Yesterday Jack spent some time at Grandma Sandee's house while I did a little bit of work. Unfortunately for Grandma he was in a horrid mood, but I could not cancel my meeting so she was stuck with him. That will teach me to keep him up later than his scheduled bedtime. I often wonder if sleep is such an issue for other mothers – I feel like it's a constant struggle for me. According to Weisbluth he is doing what he's supposed to, however, so I can't really complain. From what I've read he will start napping longer at 9 months and will no longer get up in the middle of the night. I may actually get to sleep for 8 hours!

My favorite thing about Jack is that he can be entertained with ordinary household objects. Here you can see him crawling around my mother's kitchen playing with a pastry roller, a plastic bottle and a Tupperware bowl.





















Today we met my mom at the mall to buy Jack some shoes. They require him to wear shoes at the gym even though he doesn't walk, so we finally found a good pair at Baby Gap. Apparently you are not supposed to put hard-soled shoes on their feet until they are up and running. Who knew? So he has these little soft shoes and a pair of sandals to wear.

Jack is doing well taking a bottle and with the new formula. He actually gets excited when I start mixing it up. I would just wean him completely but of course he's only able to consume the formula that cost one billion dollars. Here he is in the Nordstrom shoe department having a snack.






His posture should give you an idea of why I no longer nurse him in public. He is entirely too curious and agile for discrete breastfeeding.

Happy 8 month birthday Jack! I seriously can't believe it's been 8 months already. But then I also can't really remember what it was like to not have Jack. He's such a personality these days and so much fun.

We went to visit Grandma Gloria yesterday and she looks great. Jack had a wonderful time eating lunch, playing with all his toys, crawling around, and even giggling with Great Grandma Connie. He was in a wonderful mood.



See how happy he looks? We played right up until it was time to run him home for his afternoon nap. Luckily he stayed awake almost the whole way home, and I put him down when we got back. He's been napping much better lately – usually 1 ½ hours in the morning and in the afternoon. This makes it much easier for me to get things done.

A few more shots of the babe in action:


He loves to crawl all around


and of course he loves to climb!


He has definitely figured out who mom is and how to find her in a time of need.

His sleeping is much better, although he gets up very early. Kim's theory of "early to bed, early to rise" is not necessarily supported by the sleep doctor who says that a baby's waking clock is just set and there isn't much you can do about it. Although he does recommend varying the bedtime to see if you can change the waking time a little. (Sound contradictory? Yes, welcome to the world of baby advisors.) So last night I kept Jack up until 7 (he's normally in bed at 6:30). It did not matter one iota. He still woke up right at 5:50 a.m., ready for the day. Although this time he was slightly crankier. He's napping now so hopefully he'll catch up a little extra sleep, if these dumb dogs don't wake him.

Oh, I almost forgot! Elissa had her baby on Sunday. Jake Seitz (I don't know if there's a middle name) was 7 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great and they all went home last night. I remember our first night home with Jack – it was probably the scariest thing we've ever done. How could they possibly let us go home with this fragile little creature? But they did, and all seemed to work out fine.

This weekend was a baby food making party of epic proportions. Joe steamed and pureed his way across the kitchen. He made apples, pears, peaches, plums, peas, turkey and chicken for our little munchkin. Here Jack studies the apples to be certain they are acceptable.



This morning I woke up with a horrible stomach ache. I tried to call in sick to work but Jack wasn't having any of it. So he put on some new clothes and we went to the library.



I'm still feeling pretty sick, so Joe came home early and gave Jack his bath. I will never get over how cute he is in this little towel.



Ok, that's all for now. I'm going to bed and hopefully will feel better tomorrow.

We went to visit Grandma Gloria yesterday. She is recovering from her shoulder surgery and will get her staples out on Friday. It was such an awful thing to have happen and we're all wishing her a speedy recovery. I didn't get any pictures but it was good to see her.

Today Grandma Sandee and Grandpa Vince came to whisk Jack off to Scottsdale. First they came for breakfast at First Watch down the street. Jack likes his high chair:



but it never lasts too long. He's all about being lifted up:



and he'll make any number of cute faces to get his way:



But he can usually be distracted by a ceiling fan:



Then he went to Macy's



and the pool



(yes, the pool again. I know, always with the pool.)

This week will be pretty quiet. No big plans, but hopefully we'll get some pictures anyway.

