Trying to talk

Jac is starting to use words! Sort of!

We are pretty sure he knows the word ball. He can point to a ball in one of his favorite books and he sort of says "ball." It comes out more like "ba" and he kind of whispers it but he has done it several times and I am quite sure that he is saying ball - or his equivalent.

I also think he has learned to say "bye bye." Daddy says bye bye all of the time when they are saying goodbye to the toys in the bathtub and we say bye bye frequently in his different classes when we say goodbye to toys. Two days ago when some friends of ours came over and they were leaving and I said bye to them he said "bye bye." I think! And Daddy says that he said it this evening when he was putting Jac's toys away in the bath with him.

It is pretty clear that something has changed in the last few days in terms of starting to think about forming words. We have been reading with Jac a lot for the last month and a half or so and it seems to be making a big difference! Prior to that he did not seem very interested but now he will sit and listen to us read. He has a few favorite books that he likes the most and we read those all of the time and we have a bunch more that we try also. He has also learned to turn the pages, and he likes to do it, although he frequently opens or closes the entire book - which is fun also!

One of his favorite books is Baby Dinosaur by Fiona Watt. (Thank you Susan for giving it to him!) It is a soft book and he loves to turn the pages and touch them. He also smiles every time you read the very last sentence when the baby dinosaur find his brothers and sisters and they ask him if he wants to come and play. He smiles every time you read that. But only if you read it when you get to the end of the story. If you try to read it out of order just to get the smile he won't go for it!

No. 2 will be joining us tomorrow morning!

We are all set for a C-Section tomorrow morning at 9 am! Wow! It is here! This pregnancy has felt (and been) so much longer than Jac's it is hard for me to believe we are here and I have made it to 39 weeks and 2 days! Wow!

The current computer estimate is that No. 2 is 7.65 pounds but Dr. P. thinks he is probably closer to 7 pounds 1 ounce. He thinks No. 2 may be 22 inches long! Whoa! So a medium size baby with a long body and a big head!

Here is a shot of my belly! I have not gotten very big with No. 2 (obviously I didn't with Jac) so I can't wait to have him out and big so I can say - Ha! I can grow a big (for me!) baby without getting huge! I get comments every day about how small I look and how most women can't move by this point in their pregnancies! Ah well. My bladder can attest to the fact that No. is good sized!

We will update the blog as soon as we have pictures and a story tomorrow morning. The C-Section is scheduled for 9 am which means 9:45 am if we are not pushed back by an emergency case (our hospital had nine babies born this Sunday!).

Playing with other children

Jac has started to interact with other children a lot more in the last 2 weeks. It has been very interesting to watch as he starts to pay more attention to the other children and starts to pay attention to what they are doing.

A few days ago he spent a lot of time watching two older girls (3 1/2 and 5 1/2) play and he was very interested in what they were doing.

Today he had a great time playing with a little boy who is 10 months old. They are able to do about the same things from a gross motor standpoint. Jac was following this little boy around and they were doing things in parallel play. So fun to watch!

Jac has a new car seat

We have purchased Jac a new car seat. This one is a Britax Marathon. He continues to be a rear facing boy and this seat is convertible, which means it can be rear facing for now, and when Jac gets a little bigger (at least 20 pounds) it can be turned around to be forward facing. The other nice thing is that it can be used all the way up to 65 pounds so long as the child is not too tall.

Jac seems to like his new seat. He is now sitting in one of the outer seats as his old seat is in the middle, waiting for No. 2 to take possession of it. He seems to be enjoying looking out the window, and the seat is not quite as reclined as his Chicco which seems to really suit him now that he is older.

He looks really! small in this seat - since he is 12 pounds - and it can go up to 65 pounds - but it seems to fit him well and be very comfortable. We took the "car seat guys" recommendations about what seat to buy for Jac and so far it seems like a very good decision. Fortunately our Mercedes station wagon has enough space for both seats and some space left over for someone to sit in the back!

Jac is really starting to cruise

Jac is a changed man in terms of his cruising abilities. On Thursday I noticed a real change. When we were at KK he started to move with much more confidence while he was standing up, holding on to things. It felt like it had just "clicked" that he could really move along things while standing - that he doesn't always have to sit down and crawl to get there. He started to move along the apparatus and walls with more confidence and he really started to reach out to get, or try to get, from one piece of equipment to the next - without sitting down.

