mommy's helpers

jude has the advantage and disadvantage of his mom and dad having many friends with slightly older kids. for instance, in our small group from church, there is a 7 month old, a 2 year old, but the rest are 3-8. mister jude gets lots of time to laugh as the big kids coax him to smile or pulled his pacifier in and out when he was younger.


another older pal, Josh, is four. he and his mom lynsey recently came for a visit. josh helped feed jude pumpkin... with mixed results.

open wide!

oops. a miss

Jude is such a trooper. he just laughed through the whole thing. what a good baby we have!

hello 15

Baby jude turned 15 months this week. greg and i actually had disagreements awhile back about how old our son actually is. but we can confirm he's made it to 15. he continues to be a smiley, happy kid. as kara's uncle said, his default expression is a smile. what fortunate parents we are!

jude saw his pediatrician for the 15 month review:

WEIGHT 60th percentile 24lbs, 5 oz
HEIGHT 60th percentile 31 3/6
HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE 75th percentile 47 1/2

the doc is not worried about jude's failure to walk on the wild side...or any side yet. he says at this point its just motivation because jude seems able and ready to walk. but that baby of ours won't let go of our hands, the wall, his walking toy, until he decides he's ready.

he asked if jude knew his body parts yet, nose, eyes, etc. we said "no, should he?". i keep telling greg they need to make one big list that all parents get that tells you, hey, here's what you teach and play with next. because we often have no idea.

kara did go online and look at development milestones chart from a baby website. it said 15 months old can scribble with crayons?? hmm. we pulled out the crayons but jude seemed more interested in yanking and ripping off the wrappers. guess he'll draw when he's good and ready as well.

retro baby

roadtrip!

jude went with us to a weekend getaway sponsored by our church in oak park http://www.calvarymemorial.com. the organizers chose a 1970's theme. we probably could have done without a theme for the weekend packed with recreation activities and some lectures and group discussions using stuff from the bible. but we did borrow an enthusiastic participant's 70's wig for jude to try on.

get this thing off of me!

some helpful church ladies listened for mr. jude on his baby monitor while greg and kara joined in group games.

kara had a sore shoulder and back muscle that kept her on the sidelines. but greg suited up for a dress-up relay race.

jude babbled and smiled when we played in the warm lake. we even slipped him in a lifejacket and set him in the middle of our lovely paddle boat ride. he did great until we sat too long in one place.

the other nice part of the weekend was reconnecting with many friends we see, but don't get to chat with too often.

our friends the wangs

jude had to go to bed before many evening activities, but kara got to see a memorable performance to the ABBA song, Dancing Queen.

the Dancing Queens (70 instead of 17)

august- whew!

August has flown by in baby jude's world. Highlights (or lowlights) include surprise sickness, a camp weekend, and a last minute, surprisingly luxurious southern vacation.



The second week of August began with a battle with stomach flu. The new mom that I am, I thought I was holding jude too tight, making him to spit up. But later that night and the next day he developed a fever and the 'spit up' continued. Finally I realized it was just throw up. I had to laugh at myself over that one. The fever lasted 3 days, but jude had to stay away from kids for a few days after. It drove mom a bit crazy to be stuck at home with jude that long.

After Jude was all better, our friends Ian & Lynnie Hoffman brought their adorable girls over to play. Jude did just fine with the ladies, acting like almost a perfect gentleman.

jude & violet

big sister alethia had fun too

red

Should I grow the gotee or not?

Does this thing blend with my red hair?

where you at?

Keeping Mr Jude safe and happy is a new challenge now that playpens are considered out of favor. The new modern substitution is the play yard. Either it is actually better for the child, or play yards are simply a new way to get today's parents to buy new gear instead of picking up a playpen at garage sales.
Our nice friend Clyde & Carolyn gave us their colorful play yard. The sections of plastic fence fill up a good portion of our living room.

let's play

The baby jail gives us those precious few minutes to start the coffee in the morning, cook dinner, etc. After a few days of the play yard, we turned it into the play fence.

the grass is always greener...

For awhile this provided Jude plenty of room to crawl and bang and toss all kinds of toys. He would even help himself to new toys by opening the storage panels under our new window seat.

Recently Jude has outsmarted the defenses. He simply pushes the sections around until he creates an opening. Then mommy finds him on the move in her direction.