Week 34

Oct 28-Nov 3

Trick-or-Treat!  Here are pictures of Jack in his costume on Halloween!!  :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!  Of course this week we have been busy planning the fun festivities of our favorite holiday.  Jack is going to be Max from "Where the Wild Things Are,"  it is Ed's favorite book from when he was a little kid and one of the first books he bought Jack a long time ago.

We are so lucky because Jack is getting a custom designed costume by a fashion design major at FSU.  It is being sewn by Tammie...the best seamstress ever!  We are soooo excited for Jack to wear it around the neighborhood.  I will get lots and lots of pictures!

When Ed got home early from his short deployment we had time to go to a pumpkin patch sponsored by one of the local churches.  It really didn't feel very "autumn-ish" thanks to the blazing FL sun.  It was basically a random area with hay strewn around, a bunch of pumpkins, and a fence amidst palm trees.  The pumpkins were on fire and even though I put Jack in shorts and a short sleeved shirt he was soooo HOT so we had to kind of hurry to get him out of the sun.

When we got home we carved our pumpkins out.  Jack's little pumpkin has a "J" and we let him play in the goopy mess.  After awhile it was almost time for his afternoon nap so we quickly gave him a bath, put on his pajamas, and while he slept we carved our pumpkins.  I did a happy, fun face.  Ed did a scary, evil face as usual.  :)

Later in the afternoon Tyson came over to babysit Jack while Ed and I went to see a scary movie...paranormal activity.  Yes it is scary.  A little slow in the beginning, but scary.  It worked out perfectly since Jack had already had his bath and I had put him in his pajamas so Tyson just had to feed him dinner, play for awhile, and then put him to bed.

Week 33

Oct 21-27

Well this particular week was fun and also sad at the same time.  Daddy had to go out to sea for awhile, which is always horrible--but Gigi flew down from PA to visit for awhile, which is always a pleasure.  :)  Jack LOVES his Gigi.  Of course she spoiled him rotten and felt bad for him if he made the slightest pout about not getting his way.

We had a good time while she was here.  We went shopping at Cocoa Village, a cute little town with fun shops and antique stores.  We also went to The Shoppes at Viera to look around at the newer stores.  Gigi went to the beach a few times...that has always been her favorite.  It was definitely warm enough to go to the beach while she was here.  I had to work Friday, Saturday, & Sunday so Gigi watched Jack and Rachel only came for a half-day.

We really had a nice time and were so happy Gigi came to stay with us!  :)

Since Daddy was on the submarine we could not even Skype him or talk to him on the phone.  It was pretty hard for Jack and he sure we EXCITED when Daddy surprised us by coming home a little bit early one day.

Now we have to get ready for next week...Halloween!  Jack's costume is in the works and we are hoping we get a chance to go to a pumpkin patch.  We will see how my work weekend goes.

Week 32

Oct 14-20

This has been another exciting week in Jack's milestones!  He has officially crawled for the first time.  Ed REALLY wanted Jack to wait until he came home from GA, but unfortunately he decided to crawl the day before.  He just couldn't wait I guess.  Luckily...we were on Skype.  Let me start from the beginning.  I had been telling Ed about how much Jack gets around since he left.  He wanted me to just put him on the floor with some of his toys while we were talking and he could see him in the background on his camera.  Well we were talking about our day and he was like "look at Jack!"  I turned around and he put one hand out and then moved his leg, and crawled a few feet on the floor.  It was like he had done it all along or something.  Amazing!!!  We were so excited!  Ed got caught up in the moment and was really happy, then after a minute he got this look on his face.  I asked him what was wrong and he sounded disappointed and said, "nothing."  I realized and said, "you really wanted to be here didn't you."  He said yes and was very sad about the whole thing.  But at least we technically witnessed it together, even if it was on camera for him.

I promise I will get some video soon.  Now we definitely have to "baby proof" the house.  Yes, I still have not done that yet.  What can I say, it has been very busy around here with everything and I will get to it very soon.  Luckily Jack is never unsupervised so it has not been a problem.  The real safety problem is what Jack discovered last night.  I have been saying since Ed got home the other day, "we really need to lower his crib mattress b/c he will be pulling to stand pretty soon."  I have noticed that he gets over to things like the coffee table and attempts to pull himself up, but he has never actually done it yet.

