Fall Update

When I claimed I had fallen prey to the gods of blog, did you think I was going to worship them, too? And by "worship", I mean actually keep you all current and regular via web posts? Even the wisest of you should know me better than that. I love you, but only the Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan can teach an old dog new tricks. (My latest hero, by the way. I'm even thinking about submitting a video of Lulabelle peeing on the floor to see if we can get a visit from the man himself!)

Okay, enough about me, who of you cares about her anyway? The topic of the year: Jett. As in "Son-of-Jay-&-Emily Jett". That's the only important title we have anymore. Don't worry, we talk about him about 98% of the time, too, so we can relate.

Crawling:
Jett's crawling abilities have been honed to perfection. He crawls over things (dogs), around things (people), under things (tables), through things (legs). He pulls up on anything stationary, even semi-mobile, such as our pant legs. One of the most amusing (in a cute way) things to watch is Jett hauling off away from you - his little bottom wags back and forth like a super-charged pendulum.

Grabbing:
He grabs at everything that catches his eye - especially blinking, sparkling, shiny, and hairy. Yes, hairy. This includes both Lulabelle and Jay. Arm and leg hair are grabby-favorites. (Glad I don't qualify). It always makes me chuckle when he goes for it - not sure why Jay doesn't laugh as much.
Jett also does this flappy thing with his hands - imagine waving in the air, but lower the arm and put an object in front of the hand. Bingo. I'll call it the "flappy-grab".
Another trick that pleases Jett is the "grab-rake-pinch". This is a combination of the grab and the flappy-grab with a fingernail twist. It is things like this and dirty diapers that inspire the regular upkeep of the Fenlaw Baby Spa at Santa Monica.

Chewing:
Anything that Jett manages to capture in his little hands immediately falls victim to the eight little enamel-coated chisels in his mouth. Four up top and four on bottom, people, front and center. Oh, they're really cute (really) when he's smiling, but just wait until they close down around a small hunk of your skin. I just wish he'd translate these mad chewing skills to his food; we're still mashing that stuff up. I'll spare you the category called "Gag Reflex".

Favorite Toys:
As soon as I wrote this category title I realized how would I name the toys? So I'll just keep it to one in particular here and for the rest you can have a look at the pictures on the photo-web site: Jett is pictured with many of them in his mouth. One that I can entitle is "wooden blocks" - pretty strait-forward. They're those colorful, old school, 1 1/2-inch-square blocks with animals, numbers and letters engraved/carved on each side. Grandma Genevieve gave those to Jett. My question is this: is it possible to actually sharpen teeth whittling away on wood?

Scooting:
For those unlearned in baby development terms (I was you only 10 short months ago), this means the child is holding onto something and walks alongside it, still holding on. I'm told it is a close predecessor to walking. No "yikes" here, we are very excited about Jett taking his first steps!!!

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In other news, Jay turned 30 yesterday, Nov. 4th. He's now the oldest member of our family.

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I hope this was an enjoyable update for some of you loving beggars out there (Sarah) - I hope you feel caught up! Again, my apologies to those who would have liked something in-between August and now. Too bad so sad, you're stuck with me.

love, Em/Jay/Jett/Lulabelle!