Jackson and His Other Best Bud

Jackson and daddy are peas in a pod. They are so much fun to watch. Dusty is a fantastic father and Jackson loves his daddy...

Jackson and Jaylen: Best Buds

I have introduced you all to Jaylen on here before. Jaylen and his mommy and daddy, Kate and Jivin, live across the sidewalk from us here in the apartment complex and we take full advantage of that convenience... often. Kate and I have even carried on small conversations out our open windows, and so have Jackson and Jaylen. We are so lucky to have met them. California wouldn't be home if we hadn't. I wanted to post a few (okay, more than a few) pictures of the two of them together. Another interesting fact about these two; they are 1 day apart in age. I've always thought that was very neat!

Here's Jay being cheesy... love this picture!

Pajama party one morning at Jaylen's

Booty shot one afternoon in the park. Cute butts huh?!

Playing in Jackson's room.

In Jackson's crib. Jaylen was there to help me get Jackson up from his afternoon nap.

Jackson: MOMMA! Get us OUTTA here!
Jaylen: Pretty please?

Horseback riding together. This isn't posed, they actually climbed on together.

After an afternoon at Ikea, they're both exhausted from shopping!

They like to share the toddler chair.

Path of Destruction

I'm following an old friend of mine's lead and dedicating a post to how much havoc one little boy can wreak on your home. I love reading Kara's blog and I check it daily. It's always fun to see what adorable little Jim-Jim is up to and Kara and her husband have me laughing on the regular with their clever posts. Here's her post that inspired me to write this particular blog: Kara and Jim Mann's hurricane. Jim Jim is 10 months old. I warned Kara that I would be posting something similar so that she can see what there is to look forward to once he's 16 months old!

It's amazing what a mess these little ones can make. Jackson has toys and designated items which he is free to scatter about on a daily basis and it's clear every morning that his mission is to make as gigantic a mess as possible. He doesn't take each toy out individually to play with it. No, he dumps the entire contents of the bucket out or walks right up to his book shelf and, one by one, pulls each book off and tosses it to the ground. The harder it is to navigate the room due to scattered toys, the better.

Here is our living room each and every morning. Note that this is how it looks after about 10 minutes of being out of bed... if that.

Even the sofa cushions have suffered from this particular rampage. This is actually a mild mess. If you notice on the bookshelf, there are still books and toys there.

Now on to the kitchen. This is a place where we don't usually allow him to be. It's just too hard to keep him safe. There's only so much baby-proofing we can do with the way our apartment is set up. Our desk area is built-in at the far end of the kitchen and that is a mess waiting to happen that I will not be cleaning up. He also loves the dog water bowl, and of course, the trash. On ocassion, when we are feeling particularly patient, we will allow him to have his way with the "tupperware cabinet" and maybe a drawer or two. Give him 3 minutes in the kitchen and this is what you get:


I keep joking that I'm going to buy a leaf rake to help with the clean-up.

An early Mother's day present...

**There are no pictures to accommodate this post. You'll thank me later.**

The day has arrived. I've been waiting on this day for some time. There was never any guarantee that it would ever get here, but I've been prepared nonetheless.

My preparations began several years ago when my dad shared a story with me about when this day arrived for he and my mom as parents. The day that I found my way into my poopy diaper. So I knew I'd been doomed for this day to come long before I had kids. It's just the way the world works, isn't it?

This morning started the same as most others. Jackson wakes me up around 8am obviously frustrated to be confined by those crib rails. That's where the normalcy ends. When I enter his room, it smells AWFUL. The mother in me is excited! Poop already! A diaper saved! You see, normally we change into a clean dry diaper, have our morning milk and then we have a dirty diaper to change, but TODAY we killed 2 birds with 1 stone and I was getting that dreaded poopy diaper change out of the way 1st thing!

**Warning - the following is not for those with weak stomachs!**

In my excitement, I didn't notice the mess at 1st. I thought it smelled a little stronger than it should have, being contained by a diaper and all. I mean they do offer some filtering qualities other than the obvious physical barrier. But Jackson was acting a little subdued and distracted and then I noticed something that every mother of a toddler is hyper-sensitive to; his hand went to his mouth and his little tongue was sticking out. He was pulling bits of something from his mouth. That's when I noticed something all over his hands... and his face.

Take as long as you need to recover from your gags and such...

Then he started prancing around. There were dollops of it here and there on his sheets and he was trying to decide whether or not to play in them or not. And of course it was smeared all over the rails. It wasn't until after his bath when I began the crib cleanup process that I noticed it on the walls behind his bed.

Jackson had a nice scrub-down this morning and after getting him dressed for his day and finally getting him his milk in front of cartoons, my job cleaning up his room began. It wasn't too bad really. Maybe it's because I've been dreading it and waiting for it for so many years. Ironically, during this entire process, all I could think about was breakfast! I learned today that I have adjusted very well to motherhood. Can YOU clean up people poop and plan your breakfast at the same time? Now just a few more months until London arrives and the adjustments will begin again!

Ouch!

Jackson took a tumble last week and ended up with a black eye. My makeup table was no match for him. Poor little guy...