Touchdown

James is learning many tricks these days. This is one we tried to teach him before the Super Bowl...he hadn't quite mastered it at that point. He definitely has it mastered now and knows that it receives lots of attention. We met someone new at story time this week and he grinned and did touchdown. Of course the lady didn't really know what he was doing so I had to explain. Some of his other tricks are to clap and sometimes he kind of signs all done. His daddy is going to play softball this spring so I am trying to teach him to do "safe".

The teacher in me is so excited that he is becoming trainable. He is a blank slate. I can teach him so many wonderful things now. But then I get paralyzed by trying to figure out what to teach him first and how to teach him all the things he should know...

Well, for now he can do touchdown...seems like a good skill every child should know!

4 Years=Stainless Steel, right?

Today, Lee and I have been married 4 years. To celebrate we are going out to buy a new trash can!

When we got married Lee and I disagreed about trash cans. He wanted a trash can with a lid but I hated the thought of having to touch the lid whenever I wanted to put something in the trash can. Then there is the trash can that has a lid with a foot pedal and the lid slams against the wall whenever you step on it then slams back down on the trash can. This kind will spray trashy liquids around your kitchen if they are on the lid.

When we got married Lee got me the best present EVER-a simplehuman trash can! This trash can lid goes up easily when you press the foot pedal then has a smooth close mechanism. It is a beautiful thing. I don't have to touch the nasty lid and it doesn't slam either. Well, about 6 months ago the lid broke. We have been living with a trash can without a lid. We have a baby who is quickly becoming mobile and wanting to touch things. Bad combination! It won't be long before he wants to rummage through the trash.

We joked that we would buy a new trash can for our anniversary but our real plan was to go to Lucky 32 for peanut butter pie. Then we got a stomach bug last week and didn't think we were quite in the right place to really enjoy our PB pie. SO, we went out to buy a trash can! It was very romantic...

8 Months

Well, James is now 8 months old. I didn't think I would have much for the 8 month update because I have been updating the blog more often. Well, he made the last week and a half very exciting so I would have something to talk about!

First of all I weighed him on the wii and he is about 17.5 lbs. now. I think he is making good progress with his weight.

James got to spend some quality time with his Grandma and Grandpa Wynkoop last week.

We had really beautiful weather so we got to spend some time outside playing, which James really enjoyed.

Other than that, he had a really rough week last week. He had trouble sleeping at night and for naps, and he was really congested. For a couple days I wasn't sure what was going on. Then I saw a little blister on his gums and figured he was teething but this 3rd tooth was A LOT worse than the first two. Well four days later another tooth appeared. When I looked inside today it appears there is at least one more tooth if not two or three on the horizon. No wonder the 3rd tooth was 3 times as bad...it was actually at least 3 teeth.

As if a mouthful of teeth wasn't enough for our week, James now has a little stomach bug. The past two feedings haven't done much to nourish him (without getting too graphic) they have done more to stain his clothes (and our carpet). We're hoping for an uneventful night and a slow recovery to regular eating tomorrow. We'll see!

Bath Time

This boy loves bath time!

Bedtime Ritual

Every night I take James upstairs to put his jammies on and feed him. When we are finished we sit at the top of the stairs and call for Daddy to come up and read the bedtime story with us. Sometimes it takes Lee a while to get to the stairs to come up and James gets impatient and starts leaning forward and trying to look around the corner. When he sees Daddy at the bottom of the stairs this is what Daddy sees:

...big grin, and about to catapult himself down the stairs.

Finally

Well I think James has finally figured out and embraced this sitting thing. I am still not quite confident enough in his skills to leave him without a pillow behind him to spot him but he can stay sitting up for quite a while now.

Also, you can really see his two little teeth in this picture!

Monitor

Before having a baby I thought video monitors were unnecessary. "Only really anxious parents needed them." When James was about 5 months old he started rolling onto his tummy while he slept, then he would cry. The first few times he did this it scared him and if you would just roll him back onto his back before he got too upset he would just go right back to sleep. When that started happening I thought "man it would be great if I had a video monitor so I could see why he is crying". If I went into his room to check it was harder for me to just leave him alone if he didn't really need me.

Well, this weekend I got a cheap, old-school video monitor and I love it! Last night for some reason James woke up at 4:45. I didn't have to lay in bed and wonder if somehow his bed or the monsters in his room (ok maybe I am a BIT of an anxious mom) were killing him. I just turned on the video, could see that he was fine and then turned it back off. He cried for 45 minutes and I laid in bed peacefully because every 15 minutes or so I would turn the monitor on and reassure myself that he was fine and he just needed to be left alone so he could figure out how to get himself back to sleep. It however did not make me any less tired this morning...