My baby is a genius

I say this in jest. Well, actually I do believe he is quite smart, but I’m pretty sure every parent feels that way about their children. I realize Jackson isn’t hitting any of these milestones at an age that will put him in the Guinness Book of World Records, but every milestone IS an amazing thing, no matter when they are reached. So horray to ALL little baby geniuses out there.

Today Jackson has totally wowed me. I am well overdue for a milestone update. . .so here it is. Jackson now has 8 teeth and SEEMS to be working hard on his molars. He started taking steps right around a year. . though it was mostly the lunging-hoping-you-catch-me kind of way J It took him a while to find his balance and just recently over the past week he really got the hang of walking and walks almost all of the time. Babies are so cute when they are upright. His gait is still pretty funny, and he trips over dogs, toys, and his own feet, but it hasn’t slowed him down a bit.

He’s started saying things. . or at least trying to. He waved and said ‘bye to Andy the other morning while Andy was putting on his uniform, and makes sounds like ball, more, all done, and his favorite- dog. I have no doubt he is saying a lot more than this but I have yet to catch on ;)

We’ve worked sporadically with baby signing but regularly watch the Baby Signing Time DVDs. Today Jackson did the more sign and I caught it on video. We had been eating pudding and I decided he had had probably had (more than) enough and set it on the coffee table behind me, trying to convince him it was all gone. A few minutes later he started signing ‘more’ very clearly. (Usually it’s more of a clapping/bringing hands together IF he ever does it and it’s very encouraged). . .after realizing what he wanted I quickly grabbed the video camera and persuaded him to do it some MORE. Ha.



Later he was playing in the kitchen and I was in the living room with my sister (on Skype). I was trying to get Jackson to come play on the floor with me. Well the kitchen holds terribly interesting things- pots to bang, food packages to destroy, and a really fun cooking pot toy. So to get his attention I started reading out loud one of his books I had memorized (I use this trick a lot on long car rides too.) He came to find me, walked to the book shelf and pulled THE book I was ‘reading’ and brought it to me. That wowed me. What book you ask? None other than our favorite Barnyard Dance, a gift from baby Will.

Today he also figured out how to open the trash can. . .and thinks it’s fun to ‘throw’ things away. . .so helpful ;) All that genius must have wore him out because the next thing I found him doing? Chewing on the furniture. Better than this I suppose.