Deciding not to work this summer was the best decision!! Jackson and I had a really nice summer even though our days were pretty similar. . . well for Jackson they were the same! He would eat, sleep, poop. . repeat! The only change was the occasional dip in GiGi’s pool! For me, well I enjoyed a walk almost every day either along the river, in Charlotte, or around the neighborhood. We fell into a nice groove in July and thankfully had an all access pass to my mom’s pool, which I like to call the Pool Club! You would think with it being in the high 90’s Jackson would LOVE LOVE LOVE the pool. . .but he was his usually self and pretty indifferent. Enjoy the video below of his first dip!
Jackson also started sitting up on his own (and a little help from his chair). The chair was great because it helped him build the muscles needed to sit on his own, but it also had toys on it, so once he was comfortable in it, it would entertain him! Jackson continued to have baby reflex, hiccups on a daily basis, and he still sneezes like his momma! Luckily he doesn’t seem to mind neither the hiccups or sneezes. According to Dr. Empy it is his immature brain. . .we are still waiting for his brain to mature.
It was nice to have Jared home with us in August. . .we went for a lot of walks as a family. . . and Jackson slept through every one of them! Two things were guarantee when we wanted Jackson to fall asleep. . .put him in his stroller or the car! On one rare occasion Jackson woke screaming while I was walking with him down by the river, of course it had to be as I was heading up the hill. Being a new mom I did want I thought I needed to do. . .I took him out of the stroller and juggled holding him and pushing the stroller while huffing up the hill. Looking back I had to look pretty silly, if he started crying now, I would probably just keep walking, hoping he would stop, but also knowing that with each scream and step we were getting closer to the car.
Jackson had a lot of “firsts” this summer. . .in addition to swimming he had his first out loud giggle. Jackson would always beam with huge smiles, but they would be void of sound! We keep wondering when he would actually giggle! He had a little giggle in July, but nothing to really brag about. Well the full blown giggle session finally happened in August. . .he had a giggle-a-thon! We have a short video of it, unfortunately it isn’t the best angle since Daddy was busy doing a Mock Fantasy Football draft!
Since he was holding his head up on his own and enjoying a lot of time in his chair Dr. Empy gave us the go ahead with starting him on food. For those of you without kids, you start them off on rice cereal, I guess a lot of babies do not like the rice cereal or the baby oatmeal. . .well Jackson liked them both once he got used to them. We started him off with a tablespoon, which seemed like so much. I remember saying to my mom “The doctor said he will work up to 4 tablespoons. . .I can’t imagine him eating 4 tablespoons”
It was after 4 month appointment, that Dr. Empy also talked to us about allowing him to fall asleep on his own. At this point Jackson was sleeping great . . .he would go to bed around 7 PM and wake up around 4 and I would give him a bottle and he would sleep until I woke him up at 7. The only problem was that he would need to be rocked (only for about 5 minutes) or he would fall asleep while eating his last bottle, so Jackson was not learning to fall asleep on his own. So we decided to help Jackson build “healthy” sleep habits and be able to fall asleep on his own. Night one took him 11 minutes, night two was around 7 and night 3 was closer to 2. Have I told you how lucky we are?!?!? Jackson is such a good baby. . . now he fall’s asleep all on his own every night. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, no more bottle, he just goes back to sleep on his own! Jackson continues to be in the 95 percentile for height (don’t ask me how) an the 25 percentile for weight. Just like his daddy, his head is still on the smaller side in the 12 percentile!
I also added to my Mother of the year award when I locked Jackson in the car in July. . .yes it was during the heat wave! No, I was not home or near home! I called 911 (twice, because I felt as though someone should have arrived sooner than 11 minutes). Thankfully after 20 minutes the fire department was able to unlock my car. Obviously I am grateful that Jackson was OK, but I was even more grateful that he was asleep, I could not imagine going through that 30 minutes if he had been screaming. Lesson learned, don’t throw your keys on the front seat, I now have a wrist lanyard so that my keys do not ever leave my person!
Let’s just say it was a great summer! Enjoy the pictures!
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