i am 16 months old

Jarrett turned 16 months old yesterday. He will be celebrating his birthday by going to the LA County Fair on Sunday and if he's good he'll get to go with Mommy to a bridal shower today(ETA...he was good).

Jarrett is a thrill a minute. He's so full of life, he keeps us on our toes. The last month brought us lots of joy, including but not limited to the following:

PHONE HACKER: A week ago, he was playing with my cell phone. It's not unusual for him to call people and I just say it's Jarrett calling. I was laying down relaxing and all of a sudden I heard someone speaking Krio, I thought someone had called our phone and I missed hearing the phone ring and the answering machine had picked up. After a couple of messages I realized that wasn't our phone. Jarrett had called my parent's house and somehow pressed the correct codes that got through to their voicemail. We were hearing all of my parent's messages! Oh no, Jarrett is a phone hacker!!!!!!!!

HATS: One day while we hung out in the garage, Marvin put one of his old hats on Jarrett. Since then, anything that looks like a hat goes on Jarrett's head. He loves finding bowls, cups, pretty much anything round to put on his head to pretend it is his hat.

HANG OUT: We moved some furniture around in the den. I love the layout but Jarrett loves it even more. He's found a spot that he calls all his own. He loves taking a bite to eat and going and sitting in his spot and eating out or just relaxing there.

PLAYING OUTSIDE: Jarrett loves to play outside. He likes to go to the backyard or even the garage sometimes to just play. This is great because it forces us to get up and go out and do something!

INDEPENDENT RUNNER: I'm amazed how fast this little thing is. Since he's so little and can fit in little spaces he is sometimes hard to catch. He loves having us run and chase after him.

WHAT HE LIKES TO EAT: This month we realized Jarrett loves biting into fruits. He loves having a nice juicy peach or plum or nectarine or strawberry and taking a BIG bite out of it.

HOBBIES: Reading books, Watching Play with me Sesame (or whatever is on Sprout), playing outside, playing with water, hiding rverything, playing with cabinets, discovering what's in the house, coloring, running from room to room, playing basketball, singing.

Mommy & Jarrett


Jarrett's hiding spot/hang out


Hair raising heat in Vegas


Fun at Gymboree


Look at those eyes!


Jarrett and his hat

how ya like me now?

After 15 months and 25 days, Jarrett has finally gotten a haircut. For the first year I didn't cut his hair because there is an old wives tale that says you shouldn't cut a baby's hair before a year. After a year passed, I had become so attached to Jarrett's hair and thought cutting his hair would change Jarrett in some way. Somehow Jarrett had become defined by his hair. When we are out people always comment on his hair so I didn't want to part with it. On Sunday, 9/14/08 we decided that it was time. We could no longer allow Jarrett to continue with the massive amount of hair that he had on the top of his head. Marvin took the shears, I nursed him and snip, snip, snip and a new Jarrett was born. An even cuter, less haired Jarrett.

Here are some pics from 9/14/08, the day of Jarrett's first haircut. It will go in our history books.

Before







After

i am 15 months old

Jarrett turned 15 months old yesterday. On a weekly basis, Marvin and I say to each other, can you believe it? He has only been in our lives for 15 months. I honestly do not remember life without him. I remember a few days before the cesarean section that brought Jarrett to this world, Marvin and I were lying in bed thinking how much our lives were going to change; we could never have imagined that it would be this much.

As you can see below, taking Jarrett’s monthly pictures is no longer an easy task. I stopped at 12 months because I realized that once he was mobile I would not be able to keep him still. As you can see in the pictures I was right. It was fun trying though.

Jarrett is a little boy who loves to make his voice heard. This includes in church, at the grocery store, or at the park. He loves saying hi and bye to the neighbors and if I didn’t stop him, he would walk across the street to do it.

What antics has Jarrett been up to lately? This past Saturday, I couldn’t find the phone. I knew Jarrett was playing with it but I didn’t think he could have had any time to dispose of it. I looked in his favorite hiding place – the trash and didn’t see it there. I figure it was one of those things that would reappear when I wasn’t looking for it. By the next day when we still couldn’t find it, Marvin decided to do some investigative work. He paged the phone and the sound appeared to be coming from many of Jarrett’s favorite hiding places. He looked in the cabinets, the pantry and still it was nowhere to be found. Finally he decided to lift up the trash bag and what do you know a ringing phone. He had to fish the phone up from all the way in the bottom and Lysol the phone. I’ve got to make it to the store soon to find a different trash can since Jarrett has outwitted us on this one.

What else? Oh this one is cute. We were out in the backyard playing and he was playing with his bubble wand. He then took the wand to one of his hiding places. I looked for it and when I couldn’t find it I finally said to Jarrett “bubbles” in an inquisitive tone. What do you know, he walked me to the bucket that he placed the bubble wand in. Sure enough I looked down and saw the bubble wand. I was amazed as I would have never found it in there.

