11 months old!

Jessie is 11 months old today! Wow! How time flies.

And my mom and dad are celebrating 45 years together. Congrats to them. I was going to call you both today to congratulate you, but I left my phone at home, and I don't think Tristar/HCA wants to pay for a call to you for a "Happy Anniversary." So, in case you read this before I call you tomorrow, "Happy Anniversary!"

Jessie went swimming on Sunday. We floated her around for 30 or 45 minutes, after slathering her with sunscreen spray. Her floaty toy also has a shade on it too. She enjoyed it. Holly even dunked her a few times (blow on face to make her hold breath, dunk, bring her up). She handled it pretty well. She even clapped a few times, after getting the water rubbed out of her eyes.

This is a picture from Memorial Day weekend (I think) when Dad got up early and fed Jessie before I took her to daycare. Wait, no, it wasn't Mem Day weekend if I was taking her to daycare. It was the middle-of-the-week visit they did recently.

Gotta go to bed. I'm exhausted.

--
Larry Crockett
Franklin, TN
Run with whatcha brung, and hope you brung enough

Jessie has figured out how to open up the drawers. She sat in front of
this one and opened it, and shut it, opened and shut it, countless
times. Of course, she doesn't know how to gently do it, so it was
open, BANG, open, BANG, over and over. It was cute the first 30 times.

I'll be taking Jessie to the doc today for a follow-up visit, as today
is Antibiotic Day 10, final day. Hopefully things are clearing up, and
we won't have to do the antibiotic dance. However, we will be taking
her to an ENT for possible ear tube placement.

Holly has some cute pictures to post...I'll leave them to her, and
remind her to post later today (probably tonight). I'm just up because
I can't sleep, for some reason. Don't know why.

--
Larry Crockett
Franklin, TN
Run with whatcha brung, and hope you brung enough

ear infections...again

Jessie has bilateral ear infections...again. We took her to the doc on Saturday. She now meets criteria for ear tubes, so we will be seeing an ENT for her to get them placed. She ran a pretty good fever Friday and Saturday, and even likely some Sunday. She felt hot all the time, and was pretty irritable. But, she'd get playful and play for a while, too.

I "jogged" her to daycare yesterday. Holly and I got her ready, but Holly had to leave pretty quickly, because Jessie actually slept till 630am, and I decided to let her sleep until she awakened. After I made a small bottle of milk with some antibiotic in it, I ran to put my running clothes on, loaded her stroller with the daily items for daycare, and we took off. It is 0.7 miles through a couple of yards and over a downed wire fence, but it was neat. I dropped her off, and BOY the stroller is a lot easier to push when it doesn't have a 20# baby girl and a 6 or 8 pound (?) diaper bag in it!

--
Larry Crockett
Franklin, TN
Run with whatcha brung, and hope you brung enough

visions

I had visions of a Caribbean Fireman with toilet paper, when I saw
Holly's title to her entry. How funny a vision that was!

As Holly alluded, Jessie likes Mr. Squirrel. Matter of fact, I can
just say, "Jessie! Mr. Squirrel!", point to the door, and she looks in
that direction, often crawling wildly to the door to look outward. The
other day she reached for the doorknob, attempting to go AWOL. But we
have the safety doorknobs, and she's not quite tall enough to do
anything with them yet anyway.

At the IHOP the other day, not only was Jessie melting firefighters'
hearts, she had the IHOP staff lining up. Our server said that they
were all asking one another, "Did you see that little girl on Table
51?"

Getting so much attention has also taught her that she knows she can
get it. We have had to pop her little bottom a time or two when she
would holler or fit-pitch for no reason, except that she wasn't
getting attention at that moment, or was not doing what SHE wanted to
do.

I have no idea where she gets her strong will.

--
Larry Crockett
Franklin, TN
Run with whatcha brung, and hope you brung enough

Carribean Fireman with toilet paper

Oh Wow! How quick I can get behind in blogging.  Friday, Jessie was standing in the den with me and Larry and she took her first witnessed step.  It was a kind of a twist-turn-step-fall.  She doesn't seem to mind all the falls. I guess the Good Lord gave her plenty of padding. (Smile)  Saturday, she followed me to the bathroom and had so much fun pulling the toilet paper off the roll and tearing it into many tiny pieces. She was excited at this new found skill, although she didn't seem to like that it got cleaned up as soon as it hit the ground.
Saturday we all went to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) and ate stuffed french toast with strawberries, eggs, hashbrowns, and bacon.  Jessie was all bright eyed and waving to everyone that walked by our table.  She and we loved the sweet attention.  She is such a Social Bug!  There was a table of Nashville firemen eating when we arrived.  As they walked by our table to leave (Jessie being seated in a highchair in the aisle), she reached up and grabbed the first firemans arm. He was startled and thought he had accidently brushed up against her and stopped to apologize.  When he looked down at her, she was smiling wildly. It was a sweet site to see a fifty year old stranger man in a macho profession to have his heart melted so quick.
She still loves watching Mr. Squirrel everyday. She gets the biggest 2 teethed grin and crawls as quick as she can to the den window/door. This is all fine until she gets overcome with excitement and bangs hello on the glass with her head and hands. Of course, Mr. Squirrel gets scared and runs away to the rooftop or pool below.
Jessie used to not like fruit and gag at the first or second bite.  Now mommy puts it in rice cereal and she loves most flavors.  Her favorite so far is apple-strawberry-banana. She tried a new fruit ---mango..  She loved it so much that I think she is practicing eating like she is in the Carribean. I told her that Gaga eats stuff like that on his business trips.  Maybe she can go there someday with Nana and Gaga.
Love,
Holly