James's first march

On Saturday, we participated in the March of Dimes walk in Roswell. James led the way in his stroller, and Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma followed along. As you can see, James was fairly comfortable in his stroller. Daddy carried him for the last half-mile or so. The weather was great, and we all feel like we did quite well in the walk. We went as part of the Magdalena Roberts team, the rest of which will be walking this Saturday in Mississippi. Many thanks to all of you who donated to the March.
James continues to learn all kinds of fun new things. He is very good at raising himself up from his stomach into a seated position. He puts his hands out, pushes back, tucks his legs under, and sits up. The first couple of times he did it, he looked a little surprised at the position he ended up in. Now, however, it is no big deal for him.
James is also starting to climb up onto things. As soon as he learned to sit upright on his own, he decided he wanted to stand. He has a little activity table with buttons and knobs and lights - last month, he learned to sit in front of it and hit the buttons, and now he holds onto it and uses it to get up on his feet. He is also holding onto the sides of his portable kennel and using it to stand up:

Technically it is not a kennel, but it kinda looks like one. Mommy's friend Ann is letting us use it. It's great; it keeps the cats out and the boy in.

James has also discovered that it is fun to stick his tongue out. He gets really excited when Mommy does the same. Sitting with Mommy and making faces keeps him entertained for hours. Well, minutes, really. But it seems like a long time.

We got a call from the cardiologist's office, and they had the results of James's recent blood test (see previous blogs for details). The tests show that James does not have any of the markers that indicate a predisposition for long QT syndrome. Of course they still won't say that there's nothing wrong with him, because that would mean they'll never see our bank account again, and they've grown quite fond of it. So they want to do periodic EKGs for as long as they can get away with it. But evidence continues to pile up proving that James is perfectly healthy and that these doctors are full of crap. I say that with all due respect, of course.

Okay, time for prunes and carrots. For James, anyway; hopefully Mommy and Daddy can find something else to eat.

James Has Never Looked Better

Ok guys, two things you need to do:

1. Check out James's new pictures on

 http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog/ 

the blog for Stylized Portraiture.  These are only some of the pictures Heather took, and they're incredible.  

2. Sponsor Patrick and me on our walk for March of Dimes on Saturday.  We're walking as part of the team for Noah and Julie's baby, Magdalena.  You may have read about her as Patrick linked their blog.  In case you want to check them out, their blog is on 

http://noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com/

if you want to know their story.  But we're looking for sponsors, so go to 

http://www.marchforbabies.org/jpfwallace

and sponsor us.  

And have an excellent day.  :)

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

Look at this gorgeous guy.  :)

James wears his Boyd's Bears jammies--take note, Auntie Erin!

James and Daddy Look so handsome. 

 

     Well, today was a big photo day for James.  He had his six month photo shoot with the fancy photographer (Heather Lickliter of Stylized Portraiture) at the Botanical Gardens in Athens.  He looked great, especially in his Def Leppard onesie.  The pictures will be great.  We also took some pictures of him because he's just so gosh darn cute.  

     Case in point: tonight as Patrick and I are desperately trying to get him to go to sleep, he's making raspberries and sticking out his tongue and making raspberries again.  So I stick my tongue out and do a tongue-protruding raspberry, and James tries to do the same thing, mostly just producing large amounts of spit.  So I do it again, and he tries again, over and over.  

     He finally achieved success (as much as can be expected of a six month old), and Patrick got it on video.  We all had the most marvelous time, even though we're exhausted and very ready for sleep.  Well, two of us are.  James is still wide awake and playing with Patrick's shoe lace.  

Pictures and a Brief Update

Auntie Kristin painted James a beautiful valence when she was visiting.  We'll be putting it up this weekend.

Grandma bought James a new hat, which he loves.  

The Easter Bunny brought James all kinds of good stuff.

As Daddy said, James looked quite dapper on Easter.

Looking somewhat less dapper, James enjoyed his carrots.

Not too much time to write tonight, but I wanted to post some pictures of my beautiful boy.  He's growing so fast and doing new things every day.  Today he was laying on his stomach and pushed himself up so that he was on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth and all primed for crawling.  Growing boy.  So cute!  :)

So Many Firsts

     Well, it has been an exciting few days in the life of James.  On Sunday, at six months and one day, James got his first scrape (photo to come).  Poor kid landed on his nose on the edge of my computer (Can you believe what a bad mother I am?  Someone should really call DFACS.) while he was working on his sitting up and I was working on Facebook.  His nose seems to be healing well, but there's no telling how deep the emotional scars run.  Mine and his.  

