Although it was far too big for him to actually play with at
the time, I began getting it out at the start of this year’s football season as
something to toss and hold with while watching football on TV (since I can’t
just sit still… more on this later). At some point, I decided to play “catch”
with him where I would pretend to throw the football to him. What did he do
when the ball approached? The same thing any top NFL wide receiver would do –
he smiled and tried to eat the ball. Accidentally, I may have taught my son that
the best way for him to catch a football is with his mouth. There’s a pretty
good chance this is going to end poorly with a handful of bloody Jackson teeth
someday. Oops.
But the thing is, he absolutely loves the football now. You get it out, toss it in the air, he smiles and gets excited. You roll it on the ground, he crawls over to it and tries to stand himself up on it, even though it’s super wobbly (at which point I promptly tackle him and say “fumble!” to try and teach him the importance of ball control. Win the turnover battle!). When we were getting his nine month pictures taken last weekend, the number one thing that caused him to smile was pump faking the football at him and pretending like you are going to throw it at him. The nice thing about this? A football is pretty much the coolest possible “toy” for a nine month old baby. You don’t feel completely ridiculous carrying it around, it’s in no way girly, and it can be enjoyed by people of all ages, not just babies… that is, if I ever actually took it outside to toss it around. Unfortunately, given how often Jackson chews on the football, it’s basically become an “inside football”… since there’s a zero percent chance it wouldn’t end up in mud / weeds / dog poop within five minutes of throwing it around outside. I guess it’s time we become a two-football household.
Yet as much as he loves the football, it doesn’t hold a
candle to these small balls that he’s had ever since he was born:
When he was younger, the only reason why he would pay attention
to them was if you were making a clicking sound with one of them? But now, they’re
his #1 toy. They ‘re small enough that he can pick them up and entertaining
enough that they can keep him entertained for hours on end.
Remember when I compared my son to a dog a few months back?
Well, there are now two additions to the list. Here’s the current tally:
·
They love people and want to be friends with
everyone.· They spend their lives on the floor.
· They eat food designed for them, but long for regular people food.
· They will put anything they find in their mouths.
· They require you to put nice things on higher shelves.
· They are equally fawned over by the general public.
· They both come home from day care exhausted from playing with the other babies / dogs.
· Their owners spend their time cleaning up their poop.
· They hang out under tables and eat food that drops on the ground (at least my child does at school – we’re very proud).
· They both chase balls around the house for hours on end without getting bored.
Here’s the normal routine. Jackson crawls (scootches) over to
the ball, picks it up, looks at it, tries to eat it, shakes it, loses it, it
goes rolling across the floor, he races after it, picks it up, and the process
starts over. We’ve received reports that our soon spends every waking moment at
school doing laps around the room chasing a ladybug shaped like a ball. Again,
very proud.
He couldn’t be happier. Well, almost – because much like his
father (who must be multi-tasking at all times – reading the paper while
eating, playing on the iPhone while watching TV, listening to music while
working) and mother (who must try to accomplish at least 100 tasks on a never-ending
“To Do” list every weekend), Jackson isn’t satisfied with just playing with his
balls all day long... he wants to combine his two favorite things.
(Note: yes, there are about 1000 “that’s what she said”
jokes in the previous few paragraphs, and the amount of times I willingly wrote
about my son liking balls felt very wrong – but what other word could I have
used? There was no other way to phrase it!)
Multi-Tasking. Remember last month when I mentioned how much
Jackson likes to pull himself up on things? That hasn't changed – in fact, now
he’s cruising around the perimeter of the couch, or from chair to chair under
the table (and dreaming). Only now, he’s not content with only pulling
himself up on things with two hands. That’s boring amateur hour stuff. Instead,
in an effort to both maximize his fun in every moment through multi-tasking (or
just to show off that he doesn’t need to use two hands anymore to support him),
he will now pull himself up with one hand, while continuing to hold something in
the other hand… preferably one of his balls (again with the way too obvious
jokes! Come on!)
This has led to some interesting problems for his little
head to solve. Early on, he would primarily do this with his blanket, which was
a bit easier. If the going got rough and he needed to use both hands, he would
simply throw the blanket in his mouth, hold on with his teeth, and safely use
both hands for stability. No big deal.
However, with his balls, this is not an
option, which has forced him to do a lot of fancy hand-work, transferring the
ball from one hand to the other while pulling himself up. Once up, he stands
triumphant, usually shakes the hell out of the ball… and then inevitably drops
it. This introduces a whole new set of problems, since Jackson doesn’t want to
have to start from scratch sitting on the ground. Instead, the unintended side
effect of all of this is that he’s now mastered the art of “taking a knee” –
keeping one hand firmly gripped up high, then bending down with his other hand
and dropping to one knee to pick up the dropped ball before quickly standing
back up, returning to his happy place – standing up holding his recovered toy.
Of course, this isn’t to say that this still doesn’t lead to
a good number of falls for the little Monkey. He’s just too damn confident in
himself, getting too excited with the fun of standing up with a ball, which periodically
leads to a backwards tumble onto the ground. The difficult thing for a parent
is to decide what to do in these situations. If you stay close by to catch the
baby, then they don’t get hurt, they don’t cry, and you don’t potentially get
accused of child abuse when your baby is covered in bruises. However, this
doesn’t teach them any consequences for their actions. Part of me wants him to
fall, get hurt, and realize “hey, maybe it’s not such a good idea to stand up
and hold toys until I’m a little more stable.” I guess hopefully this is a life
lesson he’s picking up at school when I’m not around to catch him.
