It's about time!

I should have done this a long time ago. Some of you have might have been wanting to see pictures of Jack. But most of you probably have better things to do than to hover around your computers waiting impatiently to see pictures of someone else's kid. Here they are, just in case.

TA-DA

He did it. Jack rolled over for the first time today. I'm pretty sure it was an accident, but still.

Geez, he's growing up so fast. I'm pretty sure he'll be applying for grad school next week!

Handyman...Er, Lady

As many of you know, Nate is the one in our relationship who was blessed with being "handy." Give the guy any task and he probably already knows how to do it. And if he doesn't, he can figure it out. Me, not so much. I'm lucky if I can get the attachments on my blow dryer to work correctly. 

That being said, yesterday I bought a swing for Jack. I didn't want to buy one earlier because I wasn't sure if  he'd like it and since I'm such a tight-wad, I really didn't want to waste the money if it was just going to sit there. But a friend of mine has one for her little girl and we sat Jack in that. He loved it. I still wasn't convinced. (Yep, that's how cheap I really am) When we went to my parent's house we borrowed one from a friend and again, he loved it. Still didn't buy one. Yesterday we went over to my friend's house again. Jack started fussing and I put him in the swing. He immediately shut up. I left within 15 minutes and went to Target to get one.

This morning I decided to tackle the contraption all by myself. I got out the parts and the directions, made sure I had everything and realized I needed a phillips screwdriver (yep, I even know what that is). So I had to call Nate to find out where it could be. "In the (very messy) shed," he tells me. Oh. That means I have to go outside in the torrential rain, dig around in a bunch of junk, and find it. I'll admit that I stalled the trip for a while, but when my darling son refused to be put down I gave up. Of course, once I got out there I didn't find a phillips screwdriver. What I found was a phillips attachment that's supposed to hook on to a handle. The only problem is that I can't get the current attachment off the handle. So I have to use the rusty attachment with no handle. Still undeterred, I come in and proceed to put the dang thing together. Things are going pretty well until I have to put the seat on the base. I'm supposed to slide the supporting tube into the socket on the seat. Only problem is, I see no socket. Maybe I have to unscrew something to reveal it. Nope. I'm becoming more and more frustrated as I'm trying to hook the thing together (in the wrong spot) because the swing keeps on swinging as I'm trying to steady everything long enough to get it in place. Finally, I figure it out. It was backwards. Oops! Eventually, I get it all put together, get Jack in it and he loves it. We should have gotten one of these two months ago.

Random Randomness

Haven't posted in a while. Things have been busy. Jack and I spent all last week at my parents house after going to Cade's state track meet. I wanted to be there for his graduation and his party (mostly just so I could show off my baby.) So poor Nate was at home all week without us. More importantly, without Jack. I think he almost went crazy. He joined us on Friday night in time to go to graduation on Saturday. It was thrilling, let me tell you. Hot, uncomfortable bleachers; sweaty baby; people we don't know giving boring speeches. Yeah, a great time had by all.

The good thing was Jack and I got to hang out with my family more. Even Dax was there both weekends and I'm not sure if he's going to be able to stand not seeing Jack next weekend. He likes my baby A LOT. In fact, I'm a little worried he might steal the little guy. Despite my worries about kidnapping, he really is the greatest uncle (and he's a pretty stellar brother, too). Yesterday in the mail were TWO packages from Dax: a Dunder Mifflin shirt for Jack and a Beatles album for me. Yea!

For those of you who don't know, we are big fans of the Office. In fact, we often find ourselves talking about Jim, Pam, Michael, and the rest of the gang as if they're our friends, as if they're real people. We say things like, "Did you hear what Dwight did yesterday?" It's a sickness, really. Needless to say, we're super excited about the Dunder Mifflin shirt. And I've been wanting the White Album for a long time now. It was a good day.

Now we've been home for a few days and I've been trying to get things put back together around here. "Trying" is  the operative word in that sentence. Jack has wanted me to hold him all the time. I spent over two hours today holding him on the couch because every time I tried to put him down to sleep, he woke up.  The laundry isn't done yet. Oh, well.

Playing Hooky

Since I've become a stay-at-home mom, I've had the opportunity to be out and about in the middle of the day. And I've noticed some pretty alarming trends among the youngest in our society. They're not at school. 

There isn't a day when I go to Target or the grocery store or just on walk when I don't see obvious school age kids just hanging out. Sometimes they're with their parents and sometimes not. I mentioned this to my friend Beth the other day and she, always the optimist, suggested that perhaps these kids were visiting from far away because of a family emergency. Probably not. And then there's the old "maybe they're home schooled" standby excuse. Except everyone knows you can spot a home schooler at 100 yards and most of these kids are definitely NOT home schoolers. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a little visit over to my friend Jeff's blog. He's on my blog list.)

So this brings me to the only obvious scenario: these kids are skipping school. And most likely, their parents are letting them. This is a travesty! All the crap society gives the school system about how we teachers are failing our students and how our kids can't pass required tests, and this is what we have to work with. Miniature school ditchers. It just makes me sick. So next time you see one of these delinquents, do me a favor and yell at them to get back to school.

Proud mama

Yesterday I had a first. 

My friend Beth, who is also my pastor, does a small service at the Life Care Center in Mount Vernon for the residents. It's wonderful, really. There are all these old people shouting out which hymns they'd like to sing, commenting on the scripture, and Beth yelling her head off so they can all hear her. Oh, and sometimes they fall asleep.

I decided to take Jack yesterday since we didn't have anything going on and I figured the residents would like to see him. I plan on going back every week and here's why:

They all loved him! Luckily, he was in a great mood and didn't mind at all being poked and touched. He even gave Catherine the biggest grin he could muster and I'm sure it made her day. It made mine. There was another old guy, Casey, who was so excited about Jack he could hardly stand it. He kept saying, "Well, Jesus Christ!" and "My God!" Taking the Lord's name in vain was never so adorable. And then there was Natalie, who talked to Jack as if they'd been friends for years. She'd ask questions about him and I'd begin to answer but before I could, she'd say something like, "Oh, is that so?" to Jack. They were having a grand old time.

All of this was the first time I'd watched Jack bring true joy to others just by being him. I know it will happen lots more in the future (and I know there will be times when people are less than joyful to be around him). It made me very proud.

We'll see how he behaves himself next week.

I surrender

I've finally done it. I'm a blogger. I've been thinking for months that I should start my own blog. Things would happen or I'd have some random thought and I'd think, "Hey, I should blog about that." But I never did. Until now.

I've long been one of those blog lurkers. You know what I mean. Those people who frequently read and appreciate other's blogs but never comment or create a blog of their own. Yep, that was me. I don't know what took me so long to start my own blog. Maybe I thought I wasn't interesting enough. Maybe I was worried no one else would find me interesting. Maybe I thought I didn't have enough time but now that I'm staying at home with Jack, I've lost my excuse. Who knows?