Updates...

For all you Happy Gilmore fans, when I see this picture, I can't help but think "Meesta Meeeesta, get me OUTTA HERE!!!" haha

A couple of updates:

Jackson now has 4 teeth! His bottom two have just popped through and boy are they sharp! Also, he is just so silly lately. He loves when you smile at him and he will give a big smile back and start "talking" or laughing. The past few days he has also been screeching alot and you can tell he is just having a ball doing it. He is now clapping and he absolutely expects you to make over it and praise him when he starts doing it. His new favorite thing is for me to go through each animal and make the sound that they make. He really loves "A COW goes MOOOOO!, A DOGGIE goes woof woof!, and A SHEEP goes BAAAAAA!" If he is fussing or crying he will instantly stop to listen to me go through each animal. This is helpful in calming him down during diaper changes when he becomes the great contortionist and twists all the way around!

Tomorrow starts day 1 of Mothers morning out. We are excited for him to have a new experience and to make some new friends to play with, but dreading the possible separation anxiety that may come. Still, it is good for him to be around other babies. He will only be there for 3 hours and I will be close by if need be. Justin and I are thinking that he may get his first sickness from starting this program, but at least he has his flu shots now. I still can't believe he is almost 9 months old and has never even had a cold. I know that he needs to get sick in order to build up some more immunity, but that knowledge certainly won't make it any easier! Wish us luck!

He is a crawling machine and he is such a bruiser. He loves to bang, pick up, and throw his heavy toys. He is now on a mission to use any and all toys to try and pull up to standing. He is also determined to yank on our blinds and he makes a beeline for bathrooms, power cords, and shoes. We can't take our eyes off of him for a minute. We are in the process of finishing babyproofing the house, and babygates will be going up soon! We are also getting rid of our coffee table and replacing it with a leather storage ottoman, which will be a lot more baby-friendly than our current table with very sharp edges. For as busy and wild as he is right now, he is also extremely affectionate and loving. He is still pretty clingy to me right now, but he has his special moments with his daddy throughout the day and they have their own little games that they play together. Still when he is tired/cranky/fussy, all he wants is me and he will cry if I walk out of the room for a second. I think that has alot to do with me still nursing him too.

I also have been meaning to post about Jackson's newest cousin, Kendall. Kendall Elise was born on April 11th and she is so beautiful! We all can't wait to meet her and we are so excited for Brooke, Adrian, and Kaylan. Here are a couple of pictures. Kaylan is going to BREAK some poor boys hearts one day with those gorgeous baby blues. In fact, all of my neices (5 of them!) are such beautiful and perfect little girls and we are so proud of each one of them. And at the present time, they ALL have blue eyes! It will be interesting to see if all of them (including Jackson) are blue-eyed. Jackson is way outnumbered by the girls, but no doubt they will all keep him on his toes! Welcome baby Kendall!! PS-Check out Kaylan's personalized scrubs...too cute!

The only other news is that I had my standing 6 month breast exam w/ Dr. Cole, my favorite surgeon in the world today. I got the all clear that everything looks good. I even had an ultrasound to check on the area of mastitis, and things have cleared up nicely. Dr. Cole is really great because he puts up with my special kind of crazy, much like my OB does. And the best part is that I get to act all professional in my dealings with Dr. Cole when our paths cross for my job, but deep down he knows what a loon I am. And I love that he never makes me feel like a hypochondriac, although 3 breast ultrasounds in a year might suggest that! Is it sad that during my ultrasound, I was able to identify blood vessels, milk ducts, ribs, and lymph nodes? I was just as bad with my ultrasounds during pregnancy too. I am the ultrasound QUEEN!! Hey, better safe than sorry!

Mommy is SO funny!

A piece of the "old" me!

Stumbled upon this tonight on a facebook page and it made me smile. This was a dance from the last dance performance that I did several years ago. I think it must've been about 3 or 4 years ago!? Dancing has always been such a huge part of my life and I really do feel a piece of me missing right now while I am not doing it. I REALLY want to get back into it and I can't believe I have gone so long. My life used to completely revolve around it. Tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop, lyrical...I love it all! (maybe I slightly favor hip hop) School/work was always priority #2 for me behind dancing and that's has always been ok by me. Some of the most fun I had was in college on the College of Charleston dance team...Go Cougarettes! We were a competitive team and we actually placed 8th nationally my junior year of college. Not only did we practice most nights, but we had conditioning and strength training. It used to kick my butt! I will never forget the time Whitnei (our coach) busted my chops for missing a morning conditioning because I had partied a little too hard the night before. She made me run up and down the custom house stairs right there on East Bay St. until I thought I would collapse. It was good for me though! :)I really miss those days and ALL my girls from the team. Many of us were (are) the best of friends and not only hung out every night at practice together, but also on the weekends as well socially. I wish I would've realized just how fast those years would go by and that life would move on and so would we.

