A semblance of normalcy has finally returned to our house! Our kitchen floors and stairs all have their new flooring in place and it looks great. We are really pleased to have had some good customer service and good results from a local company. Within two weeks of going to look around at options, we now have beautiful new floors. Out with the old and in with the new! And any reminders of the drunken decorator have now been erased because there are no blue splotches of paint on our new Berber carpet. On top of all of that, we also finished another week in good health. Hallelujah!
Lee and I noticed how much Jackson has grown-up since he started walking (and running, sometimes). He really commands a room. I'll paint a picture of what happens when I drop him off at nursery: Jackson tries to run toward his friends and teachers before I have a chance to unzip his snowsuit. Then, when he's finally out, he toddles over to one of the children and gives the sweetest, gentlest hug. After that, the other children gather around Jackson, offering up their toys. He takes them and sits in the middle of a circle of children playing and then hands out the toys so everyone can play with him. Then he waves good-bye to me with a big smile on his face.
When I pick him up at the end of the day, I like to peek in through the window to see what he's doing with his friends first and lately, he's been playing chase with his friends! He's walking really quickly and with confidence. He even tried to go walking down the stairs this week when we took down the baby gates for the carpet to be laid. Let the heart attacks ensue! Of course we were right beside him to grab him from a treacherous step down, but we were still shocked by his fearlessness.
As we're getting ready for Christmas and picking out toys for Jackson, it's amazing how we know what he will like to play with whereas last year, we just chose generic baby things. He has his own personality and interests already! Jackson likes to be artistic at nursery and can even hold pencils, pens and crayons with the correct hand grip. He is very delicate and deliberate making his marks on a page.
Even though he can't speak in complete sentences yet, it does seem as though Jackson is saying that he wants to do things by himself now. He's a brave little boy who, by the sounds of it, has no fear at nursery and tries every new activity that comes his way. His love of life and excitement to play and entertain energizes us and definitely makes our days brighter. Jackson truly is the epitome of a 'bundle of joy'!
Jackson learned how to put the coins into the cash register and even matched some of the coins to their correct slots
Our kitchen floor before the redecorating
It took us (mainly Lee) all week to get the three layers of tiles off. The first two came off easily, but the last layer was really old and crusty and came off bit by bit.
The carpet on our stairs now (it used to be green)
The kitchen floor after all of the hard work!
Jackson loves having space to move again! He was crawling, walking, and running from room to room and shouting in delight at the new surfaces.
Developmental updates: This week, Jackson took the pen from his teacher when I was supposed to sign him out and he signed the sheet with his 'signature.' Today he used a spoon to mix and mash strawberries and 'eat' them. He was laughing and talking the whole time and to taste his creation, he dipped the spoon in the juice and ate it. (I fed him some strawberries on the side so he didn't just have a snack of strawberry juice.) Yesterday, Jackson was playing with the telephone at nursery and his teachers told me that he was saying, "Mom" over and over and after each time, he laughed. (The weird coincidence about this is that I got a missed call on my phone from an 'unknown' number. Very strange indeed!) I am really proud to also announce that Jackson has finally made it on his nursery's weekly newsletter. He's on the front page of this week's edition and it's from his magical meeting with Santa. Give it another year and he'll probably have his own column.
If you see Sammie Miles Davis, Jr. and Bella, give them my love.
