Random Bits

Here are some random happenings in pictures from the past few weeks.

Jesse is quite a helper around the house.  This week he helped me move grocery sacks from the hallway into our apartment.  He really wanted to move the sack with the gallon of milk in it, but that was a bit heavy so I gave him a lighter sack instead.  Then, he went to work taking everything out of the sacks and putting it all on the coffee table.  He also still loves to "sweep", empty the dust pan into the trash, find random pieces of trash  to throw away, and wipe up dirty spots on the floor. (As a side note, dirt seems to really bother Jesse.  He complains of dirt being on his feet when the floor hasn't been mopped in a while, and he refuses to get back up by himself when he falls on the playground, because this would require him to get his hands in the dirt.  If he has to, he will scoot on his bottom to the nearest toy or piece of play equipment to ensure that his hands don't get messy.  Today he took a good fall off of a bench at the park and when I went to pick him up I knew he was fine because all he could talk about was the dirt all over his face.  He clearly must take after me because I am a real neat freak.)

Jesse also really loves watching a large crane from our living room windows.  Probably every 15 minutes he climbs up on the couch and points out the window saying "tuh" (that's his word for crane but I have no idea what the connection is). Today he discovered that you can see it from other places like our parking lot, too, and he was pretty excited about that.

We have had some pretty hot weather here in Chicago, and when you don't have air-conditioning, you need something like a smoothie to help cool you off.  And if Dad's home, you might even get to sit on the counter to drink it.

When Daddy's home, you also get to do stuff like listen to Jack Johnson on the iPod.  Jesse actually listened for a little bit, which is unusual since his first instinct is usually to yank the ear buds out of his ears.

Father's Day Bike Ride and Zoo Trip

We had a wonderful time this past Sunday celebrating Father's Day.  James wanted to go on a bike ride as a family, so that's what we did.  We set out early Sunday morning for the zoo, walked around for about an hour, and then came back home.  The ride was somewhere around 22 miles, but the trail is pretty flat and the view is great.  One of the nice things about our bike trailer is that it turns into a jogging stroller, so we were able to convert it once we got to the zoo so that we wouldn't have to carry Jesse the whole time.  A really nice thing about being able to bike to the zoo is that it makes our visit free.  The zoo itself is free, but parking is not, so we were able to avoid the hefty parking fee.

Jesse probably looks like he hasn't been bathed in weeks, but it was just really hot and his hair was dripping with sweat.  He doesn't seem to mind the heat, though.

Jesse made sure to let us know when he was done looking at a particular animal by waving and saying "bye-bye" very adamantly. That's what he is doing in the picture below.  He was usually ready to move on to the next animal after about 15 seconds.

Being a ham at the polar bear exhibit.

Jesse really liked seeing the giraffe this time.

He also loved getting to roam around and chase the gulls.

Computer Fun

Jesse loves getting computer time, which means watching YouTube videos.  A couple months ago when we first introduced him to it, he constantly begged for the "ta-poo" (computer), but now he is not quite as obsessed.  He does get very excited, though, when we tell him that he gets to watch his videos, which usually happens before bedtime or when I need to work on dinner.  His favorites are 'Wheels on the Bus' and videos about letters, numbers and shapes (yes, it appears he is going to be a bit of a nerd).  Here he is enjoying his computer time one night.

17 Months

This update turned out much longer than I had planned (they always do).  If reading the details of Jesse's life bores you, please just skip it.  This is an easy way for me to keep some kind of record of what Jesse is doing each month (and satisfy the Grandparents' Jesse fix).  Sadly I don't have any pictures to go along with this post.  I went through Jesse's pictures from the past month and I have already posted everything.

• Loves his books.  He is constantly bringing us books to read, and in the past month or two, he has taken a liking to sitting in my lap while I read to him.  I also realized a couple months back that he has come up with names for most of his books.  For instance, he calls Goodnight Moon "moon" and I Love You Through and Through "through", and A Night Night Prayer he calls "shhhh", because every page begins with "shhhh...".  When he brings me the book Birthday Monsters he always goes to the coffee table and knocks on it with his fist, because the birthday monsters knock on the door on the first page of that book.  I like to call him my little librarian.
• We realized recently that Jesse knows at least the last word of each line in his favorite songs.  I would sing a line from a song but leave off the last word and he got them without fail.  He thinks it's a really fun game.
• Jesse seems to like food more and more as time goes on.  I remember thinking he would never like solid foods, but now he devours them.  We are amazed by how much he can put away and what types of things he will try.
• He has become my little helper around the house.  He loves to go get the broom from the closet and "sweep" the floors.  He also loves to put trash in the trash can.  Sometimes, though, I find blocks and other non-trash items in there.
• As of Sunday Jesse is completely weaned.  I feel like it should have felt bittersweet, but I never really got emotional about it (maybe that will come later?).  I was holding off on dropping his bedtime feeding until after the camping trip, because I had tried to drop that one previously and he was not ok with it.  He basically went berserk both times that I had tried that, and so I didn't want a huge bedtime battle on our camping trip.  When we were back home Sunday night, I offered to nurse him and he wasn't very interested at all, so I just went with it, and he fell asleep with no problem.  I am thankful that it didn't have to be a struggle and that it happened naturally.
• I feel like Jesse acquired more of a taste for cow's milk once I dropped him down to only nursing once/day, but it could just be a coincidence.  He now asks for his "mulk" all the time.  I would still like him to drink a little more of it, but he's getting plenty of cheese and yogurt, so I'm not really concerned.
• We wrote up all of Jesse's words the other night, and came up with somewhere between 150-200 (depends on whether or not you count letters and numbers and animal sounds as words).  He constantly runs his mouth.  His latest "word" is "thank you" in Chinese, which he picked up from one of his favorite buddies here in our building.  I'm not sure that he really knows what it means, but it was funny because he kept saying it tonight at dinner, both randomly and when we would give him more food.
• Lots of his words are not pronounced correctly, and many of them are just first syllables of the actual word, but he is getting better at putting the final sounds and syllables on words.  For instance, he loves saying any word that ends in the 'k' sound, like truck and milk and chalk.  What he REALLY loves to say (meaning 100 times per day) is stuck, but he pronounces the 'st' as 'f'.  This is quite embarrassing when we are in public and he is screaming this word (angrily, mind you, because wouldn't you be frustrated if you were stuck?).  You can only imagine all the places where he screams this word: from the shopping cart, the stroller, the swings at the playground, the high chair at restaurants, and the list goes on.
• He is very sociable and has learned the names of the buddies he sees most often.  Alyse is "yaya" (not sure exactly how that name came about), Sid is "sih", and Nathan is "Nate".  He really loves his buddy Nathan right now and is always saying his name and looking for him in the tot lot and on the playground.  He also loves saying hi to anyone and everyone.  Today he was up on the playground equipment yelling hi to all the people walking down the street.  I seriously don't know where he gets this from.
• He finally seems to be doing really well with one nap per day.  It felt like he was kind of in limbo for a long time, needing two naps lots of days, but other days he would only take one.  He now goes down for his nap around 11:30 and wakes up between 1:30 and 2:00.  He is much more able to go down a little later for his nap if need be, and is in much better spirits in the evenings before bedtime than he was a month ago with only one nap.
• Loves getting to walk places rather than being carried.  He perks up when he finds out he is going to get to walk to the playground or tot lot or the parking lot and he really likes pushing the elevator buttons.