     The very next day, at six months and two days, James did his first community service.  He and I went with my mom and my sister Kristin to do Meals on Wheels, which was great fun.  James cheered some of the elderly residents of the elderly residence home where we delivered the meals.  They all thought he was adorable, so obviously they all have very good taste.  I hope they don't have very good taste buds, though, as the food didn't smell that great.  But perhaps it was delicious.  I didn't sample, so I suppose I really ought not judge.  

      After we delivered the meals, we took James to his very first tea party at this tea shop near my mom's house.  He was unimpressed and mostly cranky, though I was quite taken with the orange tea and cinnamon scone.  James cheered right up after I fed him, so I think the crankiness was primarily due to hunger and not a general dislike of tea parties.  His father might disagree though.  

     This week, he and I have been hanging out while Patrick worked for his old land lady (old in the sense that she's no longer his land lady; not old in the sense that she's some sort of geriatric person.  She's really quite spry and lively.).  It was so much fun to be able to spend the day with my little boy.  However, I'm amazed that Patrick is able to do things like laundry and dinner-making.  James is certainly a full-time job.  A fun full-time job, but a full-time job nonetheless.  I was considerably less productive than he generally is.   

     I'm quite distressed that I'll have to return to work in just two days.  It was a great spring break, and now I can't wait for summer.  I love my job, but I love my boy more. 

     We'll have some Easter pictures to post soon as my mom and sister found James the cutest Easter outfit.  I know he'll be the cutest thing ever on Sunday.  

     Right now the house sounds like it's about to collapse down on top of us as the hail that's hitting it must be the size of small Volkswagens.  James seems undisturbed, and is sitting on the floor (with tremendous skill, I might add) playing with his little trucks.  I'm going to go enjoy more time with him. 

Six Big Months

James is officially six months old!  This is a milestone for several reasons, we have discovered.

First, a lot of his toys are labeled "6m+".  He has been playing with them for a couple of months now, but today he can officially play with them without Daddy getting in trouble from DFACS.  So you know what that means: time to buy him some 12m+ toys.  

Second, a lot of baby health problems are less likely after the six-month mark.  SIDS is rare after this age, and his immune system has developed enough to fight off infections more efficiently now.  Respiratory infections and things like that are less life-threatening, too.  We still worry about him, but it's good to know that he's not completely helpless against sickness now.  

      Third, he has started eating actual foods.  Well, not actual foods like pot roast or tacos, but non-milk foods.  We have been giving him a little bit of baby cereal for a couple of weeks now, but it's mostly milk with a little bit of rice powder in it.  Now we get to try fruits and vegetables (in mush form).  Here we see the first experience with green beans: 

He was a bit confused at first, but he seemed to like it after a few tries.  He actually ate most of what was in the bowl (everything that he didn't end up wearing).  We have a couple more days with the green beans (we're supposed to stick with one food for a few days to see if he has an allergic reaction to it), then we can try other fun things like carrots, bananas, and applesauce.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a big bucket of baby clothes from a yard sale.  We're still working our way through the bucket, but it was worth the price for this one outfit alone:

It is an authentic Def Leppard onesie!  Who knew such things existed?  James can't wait to see what other treasures await him in the mystery yard sale bucket.  We're hoping the previous owners were Bon Jovi fans too. 

Auntie Kristin does not get a spring break, but she is taking a day off work to spend a long weekend here in Georgia with James (and the rest of us).  Auntie Erin was here last weekend, so James has had lots of attention lately.  Kristin is currently painting a window decoration for James's room, keeping with the jungle motif that mommy started.  Kristin also brought him a toy from her recent trip to Belgium, a little doggie that is now named Wags.

Apparently Wags is quite tasty:

We go to the doctor for the 6-month checkup and immunizations on Tuesday.  He's probably not going to like that.  Hopefully it won't be too bad, though.  Mommy is on spring break, so she can go with us.  Everything is a little easier when Mommy is there.

James is still not exactly crawling, but he is rolling around like crazy.  He can get into the crawling position pretty well, but he just pushes himself backwards.  He sits up completely on his own now, and he stands up on his own with a little help balancing.  One of Mommy's friends came to visit last week, and she brought her one-year-old daughter.  Seeing her run around everywhere was a good indicator (and warning) of what we can expect with James in the next few months.  I think I should start baby-proofing the house now; hopefully it will be safe by the time he can scamper freely.