Jackson enjoys being naked

Jackson is always very happy about being naked. I caught him on video today.

My little Stones fan!

He's pretty much the cutest Rolling Stones fan ever! Thanks for the shirt, Leah!

Another beautiful day outside!

It was gorgeous outside again today, so Jackson and I played outside for awhile. He seemed to enjoy it, despite his very squinty eyes! I think they might be a bit sensitive to the sun. Annabelle is in the background, staring, because she is jealous that we are in the front yard and she is not!

In honor of Peyton hosting SNL

It's Jackson with his "future football star" onesie on. He's the next great QB!

He's a good boy!

A cute picture of Jackson that I keep forgetting to post. He definitely is a good boy. Enjoy!

Naked playtime

This looks dangerous, but he does in fact, have a diaper on. And, seriously, how adorable are those big blue eyes?

Playtime with Annie!

Here's a picture of Jackson and Annie playing together. I tried to get it on video, but Jackson started fussing before I got the chance. It was cute though, because Annie was barking at him like she barks at Maggie when she wants Maggie to chase her. I guess she thought Jackson would chase her, too! Too bad he's not quite crawling yet. :)

Jackson sitting up...

Ok, so we have to sit him up, but once there, he stays up for 10-15 minutes before toppling. It's pretty cute!

In honor of March Madness

Jackson supporting his two favorite teams, the Boilermakers and the Wildcats! GO UK! GO Purdue!
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGOl

Jackson rolled over!

He rolled today from back to tummy! Yay, Jackson! I'm pretty sure it was the lucky Kentucky shirt. I managed to capture it on video.

This is how Jackson reads a book.

I think he's probably getting a lot out of it. He's practically a child genius.

First trip to the park!

Last Sunday, because we had such great weather, Jeff and I took Jackson to the park for the first time. I'm not sure that he had a fantastic time... he mostly seemed confused. He got to swing, go down the slide and go for a walk in the park! I think it was more fun for Jeff and me than it was for Jackson. We have a video of him going down the slide for the first time and some pictures of him on the swings and in his stroller. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGOW

All Caught Up!

I think I'm all caught up now, so from now on, I'll just post when Jackson does something cute. So, that will probably be once every 3 seconds.

Fun from this week

This week, I took some pictures of Jackson for St. Patrick's Day. He really liked the glasses a lot, as evidenced by the pictures I took (share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGPS). Jeff says the glasses are child abuse, and makes fun of Jackson's green tights (known to normal people as pajama pants).

The glasses must have riled him up, because he spent the rest of the day indulging in his new favorite past time: happy screaming in the jumperoo.

Jackson in the jumperoo:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

March 1, 2006

Jackson was FIVE months old on March 1st. Where did the time go? 1 year ago, on March 1, 2006, we had our first ultrasound. It's crazy how quickly time has passed, and now we have a crazy 5 month old on our hands.

Month Five

At the beginning of this month, Jackson had his 4 month appointment. He got shots, and he was weighed! 17lbs, 5oz and 27.5 inches long. What a big boy! We got the go ahead to start cereal, and that was the beginning of lots of fun.

Jackson loves cereal! You'd think rice cereal was the best thing on earth. He's so happy to try something besides a bottle, and he loves sitting his high chair. I can't believe how fast he's growing up. We started with rice cereal, and we also did oatmeal this month. He really loved the oatmeal, but it didn't help as much with spit up as rice cereal did. Once we were sure that he wasn't allergic to oatmeal, we went back to rice cereal because it had helped so much with his spit up. After his 6 month appointment (which is April 5th), we will probably be starting fruits and vegetables. His doctor recommends holding off until 6 months for that, so we're waiting until then.

One of the best things about this month was that Jackson figured out the camera! He's become such a ham, anytime I turn the camera towards him he starts smiling. It was a lot of fun to capture him being so cute.

He started trying to crawl this month (trying being the key word), and he also rolled over. I have youtube links to both to post. The crawling attempt is harder to see, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity to get some more of that one. I also have a video of him splashing in the bathtub. He loves to splash! There are also pictures of him tripod sitting, which is really cute!

Crawling Attempt

Rolling Over

Splish Splash

Pictures from this month:
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGN4

Month Four

We had a lot of fun after Jackson turned 3 months old. He really seemed to get into playing, and he started using his exersaucer that he got for Christmas. He also started enjoying Baby Einstein a little more and the occasional cartoon.

He also started fussing to stand all of the time! It was all he wanted, and we had to help him balance, so he could stand. It was a lot of fun though to see him getting so big.

I do remember that he got in a really good routine this month. He started eating every 4 hours, so 4 bottles a day, which was nice. He became much more predictable and on a schedule.

He also started being pretty verbal this month... lots of jabbering, which was fun to listen to. He also had his first laugh! Every month he has gotten louder and more responsive!

Pictures from this month:
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGNp

Month Three

I have to say this one of my favorite times. Jackson started sleeping great through the night (10-11 hours), and he was so much fun during the day. He really began to enjoy playing, and we had his reflux under control. Also, I have a lot of pictures because we celebrated his first Christmas, he was baptized and we got a new camera battery!

His baptism was really great. So many people came, and it was really nice that we were able to have it at St. Mary's, where Jeff and I were married. Fr. Bill was great to work with, and really accommodating since we came in from out of town. Jackson didn't even fuss, and he ended up on the cover of "The Criterion"!

Christmas was also a lot of fun, but we did too much traveling! We wanted to see everybody, but it was hard to balance seeing everyone and keeping Jackson happy. He did sleep well at my parents which was great, and it was fun to spend the holidays there. We also took him to see Santa, which was fun. We actually hoped he would cry since I specifically bought a "Bah Humbug" onesie for the occasion. I figured the chances of an unhappy face were much higher than a happy one!

