9 months

I know, I'm 1 day late with this.  I was going to do it last night, but we're on vacation and I fell asleep on the couch.  I realize there are some people that think there are no excuses for delaying a blog update.  To them I say get over it and go to the beach.  Ok, on to the fun stuff!  As you may have already figured out Jackson spent his 9 month birthday at the best place in the world...the beach!  Jackson's updates this month are:

1.  He weighs right at 22 lbs. (75%), is 30" long (90%) and his head is 18.5 (90%)
2.  He is so close to crawling it's not funny.  I think technically what he's doing is considered crawling, but I don't count it.  An army crawl is not a pretty crawl, so I'll wait thank you very much.
3.  He can sit up by himself, but he would only do it by himself in his crib for a while.  Finally he did it in front of us.  He does this hilarious George Costanza pose and then sits up.  Awesome.
4.  He is quickly moving towards wearing size 18 month instead of 12 month.
5.  He is now trying a lot of solid foods and is skeptical of most.  He has to inspect anything before he tries it, but he does love pancakes, grilled cheese, pickles and watermelon.

Jackson's first ride down the slide...

he loved it!

The George Costanza pose.

Becky & Jimmy Simmons with Turner Clark and Jackson

Reach out and touch someone

I am one of the lucky few in the world to still be friends with 2 girls since we were in the 1st grade.  I mean nothing can beat that!  Caroline lives in Roswell, so we try to get together every couple of weeks.  When you know someone for that long I feel like her little boy, Reid, is almost mine.  He's so sweet and friendly.  Now it was nothing new for strangers to come up to us while the 4 of us were eating and say how cute the boys were, but today was a new extreme.  We always pick out our table very strategically because both boys like to talk (sometimes a little louder than we would like) and there's usually food and sippy cups being thrown on the floor.  I arrived at the Chick-Fil-A first so I scoped it out and picked out a table with no one around, perfect.  Oh, but who saddles up next to us?  A woman who looks like she might go into labor on the table with her 4 kids who are all under the age of 5.  As if our boys weren't magnets enough.  The fun started and all 4 kids were in Reid and Jackson's faces.  Petting them, pointing at their eyes, you name it.  Where was mom?  Oh I don't know.  We looked around and didn't see her.  The lady that worked at Chick-fil-A came over to try to run interference only to fail miserably.  Caroline and I laughed and said no one would believe us.  If only we had a camera...

Apparently the mom was on the playground with the fourth kid.  I guess she thought we would just babysit for her.  As soon as we ate we hightailed it out of there!  I knew I carried my camera with me for some reason!  This would only happen to us!  Love you CTO!

Brothers from another mother

The Protector

Jackson, Duke and I were all in the front yard.  Duke was having his usual afternoon nap in the sun about 20 feet away from us trying to get some peace and quiet.  Jackson and I were playing on the blanket when all of a sudden I heard it...the icecream truck (or Chester the Molester as the neighborhood calls it).  The home base for icecream trucks is about 1/2 of a mile from our house and I've seen them go by every once and a while, but I had never been outside.  As it started creeping towards our house the song just gets louder and creepier.  Of course right as it passes the driveway the kid across the street comes running out.   "Wait wait!  I have to get money!"  So Chester backs up to park in front of my driveway.  Perfect.  That's when Duke lept into action.  He jumped up from his sun bed and came wandering over to us and sat on the edge of our blanket and just stared Chester down.  It was hilarious!  It was almost like Duke was daring him to get out of the van.  Duke ended up laying down because the kid took a while, but he never took his eyes off of Chester.  Finally the kid got his icecream and off Chester went.  As soon as Chester turned the corner Duke got back up and went right back to his sun spot.  Good dog.  Duke may seem like a pansy sometimes, but when duty calls he's there! 

Take it down a notch

Jackson's learned a few new tricks and because of that we're going to have to move his mattress down to the lower level.  We've been working on getting him to crawl.  He'll pop up on all fours and we'll try to get him to crawl towards a toy and he'll get frustrated and drop his legs and revert back to his frogger kick.  So close.  So many people have told me that I don't want him to crawl yet because once it starts it doesn't stop.  Are you kidding?  Now that it's time for it I'm so excited!  That means we can play a little more rough and I can start chasing him, he can chase Duke and Duke can just try to find a new place to hide.  Poor Duke doesn't know what's about to hit him!