Around the House - Jakey

Jakey kept us all laughing until the last day.  Then the grumpy monster broke out.  No telling what turned the little man but he wasn't nice anymore.  He hit me all day long and got a bunch of timeouts.  He would shreek at the top of his lungs when something, anything wasn't exactly right. But the first three days he was delightful and a real charmer.  Our room was in the basement and Utah basements are cold, even in the middle of the summer. He would don his sleep apparel for each nap and again every night.  He quite liked the routine.  It worked as a pretty good signal that it was sleeping time.  He wore Ben's oversized sweat pants and his own fleece jacket.  He loved getting dressed and didn't want to take it off when he woke up.

 

Jakey's first nap was interesting.  He wasn't familiar with the place and he's quite the climber.  Being the smart mom that I am, I knew I should stick around and see how it went before I abandoned him to sleep in the crib solo.  See, the crib is the same one Brian and his siblings slept in more than 30 years ago.  It sits directly on the floor, has cool spinning beads on the rails, a horizontal rail about 18 inches from the bottom (translate to mean step/launch pad) and the sides are noticably shorter than those of the cribs made today.  I got his sleeping gear on, handed him the binkie and his two woobies (blankets).  Then I laid him down and told him to sleep and I laid on the big bed.

 

He was watching my every move, so I couldn't look at him or he would talk to me and giggle and laugh instead of sleep.  I stared the other way.  All was quiet.  Then a little tiny rustle.  Another quiet rustle and WHACK!!!  What the heck was that?  Something hit my bed.  I jumped up and saw him flat on his back outside the crib laying on the floor between the bed and the crib.  His smile was ear to ear and irresistably delightful.  I scooped him up and put him back in the crib and told him to go to sleep.

 

All I can figure out by his landing position was that in two quick and extremely quiet moves he launched himself from the top of the crib railing in an attempt to jump onto the bed and it bounced him right back off smack onto his back on the carpet.  It makes perfect sense to me.  That's him M.O.  The kid catapolts himself from one piece of furniture to another all day long at our house.  From the coffee table to the couch, from the formal dining chair to the back of the couch, from a stool to the bunk bed and the changing table onto the futon bed (I had to remove the changing table).

 

Jakey loved swinging outside like the big kids, climbing onto the swivel chairs in the kitchen and getting into trouble.  He loved the fireworks. We bought the cheap $10 pack of little on the ground fireworks and a pack of sparklers.  He thought it was awesome!  Check out the pic of him with a sparkler.  Brian was bent down right next to him keeping him safe, but without an adult in the picture, doesn't it look like a poster for the negligent parenting club?