Archive for December, 2008

while jackson loved being spoiled with christmas gifts, he has decided on one favorite that consumes all of his attention… paul and i have spent many a morning pushing and pulling jackson around my parent’s house in this friggin diaper box. if we only knew this was all it took to occupy our little magoo…

ho ho ho!!! jackson had such a great christmas and we all relished every moment with him. watching our little magoo explore his new toys, new foods, etc. in atlanta has been a blast. we have basically moved in with my parents until this coming saturday, when we head to annapolis for good. our sweet bungalow in jax is vacant (anyone wanna rent a cute house?) and it’s weird to think that when we leave atlanta to “go home” on saturday, we will be going to what will be our new home for the next (almost) three years. paul and i are excited though and ready to take on something new! here are some great shots of jackson, celebrating baby jesus’ birthday with our families. he racked up some sweet gifts including his first airplane (which i think paul may want to play with more than jackson). our magoo also gifted both sets of g-parents with a storybook of himself during his first 8 months. enjoy!!!

our beloved “stink face magoo” (as paul so lovingly refers to our son as) is really enjoying making new faces to get our attention. these faces are typically followed by either squeals, loud babbling, and an occasional “mama, dada, or raaaaar!!” we decided to encourage jackson’s lion roars by giving him a life size lion that we now refer to as his “rarar.” pictures and/or video of said lion and jackson’s “raaaaars” to come…

make me feel like i can actually function as a mom. today has been a really good day for jackson, and for so long those good days have been few and far between. for so long it felt like paul and i had to operate in survival mode… we had to. but today was a really good day for him, and so not only do i end up feeling proud of jackson but also feeling super proud of myself and of paul. we were able to go out and function as a 3 person family today… like out in public… and while it sounds crazy to some (ok most) of you, those of you who have followed jackson’s story so closely can appreciate what i mean when i say that. we went out to do some christmas shopping and one of jackson’s feedings came during the time we were out, so we had to do a feeding in public. (again, those of you who know what the last 7 months have been like for us know what kind of anxiety attacks i endure when i am forced to publicly feed jackson). today’s was awesome… dare i say, even fun… while paul and i enjoyed burritos at chipotle, jackson enjoyed his baby food in a highchair with us. we had given him his medicine in the car prior to the feeding and had left for our shopping excursion fully equipt with anything jackson could possibly be interested in eating. and we succeeded. once we left chipotle and got in the car, paul and i high fived and took a moment to bask in the glory of enjoying a couple of hours out and a feeding as a family. i know, i know… some of you read this and must think, “good god she has lost it.” and maybe i have… but one thing is for sure… those couple of hours that we were on our excursion today were awesome. jackson celebrated his victory with a rockin afternoon nap, and when paul and i found him awake this afternoon, we found him as such…

in continuing with my feelings of nostalgia as we pack and prepare to move, i thought i’d ask you blog readers “remember when..?” jackson is growing like a weed, possibly even faster than a weed grows. he will be 8 months old in a few short weeks. he is sitting and playing and talking and “mama dada”ing and has two of the sharpest teeth that my finger has ever come in contact with. jackson is trying so desperately to crawl but his crawl looks more like the breast stroke on a couch instead of in a pool. so, i wanted to post this picture from the day we brought him home from the hospital just to “remember when…” a couple of weeks ago we lowered jackson’s crib. i had gone in to check on him during a nap and found his arm slung over the crib rail, and a giggling jackson preparing to fling himself right out of the crib. he looked at me as though to say, “WATCH MOM!” and i freaked out and had paul lower the crib. now when jackson sits up and looks at us from his crib, he looks like he is in baby jail. we are continuing our move preparations this week, cleaning out our house and making piles of junk for billy and rachel’s yard sale this weekend. i’ve never done a yard sale before and have no idea what we have gotten ourselves into… basically i’m just looking forward to jackson spending time with his GODparents and me spending time with the delicious breakfast sandwich that billy has promised. any tips?

in 2 weeks. ummm… yeah. two weeks from now movers will arrive and pack up all of the junk that paul and i (and now jackson) have accumulated in the nearly 3 years we have been in this house. our house… our first house… our bungalow… ((((tear)))) why on earth am i feeling nostalgic about this? i have been sooooo ready to leave jacksonville for a while now. soooo ready for paul to have a change of scenery, a change of perspective, just a change damnit! i’m used to moving… growing up i moved every few years. and it’s been a few here in jacksonville, so let’s peace out. atleast that was how i was thinking about this until i told a dear friend our news on the phone last night. i listened to my friend tear up, and though she cries often (and i love her for it), i realized that my news was making her cry. i was making my friend upset… and my heart hurt. jacksonville has been good to us. the people in jacksonville, the friends we have made and the friends we came here with have been good to us. but time marches on, i suppose. jackson will never remember being here… he won’t remember his first room, or the creaky noises the old wood floors make when we tip toe around, trying not to wake him. he won’t remember mommy walking out to the shed to clean his poopy laundry because the washer and dryer are out there and not in our house. jackson won’t remember 2813 lydia street… and that’s ok. he’s not supposed to. we are. paul and i have our precious memories in our first house stored away in a safe and secret vault we keep in our hearts. moving in from our apartment just 4 blocks away… sarah and i landscaping the front yard (my body has never hurt so badly)… my dad painting my favorite florida room… lily’s first birthday party… grandpa jack (jackson’s namesake) trying to figure out the old wiring… mom cooking and freezing casserole’s before jackson’s arrival… paul fixing the cabinet in our 1 bathroom every time i yank too hard and the door comes off… getting red 3 days before paul left for japan… bringing jackson home from the hospital, our family complete. i guess that’s why it’s called moving. people are constantly moving- from one place to another, one state of mind to another, one room to another. it happens. in the meantime, i’ll store my nostalgia away for a bit, lock it up and keep it safe for another day when i feel like being a silly sap.

TONS of pics from jackson’s first turkey day!!! both of our families thoroughly enjoyed the magoo on his first turkey day. he was quite the entertainer during dinner at nana and pop’s house, then it was on to grammy and granda’s house for dessert, where jackson tasted his first pumpkin pie and, being the tree hugger earth day birthday that he is, he tried to hug grammy’s christmas tree. while paul and i had so much to be thankful for this year, i couldn’t help but take some time to laugh about the past 9 (yes 9) turkey days that we have had together. “back in the day,” paul and i would struggle with turkey day… wanting to have the meal at our own houses… he would want his mom’s cooking and i would want mine. so, geniuses that we were at 18 and 19 years old, we ate two dinners, making sure to satisfy both of our holiday meal needs. ~ IDIOTS!!! the years went by, and paul and i learned to eat dinner at one house and dessert at another, and then the following year we would swap houses. as time went on, we started doing thanksgiving at nana and pop’s house because paul was gone for the last few christmases, so his last holiday before deploying would be at his parent’s house. and now, as luck would have it, we actually have paul home for christmas this year! CRAZY!!! anyway, it was just amazing to me to take some time and actually think about the past years… where we were… and we were are now. i guess the holidays will do that to ya.