Honestly, swimming may be the only thing that has kept us alive this summer. It has been hotter than blazes down here and one of the few ways to cool off is hop in the pool. Jack is still kicking up a storm and jumping off the side like a champ, but those photo ops are not as easy one handed. So all my pictures are in his floaty again.


He’s always happy in the pool


Evey’s dog started barking at us – I don’t think she’s figured us out yet.


I can’t believe how much he looks like a little boy now! Just too cute.

As you know, Jack has been getting up for the day quite early. Today was 5:30. Yuck. After reading Weisbluth a little more I think his early rising might be caused by a lack of a third nap in the afternoon (I know it doesn’t really make sense, but if you’ve read the book it does.) So right now Jack is napping. I’ll keep you posted about my progress.

My friend Alison posted this on her blog today:

I think JK Rowling is amazing... she has taken a generation of kids that are so glued to their TVs and video games and has given them back their imagination. I see it with babies who can't even speak yet their mother's plop them in front of the TV -we are building yet another generation of couch potatoes.... And Ms. Rowling is offering up a story that takes children (and adults) to another world.... making children think, feel, and READ!

Ouch. (To Alison’s defense, she actually was not responding to my post, but to something a woman did at her play center.) As a new mother it is tough to take criticism. I read things about how I’m supposed to be raising Jack and compare them to how he’s actually being raised and often I come up way short.

Lest the rest of you think my picture yesterday will doom Jack to a lifetime of sitting on the couch watching television, I thought it would be fun to show you what we did today.

4:15 a.m. (yep, you read that right, 4 a.m.!) Jack woke up to eat. Usually he goes back to sleep right away after this feeding. NOT TODAY. We rocked in the rocking chair for a while but he just wasn’t having any of it. Joe got up and changed a diaper for me and we headed to the play room.

5:00 a.m. Jack played on the floor while I stared at him bleary eyed. His new favorite thing to do is called cruising – he holds the furniture and walks around the room. He’s very proud. I realized he was trying to pull books out of the shelf (they are so tightly packed in there they don’t move), so I started putting his toys on the shelf. He loves this new game. Go get a toy, pull it down, play with it a while, hop up and get another toy.

5:20 a.m. Tired of the play room, Jack and I headed out to the living room to play with blocks. This involves me building up a tower of blocks and Jack knocking it down. Repeat until Jack is bored.

5:30 a.m. Jack is bored. We go to his room and sing the following songs: “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, “Puff the Magic Dragon”, “Clementine” and “Today” (a Girl Scout Song)

5:45 a.m. Jack is finally back asleep.

6:00 a.m. The jackhammering on our street begins. I do not get a nap.

6:30 a.m. Jack is awake! We play “10 little monkeys jumping on the bed” (yes, it is a somewhat violent rhyme. Are all those monkey’s dying when they break their heads?) Jack plays with my laptop case and his old shoe.

Here he is engrossed in the laptop case:



7:00 a.m. Breakfast time. This can last either 10 minutes or an hour depending upon his mood. Today was a looooong breakfast involving lots of playing. He was in a good mood but not overly hungry. He is dead set on practicing his consonants and I finally got a good video of him “talking”. ClickHERE to see it

Here are some eating pictures, not from this morning but still pretty cute:


He’s feeling the yams. I’m not sure what for, but he seems intrigued.


Sometimes you just have to bang your tray a little.


But in the end he’s too curious for his own good.

8:00 a.m. We washed the yams off in the sink, although I just found more in his hair. I changed his clothes and we went back to the play room. We read “How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms”, “Percival the Plain Caterpillar”, and “Rise and Shine Busy Bugs”.

8:15 a.m. Jack was done with the reading and did more cruising.

8:30 a.m. Jack crawled after the dog, scaring her. This made him laugh so he kept doing it. Then he played with blocks and coasters.

8:50 a.m. Jack had a little snack of milk and went to sleep at

9:00 a.m. Nap

9:30 a.m. I heard him babbling in his room, but didn’t go in to get him. He’s supposed to nap for at least an hour. I have to get the laundry started and pick up as much as I can while he’s in there.

9:45 a.m. He started to complain. (I just read a little trick on a blog I just found called a little pregnant. She said if the kid is supposed to nap for an hour, leave him in there for an hour. So I did. Ok, not quite an hour.)

9:55 a.m. I went to get him. Changed his diaper, changed my clothes and we were off to the gym. (Yes, I’m back to the gym. You know what they say? 9 months on, 9 months off? Well, Jack will be 8 months old next week so I have 1 month left to get back to my pre-pregnancy size, darn it.)