He also crawled/climbed up the stairs of the big slide - with no help. He did it several times, and then proceeded to slide down the slide, head first! I would love to have taken a video but I have to help him do these things and I can't hold a camera and do that at the same time!

Today, Daddy and I took Jac to KK together, and Daddy really noticed the change in Jac's abilities. It is so fun to watch him sort all of these things out.

He also let go to stand on his own a couple of times on Friday at KK. He managed to stand for only about a second, but he is clearly trying to figure out how to balance while standing.

He is cautious when he does all of these things, testing that they work, but not so cautious that he doesn't try - and need help when things don't quite work out!

No. 2 continues to grow well

No. 2 is getting bigger - and pushing on Mommy's belly more everyday. I have been on bi-weekly (twice a week) NSTs for 2 weeks now - and each time I have one No. 2 passes with flying colors. At the last one on Friday the Dr. said I am showing a small amount of protein (trace he says) in my urine which could mean I am starting to develop preeclmapsia. My blood pressure is still reasonable (120/78) and I am not having any headaches or nausea so he is not too worried. I normally have very low blood pressure (98/60) so it is definitely up for me but not too bad. Hopefully it will stay that way for another week and a half.

I am feeling so pregnant! Last weekend No. 2 "dropped". It now feels like he is sitting squarely on my bladder. This pregnancy has really been so easy I can't complain. Unfortunately I can though! In the last two days I have developed heart burn. I know some women experience this for significant portions of their pregnancies but man does it hurt! I still look quite small and when we tell people I am due Oct. 1 they are very surprised. I almost can't wait for No. 2 to be born - and be good sized - so that I can stop explaining why my belly is so small! I have been trying to get Joseph to take a good shot of my pregnant self so we can post it but we haven't seemed to manage that yet! This one with Jac at KK today will have to suffice for now.

We have 11 days to go! Grow baby grow!

Happy Adjusted Birthday

Jac turned 1 adjusted year today. He was due September 12, 2007 - and so this is his adjusted one year birthday!

Jac is the "big" kid

Jac started a new class at KK last week and I saw him do something he had never done before. There are about 7 kids in the class ranging in age from 7 months to 2 years so Jac is right in the middle of the age range. There were 2 children that had "lovies" with them. One had a pacifier (the same kind that Jac uses on the rare occassion when he uses one, and another with a teething toy.

During the class Jac crawled over to the child with the pacifier and took it right out of his mouth. He has never done anything like that before. To seem him leave me to go over to the other child was new, and then to take the pacifier. I was totally floored. All I could think was that Jac had become the "big" kid. The child he took the toy from probably had 5 pounds on him but Jac had mobility on his side!

After we had given back the pacifier Jac did not take it again but he then became quite fascinated with another child's teething toy. He took this toy three or four times! He would crawl over and take it, I would give take it from him, give it back, and bring him back in front of me and he would do it again!

It seems so small that he is doing this, but to me it is huge. Jac is starting to show real indepence from me and making choices to get things that he wants, even when someone else has them. I know he has no sense of what is his, or theirs etc. so he is really just making a choice to get something he wants, and to leave me to do it.

Major progress in the car seat

Jac is getting better in the car. We have made a few changes that seem to be making a big difference.

1. I am not holding Jac's bottle in the car anymore. I used to do this. Not good. Hard for me to do and not terribly safe. I now give him the bottle when we get in the car and if he wants to drink he can. When I first started doing this he cried hard - all the way home. He cried about it for about 3 days and then he just started feeding himself. It is amazing what he can do if I let him do it. He still cons Daddy and the nanny into holding it for him sometimes when they are in the back with him but he has learned that when it is just the two of us he had better just feed himself.

2. I am playing kids music CDs, particularly the CD that accompanies his Music Together class (which he really enjoys) in the car. The music seems to calm him down a lot. I am not sure if it is because he enjoys listening to it and so it distracts him or if he stops crying so he can listen to it or some combination therein. Whatever it is he is crying about 10% as much in the car as he used to. Good for Mommy and Jacie.

