

Chattiness: He amazes us with his new words each day. Today at school he said to me "run around" which was neato. He knows all his letters and loves to shout them out when he sees them on signs or magazines or whatever. He also will randomly start counting to four in the backseat of the car, which I find amazing. He has names for all his grandparents: Opa and Nama (My parents) and Papa and Nami (for Jason's Parents) as well as Bussy (Buffy the dog) and the occasional E for my brother and Auntie for his wife. We are working on learning Jason's sister and family as well. He is good at saying "I love (fill in the blank with a name)" and he also knows his teachers names at school. He, up until about two days ago, would say the word RED as Rhett and the letter W as ba ta doo. He has since learned the correct pronunciation. I would have been okay with him not learning that for awhile as I found batadoo to be adorable. He enjoys playing indoor golf with his Opa, which he will indicate by saying "Opa, golf, bussy" over and over again.

Decision-making: He is very insistent on making his own choices from time to time. He wants to draw. He wants to look at the birdies. he wants to play with the ball popper. He does NOT want to eat that banana. Wants to shoot, play basketball, race cars, go outside. I wouldn't call him stubborn just yet, but since both his parents are insane stubborn lunatics, it's not far off.

In any case, Jackson is simply a joy. He is at a tremendously fun age right now, amazing us with the things he knows and the things he can do each day. We are communicating with him more and more, he helps us decide things as a family and is a very nice, very loving little boy. He is your typical jump around, crash up, crazy little boy and loads of fun for his parents.

Jackson Is Chatty...Even in the Bath

Sick of Being Sick...and Doing Something About It

So Jackson is sick. A lot. Jackson is sick every 4-6 weeks with a cold that stretches into another cold and another and another. Basically Jackson seems sick all the time. Or he was….

In September I got really sick of Jackson being sick. REALLY SICK OF IT. I was complaining about it on Facebook and a friend of mine from high school asked if Jackson was on vitamins. Yes...and probiotics as well. She mentioned Juice Plus, which I snarkily laughed at. Then I had literally dozens of friends from all different parts of my life chime in. High school friends. College friends. Work friends from job now, work friends from jobs past. They all said, oh I take this or my kid takes this or whatever and I’m never sick and he’s never sick and so forth. What? So out of desperation, I ordered some Juice Plus gummies for Jackson just to see if it would help. I seriously doubted that it would.

It did. He hasn’t been sick since. He might have a runny nose for half a day. He might cough three times. But he hasn’t been sick since. He hasn’t missed a day at day care, I haven’t had to miss work to take care of my sick buddy. Neither has Jason.

Next I think Jason and I will take the plunge and start on the products ourselves. I’ll update you with results of that little experiment. I get sick a lot these days... I think I have had tonsillitis like six times in the last four months. So if this works for us, I’ll let you know. And if it doesn’t, I will too. But if you want to give it a try before we see what it does for us, let me know. https://www.juiceplus.com/nsa/content/Home.soa?site=ll36001

Thanks, and keep your fingers crossed for a continually healthy little Jackson. He’s way more fun this way.

Exciting New Words

We have a book called Hello, Ralphie. It is way too wordy for Jackson to last through any of it, but apparently they read it at school. Because he got the book out and started pointing at the CU logo and saying Ralphie. He says Ralphie. I'm so excited.

Slack Attack

So it's been a month. I don't have much of an excuse, other than my job is crazed and so is my boy. Jackson is over 18 months old now! It's been a crazy month. We had our 18 month checkup...Jackson gained only 13 ounces in 3 months! The doctor looked me dead in the eye and said, "Would you say he is an active child" pretty much as he simultaneously climbed on a chair and attempted to then scale his way onto the counter top. Yeah, yeah. I'd say he's active. He is already just about 33 inches tall! So his body is getting taller, just not too much heavier.

This month we did our wait in line Somalia style and got Jackson an H1N1 vaccination. He is due back for round two anytime after next Monday so we'll see if they have any available for him. It's been scary to be honest. You hear stories of otherwise healthy kids basically dying from it, so you do what you can to take care of him and keep him healthy. That includes waiting in a hallway outside a doctor's office from about 730 am to 930 am to get a vaccination. He did well.

In milestones, it's too many to count. Jackson is learning his colors and his big trifecta are blue, white and yellow. Yellow is the predominant color in the Coors Events Center, so when I took him there this past weekend he kept pointing and shouting "Yellow!" He is slowly mastering the art of using utensils and is getting quite adept at forking his foods. He smiles, he says cheese, he says please. He yells, "Big ball!" when he wants to play with his big blue rubber ball. His biggest sentence to date is "dada get the ball" which I believe qualifies. He calls my mom a version of "mama" and kind of calls my dad "Opa" which is what they call the grandpas over in Deutschland and is what they called my dad's dad (well Opie, actually). That may be what it turns into. He can help take off his shirt, sits in our laps to read books and knows what all the animals are in his playroom and in his books. Sometimes he feels shy and will ask "up!" and put his head on our shoulder until he feels comfortable around whatever person made him say up in the first place. He goes down the big slides at the park. He can go up AND down stairs now and usually without incident.

That's all I can think of now...love you buddy!

Bonzai!

In the world of Jackson, bonzai is the translation of Go Buffs! Jackson attended his first CU football game today. Truth, he went to the first home game last year but we never actually sat in a seat to watch so I am not counting it. Today, we sat in chairs and made it through an entire half. Jackson rocked his Colorado tee shirt and hat and jacket, clapped when it was appropriate, cheered when it was appropriate, and danced whenever he felt like it.

I've been trying to teach him to say GO BUFFS forever, and he says Go, and he says Boi, but when he says them together it comes out bonzai.

Maybe by the Nebraska game...

Let it Snow

Today we had our first real snow of this fall. And the first time that Jackson realized that there is snow and noticed that there was white stuff all over the place. At breakfast he kept pointing out the window and saying "No! No!" which is his s-free version of snow. I can't wait till he gets his boots on and his down jacket and can go play in it for the first real time. Sadly, I will be unable to participate.

I'm sick. I've been sick since Thursday. The flu test was negative, the strep test was negative. I'm feeling better but still have a lot of symptoms so I'm staying away from Jackson and Jason so I don't infect them. I was given some antibiotics in the event that my throat culture comes back positive, but I just decided to take them this morning anyways. My throat feels terrible but mostly my soft palate.