The little group in this video was a group that I stumbled upon several years after college. We usually struggled to get it together and it wasnt the most organized, but it was fun! The best part of the group was that my college dance team girls JennyO and Sara were still in town and we were holding on to a piece of the dream together still. After this I moved to Summerville, JennyO moved to Miami, and Sara moved to NYC. I actually really have never been a fan of this dance. Although the choreographer is an amazing hip hop dancer, I think this choreography and music is really uninspired/boring and kinda silly. The ending is so abrupt and terrible and the more I watch it the more I realized how bad it was. At any rate, it's just the reminder and inspiration I need right now to find a good dance class and get my butt back where I feel at home..the stage! Can you find me? JennyO is in a blue top, Sara is in a white top/white belt army pants,and I am the other one in a white top with khaki pants. Now if only my stomach would be that skinny again!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-X0fbxeBRw

In my opinion, night 2 was MUCH better than night 1! PS-WHITNEI this is for you-PLEASE tell me what the heck James is doing there in night 1. He doesnt even know the dance and is making it up as he goes!! He took himself out of night 2, but he is acting a FOOL in night 1. Check out some of the group's amazing technique on the triple turn and axle..HAHA!

CRAWLING!! :)

Playtime

Pulling up!

What a week!!

This past week has been a bumpy one for me! It all started last Tuesday morning. I woke up on Tuesday morning and my whole back/arms/shoulders were sore. You know when you have been sleeping extremely hard in the same position kind of sore? That was it. I had been sleeping flat on my stomach. The reason I woke up was because Jackson was crying, so I went in his nursery and grabbed him to bring him to our bed to nurse him. It was then that I realized that it felt like someone had punched me in the boob...(tmi!) yikes! When Justin woke up I told him I wasn't feeling quite right. I still drove to work because I am stubborn like that and I never call like to call in sick, but on the drive in I started getting the chills. I still wasn't feeling terrible, but I knew something wasn't quite right. I came home after working my half day in the office and looked in the mirror and I my suspicions were confirmed of what was going on when I saw a red patch over where I was having pain. Masitis resulting from a plugged duct...BOO! I cut out my middle of the night pumping session a few days before, and this was my biggest fear :( This is precisely WHY I had still been pumping throughout the night, but at over 8 months of breastfeeding ,I thought I was pretty safe from getting mastitis. Anyway, I called my OB and she wanted me to come in. She saw me and confirmed what it was and said it was most likely going to get worse and so she wrote me an antibiotic. I did not want to fill it because I was thinking I could get through it without the medicine (again the stubbornness, which drives Justin crazy :), but she said I would know when it was time to take it because I would feel like crap, and fast. Also she said to nurse frequently to help unplug the milk duct.

Fast forward to about 8 pm and I started feeling BAD very fast. I took a shower and even though it was on the hottest it would go, it still felt lukewarm. My fever climbed to about 100.5. Now about this time I came downstairs and Justin said "what is that noise?". As soon as I heard it I knew what it was. It was a catfight. Thank goodness Annabelle was closed in on the screen because I looked on our porch and there was this stray cat that sometimes roams around in our backyard nose to nose with Annabelle on the other side of the screen. Annabelle was hissing, yelling, lunging, growling....but the cat wasn't moving. I (STUPIDLY) thought to go on our porch and shoo the cat away, since it has worked in the past. I opened the door and Annabelle lunged at the cat making a sound I have never heard and the cat scurried away and jumped over the fence. Then, in the blink of an eye, my perfect, precious, angelic, sweet bundle of fur that I rescued as a baby from the pound looked at me with crazy eyes and lunged at me. She jumped on me with her claws out and grabbed both legs before I pushed her off and jumped back inside. I was shocked, but i knew it was my fault. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that you never try to break up a cat fight. Still I had just been trying to protect my little alley cat. Of course it didnt hurt too bad but then I saw she scratched me pretty good and it was bleeding. Justin was NOT happy and he was really worried that the scratches were deep, but it looked worse than it was. By the time we bandaged me up and got in bed, my fever was at 101.5. Justin made the executive decision to fill my antibiotic right then at 11 PM. I am so thankful for him for taking such good care of me. I ended up with a 102 fever all night and I was MISERABLE! The next day I was still pretty sick and my fever wasnt getting below 101. Justin took Jackson all day so that I could rest (except to nurse him). What a good man! Then on Thursday I woke up completely soaked with sweat and I knew my fever broke! Since then I have been feeling great and the redness and pain is all gone. I am almost done with my antibiotic and the scratches are also almost completely healed. As for Annabelle, the next morning I made sure to give her lots of love and she was back to normal. I hope that cat stays away and out of our yard. I just hope Annabelle doesnt learn that she can jump our fence from the other cat doing it. I can't stand irresponsible pet owners!!