11:30 a.m. Home from the gym, where the wee one almost fell asleep in the car on the way home. Luckily he made it in just long enough to nurse and crash at

11:40 a.m. NAP, while I showered, ate, changed out the laundry, caught up on email and blog reading, and had a blissful break until

12:50 p.m. Yep, 1 hour and 10 minutes. Just long enough to relax.

1:00 p.m. More monkeys jumping on the bed, hair braiding (mine), diaper changing (Jack’s) and heading out to Whole Foods to buy more fruits and vegetables for Jack’s meals. On the way to the store we stopped at a drive through car wash. Jack was fascinated. I don’t think he ever figured out what was going on.

2:45 We arrived home.

We are starting to run out of food (not yams, of course, but everything else), so I bought some jars to tide us over. Here is what Jack thinks of jarred baby food:



3:30 After a botched attempt to feed Jack some chicken, we went back to the play room and I turned on Sesame Street. Jack was not interested. Instead he pulled all the toys off the shelves and banged the keyboard.

4:00 p.m. Off to Safeway. Yes, that’s two grocery stores in one day. I needed ice and diet coke, neither of which are available at Whole Foods. Plus Jack likes the store.

5:00 p.m. We arrived home and relaxed while watching the news. The lightrail is progressing and should be ready by the time Jack enters high school, and a woman left her child in the car again – this time with it running – and a car thief stole her car and child. This is why I never watch the news.

5:45 p.m. Jack was ready for dinner, then his bath, then, blissfully:

6:30 p.m. SLEEP. Let’s hope he sleeps longer than 4 a.m. I’m off to have a glass of wine and knit a sock.

7:42 p.m. Darn it. He woke up. Will he go back to sleep on his own????

Gloria’s surgery went okay yesterday – the damage was worse than they thought but they were still able to piece her shoulder back together. I can only imagine how much pain she is in and I keep thinking I wish there was something I could do to make her feel better. She comes home tomorrow so I will have more news once I’ve actually talked to her. Hopefully Jack and I can go visit later in the week to cheer her up.

I have one final bath picture to share – I wasn’t sure if it was showing too much skin but Joe assures me it’s fine (we’ll see how Jack feels about that when he’s older!)



As you can see he loves the faucet. His favorite activity is when I run the water into his tub while he’s sitting there. He just can’t get enough.

Although Jack is finally sleeping through the night, this means he goes to bed at 6:30 and gets up any time between 5:15 and 5:45. If I was smart I would go to bed early and be fine with a 5 a.m. wake up call, but as it is I stay up far too late and am still tired in the day. Today was the hardest – I stayed up past 11 and Jack woke at exactly 5:15. Plus he got up once at 1:30 to eat. That’s not enough sleep for me, and this morning I was a wee bit drowsy. Of course I can’t just set him on the floor and fall asleep because he’s into everything these days and would probably choke on something or harm the dogs. So I broke down, strapped him in his chair and turned on Sesame Street. Joe was nice enough to take a picture:



I know, don’t I look like a great mom? At least there’s not an empty wine bottle next to me or anything.

And Travis, welcome to the comments section. Feel free to argue with my brother all you want – he can hold his own.

My poor boy is miserable with his teeth coming in these days. The top two look absolutely raw, and he's started acting like he's getting a molar or two as well. He didn't want to eat much today and even though he took two good naps, he went to bed early. Poor little fellow.

You would never know it though – he's sweet as can be in these pictures:



We haven't had a bath shot in a while, so I snapped some while Joe was in charge of bathing over the weekend. He loves the bath as much as the pool and would probably stay in until his fingers and toes were wrinkled up like little dried apricots.

My dad just got back from a week at Boy Scout Camp so we all went to breakfast yesterday. Of course, once again, the only pictures are of Jack:



Here he is sporting the frat boy look with his new visor:



We visited with our friend Travis this weekend and he mentioned that he's disappointed when I don't update the blog every day. Ah, the pressure. Of course he never comments on the blog, but that's a different story. It's funny to me how many are out there reading – we average 42 unique visitors a day according to statcounter. Jack is a popular guy.

A friend of mine recently sent me email that said "I know how Jack is because I read his blog, but how are YOU?" (Thank you Natala again for asking!) I am starting to see how people get so wrapped up in their children that they have nothing else to talk about. I do have a life outside of Jack, though, and I am doing fine. A bit tired, somewhat harried, but overall life is good.

