It has been too long since I posted any sort of meaningful update, so I'm going to try to summarize a few of the highlights of the last couple of months...
Joe is growing like a weed. It is hard to believe that his already 7 1/2 months old. He has one tooth, and I think he might be working on another. He is sitting up very well on his own and is extremely ready to crawl. I can see in his eyes that he is going to be all over the place as soon as he is able. I will probably cry the day that he starts to crawl. I'm not ready for it!
He ADORES Jack, and Jack is really great with him. Joe looks at Jack as if to say, "I want to be just like you when I get bigger." And, Jack is really attentive and sweet with Joe, but I'm worried that as soon as Joe is mobile Jack's feelings might change a bit. We'll see how big brother handles it when little brother is all up in his business.
At this point, Joe is definitely a momma's boy. Brent says he has "presence anxiety." He'll be perfectly happy if I'm not in the room, but if I'm in his "presence," he isn't happy with anyone else and cries for me to hold him. Needless to say, this simultaneously melts my heart and hurts my back. Fortunately this separation anxiety has not translated to problems at daycare. He is still happy to go to his teachers in the morning, and they sing his praises when we pick him up everyday.
On the sleep-front, as of last week, we have stopped feeding Joe in the middle of the night. When he wakes (which is still about every 2 hours), Brent or I will go in and try to force the pacifier into his mouth and pat him for a few minutes until he goes back to sleep. This is much easier and less disruptive than feeding him, but we're still nowhere near sleeping through the night.
Jack is quite a big boy. He is becoming more and more interested in learning his letters and sounds. (He has always LOVED books, but until recently, he didn't really seem to care about writing his name or recognizing letters.) He has also started to take more of an interest in arts and crafts. He didn't used to like to sit still long enough to draw more than a quick scribble, but lately I've found that he'll sit for quite some time and practice cutting with his scissors and drawing more detailed pictures.
That brings me to hand-dominance...Brent and my brother are both left-handed (as are a number of other non-blood relatives on my side), so we've been watching Jack since he was born to determine if he'd be right or left handed. "They" (the experts) say that handedness is usually evident by around 18 months...well, as Jack approaches his 4th birthday, I don't think we can say with confidence which hand he prefers. He typically eats with his left hand and seems to prefer writing and drawing with his left. But, he generally throws the ball and swings the bat right-handed. He is also quite good with right-handed scissors, but maybe that's because he hasn't been given a chance with left-handed ones. I guess I'm saying he's mostly left-handed but is adapting well to our right-handed world.
Jack started talking pretty clearly at an early age, and his verbal skills continue to impress us. But, it is quite funny to hear some of the hybrid words he creates or how he sometimes forgets a word and comes up with something similar. Two of his more recent sayings have been:
"gator" = "Mommy, when it is football season again, can we gator." After I looked puzzled, he said, "You know when we take food and stuff out before the games." Turns out he meant, "tailgate."
"poo-con" = (Looking at a magazine) "Mommy, I think this is a poo-con." Initially I thought he meant, "pecan," but I said, "what do you mean." He said, "You know, what you take to the grocery store." I looked at what he was holding, and realized he meant "coupon"
12 years ago