Well, last night at 3:00am Jack started screaming so I got out of bed to see what was wrong.  I go into his room and there he is, standing up holding onto the rail.  I freaked out b/c he could have probably jumped out with enough momentum.  Ed had woken up too and I called him in there and said, "look at your son."  That is what I like to say when Jack is doing something he's not supposed to.  :)  Haha!  Ed was like, "that's it, we have to lower it right now."  Jack was wide awake anyways so we flipped on the light switch, found the allen wrench, and attempted to lower the crib mattress.  No problem, right?  Hahaha!  I guess we had forgotten how difficult baby stuff was to put together.  An hour later we had the mattress lowered and the bedding put back together.  We put Jack back in and he looked around like "whoa...this is not my bed."  He went back to sleep and just as we were going back to our room the alarm clock started going off.  Ed sarcastically exclaimed, "perfect timing."  Poor guy.  He had already been up last night trying to finish his paper since he was too sick to do it the day before.  Here is Jack before the crib mattress was lowered...

Long story short, Jack now knows how to crawl and pull to stand all in 3 days.  Maybe tomorrow he will be running or skipping.  Who knows?  Babies are so amazing and fun.  I love to look at his face when he gets going.  It's like everything clicks in his head and he has finally realized how to do the thing he has been wanting to do since day one.  He's really getting fun.  Today on his exersaucer toy I asked him, "where's the monkey?"  He looked at me, looked at the monkey, and grabbed it.  I started clapping and screaming and he was so excited!  I think we are going to start working on word identification and recognition.  He loves books so I need to start reading to him more and pointing things out in the pictures.  It's hard to find books with simple, big pictures.  So many of them have so much stuff cluttered on the page you can't focus on what you are trying to point out.

Another big milestone was the purchase of the "big boy car seat."  Jack's infant carrier is supposed to go to 30 lbs so I thought it would last a little bit longer (he is only 20 lbs now).  Well I didn't take into consideration that I would probably have quite a tall kid.  I noticed that all of a sudden Jack wasn't so excited about riding in the car.  He would cry when I put him in his car seat.  He was too big!  So I did my research and ended up ordering an awesome seat that goes all the way to 100 lbs and can accommodate a tall child.  It is called a "convertible seat" and has so many adjustments you can make on it.  Supposedly it goes from 5-100 lbs, but I really don't think I would have been comfortable with a newborn in it.  Even a very large newborn like Jack would have been swallowed whole.  It does recline into 3 different positions which is quite nice when it is rear-facing...especially if they fall asleep and you don't want their little heads to droop down.  I really like it.  Jack LOVES it!  He can see out the window, he has so much more room, he puts his little arm on the armrest like a pro.  He looks so much more comfortable.

I have to admit though, I was really excited for Jack until I actually had to physically remove his baby car seat out of the car.  I started to get really sad.  I don't know if it is because that baby item is so symbolic.  It's one of the first things we got off of our registry and I can clearly remember when it came in the mail along with the matching stroller.  Ed and I took them out of the boxes and put everything together.  We carefully read all of the instructions and imagined carrying our new baby home in the carrier.  Sooo cute!  I can even remember Ed rolling the stroller around the living room testing the "shocks" and the maneuverability.  Yes, it was very sad.  I keep telling myself that one day we will have another baby to put in that car seat, but for now I had to put it up in the closet.

Week 31

Oct 7-13

Look how big my tooth is getting!!  :)

Well the eye drama is finally over!  I have full vision in my eye once again!!  I took my antibiotic/steroid drops for a week and yesterday I finally wore my contacts again!!  :)  I'm still a little freaked out by the whole thing, but hopefully I won't have anymore problems.

This week daddy was gone again to GA for work.  We hate when he leaves because we miss him terribly.  It is very hard for one person to run a household, manage a kid and a dog, and also work full time.  I think I said this last time Ed had to go out of town, but I have a newfound respect for single parents. EVERYTHING is your responsibility and you are never relieved.  I appreciate what I have and I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband who does his equal share around the house.

Enough about that, Jack has been growing and changing a ton lately.  That's probably why I haven't updated the blog b/c it's pretty hard to keep up with him.  He is definitely on the verge of crawling, but has not quite mastered the skill.  He definitely gets to where he wants to go.  He uses such techniques as rolling, scooching, moving backwards, etc.  He can go from his belly up on to his hands and knees very easily and also from belly or back up to a sitting position.  Any day now.  Ed is really hoping he will hold off until he gets home from GA because he doesn't want to miss anything.