First Camping Trip

This past weekend we embarked on our first family camping trip, and it was definitely a success.  All three of us had a blast.  It was a great way to celebrate the end of James' first year.

We left Friday morning around 8:30 and arrived at Indiana Dunes right around 10.  We grabbed a campsite right away (no reservations were accepted, so it was first-come first-served), set up camp, and let Jesse get in a nap before we headed out to do a little hiking.

The first trail took us past several historic sites: the farmhouse of a Swedish immigrant family and the Bailly Homestead, which was a former fur trading post.

Jesse warmed up to the hiking carrier eventually, but he didn't much like it at the beginning.  He kept saying "walk, walk".  By "walk, walk", he meant that he wanted to get down and walk, but he also didn't like it when James stopped walking for much longer than a few seconds.

Jesse seemed to have an instant love for camping and the outdoors.  Within five seconds of getting out of our car he was running into the woods and exploring.  

He also really loved playing inside the tent.  James just got this tent for his birthday, and it is gigantic!  It has a big, tall open area in the middle, and then two rooms on either end.  This worked out wonderfully, because it allowed us to put Jesse to bed at his normal time in the pack and play and not worry about waking him up going in and out of the tent before bed.  He slept like a champ at night, and even slept later than usual both mornings.

Jesse and James wrestling before bed on Friday night:

I think he was trying to say something like "I just love camping, you guys!".

On Saturday morning we got up and did a more ambitious hike, the Cowles Bog Trail.  It wasn't too terribly challenging, but it did involve climbing some large sand dunes, which is tiring work.  We saw lots of beautiful wildflowers, some heron, lots of swampy areas, and the beach.

This was a really steep descent.  These pictures don't do it justice!

The ironic thing about all this natural beauty is the many, many factories and steel mills and power plants in this region.  The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is broken up at different points by various plants like these.

We had a very tired Jesse near the end of this hike.  He took a short snooze on James' back but then woke up when we put him in his car seat, which meant he didn't fall asleep at nap time.

We headed back to the campsite for lunch, which was leftover Jalupees (a Covington-family camping tradition...basically tortilla chips, a mixture of ground beef, beans, tomato sauce and chili powder, and whatever toppings you want).  Jesse is a huge fan!

Then after a failed attempt at a nap, we got our beach gear out and headed to the lake.  The weather was perfect (a little hot, even) and the cold water felt very refreshing.  Jesse enjoyed getting his feet wet and sitting on the shore where he could feel the waves come in, but he actually seemed quite a bit more apprehensive about the water than he has in previous visits to the lake.

I always try to get him to wear a hat when we're out in the sun for long periods of time, but he immediately yanks it off.  This time the hat lasted for maybe 5 minutes, but only because he had a rock in each hand and was too distracted to notice at first.

Jesse enjoyed pointing out lots of things on the beach: the birds, balls, water, and the beach itself.  I think he was pointing at a bird in this picture.

As you can tell, he is not a huge fan of posing for pictures.  Maybe he was ashamed of the new hair-do his Dad gave him.

The sun eventually wore this little guy out.  He instantly fell asleep when we got in the car to drive back to our campsite.  I knew he must have been exhausted after only 10 minutes of a nap that day, so we caved in and let him snooze a little while longer in the car while we got dinner ready.  That was a bad idea, because he had lots of trouble going to sleep that night and was up 2 hours past his normal bedtime.

Waking up from such a deep sleep is hard to do.

But everything gets better when you get to eat hot dogs.  He wasn't going to miss out on that.

And of course he had lots of fun roaming around after dinner.  He was pretty hyper, actually.

Sunday morning we packed up camp and hiked one last trail, the Inland Marsh Trail.  

Then we got back in the car and stopped at a scenic overlook for some lunch.

We can't wait to go on another family camping adventure!