Another thing he does, believe it or not, is sweep. He takes the broom and dustpan and sweeps the kitchen. Can you believe it, a cleaning baby! Now if I can just get him to stop messing everything up that would be wonderful. I do have pics of this on my phone but I’m not used to taking pics on my phone so I’m not quite sure how to get them off.

One of Jarrett’s new favorite things to do is to come, look at me and then run so I can run after him. For a little pint size munchkin, he is very fast. Attached is a video of him running.

Well, that’s all! Happy 15 months Baby Jarrett!!!

hi monkeys and doggies

Interesting that my last post said that I would post everyday and since then I've been missing in action. Thanks to a good friend who reminded me that I need to update the blog so everyone can know what's going on with Jarrett. I'm not sure what kept me away, initially I thought it was just laziness but then I realized that with Jarrett's mobility things have never been the same. We spend half the day retrieving whatever it is he might have thrown in the trash, might have hidden in a drawer or taking him away from somewhere he shouldn't be.

The cutest thing from Jarrett is when I come home from work. For example, yesterday I came into the room and he and Marvin were playing with each other. Marvin said, oh hey. Jarrett looked around wondering who he was talking to since he didn't see me come in, all of a sudden he noticed me and was like HI! It's so cute how he says it.

The previous day I walked in, went to the bathroom. Marvin walked passed the bathroom and said hi to me. Jarrett was following Marvin and he walked passed the bathroom, noticed me, kept walking and then walked backwards and said a big HI, like oops I missed something, I like that woman, she's my mommy. Anyway, its really cute not sure how it comes across on the blog but it's so cute when he first notices me when I come home from work.

Another cute thing he does is when you say how are you, he says good. It's so cute to hear him conversing with people in his own little way.

For the last couple of weeks Jarrett has had the pleasure of hanging out with my mom and sister during the day. Each day, either my mom or my sister are worn out by Jarrett's energy. My mom said one day that her house has been completely overthrown by Jarrett :) When he's with my sister who has a dog named Fireman, she says that between Fireman and Jarrett, that they have completely worn out and she says they feed off of each other and do all they can to make her go crazy. It seems Jarrett really loves Fireman and loves hanging out with him and playing with him. Fireman stayed with us for a week and during that week Jarrett enjoyed playing with him (which many times included torturing him). One of the things Jarrett loved to do is get Fireman backed in a corner and then laugh at him. That's my baby!

So what else has been going on. The day of the earthquake (July 29) I had the day off and we went to the Santa Ana Zoo. I think it should be renamed Backyard of someone's house zoo due to the size but I digress. Anyway, it was kind of funny because Jarrett continuosly called a lot of the animals doggy. Not sure if it is because it is one of his favorite words or if the animals simply looked like doggies to him. We were by the monkeys when the earthquake occurred while Jarrett was calling them doggies. All of a sudden all the monkeys started going from branch to branch, poor things were hysterical. Jarrett was just looking around like what is going on. Jarrett didn't even know the earth was shaking and rumbling. The animals were shaken up for at least 30 minutes afterwards but it seemed like all was ok at the zoo.

summer fun

In some odd way, I prefer doing this on a daily basis because it is much easier to remember the little cute things on a daily basis than to try and think back to 7 or 8days ago.

Well, Jarrett is Mr. Independent. He is so super mobile, it's crazy. He loves walking everywhere. If I take a moment to turn around, he is gone. It's amazing. Enjoy these pictures. Jarrett loves corn on the cob as much as I do, the other day I opened up the refridgerator and Jarrett went right for the corn on the cob and started eating it. He wouldn't let go, I couldn't believe my eyes, it was too cute seeing him walk around with the corn on the cob chomping down. The other pics were after church on Sunday - I went to the backyard to clean up and Jarrett went right into the pool I was setting up for him, clothes and all. Again, couldn't believe my little baby - can't believe how fast he is growing up.

day 30 - all good things must come to an end

Today is the last day of my 30 day marathon into Jarrett's life. It was a fun activity that wasn't actually as hard as I thought it might be. I took the day off work today to hang out with Jarrett and get over Sea World and I wish I can have more days off like this. We did nothing all day and loved it. Jarrett ransacked the house as usual, I cleaned up after him. Jarrett changed the channels, I tried to rediscover what I was watching. Jarrett took a nap, I tried to put in child safety locks. Jarrett napped again, Marvin tried to put together his new bbq. Jarrett played, I said hi on the computer. This is what life is all about. Wish we could have more days together like this. Tata!

day 29 - sea world baby

Today, we ventured out to Sea World and had a pretty good time. At first, Jarrett was scared when he saw Shamu come out of the water but after he while he realized that was what he was there for and he become ok with seeing 2000+ lb animals jump out of the water. It was actually a hot day out there, so Jarrett was forced to wear a hat that kept flying away. It didn't help that Jarrett tried to keep pulling it off either. I think Jarrett's favorite show was the dolphins - he was clapping as they came out of the water and he was very excited to see them. As a matter of fact that was my favorite show too, what do you know. We have a free day to go back in 2008 so maybe we will plan a trip for later in the year.