Today is the last day of our little Jack’s infancy. Although technically, today Jack is 52 weeks old, tomorrow, January 13th at 1:04 in the afternoon Mommy’s little firecracker will turn 1 year old. He will officially leave behind him the title of Baby and cruise towards the title of Toddler. Where all of the time went, I have no idea. Thankfully we have Tuesdays with Jack to help remember all of those little moments that would have otherwise drifted off into the ether. In the throws of sleep deprivation and learning to be a parent, what was once a sound mind and body capable of great feats and remembering inane details and bits of trivia is quickly reduced to a glob of emotions, exhaustion, and struggling to determine if it’s 3:00 in the morning or in the afternoon because at some point, time turned around on you, but you’re not sure when. So, even when our memories fail us, Mommy and Daddy still have a week by week accounting of our time spent with our little love.
This week has been full of growing and changing just like any other week, but unfortunately this week’s growing was also accompanied by a cold. Poor little Jack has been coughing and sniffling for the better part of a week, but it appears that he is on the mend. To aid in his recovery and to make him feel a little more comfortable we added a humidifier and a Vick’s Vapors night light to his bedroom. Also, thanks to the advice on SaintAlsKids.com, Mommy has increased baby man’s fluids and since he is practically one, we’ve been giving him teaspoons of honey to help with his cough.
All of this seems to have helped as he appears to be on the mend, but his illness has definitely taken a toll on his sleep schedule. One night he would be up until 9:30 unable to stay asleep while over the weekend aside from a few tantrums he slept fine. He even slept until 10:00 AM on Saturday! As of tonight he appears to be settling back down into a normal sleeping routine.
Part of Jack’s pre-sleep routine includes story time which is probably Mommy and Daddy’s favorite part of the routine. Sometimes Daddy will read a story and sometimes Mommy will read. Lately, before naps I will read Goodnight Moon and What Snowmen Do at Night or one of the Sesame Street book club books. At night, before bed, while Daddy is feeding Jack, I’ve been reading from the collected stories of Winnie the Pooh. Mommy is still working out all of the right voices, but it is certainly a great deal of fun.
Mommy likes to read to Jack even when it’s not time to go to sleep. Jack’s favorite book is his touch and feel book he received from Oma for Easter. Inside of it are various animals doing various things, but the fun part is that each page has something neat to touch. For example, the Bunny page has a patch of fur on the bunny so that Jack can feel the bunny. Jack’s favorite page in the book is the baby Raccoon page. On this particular page, it is explained that the baby raccoon is learning how to sit on a wooden post. The raccoon appears to be holding on to a fence post with his face pressed against the top of the post. The middle portion of the post is the area that is designed to be felt. It is a grey ridged area of rippled cardboard. Yesterday, while reading this book with Jack, he put his mouth down on the post just like the baby raccoon. He would point to the raccoon and then mimic him. It was just too adorable.
Little Man hasn’t let his floundering sleep schedule and sniffling nose keep him from enjoying and exploring his toys. Recently, Jack has started taking his blocks and other toys and flying them around in the air while making what can only be described as rocket ship noises. Mommy and Daddy are fairly sure that Jack is unaware of what a rocket ship is, but this type of playing is the first time we’ve noticed him pretending; taking another object and pretending it is something other than it is. He is such a smart and imaginative little boy. We can hardly wait for him to be able to tell us what he is thinking.
Fortunately, like his appetite for playing, Jack’s appetite at meal time hasn’t diminished much while he’s been sick. However, to make meal time a little easier, Daddy bought some puréed baby food that would be easier to swallow in case his throat was bothering him. Another awesome purchase Daddy made were bottle tops for regular bottled water. At first this seemed a little unnecessary as Jack tends to drink water out of a sippy cup, but as it turns out, it is the most ingenious baby accessory we’ve used in quite a while. Jack is able to drink water whenever he wants and we don’t have to worry about him spilling it on himself. Jack also feels especially proud because he’s drinking from a water bottle like Mommy and Daddy.
Jack’s sense of pride was especially prevalent when he figured out how his cup holder on his highchair tray worked. Usually Jack will just wield his cup around wildly until Mommy or Daddy takes it or he throws it on the ground. Either way there is usually juice or water all over his tray or the floor. This week, instead of wielding his cup around, the cup managed to find its rightful place in the cup holder. Upon its landing, Jack looked at me completely surprised that his cup actually had a place, upright, and that it was currently there. This look of surprise changed to one of pride upon his purposefully repeating this action. This led to Mommy introducing Jack to the high-five. We’re still working on both the continued use of the cup holder over the floor and the mastery of high-five, but improvements have been made in both areas.
It’s hard to believe that almost a year ago Daddy was having to “finger feed” Jack 2 mL of milk at a time and now, our little Blurpy is drinking cups and more or less feeding himself. Yes, time does fly. I can only imagine the emotions that will rush over me when I realize that Jack is fully grown. He’s still in diapers and already I’m weeping because he’s so much bigger than the baby who emerged a year ago tomorrow. I say it’s only been a year, but what a wonderful year it’s been. Today may mark the last day of Jack being a baby according to the calendar, but he will always be our baby.
Quick Jack Facts
The other day, while Jack was climbing Mommy like a jungle gym, in attempt to distract him from yanking all of my hair out in an attempt to climb even further I began to click my tongue. He stopped what he was doing and began to stare at my mouth and my tongue. He began to giggle and stare even more intently at my mouth. Then, while trying to imitate me, he began to stick his tongue in and out of his mouth, but he realized that he wasn’t quite doing what I was doing because he wasn’t making any noise. Then, almost as a compromise, he began to blow raspberries with his tongue instead. It was all together, too cute.
