Long Overdue Update

So our little man is now 6 months old as of Wednesday. He has accomplished a lot just in the last month!

1. sleeping through the night consistently without waking up to fuss
2. Feet in his mouth to suck on toes
3. Blowing raspberries
4. Playing with his momma's hair and sucking on her chin. It can be fascinating for a 6 month old.
5. 2 teeth! Every time we make it through another day of nursing, I feel very proud (and relieved).
6. Staying at a sitter for the first time!
7. 1st official play date with little Reagan, who is three days his elder
8. Saying mmm-bah and other babbles in "conversation" with us
9. Sitting up without support! (but not for long before he is reaching for something/anything and knocks himself over)
10. Eating solids...on his list of foods he's tried:

• rice cereal
• oatmeal with banana flavor
• rice with mixed fruits flavor
• rice with apple flavor
• green beans (pretty neutral about gb's...like most people)
• peas (shuddered every couple of bites the first couple feedings, but kept coming back for more. he's a little pig.)
• carrots (being shelved for a while... he kept spitting it up later although he loved it while he was eating it!)
• bananas (savored this one the most...he gave me the hugest, sweetest smile after his first bite!)

Last week, Jacoby had a full day of nothing but screaming and grunting. (No babbles or anything!) He really mustered up the energy to get out a good one each time. He would squirm and kick and then take a deep breath before shrieking at the top of his lungs. Try getting through lunch at Pizza Shoppe with that kind of behavior! I found myself plugging his mouth with a paci to get through the outing!

Jacoby has made a lot of friends at Trish's as well. During the day, he hangs out with Abby (4 months), Joanna and Sam (around 2 years). Although we thought he would befriend Abby first, he seems to be in love with her older sister Jo. Every morning when we walk in, Jo starts clapping and then puts her hands on her knees to look at Jacoby and talk to him. I was told that the other day she was telling Sam not to play with Jacoby and saying, "Mine!" Jacoby gets so excited when he sees Jo and laughs at her all the time. Too cute!

After school, Sam's two older sisters are there for an hour or so and I have seen 2nd grader Carly singing and dancing for Jacoby several times. She also sprints off of the bus to beat the other kids inside and yells, "I get Jacoby!". Her little sister, Paige (who is in Kindergarten) stopped me as I walked in the door the other day and said, "Hey, Mrs. T, where's Mr. T?" I said he was at a tennis match and she said, "Oh, he's on the tennis team?" These are the kind of conversations I get to enjoy daily. We feel so thankful that the transition back to school has gone so smoothly and that Jacoby is so loved in Trish's home. All of my uneasiness about leaving Jacoby and missing the afternoon with him was relieved when I realized this. We are truly blessed to have a church family that loves our son like their own.

I'm excited to experience the holidays with a kid. It will be so wild! That is something we are looking forward to in the coming months.

As a side note, we had our beginning of the year kick-off for Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) tonight. We were amazed to find about 75 kids there for ultimate Frisbee and a blizzard eating competition. A high schooler from our church that I like to call Jr. Zach (for several reasons) can eat a large blizzard in just 37 seconds and there was another high schooler that actually thought he could beat that amazing record. Between the two showdowns, Zach shared his testimony with the high schoolers, which made me very proud. He was reflecting on the wasted years of being too timid to share the gospel with his friends and teammates, and that he finally realized that God calls us to be bold in our faith and to not have a spirit of fear or timidity. I can attest firsthand of the change of heart that I have seen in my husband even since we started dating. It has been wonderful to watch him really be a man about being a servant leader and to have a heart for sharing his faith. There is nothing better than that.