There's nothing like being under the weather to make you really appreciate being healthy, which is such an easy thing to take for granted. Having good health is truly a blessing!

Today was an interesting day as well because while at Babies R us, my credit card got denied...WHAT!? I called the company and they said they had locked the account because there was suspicious activity and they wanted to verify with one of us that the charges were ok before unlocking. THANK goodness they called because we are now officially the victims of credit card fraud! Starting yesterday someone swiped our credit card at Walgreens and Walmart in Knoxville TN charging over $500. They tried to use it at Home Depot today and thats when Chase bank locked the acct. Justin and I only have the copies of our card and they are both in our posession, so how in the world does someone out there have a copy of our card to swipe? Scary! Luckily we are not liable for what was charged and Chase has launched an investigation and closed our acct. Still, it creeps me out that someone somewhere got our credit card number and was able to make transactions with a fake card. But I am so glad it happened to our credit card and not our bank acct. I was so pleased with the customer service that Chase bank gave...without their swift action, we may not have caught the fraudulent charges for days. I like to think that most of the world is good and give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but this is just a reminder that some people are just BAD EGGS who take the path of least resistance in life.

On the bright side, Jackson is def. crawling and he's going the distance! And he's going for speeeeeed! (haha) He also was pulling up to standing in his crib and hanging out there so we lowered it all the way down. Also, his third tooth (bottom one) has officially popped through. I also think he has learned what "kisses" means. I will say "give mommy a kissy" and he will bury his head into me and smile. What a month of changes! One last thing-The other day I was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer while holding him and he just let out the loudest laugh. I wasnt even talking or anything. Then every time I moved a piece to the dryer he would do it again. Justin came up and we both got such a kick out of his laugh. He is the light of our lives!

8 months!

I am a little late on this one, but better late than never! Jackson continues to grow and change by each passing day. I still can't believe that he is over 8 months old!! It seems just like yesterday that I took a pregnancy test that was positive and then soon after saw the little "bean" and his tiny flicker of a hearbeat on ultrasound. That tiny bean is a big tank of a baby now and he just gets cuter by the hour! He is a solid little guy and it seems like he has developed so much more strength since last month. Perhaps one of the biggest changes from last month is that he is completely mobile now and can go from laying down to sitting up to up on all fours and back...he can also pull himself up to standing only to fall back down. During naptime I watch him on the video monitor as he moves from one end of the crib to the other, sits up and looks around and then tries to pull himself up on the side. Also I think I can say he is CRAWLING! He gets on all fours and crawls forward about 3-4 times before he lays down. So he is technically crawling, but he doesnt do it for long distances yet. He also LUNGES forward like a wild man to get anything in sight. He really gets crazy for remote controls, phones, computers, and stacks of paper... Basically whatever mommy and daddy have is what he wants. We have started teaching him the word "no" but it doesnt seem to work yet. :)

He has also gotten his 2nd front tooth and is just about to cut his first bottom tooth. His 2nd tooth definitely caused some discomfort for him but I think (and hope) the worst is over. I think this is part of the reason that he has been exceptionally clingy to me lately. He has always been daddy's buddy and he still is, but sometimes he just wants mommy. He will bury his little head into me and it is so sweet. He also does this when he gets embarassed. There have been two times when my mom and Justin's mom called and we put the phone to his ear so they could talk to him. He started smiling and buried his head into me and Justin. He also does that when his talking toy dog "Scout" talks or sings to him. Lately he's been giving some good smiles to strangers. Stranger anxiety doesnt seem too bad right now, although it comes and goes. He is still fascinated with small children and other babies.

He is making all kinds of new noises and sounds. When he is playing with his toys, he has whole "conversations" with himself. Sometimes we hear what sounds like a "muh muh" or "dada" in the mix, but "guh guh" is still his favorite. It is so cute to listen to him talk to his toys and his new favorite noise is to make a soft, but high-pitched squeal. We are working on teaching him to wave "hi" and "bye bye". He still loves to blow raspberries! I have noticed he has begun imitating us too. If we bang two toys together and hand them to him, he will start banging them and look at us for approval. We have both had bad coughs from the past couple of weeks and this week Jackson began making a fake coughing noise. He will do it and then look at us and smile. Then we go back and forth with him making the noise. Also, I caught him laughing in his sleep the other day which was the cutest thing. He is pretty much anti pacifier again, which is ok. When we try to give him the newborn soothie pacifier, he chews on it like a mad man and then throws it as far as he can. The other day Justin caught him with it almost all the way in his mouth, so we are getting rid of those anyway.

