10 months!

After my last massive post, I promise this one will be shorter...

I can't believe that Jacob is already 10 months old! That sounds so old. And he definitely no longer looks like the helpless, quiet baby we took home from the hospital. Here are just a few highlights of Jacob this month.

Likes: doors (opening and shutting them), chairs (pushing them back and forth and pulling up to a stand), yogurt, juice, biting people, french fries, saltines, giving hugs, when people clap for him, going for walks in the stroller, and, of course, SMILING!

Dislikes: green beans (I think--it's been a while since I tried them), diaper rash, sitting on my lap, baths, lying still while getting his diaper changed, having his nails cut.

New Skills: crawling the regular way on hands and knees, pulling up to a stand, walking when I hold his arms up, giving kisses (I think that's what he's doing--today I got licked on the lips), giving hugs, dancing

Teeth: 6 (three on top, still missing his left front tooth---3 on the bottom)

The highlight of this month was his first out-of-state trip to Idaho about a week ago. I think he did pretty well, but I'm not about to do it again for a while.

This is what I walk into just about everytime Jacob wakes up. This was the first day he did this.

Unfortunately, he also woke up with a big scratch of the side of his nose. (Maybe he should let me cut his nails...)

I have to be VERY careful not to leave the dishwasher down. He likes to roll the bottom drawer out and take out the silverware...he is going to grab a knife someday.

Apparently Jacob likes baby spaghetti!

After spending so much time with his cousins in Idaho, Jacob could not figure out why Tijs wouldn't play with him...Tijs couldn't figure out why Jacob wouldn't leave him alone...(notice how Tijs is keeping Jacob away from his sippy cup!)

Idaho!

On Saturday, June 11, Jacob and I left our house at 4:45 in the morning to drive to my sister Cindy's house in Ripon. It was just the beginning of a LONG day. Two days before Jacob had come down with a fever, so we were all praying that he'd do okay on the drive. We had to pull over twice to deal with a meltdown, but he did better than we thought. At one of the stops a black and white cat came right up to the boys and let them pet her. I put some of Jacob's unused formula in the cap of his bottle, and the cat drank it up! This cat was SO cute! William tried to sneak the cat in the car, but Cindy told him we couldn't take it. We still had a couple of hours left to drive...


On Sunday we all went to church. I got to hear Ryan Kron (an old softball teammate from Escondido) preach the sermon. I don't know how Jacob was in the nursery because when I got there after church, he was sleeping on one of the girls. I guess he was tired out from the trip even though he slept 11 hours the night before. On Sunday, we also got to watch Joshua give the calf a bottle--it's momma wouldn't let him nurse and kept kicking him. It was pretty fun to watch. Even Jacob thought it was interesting!

Michael even got the calf to suck on his finger for a while!

Here is a picture of all 8 cousins in one room!

The de Jong kids were pretty obsessed with William and Michael's I-Pod Touches, so they did that pretty much whenever the could. Jacob just thought it was fun to have people to crawl over, hair to pull, and arms to help him stand.

On Monday, Cindy and Deb took the 5 older kids to the waterslides while Jacob, Johanna, and Simon, and I went to McDonald's and rented two movies. I had so much fun with the three of them.


Since Jacob has recently begun being scared of the bathtub, Johanna volunteered to take a bath with him. He was still pretty scared, but at least he calmed down a little to take this cute picture!


Jacob cut about two teeth while we were there (he now has 3 on top and 3 on the bottom). They must have been bothering him because he did this face A LOT!



On Tuesday morning the kids all played croquet!


There were only 6 mallets, so Johanna didn't play. She and I played Uno Attack instead. Then all the kids came in and wanted to play....Luckily, my sisters and I had plans to leave the older 7 at home and go shopping at the mall in Boise! We all got something, and it was fun to go to the mall for once.


We did lots of other things, too--went out for ice cream, made a fire and roasted marshmallows to make s'mores, watched a bunch of movies...Jacob slept very good the whole trip. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who got tired out from all the excitement...


The last day we packed a picnic lunch and went to the park.


On Friday, June 18, we packed everything up again and headed home. Jacob was much better on this trip and William did such a good job of entertaining him. I was ready to be home although it was such a nice trip. I am so grateful that Cindy offered to take me, and Deb and her family were such generous hosts! It went way better than I imagined to take an almost 10-month old on an 11-hour drive to Idaho!

Now it's Monday morning, and I still haven't unpacked although Jacob tried to do it for me!

Nine and One-Third Months!

Because Jacob's nine-month check-up wasn't until today, I have waited to do his nine-month update until now. Here are his stats:

Height: 31.5 inches (over 95%)

Weight: 24 lbs, 6.5 oz (about 92%)

He must've learned a lot these past few months because his head circumference went from 75% to almost 95% in the past three months (of course, the girl could've measured it wrong; he was VERY squirmy and DID NOT want her to put anything on his head!).

Teeth: only three--two on the bottom and the third one is to the right of where his two front teeth should be. I check every day for the two front teeth, but they STILL have not broken through, yet.

Skills: He still does the combat crawl and is quickly gaining speed. He is starting to pull up on things, but he mostly just uses his arm strength to pull his upper body up. If I stand him up next to something he can stand for a long time, but I have to stay next to him because he will just decide to lean back and fall on his head. He is starting to wave and often will give me 5 if I ask him. He can also get to a sitting position from his tummy and vice versa.

Sleeping: He sleeps about 9 to 10 hours at night depending on when he wakes up. Some days he wakes up at 4:30 to 5:00, has a bottle, and 20-30 minutes later goes back to sleep until almost 7. If he doesn't wake up until 5:30, then he almost never goes back to sleep although most days I put him back in his crib for about 30 minutes anyway. He usually goes to sleep around 8:00. Depending on when he wakes up, he usually takes two naps every day from about 10 to 12 and 3 to 4:15.

Miscellaneous: He wears 18 month shirts and one-piece outfits; most of his pants/shorts are 12 months. I have had to trim his hair around his ears and the back of his neck. It is still a very nice strawberry blonde color, but I think it will be blonde by the time he is two. He is a very social little guy and loves to smile at anyone who talks to him. He loves going anywhere, but I think his favorite place is the church nursery. He also loves to go on walks in his stroller.

Jacob wearing some klompen and showing off his best flirting technique.

Sometimes I am in the other room, hear Jacob crying, and come back to find something like this. He was completely stuck!

I happened to catch this the first time he ever did it. I wouldn't call it pulling up yet because he isn't standing, but he has figured out that he can reach a lot of things that are NOT on the floor. I guess I'll have to be more careful where I put the remote from now on!