Holidays. This past month started a three month stretch of
important holidays for Jackson – Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. From
the point when we found out that Kate was pregnant, I’ve been excited about the
prospect of Christmas being focused on toys again rather than sweaters and socks
– but I didn’t really think about the effect that babies have on Halloween. It
was Jackson’s first Halloween, so we had to do all the traditional stuff to
ensure that we’re building a tradition (and that he will have photos to look
back on and confirm that we didn’t cheat him out of his first Halloween).
Up first was carving a pumpkin… which ended up being just cutting
two holes in a pumpkin for the sake of torturing our child for a photo op. Still,
it’s a Halloween tradition that we successfully checked off the list.
Up next was getting Jackson a costume. We decided long ago
that he had to be a Monkey – since that’s what we call him every day anyways –
but didn’t really factor in that he would absolutely hate wearing the costume.
I think he kept the full outfit on for a total of three minutes on Halloween
day… but that was more than enough time to get about 100 pictures of him
wearing his monkey suit. The good news was that we were able to repurpose this outfit
on the following weekend, when it was super cold and we were going to the zoo.
Turns out, a monkey Halloween costume is basically a snowsuit with fur on the outside,
and by far the warmest article of clothing that Jackson owns. There’s a pretty
good chance he’ll be wearing it again to play in the snow this winter. I should
also note that the day he wore this to the zoo, he was by far the most popular
exhibit in the entire place. Everyone absolutely loved it.
The one thing that Jackson didn’t get to partake in this
Halloween? Eating candy. At this point in his life, we’re feeding the Monkey a
ton of different things – but it’s all pretty much healthy whole foods. Fruits.
Vegetables. Cheese. Yogurt. Cheerios. While he absolutely loves pretty much all
food items (especially Cheerios – we’re fairly certain that left to his own
devices, he would sit and eat an entire box one Cheerio at a time over the
course of a 24 hour period without stopping), none of them are really candy or
special treats. So in honor of Halloween, we busted out Avocado.
If I went trick or treating today and someone gave me an
avocado instead of candy, I would give them a hug. Granted, I’m a boy and don’t
get worked up over sweets like every female I know, but I’d take a nice bowl of
guacamole over pretty much any food in the world. Much like a football being
the best possible toy for a baby (for me), Jackson’s love of avocados also
works out very nicely in my favor.
First off, they’re the world’s most perfect baby food. You
don’t need to keep them cold. You don’t need to defrost or warm them up before
eating them. They don’t easily smash. When you cut them in half, it basically
becomes a bowl to serve from… and whatever Jackson doesn’t finish, I get to
eat. Everyone wins! Next time we go on a trip with Jackson, I’m leaving the
jars of baby food at home and brining a bag of avocados.
Speaking of which…
Cruisin’. Against all logic and common sense, in two weeks
we embark on a family cruise… with Jackson coming along. His inclusion on the
trip was a topic of much debate and consternation in our household over the
past few months. After all, he is a member of the family… but given the choice
between a Caribbean cruise and chasing a ball around our living room, it would
be no contest as to which he would prefer. Leaving the Monkey at home would be
infinitely easier, we’d be more able to cut loose and have fun all day every
day, and it would be considerably cheaper (they charge full price for a baby to
go on a cruise! Are you kidding me!?).
On the other hand, the wife would probably be in tears missing him every
day and in intense physical pain since she’s still breast feeding him… which
would pretty much counteract any potential fun to be had on the cruise.
So in the end, we decided that our first family vacation is
going to be a week long cruise of the warm waters of the Caribbean. I mean,
what could possibly go wrong?
· Jackson hates airplane rides like he hates car rides.
· Jackson screams the entire plane ride, causing people to throw things at me.
· Jackson takes a huge dump on the flight, forcing us to perform a tricky mid-air change maneuver.
· Jackson gets sea-sick on the cruise.
· Jackson falls overboard.
· Jackson screams during every two-hour dinner.
· Jackson takes a huge dump during a fancy dinner, forcing us to change a diaper mid-meal (yummy!)
· Jackson stains all his (and my) clothes within the first two days.
· Jackson doesn’t sleep for seven straight days in a foreign crib.
· Jackson eats two pounds of sand on the beach.
· Jackson is afraid of the beach, like he is afraid of grass.
· Jackson is afraid of the ocean.
· Jackson gets eaten by a shark.
· Jackson gets stung by a sting-ray.
· Jackson gets sunburn.
· Jackson takes a huge dump on the beach, forcing us to perform a tricky beach change attempting to avoid getting sand in his diaper.
Like I said, there’s almost nothing that can go wrong.
The good news is, this is a win-win situation.
If Jackson is well-behaved and loves the beach, it’s going
to be a great time where we make a ton of memories and he’ll be able to go back
to school afterwards and brag to his classmates about how awesome his parents
are (“Oh, your mom and dad took you to the aquarium this weekend? That’s cool.
I went to the f-ing ocean!”)
If Jackson starts checking off the “what could possibly go
wrong list” above like his mommy on a To Do List, next month’s blog could be the
greatest of all-time and approach old Lost-blog lengths.
To be continued!
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