I taught Petra to say cheese and smile as big as possible. We love doing it together, its really a challenge between the two of us to see who can smile the biggest. I thought you may want a peek.
Say "Cheese" - I'm starting to think I may regret this when I want a serious photo...
And I need to mention that Jasper's adoption is nearly done. We signed the paperwork with the department last week. So, as far as the department is concerned he is adopted. The judge will finalize everything on the 23rd at 9am.
I've never really thought long and hard about my husband's teaching. He is an excellent teacher. I say this because repetition comes naturally to him ... =). And the fact that he teaches at a major university has got to say something about his skills. But seriously, I had the great opportunity to sub for him today. It was a wonderful experience talking to a class full of college students about public policy and some of legislation I have worked on in the past few years.
On the bad side, he is out of town for 3 long days. This is my first time alone with the children for that long. We are all going to miss him.
So it was a busy morning. I had to get to his class (I took the day off work), he had to show me how to get to class; plus he had to leave for his flight that is leaving from Jacksonville right after lunch. And it all started by finding Jasper in a pile of poop in his crib. I would easily say this was the worst so far of our poop experiences. It was all over him, his arms, his feet and toes, all over his bed, bumper, etc. I'm hoping he didn't ingest any and we don't have a sick child.
I'll try to post some photos later today. I got a few yesterday of the children that need to be downloaded.
Each day we are completely amazed at everything new that happens. And while, I don't have much time to post because I working on a quilt challenge for our next quilt show (opens the end of August in Tallahassee if you would like to visit) ... I wanted to express very quickly what is happening around here so that you could better understand what it is like to have two children so young and so close together.
First, Jasper has learned to climb the steps in the house. Except he didn't just start with one, he started with all of them. He happily climbs all the way to the top if you aren't watching him. Petra somehow realizes this is not the best thing for him to be doing. So if she sees him, she will yank him down and exclaim No. Of course, he doesn't exactly land on his feet. So we have taken to blocking off the second step so he can only climb up the bottom step, and then we have put a mat at the bottom to help protect him from the fall. I am seriously hoping that allowing him this one step to climb up will also help him learn how to climb back down.
Petra is fantastic ... and fantastically learning new things. Today, she learned how to lock herself in her room. This is when Thomas learned he didn't have a key for her bedroom. I would say considering the amount of time she ended up being in her room alone, and locked in, that she managed through without any issues.
So we are continuing to learn and grow, and I expect things to continue in the same manner.
None of us would be the same without Thomas. He is jumping, cooking, cleaning, wiping butts, teaching, and providing entertainment nearly every moment of the day for our family. He sacrifices his time and energy ... and is quite literally 100% dedicated to this family and a super dad!
I’m guessing most of you that are reading this blog are asking yourself, what happened to the posts? Where is Sherri? Well, the answer is really quite simple. Facebook happened. I opened a Facebook account, and I have spent what little time I have each day checking on old friends. It’s really fascinating. I have become “friends” with people I haven’t seen more 12 years or more.
And it has been really great to see how everyone is doing, seeing everyone happily married, and most with a couple children.
Another great thing about Facebook is that is much more interactive. No one ever really comments on the blog, I assume because it isn’t very interesting.
But just in case you do enjoy reading up on my family life, don’t worry, the blog isn’t disappearing. One of my favorite things about it is that I am able to literally keep a diary of our family, its activities, and how the children are learning and growing. For instance, I’m finally putting together Petra’s scrapbook for her first year, and I’m using the blog to go back and see what she was doing at each age.
And speaking of learning and growing, the children are doing just that. It amazes me how much they have grown in just the last month. I’m starting to realize I’m not going to have babies much longer. and they are both 22lbs. Here is a quick run down:
At 8 months old, Jasper is:
Signing for milk/bottle (just after 1 week of us showing him the sign)
Crawling all around the house
Pulling up on everything and walking around the furniture
Walking all around the house with a push toy!! He came walking in the kitchen yesterday morning, all by himself, pushing our little pink stroller, with a huge grin on his face (and let me add that I left him sitting in the living room just a few moments before)
Can imitate us when we say “ma-ma” or "bye-bye"
Waved bye-bye today for the first time
Eating more food - about 2/3 time he eats pureed food, and the other 1/3 he eats table food
Sleeping more often through the whole night! (I think he slept 4 nights this week without waking up)
Petra also seems to be learning and growing at lightning speed.
She can climb to the top of an 8ft slide and push herself down, and start over – no assistance needed – at our local park
Started saying 3-4 syllable words a couple weeks ago
Swam under water by herself … about 1 foot … by kicking (no arms yet)
Can hear an airplane a mile away and lets us know it
Will not stop asking us “book, read” - loves, loves to read
Still hates the tv or videos – which I have to think is a good thing
Is talking more and more, this morning she was in a precarious position and said "careful"
And I picked up a potty book from the library, and I think it may be helping - after just 1 read she has asked 3 times to go potty
We've been happily content lately and feel very blessed for so many reasons. Summer has been very enjoyable and I don't want it to end. Having the children at home during the day has been wonderful. They seem to enjoy the days much more now also.
One of the funny things is Thomas and I have always said we don't really want any of our children to swim on a swim team. Not that we dislike swimming, but we do not want to have to take them to early morning, before school practice. I think the thought is slowly creeping in now that it seems likely Petra may want to swim at some point. She absolutely loves the pool. She is so much fun and is so willing to try new things. She likes seeing us jump or dive in the deep end, and often wants to join us for the jump. Thomas will hold her while he jumps in, she probably ends up going under water about 3 feet, and when they get out, she's ready to go again. We can also stand 4-5 feet apart and push her back in forth under the water, she loves this as well. She is constantly trying to leave my arms and swim after Thomas while he swims around --- not realizing that she has to kick or use her arms.
She hit another big first today! We've been gradually getting her used to the idea of the potty. Some days she sits on it one time a day, other days not at all. And honestly, she doesn't sit on it very long before she wants to get up --- usually just a few seconds. So I was THRILLED today when she actually used the potty (number 1). YEAH!! I'm thinking the watermelon we fed her this afternoon helped encourage the behavior. =)
And Jasper is all over the place. But we don't think he's very fond of the pool. He seems to tolerate it for a few minutes, but doesn't really care for it. I can't really tell if we just taking him in when he's tired, or if he just doesn't like it. He seems to continually look at us throughout the day in a very disapproving way. And I keep thinking that when he starts talking he's going to have a few words with us about how he disapproves of our parenting techniques.
Oh, and Jasper got a haircut. I just cut off his crazy, curly mohawk that was left behind from his newborn hair. It looks so much nicer now.
Yesterday, Jasper started to crawl in succession. For the last week, he would crawl about one little step, drop to the floor, and then do a military crawl across the floor ... which honestly looked very difficult.
And then yesterday night, he started to crawl. I took the video today for all of you out there that I know want to see for yourself. He will be 8 months old tomorrow.
