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!