Jamey's Moves

After all that Bavarian dancing, Jamey is practicing his dance moves. After countless attempts to capture it on camera, I have finally done it. Enjoy! (Please excuse the crazy chef you hear periodically in the background.)

Ready to Dance

When Jamey "took part" in our Oktoberfests show, he was still in what our doctor calls "the Blob Phase". He was held by whoever and passed around and fell asleep most of the time. He really wasn't that aware of what was happening.

So imagine our excitement when the Fasching (German Mardi Gras) show came along and gave us an opportunity to dress Jamey in his full Lederhosen outfit and take him out with the group. Nowadays, he is much more conscious of the sounds and motion around him. He looks for the sources of noise, and he loves to check out everything going on.

In our show, the first dance that is done is a plattl by just the men. The women stand in a line towards the back of the floor and wait to be picked up for the next dance. There I stood, with Jamey in my arms. His eyes were locked on the men of the group forming a circle. As the music started, their arms started flying and they starting moving around and dancing. Before I knew it, Jamey was hopping up and down in my arms, as if begging to run out and join the men. Throughout the night, as he was held by a number of people while Glenn and I danced, many of them reported the same thing happening while they were holding him. It seems that Jamey is ready to go out and join the group. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he gets to watch Christopher dancing every day. Give them a few years and it will be very fun to watch them plattl.

Jamey has actually been doing this dancing for a while, proving that he has a great rhythm.

On another note, we have been trying out some more foods with Jamey. Today we bought him some Puffs at the grocery store. In the past weeks, he has proven to us that he has veyr good fine motor skills-- holding things between his finger and thumb. He loves to rub the tags on his stuffed animals between his fingers. He proved very good at picking the Puffs up, but has a little trouble placing them in his mouth. But we keep working on it-- practice makes perfect.

Cookies taste better than paper!

Although it has only been a few weeks since I have posted, I am lost in a million thoughts of the things that I want to write about. It seems as though every day, Jamey is more fun to watch. Every motion he makes with his hands evokes a look on his face that is new. Perhaps my favorite thing is when an object is slightly in his way when he is looking around. He then leans his head forward, raises his eyebrows and has a grin on his face as his eyes search for what he is trying to see. This face was the inspiration for my favorite game, in which I hide a little and yell, "Jamey, where am I? Come find me." He searches around and when he finds me, he has a huge grin on his face.

In the past weeks, Jamey has begun to give his digestive system a little more of a challenge. About two weeks ago, Glenn and I decided to demonstrate the statement I had made to my sister that when it snows, no one wants to cook and goes out to eat. While it began to snow, we drove over to Red Lobster. We kept Jamey busy by handing him things he could crumple and make noise with. One of the last, while we hurried to finish our dinners, was Glenn's coaster. It was thick, and of course, Jamey decided to see what it would taste like. This was fine until a bit later when we pulled the coaster away from him and saw a little bite mark. Oops!

A few days later, it happened again. Jamey sat on my lap while I played a computer game. He grabbed at a small pad of paper on the desk, that was shaped like an apple. He liked it, cause he could get at one of the pieces of paper and listen to it crinkle. He managed to rip one apple off the stack. Three minutes passed as my game ended. I looked down and wondered, Where did that piece of paper go that Jamey had in his hand? I panicked, reached into his mouth and felt nothing. I looked all around us on the floor and saw nothing. I thought to myself that maybe it had fallen somewhere that I couldn't see. And then... as he unfurled his fist, a tiny piece of wadded up yellow fell out of his hand. Panic set in again. I got Jamey to open his mouth, and there, wadded up on the roof of his mouth was half of the paper. The other half must have safely found its way down into his belly. Needless to say, we are much more careful now of what he has in his hand.

As a reaction to Jamey's relentless efforts to eat things he shouldn't, we bought him his first box of biter biscuits today. These are made by Gerber, especially for babies who don't really have any teeth. It has no sugar or anything that could be bad for the baby. In putting away the groceries, Jamey got ahold of my book of coupons and I was only too happy to trade the book with him for one of his biscuits. He grasped it with curiosity and within minutes, the biscuit was already started to dissolve in his mouth. After half an hour, that dissolving cookie wasn't just in his mouth.... it was on his hands, down his outfit, on his face, and even a little in his hair. Needless to say, it was a hit.
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With as many baby versions of things that Jamey has, from a PDA to a CD Player to a piano to 2 cell phones, it seems that the most fun is to be had from the real thing. One day, he managed to call an 800 number on my cell phone somehow. Thank goodness it was Saturday and the business was closed. But perhaps the cooler toy is the remote for the TV. It lights up, it makes the numbers on "that box" above the tv blink. Believe it or not, Jamey does seem to understand that when he pushes a button, a little pin of light blinks on the box. I know this because he raises the remote in his hand and turns his head to look at the box. He then stares at it and continues to push buttons. All this, with the television off. And what, might you ask, does Jamey prefer to watch on TV?

Well, last night he directed us to a documentary program about 70's singers Peter, Paul and Mary. But more than that, he has twice attempted to access the Latin American Playboy channel, which we, of course, do not have.

As well as learning how to use his hands, Jamey has developed a keen sense of hearing. Whenever he hears a sound, he peers around to find its source. Sometimes that source is the heater, sometimes it is a person. Perhaps the funniest experience is when Jamey came into contact with the radio. In the morning, I put Jamey on our bed while I change for work. Because the alarm is still on from waking us, NPR is usually blaring through the room from the radio next to our bed. For most of his life, Jamey took no notice. Then, one day, he was sitting there playing with his toys and I noticed him lean forward from the pillow behind him and peer around it to look at the night table. His eyes searched for "the woman who was talking". After a second, he went back to his toys. But every few seconds, I noticed his head shift back toward the radio. Luckily, I caught it on camera at least once. (The blue light you see is the alarm clock)