We continue to try new organic baby foods with Jackson and he seems to really love them all. I need to start giving him some more chunky foods that he can self feed. So far we have tried chunks of bananas (which mainly slipped out of his fingers) and a bread roll. I want to do some green beans, potatoes, and other fruits soon. He gets about half a jar of baby food twice a day. The rest of the time he is still nursing, which is still about 7-8 times a day! No wonder he is such a big boy-by our estimate he is 21 lbs!

Jackson will be starting his mothers morning out program soon. We did a surprise "drop by" the other day and we were happy with what we saw. We met with the woman who keeps the babies and she was really sweet. It is at a nearby church that is less than 5 mins from our house. She only has 2 other babies right now, a boy and a girl who are close to Jackson's age. I am so hoping that he does well with it and it will be good for him to socialize some. He will be going 3 days a week for about 3 hours each day. We'll see how it goes!

We took Jackson to breakfast at Charleston's Cafe a few days ago. We know the owners/staff really well and they also catered our wedding. They love watching Jackson grow and they always stop by our table to see him and visit with us. Jackson was SO funny that day and very sociable. Everytime a pretty girl talked to him he would do give a funny face. It is a big smile but then he scrunches his face up as much as he can. I had seen him do it before a few times with me but never to anyone else. That's why it was so funny when he started giving that look to all the pretty ladies. And let me tell you they thought it was adorable! They were falling all over him and he was eating it up.. YES he is his father's son! And the way he was laid back and had his little foot cocked up over his high chair like he was hot stuff made me realize that he is already such a mini Justin in the making! Oh brother :)

Some big news from this past week: Jackson's newest cousin was born! I will write more about her in the next post and include a picture, but she is absolutely adorable and we can't wait to meet her! Welcome to the world Kendall! :)

This is such a fun age to watch Jackson learn and grow. Some days it seems like he is on fast-forward with his new discoveries and personality. We love to sit him down and surround him with his toys and watch him play. Sometimes I just can't stand how cute he is and I have to scoop him up and hug and kiss his chubby cheeks. He is full of smiles and is such a joy to be around. He is also a wild child and he keeps us on our toes for sure! Happy 8 months to our sweet (but not so little anymore) boy! :)

Jackson's first visit to the beach

My good friend Ashley was staying out at Folly with her family and invited us over to visit last Friday night. Justin had a meeting in Atlanta that day and flew back just in time for us to take Jackson out to see the beach and then hit Taco Boy for dinner with Ashley, Pat, and Maddie. We also met up with Caroline, John, Logan, and their newest bundle, Lawson. Jackson seemed to enjoy the beach and was taking it all in. I can't wait to take him back soon and make a day of it. It was a great time and I always enjoy spending time with my girls that I grew up with. Oh the stories we have...and we are all slightly crazy/neurotic which makes for fun times! We even have our own special game called the "what if" game that only a few people even understand but we think it is HILARIOUS! Some of my favorite memories with Ashley are from our college days when we were acting so stupid and made some of the worst decisions ever (Jazz Club nights hiding in the bathroom/Skippers nights/the night TACO saved us at the gas station...haha/and many more) yet we (by the grace of God! :) lived to laugh about it later. She is a wonderful friend and I always enjoy when we can get together. Lord help us if our kids hang out one day when they are old enough to really get in trouble! Anyway our husbands usually just sit back when we are all together and laugh at us. It was really cool to now be able to hang out now with the kiddos. We have to do it again soon!

Jackson's 1st Easter

Hopefully he will laugh at this one day! That hat said "one size fits all", but clearly it is too small. Still it was TOO CUTE not to put on him. These pictures were taken the day after Easter. Justin and I were both sick on Easter this year and Jackson was ONE fussy bunny. His second front tooth decided to break through and he was uncomfortable and very clingy to mommy. Also his poor little nose was running, which we think is due to teething. He doesnt seem sick at all, and it comes and goes. Anyway I was so sick that I couldnt even bear to get him dressed up and do the big celebration that day. I started running a fever later that evening and it was miserable. Even with all that it was still the best Easter ever because Jackson was here with us to celebrate! I think he liked his Easter Basket even though all he wanted to do was gnaw on everything :)

We are slowly feeling better but our poor little guy is pretty uncomfortable. It looks like about half of the tooth has broken through and he is definitely fussing much more than usual. He is also extremely clingy and wants to be held all the time. He is waking up at night a little bit more than usual too and drooling everywhere. The first tooth wasnt this bad, but I also think his bottom ones are going to break through any day. We have been giving him tylenol, teething tablets, cold teething rings, and lots of extra love. Hopefully he will feel some relief soon!