No, I'm not saying this in tongue and cheek fashion, he's a straight up giant. We had our nine month check-up this morning, and I'm "pleased" to report that Jack is growing off the charts. As if my arms and low back couldn't tell. He weighed in at 24lbs., and was 33" in length. In terms of percentages, he's in the 95th percentile for weight and the 107th percentile in terms of height. His head was 18.5" in circumference, which only ranked in the 90th percentile. Seriously, Jeff and I are mystified as to where he's getting all that length...the weight, not so much a mystery. Kid loves his food. Everyone keeps telling me he'll "lean out" as he becomes more active, but the only thought I have is, "MORE active? How will I ever keep up?"
Jack came home every day last week with an "incident report" from school. At first, I thought he was biting kids, but it turns out that he's so active, he's pulling himself up on everything, trying to grab anything, and at the same time, trying to crawl and walk, so as a result, he's also falling everywhere. Bang! He whacked his head on a door jamb. Crash! He's pulled something down on his foot. I had serious fears at the doctor this morning that they were going to take him away from us because he's got a bruise on his cheek (where he fell over onto a rattle yesterday) and scratches on his face from his fingernails. Plus, any number of bruises covering his head. He's lumpy. This walking business is not for the weak of heart.
In any case, Jack checked out just fine and has been hitting all developmental milestones without incident. He can pull himself up on things (duh), crawl all around, and he's starting to get the hang of language as well. Yesterday, we were playing in the living room and he tried to grab for a plant and I looked at him very sternly and told him, "No!" He tried once more, thinking I was funny, but again, I told him, "No!" and then he started crying, but he did leave the plant alone.
I'm also about ready to declare his "first" word. He's been babbling incoherently for several months now, but on Friday night, I think he started saying, "mama." I should also point out that we're in the throes of a separation anxiety/stranger danger phase. On Friday, if I even went out of his sight for a minute, he started wailing and screaming "MAMA! MAMA!" It was not the cute "mama" I was hoping for, but it'll do, I guess. I'm not completely positive he knew what he was saying, but it certainly sounded like it and it definitely got my attention.
Here's the thing I love about Jack - everything poses a wonder for him. As a result, it's almost like I'm re-discovering the world and reliving my childhood. The park, for example, and the simple joy of swinging. He loves it. And I love watching him delight in new adventures. It's really amazing watching him learn all about how things work and his own abilities. I've posted a few pictures and videos below of him "learning" how to be a holy terror (just kidding, kind of...)
I just love this picture, showing his little busy booty at work on his table. He's learned how to push that thing around the house...
And as you can tell from this video, actively does so. He's also a crawling machine and can move really quickly...which makes me use muscles I've long forgotten...
This is a picture of Jack and his girlfriends...you can tell he's super into girls these days. These are the little girls across the street. On Saturday, we walked up to the park with them and it was almost a pointless trip since the only thing they wanted to do was play with Baby Jack and take Baby Jack down the slides...he, of course, ate up the attention...but the wood chips were pretty interesting too.
And this is Jack's latest and greatest thing to do...flip things over and listen to them crash. Learning to use the walker is still a work in progress, but it still provides hours of endless entertainment. We've affectionately started calling Jack, "Bam Bam" because of his "do-first-ask-later" attitude. This kid does nothing half-way, doesn't proceed with caution and tries to create havoc at every opportunity. I once remarked to Jeff that Jack could grow up to be a pianist. Jeff responded, "that would be fine, but have you met our kid? Bam! Bam!"
Finally, we took Jack to Buffalo Wild Wings yesterday to watch the Vikings game. He did really well, but was more interested in the rowdy group of guys next to us than anything else. He kept giving them sideways glances every time they cheered. Jack did get a crown from our waitress, but of course, that lasted about five minutes before he had the thing in shreds...
Finally, Nana and Papa are due back in town tomorrow and I'm really excited to see them again. I'm also wondering if Jack will remember who they even are, since they've been gone for so long. Everyone is coming over to our house tomorrow night for dinner. It will be a really fun reunion.
This weekend, Jack will start his swim lessons. Not that he's not used to water or anything, but it's something to do on Saturday and hopefully we'll meet some other kids his age. I have to laugh because they're only 35 minutes long. Getting a baby ready for swim class will take twice that long. It's like herding cats. So, we'll have to start getting ready about an hour before class, get there, get unpacked, swim for 35 minutes and then it's going to take another hour to get cleaned up. Oh well.
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