Lollipop

Yes, yes, I know... I promised... BUT last week was REALLY busy and stressful. So I'll distract you with cute pictures of my child.








Seriously... can he be any cuter?

Last week I had to give a seminar at the University. I was really worried about it - I didn't feel prepared at all, but I hunkered down and managed to pull it off... and quite successfully! I was worried that I wouldn't be able to talk for the minimum 30 minutes and ended up talking an hour...with a 20 minute Q&A session afterward! Go me!

AND THEN... we had a garage sale on Sunday. It was moderately successful. We got rid of lots of our stuff and made a bit of money. I have listed the rest of my belongings (the big ticket items) on eBay. Cross your fingers that I get some good money!!

Last Friday we went to Lollipops with Bianca and Julian. This place is so much fun! Slides, jumping castles, ball pits, trampolines... and the adults get to play, too! The boys had fun.












Still no definites on the walking... he will walk occasionally, but prefers to crawl most of the time. He has developed a keen sense of humor and makes us laugh all the time. He is just a delightful little boy and I can't wait till we see everyone State-side in 2 weeks!

Foodwise, he pretty much eats anything. He LOVES jello. I love that his "picky" stage seems to be over :)

This is my last week of teaching (with a makeup week next week). The student recital is on Sunday. I am really looking forward to it this year! I think the kids (and adults) have worked really hard and have prepared lots of goodies!

Here is Jackson dancing (and drinking) for your entertainment. See ya in 2 weeks!

28 Days

What a busy week in the life of a toddler! So many things to learn; so many places to explore; lots of sweetness to have...
We celebrated Mothers Day on Sunday by breakfast in bed and a trip to the Farmers Market. Then while Jackson napped, David and I watched Sherlock Holmes (excellent movie by the way). Thank you for making me a mommy, Jackson my sweet little boy!


We have spent a lot of time this week in the car as David lost his license and I am now the dedicated driver. Luckily, Jackson is quite amiable and as long as he has his juice cup and some music on he'll go along for the ride.

On Tuesday, on the way home from taking Daddy to work, we stopped at a nearby park and had some fun on the swings.


Jackson also spent about 45 minutes just crawling around the park exploring. Lately he has been into sharing (he'll turn your hand over and put whatever he's got into it and just smile). Well, he dug me up a rock and took great delight in presenting it to me.


Friday as I was cleaning the house, Jackson discovered how easy it was to open up the kitchen cabinets. I made sure the one with the cleaning supplies was nice and secure and let him have at it coming back into the kitchen every couple of minutes to check on him. He had a ball!


Then on Friday night Jackson decided to pull out all the stops and walk about 6 feet for us... twice! He was so proud of himself. We have tried to get him to do it again, but he likes to do things on his own time.

He is talking a lot more. He says the word "duck" now... it is more like "dut", but he knows about what he is talking. At swim lessons he was playing with a dolphin and kept calling it a dut... close! And the scary thing is he understands A LOT. He can locate the fan, mama, dada, dut, octopus, books, blocks, snack, juice amongst a lot of other things... and sometimes when David and I are talking, he laughs in the appropriate place. Clever boy! And I swear he said "Bapa" while we were looking at his pictures the other day.

Food: he's nearly weaned off of all baby food. He still has applesauce and custard for lunch, but otherwise it's whatever we are eating. It is so much easier that way. His new favorite food is rice cakes with cream cheese. Yum!

He is just a sweet little boy. And so clever! I mean... look at this downward dog!


It's official! I can talk about it now. We have told my students... that we are moving to Indiana on June 14! That is 28 days from today. 4 more swimming lessons; 3 more weeks of teaching and I am sure it will go very fast as we are so busy! This coming weekend we are heading to David's sister's house in Taree to watch David's band play and then Sunday we are going to watch The Wizard Of Oz (I have 3 students in it). The weekend following David has 2 gigs and we have our garage sale. The weekend following is my studio showcase. And the weekend following is our last weekend here and Julian's birthday party. Throw in a couple of doctor's appointments and the seminar I have to give at the University and wooooosh! Watch it fly by!

I am so excited to be back near friends and family. I can't wait to see Kristi's shows and Myles's baseball games and go to birthday dinners and be able to see my Grandmother in the hospital if she decides to give us all a fright. I am excited to be a part of the lives that were so special to me before I left. I know it will take time to re-integrate myself and it won't be the same because people change in 6 years. But I do know that nothing will be taken for granted this time around. Maybe I needed 6 years away to learn that lesson. I'm not saying that I haven't enjoyed my time in Australia. It is beautiful here and I wouldn't trade my experience for the world. I have gotten to do something that most people just dream of. However, it is time to go back home. AND most importantly, Jackson will get to know a loving network of people. Because here it is just David and I. And on a rare and special occasion a grandparent or mommy's only friend. And I don't feel that is enough. I don't feel that is fair to him. So Indiana, here we come! And I never thought I'd hear myself saying this... I'll be glad to see ya!

Starting the countdown.....NOW!

