Jack - 16 months

Yikes, I'm way behind!  We've had a busy few weeks - lots of family stuff surrounding July 4th and Mark's and my birthday, getting outside with Jack when it's not face-of-the-sun-hot outside, hiding inside from the heat when it is, and just normal day-to-day-things are keeping us busy!  Keeping up with a toddler who has a never ending source of energy (the secret to which he has yet to share with me) wears me out pretty good and by the time his naptime rolls around and I eat lunch and get the household things done I can do done I want to veg out on the couch or the deck (if it's not face-of-the-sun-hot out) with a book, which is what I have happily been doing.

And oh yeah, add to the long list of things in/around our house which are either broken or in the process of breaking, my camera bit the dust.  I have a thrilling rant to post about that if anyone would like to hear it (probably not.), but I guess we will be investing a nice chunk of change in another one that will work for a few years and then die because that's what things do now.  ANYWAY.

Here's what Little Man has been up to the last month or so. 

He's learned how to kick a ball!  He's always really loved playing ball, but he has now figured out he can kick it with his foot.  It's super cute to see him do it because he kind of walks along with the ball picking his leg up really high to do these exaggerated kicks!

He's a busy little boy and into everything!  He spends all day just going from one thing to another.  It may look disorganized or random to an outsider, but he's clearly on some sort of mission that the rest of us just don't know about yet!  He moves about with a purpose and is very serious about all the things he must get done in a day like pull out every book he owns, scatter his toys about the room, dance in the window, and play with the dog.  These are his duties and he takes them very seriously!

Something else he loves to do is sit in his little chair.  It's one of the first things he drags out in the morning and it makes its way around the room throughout the day.  Often, he sits it in front of the window and spends time looking out side like a little old man keeping an eye on things!

And sometimes he likes to sit and read his books to himself.  I'm sure he knows what he's saying even if we don't!

And of course his chair also ends up in front of the TV too.

Jack is doing really well with eating.  Berries (especially blueberries) and grapes are definitely his favorites.  We have to hold off on giving them to him until he has eaten other things otherwise that's all he would eat!

I hesitate to type this out because I'll probably jinx us (and if it does, I'm never commenting on his sleep patterns again!), but Jack's sleep has vastly improved this month from what we were seeing last month.  He's back to sleeping about 12 hours every night.  He usually goes to bed between 8 and 9pm and wakes around 8am.  Of course the exception to that is on days when we have somewhere to be, it seems like the has a sixth sense about these things, he will sleep inordinately late.  The next day, back to 8am wake ups!  But I'll take it!  Predictable sleep in 12 hour increments?  I don't think I can really ask for more than that!

When I go to check on him before Mark and I go to bed for the night I often find him in some pretty funny positions.  This is a recent one:

 And he's still napping well.  He's still taking one nap a day usually from about 1-4pm. 

Jack really enjoys being outside.  He loves to ride in the stroller on walks and run around the backyard.  I picked up a toddler swing at a consignment sale back in the Spring (when it was still cold out!) and Mark got around to hanging it from one of the trees in our backyard.  Jack loves it!

We took Jack to see his first parade on July 4th.  He's been really into cars/trucks lately especially fire trucks.  He even makes a "woo woo" sound like the sirens!  He does this a lot.  Sometimes we hear him making the siren sound over the baby monitor right after he first wakes up in the morning.  So we thought he'd enjoy the parade and seeing the firetrucks.  When we first got there he was not happy.  He was definitely kind of scared and I don't really blame him.  It's kind of odd that everyone is just standing around on the street and big vehicles are going past and it's noisy.  But after bit he warmed up to the whole thing (as long as we held him of course).  Unfortunately the fire trucks were at the front of the parade while he was still scared.  Maybe he'll enjoy it more next year!

We were on our way home at the same time they were setting off the local fireworks so we stopped to watch (even though it was late and past Jack's bedtime!).  Jack seemed to enjoy them.  He was tired, of course, but he did watch the sky pretty intently and pointed at a few of them and laughed when I "ooh"ed and "ahhh"ed.

And here's a random silly shot of Jack underneath the laundry basket.  He pulled it out from one of the bedrooms after I had emptied it and then somehow proceeded to flip it over and put himself underneath it.  And then he scooted around like that.