It is definitely time to start "baby proofing" the house.  We have been holding off for awhile...we probably should have had this done when he came home from the hospital so we would be ready.  I'm going to need to find a baby gate for the top and bottom of the stairs, electrical outlet covers, and cabinet locks.  Jack has recently discovered that there are "drawers" on the TV cabinet and if you pull the shiny silver knobs they will open.  I'm not quite sure yet how to baby proof this particular item.  I need to though, b/c I don't want him to knock down the TV on himself accidentally when he's old enough to pull up to stand.  Any suggestions?

Here are some pictures of him caught in the act.  He knows he's not supposed to get into them, look at the expression on his face!  :)

I have to say that this trip has been much easier on me and I think also on Ed due to the wonderful world of Skype.  Since we got the two Apple computers we realized that we could easily Skype one another when Ed was gone.  For those of you who don't know what Skype is...it is basically a program that lets you talk to one another on video.  It pretty much makes you feel as if the person is sitting right in front of you.  It is so easy to do.  We thought it would cost money, but it's free!  You just have to download the program onto your computer and create a username and password.  You get a box that comes up and it looks a lot like AOL Instant Messenger.  It shows your friends who are online and you can chat with them via typing or you can call them and see them on the computer.  If any of you ever want to Skype e-mail me and I will give you our usernames.  :)

Well that is about it for this week.

Week 30

Sept 30-Oct 6

Here is a little preview to my post this week.  Jack has a TON of Halloween outfits to wear so I am going to spread them out every week of October.  Here are the first set.  I will write more about this week and add it to this post as the week goes along.  :)  Enjoy the pics!

I can't remember if I put this in the last post, but Ed has started college classes!  He is going to Ashford University to finish up his Criminal Justice degree.  It's very nice b/c all of his classes are online and he only has to take one at a time.  Each class lasts 5 weeks.  We are very proud of him!  We got the new computer for college but quickly realized that we would also need to get a laptop for when he travels for work.  So, luckily October is the month of the BONUS so we went ahead and got a laptop as well.  It was something we needed to get anyways.  An added feature is now we can Skype while Ed is gone!  :) For those of you who haven't "Skyped" yet...it is AWESOME!!

So the rest of this week really didn't end up being very exciting.  I woke up Saturday morning for work and felt like something was in my eye.  I washed it out with water, contact solution, inspected it, etc.  Didn't see anything.  Went to work figuring it would work itself out.  By early afternoon I had gone to the ER and was diagnosed with iritis, my whole eye was practically swollen shut and when I tried to open it, tears would just pour out.  I got antibiotic eyedrops and went home with instructions to rest my eyes and sit in a dark room....I should see vast improvement by the next day.  So I did that.  Sunday morning my eye was a little worse.  I figured maybe I needed a little more rest and there wasn't much I could do b/c all of the eye doctors wouldn't be open until Monday morning.

Monday slight improvement, but still couldn't see out of the eye.  Swelling had gone down significantly thanks to the warm compresses.  Went to the eye doctor and he said my cornea was very irritated and gave me a whole new set of drops to use b/c the ones I had weren't good ones.  Great.  By Monday night I had significant improvement and by Tuesday morning I had improved vision.  I still don't have 100% restored vision to the eye, but it is getting much better.  He said it could have been a tainted contact solution (I had just opened a new bottle about a week before this happened) or contact.  Very, very freaky and strange.  I seriously thought I was going to be blind...thank goodness it wasn't that serious.

That's about it for the week.  Nothing much else is new.  Thank goodness I have such a great husband who took care of me while I just had to sit there in darkness for 2 days straight.  He put a book on my iPod so I could at least sit there with headphones on and "read".  :)  It definitely helped the time pass by. I will take new pictures of Jack in more of his pumpkin outfits.  I have the battery charging for the camera right now.  :)

PS-his bottom right tooth has cut through the gums and the left one is not far behind.  :)

Week 29

Sept 23-29

Jack has not one, but two teeth coming in now!  They are two little white dots that get more prominent every day!  They haven't quite cut through the skin, but we can see them trying to emerge!  So far he has done very well with his teeth coming in.  He really hasn't been too cranky which is fabulous b/c from what I hear some kids really don't tolerate it well.

In family news we FINALLY got our new computer!!  That is one reason I'm behind on the blog.  Who knew how complicated it would be to take all of the data on your 8 year old computer and transfer it to your new computer.  Not as easy as it sounds.  I definitely love the new computer, but it is an adjustment to try and figure some of the stuff out on the Mac.  I am getting used to it though.

This week I had Jack's 6 month portraits taken.  Here are some previews!  I finally ordered them from the studio and I will be mailing copies to family very soon!  :)