I feel much more able to drive him someplace alone (which I have been doing all along but with a lot of anxiety) and feel that he is content to be in the car if not thrilled.

We still have a big fight to get into the car seat, and he cries on the way out of the car seat but those are much easier to live with!

No. 2 is definitely a boy

No. 2 is being followed very closely these last few weeks. Now that he has entered his 36th week we are having twice weekly NSTs. Each time we go in it takes at least an hour! The problem for us with these tests is that I can't hold Jac during them! I did it for the first one as I had been bringing Jac to all of my appointments up until that point and I had been able to manage him during most of the ultrasounds since they are fairly short. I forgot how long the NST was going to take. Fortunately he fell asleep during that first one and it was not too tough. All of the other ones Joseph has had to accompany me to.

The good news is that No. 2 is doing very well on these tests and has been passing the NST full-term criteria for several weeks now. This means that his heart rate shows enough accelerations for long enough, and close enough together.

The current estimate is that he is 6.2 pounds and from a very good ultrasound image it is quite clear that he is a boy! Yeah for Daddy! The doctor thinks that he will be in the low 7 pound range when he is born. Joseph and I were both about 6.5 pounds when we were born so 7 poundsish would be about right for No. 2.

Jac and Mommy ate lunch together

Jac and I had a new experience together today. We ate lunch. Jac sat in his Svan chair and ate Crunchies and I sat in my chair and ate a Lean Cuisine. Amazing. This has never happened before. I know that may seem very strange but it is true!

He sat in the chair for about 12 minutes total and ate Crunchies and I was able to take my Lean Cuisine out of the microwave and eat it, with no baby in my arms. Amazing!

He is now taking the Crunchies out of the packages himself. We offer him the different cans and he takes what he wants. Well, he takes some. Most of them end up on the floor or left in his seat, and end up in Knutson's mouth, but some of them end up in his mouth and eventually in his stomach. Cool! It is funny to think how exciting a seemingly simple thing like eating can be when your child has never done it. Man, every time he eats something new I am a little giddy!

Jac eating French bread

Here's Jac eating the outer hull of a French bread after we had given him the soft insides... In total, he held the hull for about 7 minutes... After he was done with the bread, he drank some water from a cup.

He is getting very good at eating and drinking now. He still makes a mess, though, if you don't watch him -- mostly flinging things to the ground...

Jac performed another first during this video - he sat in a regular restaurant high chair for the first time. He had to perch on the front of it but he sat with no problems!

Jac is getting better at climbing

Jac is getting much better at climbing. I love to take him to Kangaroo Kingdom (KK) so he can practice. It is really hard to give him a safe way to climb at home but at Kangaroo Kingdom there are quite a few safe things to climb. He can now climb up the soft set of stairs at KK without any assistance, although he does fall and need help when he changes direction! He has up figured out pretty well - the down part we are still working on.

Dressing up

We have been dressing Jac up more, in little boy clothes rather than baby clothes. The weather has started to turn cold and Jac doesn't need to be dressed in his little summer suits all of the time anymore (he gets warm easily). We have noticed that Jac gets a lot more attention when he is dressed like a baby than he does when he is dressed like a little boy. Very interesting!

New Svan high chair

We bought Jac a new high chair. It is called the Svan high chair and we all love it. It is quite small, matches our furniture and is very adjustable. It is designed to grow with the child - so it can be used as a high chair now, as a booster chair when the child doesn't need a high chair any more, and later it can even be used as a regular chair for an adult! In the picture it does not have the tray on. The chair is designed to be used with he tray (which is in the video) or without the tray, pulled up to the table.

Jac uses it all of the time now to eat. He is making progress with eating, and will fairly happily go in his Svan several times a day to try different foods. He is still mostly eating Crunchies but he is also eating some fruits and some baby food. Today he ate cherries and he loved it! I chopped them up in our little mini Cuisinart until they were very small pieces but not a puree.

Jac crawling into the kitchen

Jac has been having a great time crawling around the house - he is everywhere now! His crawling and standing have gotten so much better. He can pull up on most anything now - including the refrigerator! He likes to pull any low hanging magnets off and play with them.