Tooth #3, etc

At long last, tooth #3 has finally broken through the gumline. Teeth numbers 1 and 2 celebrated.

Its been a long time since Jack has had any tooth activity. The first 2 have been there for months. Tooth #4 shouldn’t be too far behind.

Jack is walking like a pro. Its old news. He usually doesn’t need us for support anymore. But, occasionally when he’s tired or about to navigate some tough terrain, he’ll reach for a finger.

He recently discovered how to stand up on his own. He has always relied on the walls and furniture to get himself vertical. In fact, the only reason he ever crawled was so that he could get to a wall to stand up. Now, he starting to say nay to the wall, and does it on his own.

He gets into the crawling position, then moves his feet so they’re flat on the ground in a squatting position. Then he pushes his butt up in the air so his legs are at about a 45 degree angle. Then he raises his body. Once his back is straight, he extends his legs. Voila… he’s standing. He’s doing it more and more frequently as he gets better at it.

He’s a lot more interested in his toys. We have a wagon full of big legos. Last week, he stood over the wagon and pulled out all of the legos just for the sake of doing so.

He’s starting to pay attention to books a little bit, but his primary focus remains on eating them, at least for the time being.

Gina painted a mural on one of the walls in the loft (which is Jack’s play area). There are a bunch of Winnie The Pooh characters, dogs, etc. Its coming along very nice.

Jacks bag of tricks includes:

• Clapping
• Waving
• SO BIG!
• Dribbling his finger over his lips while humming. (I don’t know what its called, but its funny. If you do it to him, he’ll do it back)
• Baby Five, with mixed success. He used to do it a lot, but I think he’s bored with it.
• We’re working on getting him to acknowledge that he’s one years old
• Sometimes is able to identify his nose on request

We still play tag in the play pen. He sits inside it, I sit outside it (obviously). Wherever I put my hands, he puts his hands. I move them around, and he follows me.

His fascination with the Diaper Champ (previously covered) is never-ending. We’re going through a lot of Lysol and baby wipes.

He’s establishing some routines. We have a night light in the bedroom. Once he gets walking in the morning, its his first mission to unplug it. There’s another one in his bedroom. He’s usually content to simply switch that one off without tearing it out of the wall.

Downstairs, he likes to shut off the tv, especially while I’m playing Lost Planet. I’ve seen him turn it on once, but I think he likes making the red light go away.

His party is about 11 days away. He has no idea what’s coming. To him, it may just be another day with a million people visiting. The parental units arrive a week from Thursday, which is his actual birthday (the 8th). His party is on Saturday the 10th.