At Last

What a slacker I've been! How many weeks have I missed the blog post? 2 you say? You're waiting for an explanation? Uh.... in all honesty, I have been SO tired lately. I mean really freaking tired! So tired that I can't even read before I go to sleep. I just have to go to sleep. And then I dream about being asleep (that or being in a show choir or a musical - thanks Glee). So now, here it is on Friday afternoon the 7th of May and I have 30 minutes before my first student arrives for the afternoon. Jackson is taking a nap. And I thought "it's now or never, lady". Yes, I refer to myself as lady sometimes. (UPDATE: it is now Sat, 8 May at 9:24pm...my student came early...typical.) Now I'll try to make this one good... although I am thoroughly confused about the change in Blogger's layout - I can't find the upload video button and I can't get my pictures to upload properly either. Not to mention formatting... So hopefully I can figure this thing out... at least well enough to post.

So where did we leave off... oh, yes... my baby turned 1. We had a great day! In the morning before Daddy left for work we opened gifts:

Jackson got two Yo Gabba Gabba DVDs!

For lunch, we walked to the neighborhood fish and chip shop and picked up an order of hot chips. Jackson had chips and apples for his birthday lunch:

Later that night when Daddy got home and I had a break from teaching, we had dinner and a birthday Lamington. Yummy!

I think Jackson didn't have a clue what was going on, but enjoyed himself nonetheless.

Last weekend we took a spontaneous trip down to Canberra. Jackson was such a well behaved little boy for the entire 6 hours it took us to get down there! Not a peep! He slept some, had a snack, played... it was very reassuring to me for the long trip on the plane.

We spent the night in a hotel in Canberra. We didn't have a cot or a baby bed so we had to improvise. We turned the sofa around against the wall and voila a baby sofa cot! He loved it! Slept in it all night and played in it most of the morning.

The next morning we went for a nice breakfast at Gold Creek. It is a kind of boutique-y village with little shops and restaurants. We picked a nice little breakfast place - they had the fires going in the fireplace and Jackson sat on our laps and ate his breakfast with us. Next we headed off to the War Memorial. It was a really awesome museum of old airplanes and memorabillia from all off the Wars. At times, it became very emotional. I was both saddened and frightened to see the scenes and aircraft and hear the stories. I had a hard time imagining the young men setting off to fight much less being a mother sending her son off. Jackson was again well behaved the entire morning and loved looking at everything as well. There was a discovery zone for kids and whilst he was a bit too young to really enjoy it, he still had fun. Here he is playing in the trenches:


And here he is with Daddy stearing the submarine:


Here is outside the War Memorial:

It was a gorgeous autumn day. We drove past the Parliament House and through downtown Canberra. It was really nice to get away for the weekend. And as always, Jackson was a well behaved little person on the way home - sleeping halfway and being pleasant the rest.


Accomplishments over the past couple of weeks:
Still no walking. He does the standing thing really well and you can see him thinking about trying to take steps by himself only to go with the tried and tested crawling method.


But my favorite is CLAPPING! I have been trying to teach him this for ages! And all of a sudden, last Wednesday morning, it just clicked!

We've been playing a lot...
Playing with dinosaurs: Big brother Jon gave him a new one for his birthday so now they can fight and roar at each other....RRRRRAAAAARRRR!
Playing with bubbles:


New foods: LOTS. I am trying to wean him off baby food so he pretty much gets a little of whatver is on our plate. He LOVES waffles. We've had carrots, cream cheese, toast with strawberry jam and vegemite (ew), pancakes, chicken, alfalfa sprouts, cereal bars, corn chips (tortilla chips), cereal, freeze dried corn, feta cheese...just to name a few. He still has a jar of baby food for lunch and occassionally for dinner. But he prefers to feed himself.

I don't think there is much else to tell. We are working very hard to get things ready for the big M-O-V-E in 36 days (but who's counting). I am telling all of my students next week so it will be official and not so much of a secret.

Jackson has been sick for 2 days. He had a little fever yesterday and a big one today (39.3C, 103F). He wasn't himself. He just snuggled with me on the sofa for most of the evening and we sang songs and watched Ice Age 3. He picked up just before dinner when the Nurofen kicked in. He seemed to be cooler when he went to bed, but we'll have to keep an eye on him overnight. There aren't any other symptoms - no runny nose or cough - nothing! But David was sick last week and I am not feeling so hot either. Must be a bug going around.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I think about what it means to me to be a mother and am grateful for all of the wonderful women in my life... my grandmother (who I am delighted is doing better than she was at the beginning of the week), my sister (who is an awesome mother and woman),
my aunt Mio (who is like my mother - in more ways than one), and of course my own mother - words can't even begin to describe how blessed I feel to have such an incredible mother - I love you Mom and next year we're doing this together! :)
I look forward to celebrating my second Mother's Day (hoping we are all feeling better in the morning) by breakfast in bed (thank you husband!) and a family trip to the Farmer's Market.

Happy Mothers Day!