I will be going to Denver soon to visit my brother and his brood of children. Imagine my surprise when this arrived in my inbox:


Vincent is 6 years old and will start first grade soon. I wonder what his peers will think. Of course the plus side is he will be memorable. It's hard to stand out in grade school these days, now he has an edge. Remind me not to leave Jack alone with my brother.

My mom made Jack a “Cootie Catcher” and we tried it out today. Now admittedly this sounds like some type of contraption for boys who don’t want to catch cooties from girls, but in Jack’s case it’s more for germy grocery carts. Not only does it keep him from sucking on the cart handle (you don’t need to tell me how many germs are on there, I already know. I am just grateful I don’t have to think about it anymore), but it also looks more comfortable than a metal cart seat.

For our Saturday morning grocery trip, Jack tested out his new seat:





It is pretty darned cute. We also needed to see how it fit on a high chair, so we headed out to our local Irish Pub with our friend Travis. Jack is very popular in restaurants and today was no exception. Here are the owners (I assume they are the owners anyway) fawning over our little man:



They brought him over some spoons to play with and he was a happy little devil:



So you can see the cootie catcher was a great success.

Joe just took Jack down to Chandler to visit with Grandma Gloria before her surgery on Monday. I know she will have to be very careful around Jack for a while – he is strong and doesn’t understand anything yet, so he could easily hurt her without knowing it. I know the hardest part for her will be not being able to hold him and play with him as much. Let’s all wish her a speedy recovery!

Grandma Update: Gloria is resting at home after visiting the orthopedist. She broke her shoulder in 3 places and is having surgery on Monday. Luckily the pain medicine seems to be working because she is feeling okay. Poor thing, to have to wear a sling during this awful heat! I don't know if it will change her school schedule or not, but she will have to recuperate for six weeks.

Today we went to Julie’s to hang out in her fancy swimming pool. Her husband Dave was nice enough to make us quiche – yummy – and we relaxed in the hot hot sun. Jack started out in the shade sitting on the step. It is the perfect depth for a little baby and he quite enjoyed it:



Gemma and Angus joined him:



Alas, Mac was having a nap so Julie was an extra set of hands for baby duty in the pool.



I always forget how small he is until I see him far away from me. I put his little visor on and he thought he was the cat’s pajamas:



Until he got hungry, of course, and then he wasn’t so cool:



It was a fun day. Jack got to test out all of Julie’s baby proofing – he climbed the gate, tried to open the cupboards, banged on the doors and basically crawled all over the place. He was beat when we got home, but it’s Friday night and Joe comes home early on Fridays. How early? Early enough to read to Jack about the Very Lazy Ladybug:



A good day for everyone here at the Adams residence.

Grandma Gloria suffered a horrible accident yesterday and broke her shoulder. She goes to see the doctor tomorrow and hopefully they will give her some good news, but she is in a great deal of pain and of course she is not happy about it. This was her last few weeks with Jack before going back to school and now she’s afraid she will never see him. Of course I will take him over to visit, so don’t you worry Gloria! Jack will not forget his Grandma.

Today was supposed to be Grandma Day, but due to her injury I took Jack along with me on my extravaganza. It was actually a lot of fun having him around – he’s gotten much easier to handle in public. First we went back to the nursing home to visit our friend’s mom. Jeff came with us as well and he held Jack for a little bit. For those of you who don’t know Jeff he is VERY tall – like 8 feet or something. Jack has never been that high up and he seemed to like it. I had planned on going to the nursing home whenever I had childcare, but Jack was a hit. Our patient was happy to see him even if she didn’t have any idea who he is. I think I’ll be taking him back.

Then we headed over to Fiber Factory for a bit and lunch with Julie and Mac. These two are so funny together. I know they recognize each other and they interact as only babies can do. If you want to see pictures of Jack actually looking at the camera you’ll have to go to Mac’s blog. For me? He acts like he doesn’t know his name or he’s just too busy for it all. But I thought these were cute nonetheless:



Jack is new to finger food. Kim was nice enough to give me a little baggie of organic O cereal so I’ve been putting it in front of Jack. He doesn’t really understand it, but he’s interested. Here you can see both boys inspecting their food:



And of course, Mac smiling and being pleasant while Jack ignores me:



Take a gander at Mac’s hands. He reminds me of one of those puppies with really big paws. He is going to be a tall kid.

