Well the past two months have really flown by. James returned Sunday from 10 days in Indonesia where he was inspecting equipment at a coal mine that FMC does business with. He seemed to have fun. He even found time to play golf twice! Jake has mastered to art of crawling and is intently working towards walking. Several times this past week he has stood up by himself without holding onto anything. In another few weeks he will probably be walking. He is such a constant source of amazement! After Labor Day I start my new job. I will be working with upper elementary school students in an attempt to raise their MTC Reading scores from proficient (which means they are reading on their grade level) to Advanced. It sounds like I will only work with a few kids at a time and it is only 16 hours a week so there is still plenty of time to play with Jake. Towards the end of July we took Jake down to Natchez to meet some of my family that haven't made it to Tupelo to see him yet. He met both sets of my grandparents (Scottish ones and Natchez ones) at his Baptism, and he met my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins from England who came over in April. Apart from them and my parents, of course, that was all of my family that they had met. So now he has met his great great step grandmother, two more of my aunts, two more of my uncles and two more of my cousins. Oh, and I can't forget his great uncle Cricket (my grandparents dog that is like a child to them). On the way back from Natchez he got his first tooth. A week and a half later tooth number two followed, both of them are bottom teeth. Now he appears to be working on a top tooth. This Friday he will be 9 months old. He is getting so big. He has been in his 18 month old clothes for a few weeks now. We were walking at the park last month and a two year old little girl walked by and pointed at Jake in his stroller and said "baby". It was kind of funny because Jake was bigger than she was and she seemed to expect him to say something back. He can say Mama and Dada and little things like that (sometimes he says what sounds like bye). He can almost wave at people and he can make a kissing noise, but he can't blow kisses yet. People are constantly shocked when they find out how old he actually is, most assume him to be much older. His eyes are still very blue and his hair has really come in a lot thicker but it is still difficult to tell what color it is going to be. It is a beautiful coppery color. Some people look at him and say "what beautiful blond hair," others say "what a lovely red head". I personally think it will turn a darker brown color. Well I guess only time will tell.
For some reason my pictures aren't loading correctly so I will try and load them on a separate blog later tonight. Perhaps it is because I have 3 million of them, who knows!
Jake helps me pack.
Above, Jake launches his "Bounce across Mississippi" Campaign. Below, Jake enjoys crawling around my grandparents living room.
These picture are of Jake playing the piano. He didn't bang on it like most kids do, he actually fingered the keys and seemed to enjoy the diffent sounds each one made. The bottom picture is a "the making of" picture for the above picture so that some of you don't think we endangered any Jakes in the production of this blog.
If you are drinking something Jake wants to "help". Here he is "helping" my dad drink a Dr Pepper. Incidently he occasionaly insists on helping me brush my teeth, put in my contacts, make coffee, etc. When the teething starts to get intense the poor thing does NOT want to be put down, so I have to hold him while I do everything unless he is taking a nap. Also since teething he no longer sleeps through the night.
Jake loved the Fulton fire works. We went to the Coffee House to watch them with my parents and a lot of my former students.
Jake likes his hands and feet, but he still isn't too sure about bananas.
James, Jake and I took a nap at my parents house. Don't worry Meredith, after the picture I laid back down so that Jake couldn't fall out of the bed.
More pictures of Jake enjoying the fountain.