I'm sure Jackson hit some milestones this month, but all I can really remember is that he started grasping his toys.

Pictures from this month:
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGNa

Month Two!

Month two was a little more exciting, I think. Jackson became a little more interactive and responsive. Also, we figured out he had reflux (not so much fun), and he had his first Thanksgiving.

He started enjoying to play on his play mat, and he was smiling a lot more! It was nice to introduce him to family over Thanksgiving, and he also got to meet lots of friends, too.

This was also the month that his daddy went to the Bahamas, so we went to New Albany for a few days. It was nice to visit everyone, and to have company while Jeff was out of town.

We don't have many pictures from his second month (bad parents) because our camera battery was dead, which is a POOR excuse. These are the very few that were taken.
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbsmjFy5YuGM8

Month One!

It's pretty difficult to remember his first month at this point. I'm pretty sure we were sleep deprived. Our first few days home weren't too bad, once we discovered that we needed to formula feed him. He hadn't had any wet or dirty diapers in quite awhile, so it seemed like the best way to go. Almost immediately following his first bottle of formula, we had success! A wet diaper! Then a poopy diaper! YAY! Who knew we'd be so excited for diapers.

Jackson, like most babies was a pretty good sleeper initially. He mainly woke up to eat, and he would sleep in his moses basket or his pack n' play in our room. He was a noisy sleeper, though! Always grunting. It was tough to sleep in the room with him, so we moved him to his crib when he was 2 weeks old. That was better, and he did fine sleeping in there. We mostly used his moses basket for naps, and once he grew out of that, he slept on me for naps and eventually in his crib.

The first month was mostly a blur, but at the end of the month, the day before he turned 1 month old, he smiled for the first time!

Here's a link to the pictures from his first month home.
newbornpictures.shutterfly.com/action/?a=8AbsmjFy5YuGPD

Along with his birth story

Here is a link to pictures taken while we were in the hospital.

hospitalpictures.shutterfly.com/action/?a=8AbsmjFy5YuGO0

October 1, 2006

This will be a birth story, so if you don't want to know the details, don't read on!

Jackson was due on September 24, 2006. I had hoped he would come early, but most important, I wanted him to be born in September. After all, September has the best birthstone. I'm not biased or anything as a September baby myself. Jackson, however, had different plans.

When I went to my last appointment before my due date, I was not progressing at all, so my doctor explained at my next appointment, we would be talking induction if I didn't go into labor on my own. At this point, I was very sad, because I was ready for this baby to be born. But, like I said, he had different plans. I went to my appointment on September 29, and again, I was going nowhere, so we scheduled my induction. The plan was for me to go into the hospital on October 1 (Sunday), and then be induced early Monday morning. At first, I was pretty upset, because I didn't want an induction, but I got used to the idea.

Since I got used to the idea, Jackson decided that he didn't want to wait for me to be induced. I figure this is a sign of things to come. I went into labor early Saturday morning, and like all first time moms, I made the obligatory trip to L&D only to be sent home. When I got there in the afternoon, my contractions had really slowed down, so I opted to go home with a prescription for Ambien to help me sleep. As the day went on, my contractions were stronger, and closer together. Around 10pm, they were 3 minutes apart, but because they would slow down when I laid down, I decided to go ahead and take the Ambien. BAD IDEA. Around midnight, I woke up in some serious pain, and my contractions were much closer together. Because of the Ambien, I was falling back asleep in between contractions, and I felt really drunk. Lots of fun, let me tell you. We decided it was time to head to the hospital, and off we went.

We got to the hospital, and again, I was still not dilating, but my contractions were very close together and strong. The hospital went ahead and admitted me. I then got some narcotic to help with the pain (didn't really help, just made me less upset about the pain), and a pitocin drip. I asked about my epidural (yay pain meds!) an hour or so later, and that helped a ton. My water broke on its own sometime through out the night, and when the nurse checked me at 7am, I had gone to 5cm. Yay for progress. She told me that I should go about a cm an hour, and that we might have Jackson around noon.

Around 11am, my doctor came in to check me, and... I was barely at 6.5cm. Not the progression we had hoped for, and to add to the good news, Jackson was face up. Because face up is not ideal, my doctor tried to turn him, but my stubborn little boy was not interested. My doctor then told me that we might be discussing other options (c-section) if things hadn't changed in an hour. At noon, I had moved to 7cm, so we decided to wait one more hour. Around 1:15, I was checked again, and I hadn't gone anywhere, so we decided to go with the c-section. I was prepped for surgery, and Jeff was outfitted in some sweet scrubs.

Once I was prepped and ready, Jackson was born! Seriously, that part was so quick. Around 2pm, he was born at 9lbs, 11oz. It was a good thing we went with the c-section, because my doctor said that I wouldn't have been able to deliver him naturally because of his size. What a CHUNK!

Be Prepared...

I'm going to post several posts over the next few days to recap the past 5 months. That way I can post the pictures and video from those times. Plus, it will really test my memory, and see if I actually do have the dreaded "mommy brain"!

Our First Post!

I decided to start a blog to see if that would be easier to keep everyone updated on Jackson. That way everyone who wants to see what he is up to can just check here, and I won't have to send out annoying emails. I'm pretty sure Jackson is super happy about having a blog.

Nothing too exciting has happened today, but once I figure out how, I will upload the videos and pictures I have.

As of right now, I am counting the days until the time change, because Jackson thinks it is important to get up with the sun, which is now right around 7am. Hopefully once time changes, he will go back to sleeping until 8:30am.