Tomorrow we are going to Julie’s for swimming and lunch. I will make sure to take pictures because her pool is just heaven.

So once again I feel like a complete moron when it comes to mothering this child. Jack has been a little fussy, not napping well, chewing on anything and everything. So I assume it's his teeth and I've been putting orajel on his top gums at night. He has two big white blisters where his top teeth will be, so every day I'm checking for the teeth.

Today I took a peek at his bottom teeth to see how far through they were, and lo and behold, what did I see but two new teeth on the BOTTOM! I called Julie of course to make sure that was okay. (I don't know what I would do if it wasn't, but I still had to check.) I thought teeth had a particular order. Apparently not. So now he has four bottom teeth and no top teeth. Very attractive. I can't get a good picture yet but as soon as I have one I'll post it.

Yesterday we spent some time up at my mom's house. We drove up to Carefree hoping Bonnie's would be open (of course it wasn't) but right next door is a great restaurant. So we had some lunch and hung out. Jack loves restaurants – he’s just a busy little guy with his toys and his food. Here you can see him sitting straddled in the high chair.

















Today he’s off to Grandma Gloria’s again. I know it seems like I ship him out to her an awful lot, but she’s going back to school August 8th so she has to cram in as much Jack time as possible before then. It’s certainly a nice little break for me! I’m going to take a nap.

Jack spent the night with Grandma Gloria Friday night. It does get easier to leave him – I didn't worry near as much this time as I have in the past, but I still miss him. He's such a ball of energy and when he's gone the house is very quiet. Joe and I had fun going to a party and Jack had fun with various activities.

This is his new sun hat:

















Here he is with Great Grandpa Joe admiring the flowers:
















And visiting Fry's Grocery Store with Grandpa Tom:
















(Those three pictures were uploaded with Blogger - I'm not sure how I feel about their new picture functionality just yet.)

We baby-proofed the house finally, which for us merely consists of putting those little plastic things in the outlets. I know there is a lot more that could be done - I can lock the toilets and cabinets, put padding on the coffee table, put plastic things on the doorknobs so he can't open them, and probably lots of other things I'm not considering. What is the reason for the toilet lock anyway? Is it to keep them from drowning or from smashing their fingers? I wasn't entirely sure.

It seems there is more to worry about with regards to the "rules". Apparently once he starts having friends and wants to go to other people's houses I have to be concerned about what they will do with him. One friend has informed me that I am not the norm when it comes to food. I guess I just assumed people would feed their kids organic and stay away from snacks and processed foods. Apparently that is not the case.

There has to be a way to find a group of people to hang around with who don't plunk their kids down in front of the TV with potato chips and a juice box. I'm certain there are families who live like we do, I guess the challenge is to find them. I'm not necessarily judgmental about it but I would prefer Jack to grow up with healthy habits. Hmmm.

And I guess on another note I need to define what my rules are going to be. Are they just about food and TV? Are there other things to consider? I guess obvious safety issues like seatbelts and having an adult by the pool. As he gets older I suppose the rules will change a great deal. A challenge to say the least.

And then if you do trade kids with someone for playdates and such, are you expected to discipline their children? From what I see of most children in public there is not a lot of disciplining going on in the world. It seems that kids run rampant all over the place paying no mind to their screeching mothers.

I hope I'm not a screeching mother. Ugh.

I took some pictures of Jack today after Joe got home from work. It's funny how I spend so much time with him but I can't really see how darned cute he is until someone else is playing with him.





As you can probably tell, one picture is with a flash and one is without. I have to appeal to my fan base, and unfortunately two of my most outspoken critics disagree about the need for a flash. So there you have it.

This week completely disappeared from under me. Funny how a holiday can make my week all wonky even though I don’t have a traditional job. Jack is doing great – he’s crawling like a normal baby now and is into everything. He can stand up no matter where he is and almost doesn’t need something to hold on to anymore.

Yesterday we went to my mom’s house for a little bit. I needed to take my friend Elissa to Target – she is having a baby this month and still hadn’t been diaper shopping. We got her all set up with a bunch of baby related items and I think she’s ready. It’s really funny to see someone who is about to give birth – I completely remember that feeling of fear and anticipation. I can’t wait for little baby Jake or Emmerson to arrive.

Here is Jack hanging out with his Grandma:








We’ve had to change him into footed sleepers at night because our new air conditioner is so much colder he was waking up freezing. So here he is playing with my hat the other morning before he changed:















And finally a shot of his two lower teeth: