He's a Growing Boy

Helping mom make applesauce cranberry oatmeal muffins- his favorite!

 The most important thing this month is that we FINALLY got Jackson's test results back and everything was perfectly normal.  After months of waiting and being concerned it was a major relief to know that everything is just fine.  His doctors think that the combination of switching to just formula, starting a preschool, and a record cold/flu season caught his little immune system all at once back in October.  He's been 100% healthy and put the weight he lost with the pneumonia back on over the last month.  We aren't doing the nebulizer treatments at all and hopefully we won't have to again.
  


Now that he's feeling back up to speed the things he's learning are happening so fast I can barely keep up.  He's great at kicking a ball and chases it all over the house.  He can catch pretty well and throws a ball- always left handed.  He feeds himself with a spoon and fork for the most part although if he's really hungry he just tips the bowl back and "drinks" whatever is in it.  Grace has decided that he's not all that bad now that she gets to enjoy the falling food at every meal.  She even lets him pet her on his own and hardly ever bolts to the baby gate so she can be safe on the other side (except when he's chasing her which I try not to let him do!).  He helps fill up her food bowl in the mornings and gleefully adds handfuls to Grace's water dish if he gets the opportunity. 
   

DJ Jackson

Oh look, a skateboard!

Two nights in a row he teeteed on the floor while the bath was filling up so I decided to move a little potty into the bathroom.  The very first night he actually went both and I was so unprepared there wasn't a treat or anything available.  I cheered and danced around and that seemed good enough.  He sits on his potty every night now and usually goes right away.  Now he knows he gets a smarties so he's pretty motivated.  We sing two songs and if he goes great, if not we get in the tub.  Some mornings I sit him on it when he's getting dressed but for right now this is enough for us.  He's still not that great at getting on and off the little potty himself so once he gets that part down we can do a little more. 

Although we don't teach him sign language, he learns it at school so we have a handout to teach us the signs he uses.  He signs please, more, drink, dad, and elephant.  If he knows more I don't but those are the ones I've learned... I'm working more on teaching him Spanish and he recognizes quite a few words but doesn't say them yet.  He learns a new English word just about every day and his vocabulary is 25-30 words now so we don't have much need for signing- he says "more", "milk", "up" for upstairs, "ball", and "shoes" so he gets his point across most of the time!

We've reached the "I love helping" stage even if it is more unhelping than helping.  He puts the silverware into the drawer (not necessarily the correct drawer), helps take laundry out of the dryer (even if you are loading it), picks up and puts things into drawers (so you can't find them ever again), closes any door that dares to be left standing open, puts his shoes away, turns all the lights off (holding him up), and is obsessive about brushing his teeth.  Speaking of teeth his premolars are coming in the last two weeks!  Slowly but surely.  Maybe he will have all his teeth before they start falling out?

I can't wait to see how he changes over the next month :)
   

New Christmas

The original plan was to spend Christmas with my family in Florida and New Year's (aka New Christmas) with Matt's family at our house.  Aunt Erin and Erik made it into town midweek so Erin rode out with me to collect the Gracedog at the strategically picked outlet mall exit above Atlanta.  Since we were gone to FL for five days and Gracedog doesn't board well (that is an understatement- her vet file has a huge DO NOT BOARD stamped on it because she will not eat or drink and ends up needing an IV and becomes the most pitiful dog you've ever seen) we packed the dog off to stay with Grandad at the lake for a few weeks so she would be happy.  Poor Grace came home not only to a tormenting toddler but also to Lane the Loving Goldenpoo, who Grace would rather not love.  I'm pretty sure she's wishing she was still at the lake.   

Jackson loves Lane.  She lets him pet her unlike his own dog.

Sadly for us all, on Friday morning Grammy woke up sick as a dog and was so sick she was afraid to come share her germs with all of us.  Since we'd been holding out for Grammy and Grandad to arrive we changed up the schedule a bit and decided to hit the Pelham Road Warriors hockey game.  Neither Matt, Erin or Erik had been to a game!  They even got to see a pretty decent fight which I missed while in the bathroom.  Of course.

A friend told me about a neat place downtown called the Palmetto Olive Oil Co that does tastings so we checked that out on Saturday.  So cool!  They give you a bowl of bread and little cups to taste all the different oils.  Then you try the lighter balsamic vinegars.  At the end they give you a dish of vanilla ice cream and you get to try the dark balsamics.  Who would have thought that pomegranate and dark chocolate balsamic vinegar would be so delicious on ice cream??

We also checked out the Shoeless Joe Jackson museum.  I'm not a baseball fan.  It was eh.  Matt enjoyed it and his dad would have really liked it.

Since we still hadn't opened any of our presents including Santa's presents we did that for New Christmas :)  Jackson got a train that does all kinds of songs, letters and sounds from Santa and a wagon from us to use to roll up to the pool this summer.  His favorite gift from Florida was a DJ stand that has a microphone.  He sits in a box and plays with that thing constantly- although he thinks you have to put the mic in your mouth and talk for it to work.  I hate this toy.  It is soooo obnoxious.  Of course it is his favorite.  Thanks, Nana.