Our life with a 15 month old...

... is a busy one!

Definitely gotta be on our toes all day long now with this inquisitive, fun, loving, walking 15 month old.  Jack started walking at 14 months, and now after a month he has pretty much mastered his new skill. 


He is into everything around the house.  We decided it was time to put locks on the cabinets.  It seemed better to eliminate the reason we are telling him "no" than to sound like a broken record all day.  And why set him up to be able to get into something he shouldn't?  Cabinets with glass pot lids seem like really fun "toys" to a little boy that loves to throw everything!  We put new knobs on the cabinets so we could use the outside locks and just have them temporarily (I hope).  Now that the locks are on there he doesn't even try to get into them.  It did make me laugh to find toys in the tupperware cabinet, or his snack bowl, or cup, or even a shoe in with the pots and pans.  It's just  little reminders throughout the day of the amazing little boy we have in our lives.



This would be the mischievous Jack getting into my desk drawers, that he knows not to be in.  He will bring me a pen and shake his head no-no.  Such a little stinker.

 Jack loves to be involved in everything we do.  He is my little helper around the house.  He helps me do the laundry.  I hand him clothes from the washer and he puts them in the dryer.  I have to check the dryer before starting it though to make sure there are no extras, lol. One day I was in the kitchen and kept hearing a "thud" sound.  I went to check the dryer to find one of those 12" rubber kick balls.  It was pretty hot, I am surprised it didn't pop!  He will also take the clothes from the dryer and put them in the basket, and just like his momma, he loves the smell of clean laundry.  He smells the clothes out of the dryer and says "mmm."  When I vacuum I have to give him the extension piece and he uses that to vacuum with me. I can only hope that this "clean" little boy will always be clean and be my little happy, eager helper.

I am loving this next stage of development.  Each stage has had its special point: newborn, was the ever so special bonding and snuggle time, then to infancy when his eyes were opening to the world around him and learning to do so many things like sitting and crawling, and now this age when he's not quite little baby (although, he'll always be my baby, no matter how big he is) but he is growing into this little boy who is just a little sponge, trying to what we do and learn to speak.  It really makes you sit back and evaluate your own self, not just the things you say but how you say them.  At this age his little mind is being molded.  I pray each day that God would lead us and direct us on how to raise Jackson to be the man God has called him to be.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful parents that we can follow their examples of both marriage and parenting. 

Jack has always had such a loving personality.  I am thankful for a husband that loves me and can teach Jack what it means to love a woman and how to treat her, so that one day when that special woman comes along for him, he will know how to love her.

One of my very favorite things Jack does is he gives "awws."  Really, its a hug but it is Jack's special thing. He will lay his head on your shoulder and say "aww."  I am sure he learned it from the many times when he was a baby, laying his head on our shoulders and we would say "awww, I love you!"  Now in his simple little language, he will say, "momma... aww."  Melts my heart!

He is trying to say some things here and there.  Most of it still, we know what he means but it's not quite English yet. He says:  Momma, Dad, dog, bye-bye, nigh-nigh (night-night), ball, nack (snack), ba-ba (more please, or I want to eat...way off I know, but that's what it means.  It stemmed from us teaching him sign language to say "more"), bath, on, go and maybe a few more that I just can't think of right now.  He loves to make sounds for a lot of things too. He can do animal sounds for cow, horse, dog, cat, and sheep.  If you tell him car, he says "vroom."

He loves music and loves to dance!  Anytime he hears music come on he starts dancing.  His favorite song to dance to: Party Rock on the commercial with the hampsters dancing for the Kia Soul.

His favorite toy is still the ball.  He is constantly throwing them all over the house.  He has quite the throw too.  He really shocks us sometimes how hard and far he can throw the ball. He has a hard ball baseball, from his first Astros game, that I recently had to put up because I was scared it was going to go through the french doors in his playroom.  Speaking of, because of all his toys all over the house, we had to revamp our set up.  We never used our dining room, and quite frankly I think if we did have a dining table it would rarely get use. We are always in the kitchen. So, the dining room is now the study, and the study is now the "playroom."  All Jacks toys officially have a home, although they are always throughout the house still, at least they have somewhere to go when we clean up. It's nice because it is its own room but we can see him from the kitchen and living room.  He loves it too.  In the mornings he will knock on the door for me to open it so he can go play with his toys.

singing with Elmo

slam dunk

You can hardly see his scar

His favorite food is, well everything.  The child can eat! I think he eats as much as we do.  At least he is a fairly healthy eater.  We are trying to train him to have a healthy diet.  Daddy and I have a sweet tooth.  If we ate like Jack we would be in good shape, haha. He loves to try to feed himself with a fork and spoon.  Sometimes he is successful, but most of the time he will hold the utensil in one hand and pick up the food with the other. End result: food in the mouth, that is all that matters.



The boy loves yogurt

Jack went to his first (of many, I am sure) Rockets game.  He loved the music and all the excitement.

His 15 month check up at the pediatrician, he was 24lbs and 28inches tall.  He is a healthy little boy, doing everything a 15 month old should.  He had a good check up with the cardiologist as well.  He will go back in March for a sedated ECHO this time.  Dr Quinones said he looks good, but in order to get good pictures of his heart on ultrasound we should give him some sedation.  Not that easy to tell a little boy that just learned to walk, to sit, and sit still for 15 minutes.  That's an eternity for him. He'll get a little Versed.  He'll just get an extra good nap that day.  So please just say a little pray for a good report, for a strong healthy conduit that will last.  His surgeon said at this age it is typical for a conduit to last 3-7 years.  There are a lot of factors that play into how long it lasts, but we pray for the full length of 7 years from this conduit!

Just a few more pictures...

wonder how he learned this...

he loves to sit at the desk and play