he be growing, this boy.

A recent capture of Jaxon who is proudly soother free and sleeping through the night!  Why did we wait so long?  Oh ya ... it was the whole "splitting the forehead open" thing.  Not to mention the "cutting 3 new teeth" thing.  Can't forget the "sick with the cough that has plagued our home since October" thing. After Jax bit holes in the last of his soothers with his sharp little biters, Paul chomped the whole end off and gave it back to him.  He was understandably weirded out by this new development and rapidly lost interest. He, he himself carved the roast beast tossed it in the garbage and hasn't askcd for it since.  If he could articulate it, I'm pretty sure he'd be asking for his voice back. Not sure if it was the cough or the screaming for 30 minutes for a few bedtimes ... whatever the cause, it's coming back.  He uses his sweet raspy voice to practice his new words, garage, grinch and tree, and will usually cooperate when I prompt him to repeat after me to spell M-a-r-t-y.  Just to bump up the cute factor, he says 'yay' instead of 'y'.  Try this link to a video I just made ... Chat with Jaxon. (It sort of worked, for some reason the sound is faster than the picture, but you get the idea.)

We were out for Paul's work Christmas dinner party last week.  On the way home from White Rock, I remembered that I had failed to mention to the babysitter that Jaxon sometimes falls asleep at the front door if I am out and he's waiting for me to come home.  There have been occasions where there is absolutely nothing Paul can do to console him, and the best way to parent in that situation (for us, maybe probably not for you!) is to get him a pillow, blanket and teddy bear.  Sure enough, the babysitter (who is a young adult with a good head and knows Jaxon from caring for him at church events) had quite a story to tell about the events of bedtime.  She settled the older boys in easily and when Jax ran from the room saying "No, no, no!" she quickly said goodnight to the others and went to fetch him.  She's British, so she may have actually said 'fetch'.  Poor girl couldn't find him anywhere!  She searched the whole house.  At long last she spotted a suspicious mass under his blankie, standing (maybe kneeling?) against the wall, between the shoe bench and coat hangers.  Very near to the place where I once found Marty asleep last year, although everyone was at home this time ...

{Marty, October 2009}

So Jax was hiding against the wall and answered "No!" to all her promptings to get him to go to bed, or to sit with her on the couch.  She went to sit down and a while later heard a little shuffle.  It was the kind of shuffle made by a boy who has fallen asleep with his head against a wall, under a blanket.  He woke up when she scooped him up and still resisted going to bed, but that proved to be futile.  He finally settled in his bed and didn't make another peep the whole night.

Speaking of night ... it's time for bed!