JAB blab

While life speeds up, the obsessive capturing of every moment of Jack’s life on camera has slowed down. There is, however, an entire series of food shots documenting the new and improved eating of solids. Bon appetit!

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It appears that we have successfully weaned Jack off of the 2 am feeding. I’m almost afraid to even put that in writing given that sleep is such a hit or miss thing around here. The nixing of that feeding, however, does coincide with a fairly consistent new wake up time of 4:30 am. This can usually be extended to about 5 which I guess is an acceptable hour for some people…not in my opinion, mind you. Anyhow, 5 am is our hold out time. He doesn’t get to get out of the crib until then. I wonder what will happen when we get rid of the 10 pm feeding? Rise and shine at 3? I am convinced that if I ever experience a normal night’s sleep my body will simply go into shock, perhaps slip into a coma, and you will never hear from me again.

Now that I am doing all of this contract work, I think I need to get a real email address for work related stuff, maybe even do a little website/resume on line. Because my work revolves around theatre in one way or another, most people assume that my personal email address is a work email address and when the truly curious check out the website associated with that address, they find  7 billion pictures of Jack. While I think that he is one of my greater achievements, its not exactly a resume builder. I am exploring the idea (at least internally) about this contract work expanding in the future…maybe a non-profit of some sort so that I can write grants for myself to do further arts education work in public schools. Anyhow, I guess I want to “brand” myself–it would be nice to be able to put a company name of sorts on my invoices and to have an email address reflecting it. I am at a loss for something catchy (and available). Any suggestions?

For those that don’t know what I do, it is mostly related to integrating theatre with more traditional education programming. For example, currently I am writing a study guide and workshop curriculum for an upcoming production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, teaching a residency to 2nd graders that integrates performance and language arts, editing recruiting materials for a college theatre department. Other projects that are on the horizon include working with a theatre to align their student matinee teaching materials with California’s education content standards and writing a manual for how to use theatre arts in children’s hospitals (art as healing). 

And, yes, Venture Geek you will be consulted.

Jack has been confounding me lately with the solid food. One day he loves something…the next day he makes a face like its the nastiest thing that has ever attacked his budding taste buds (and we all know that can’t be true–hello cobweb covered moldy piece of decomposing leaf of yesterday?!!?). 

He definitely likes to feed himself. No surprise there. The latest trend seems to be the bigger the better…all the better to choke you with my dear! A lovingly sliced banana holds no interest, however a big chunk of banana that he can hold and gnaw is very enticing. He used to turn his nose up at plums until I gave him the entire plum. Its squishy goodness is very fun to hold and, again, the gnawing ensued. I imagine we will experience success with actual corn on the cob versus the individual kernels previously presented to him. Perhaps I should just give him an entire roasted chicken as well… 

I used to joke about how there were very few “no’s” in our household, but the ones that existed were big “no no’s”. Basically the big “no no” was that Jack was not allowed to grab my glasses off of my face or bite me while he was nursing.

Silly woman. How I long for the days when those were the only no’s. You see, they were the only no’s simply because at that point in time that was about all Jack could get into. Now, with the super speedy crawl, extra stretchy pull ups, the advent of cruising, my thrill seeking, curious son is subjected to the big fat NO on a regular basis. NO, you cannot play with that electric cord! socket! fireplace! serrated bread knife! NO, you may not open that drawer! dishwasher! diaper pail! door!  NO pulling mama’s hair! NO ripping out daddy’s eyeballs from his eye sockets! NO yanking kitty’s tail! NO crawling under there! No eating that! NO! NO! NO!

And yanking off my glasses…still a problem. Biting while nursing…much worse now that he’s got teeth up top and bottom.

I know with the introduction of our rules and limits comes the testing of those rules and limits on his part.  Sometimes I want to give in. Maybe I really need a new pair of glasses so if he breaks them in two it’s ok? All in all I try to stand strong amd be consistent because I know it is only going to get more complex and difficult in the future. I don’t kid myself into thinking it will get easier, but I kind of hope we get to a point where it is less physically exhausting.  So for right now, it’s NO! Redirect to new activity…NO! redirect to new activity…

Hello friends in the computer. We’ve been dealing with the “ick” here in our household. I believe the “ick” has been traveling to & fro, wrecking havoc on Jack’s, K’s, and my immune systems as well as the immune systems of our nanny share kids. It also took up residence in Jack’s ears which has prompted a very major milestone in Jack’s little existence: first round of antibiotics. It’s that yummy pink stuff I remember fondly from my many childhood bouts of strep throat. That magical medicine that makes it all better. Just sniffing his little bottle o’ syrupy sweetness makes me jealous.

#1 Teaching Jack to “show me” he has finished chewing by opening his mouth and saying “ahhh.” It appears to be way more fun to “show me” the actual food.

#2 Feeding Jack a teething biscuit with one end in my mouth and one end in his. He has now taken to feeding me all of his half eaten food. Very loving, but oh so gross. 

#3 Amusing Jack by putting a diaper on my head and his. I’ll let you imagine the bad direction in which this might go.

I know you are waiting with baited breath to hear about our travels. Since I last posted Jack and I journeyed to Alabama and met his cousin, Graham. 4131

I attempted to watch both Jack and Graham while my sister started back to work. Despite some few and far between moments of pure childcare genius, overall I was a failure and we had to call in some reinforcements. And yes, this does make me feel like an inferior being especially since I am typing this as my nanny watches two kids in the next room (and will watch three tomorrow). I wonder if this is a sign that I should have only one.

Upon returning from Alabama, we more or less caught our breath, caught a cold, and caught a plane to Missouri for K’s family reunion. Luckily K Dog Super Daddy was able to go with us. We all enjoyed a weekend of family fun. K’s extended family is just lovely and I swear every single one of them is a natural storyteller. K has informed me that this will likely be the last weekend where he is not completely submerged in work for perhaps the remainder of the year SO we really tried to enjoy ourselves. Among others, Jack got to meet his other namesake, Jackson Heavin. 4308

Now we are back and desperately craving a routine. Pictures are up. I would write more but work calls and the hours with the nanny are precious!