Look At Me!

Last night we set baby Jack down in the hotel crib. He wasn't feeling too inclined to sleep, so he rolled over, grabbed the bars, pulled up, put one foot under the other, and boom, we was standing up in the crib laughing at us. Looks like we will need to lower the crib all the way down when we get home!

Helping the Economy

Baby Jack and mommy didn't really do anything too fancy today (Jack Jack wanted to nap a lot). We did manage to finish our Christmas shopping though and finally managed to get some things with "wow" factors. I won't elaborate as some of the readers of this blog will be receiving said gifts.

Tomorrow it is off to see Aunt Judy in Key West!

Yesterday's adventures took us to the Miami Children's Museum. It was not a big as the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, but it was still quite nice. The whole place was ocean themed, complete with a fake cruise ship the kids could play in. One room was even set aside for the under 12 month crowd. It had a number of low ballet type bars for babies to pratice standing as well as little spinny things that were very low to the floor. The video isn't uploading s I will post it later.

Jack Jack also made his first trip into the hotel's swimming pool yesterday evening. It took him a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on but before long he was splashing and floating and kicking like a pro! There was a little four year old girl in the pool who was playing with us. Her dad was here for the conference too. Jack Jack got a big kick out of her, but mostly he wanted to bite her tweety bird swimming arms!

By far the funniest part of the day came late last night. We decided to go down to South Beach for dinner with some of GI's collegues. After we parked the car and unloaded the baby GI went to lock it and realize that he could not find the keys! After much searching we realized that the keys must have been locked in the trunk! Three people searched the car top to bottom trying to find a trunk release and there was none to be found. Finally one of the other math guys just tried to open the trunk itself with the little release bar the trunk opened up right away, and yes, there were the keys! After that we were off to a lovely dinner.

King of the Jungle

For Baby Jack's second day in Miami mama and baby headed over to to Jungle Island. What is jungle island? It is what they call a "themed zoo." This was a new idea to me. I thought all zoos had a theme already: animals! Basically a "themed zoo" is a tourist trap zoo where they charge $30 admission fee (the Pittsburgh zoo is $12), and have about half the animals of a normal zoo. Only tropical/Florida themed animals lived there. As such there were mostly tropical birds and monkeys. That being said, it was actually really nicely done. Many of the birds were not in cages and were "allowed" to fly around. The whole "island" was also created using some "new technology land reclamation." Jack Jack's favorite animals were these little monkey that were climbing all about. He got a big kick out of those. He also really enjoyed the parakeets, until they all started squaking at one time. That made him cry big crocodile tears!

I have no idea why, but they also had a liger there. What is a liger you may ask? It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic (Ok the explination was from Napoleon Dynamite, but except for the magic part it is pretty straight on!). It was pretty sweet.

LIfe is a Beach!

Today was Day 1 of our Miami work trip/vacation. We have settled into our room. It has amazing views of Miami that Jack Jack is enjoying taking in. While the hotel is great. Feeding a baby without all the necessary feeding tools creates quite a mess. I think Baby Jack ended up wearing more of his breakfast than he ate!

This afternoon Baby Jack got the ants out of his pants today and exchanged them for some sand! After we managed to find the beach we dug our toes into the sand and splashed them around in the surf on Miami's South Beach.

We stayed at the beach until Jack Jack began to feel a bit salty. He fell asleep very soon after making these angry faces.

Interestingly, the recession appears to have hit South Beach rather hard. On the beach walk there was a giant time/temp/date clock/monument thing. However, instead of updating it with 2009 signage they decided that the cheaper option would be to take a sharpie to the 2007 sign!

And of course, what trip to South beach would be complete without drag queens?

High Flying, Adored!

Yesterday we took off for our week in Florida. GI has a conference in Miami and Jack Jack and I are tagging along to enjoy the sun and surf (currently at 9 am it is a lovely 70 degrees out!).

In order to get to Miami we had to take two roughly 2 hour long flights. They actually went very very well. Neither of the planes were full and US Airways kindly moved people around and so not only did we all sit together, but Jack Jack got to take one of the empty seats (free!). We put his car seat in the spare seat and aside from reading a few books during take off both times he slept through both flights making barely a peep! All in all, getting here was pretty painless.

This afternoon we will be heading down to the beach for a fun family day. GI's conference starts tomorrow and while he is stuck in a dark, artificially lit conference room, Jack Jack and I will be out enjoying Florida. I know. It hardly seems fair. Then on Thursday we will all be heading down to Key West for a day or so to see my Aunt Judy. Lots of fun this week!

Zoom Zoom Zoom

During our pre-bedtime quiet play tonight Jack Jack was scooting around on the floor when suddenly he got up on his hands and knees and took off proper crawling across the floor. We grabbed the camera and took a quick video before we whisked the baby off to bed. Now we really need to do some major baby proofing! I'll post a better video soon.

Big Game Hunter

Mr. Moose's younger brother, Mr. Moose Jr. lost a fight with Baby Jack today. He pulled Mr. Moose Jr. down off the jumper and, well, you can see what he did to him!

Bait and Switch

If you have been following the blog you will have noticed that we have made quite good friends with another couple here in Pittsburgh who also have a baby boy named Jack. We now know each other well enough and the kids know all the adults well enough that we have decided to begin date night switching. Basically one day we take their Jack and they get to go on a date, and then the next night they take our Jack and GI and I get to go out on a date.

Thus Saturday GI and I had the joy of going out on our own for a lovely afternoon date. GI picked the movie and we had quite a lot of fun. It is really nice to have some couple time. When we got back home Jack Jack was perfectly happy and both the boys had been having quite a lot of fun with our friends. Except for the part were both the babies got into a little baby talk fight over my breast pump. I have no idea why that breast pump is like baby crack, but it is!

On Sunday GI and I spent most of the afternoon at their house watching the Jacks while our friends went out to a play. It was quite a lot of fun with both of them. The boys basically passed toys back and forth, usually without incident, and we read lots of books together. Two kids under two years old certainly require two adults to watch them though!

Over all it was a really good switch and we are going to try to do a kid switch/date night at least once a month.

Our friends had brought out one of their Jack's favorite baby toys, a sound and music table. Jack Jack LOVED it and they kindly let us borrow it. Today Jack Jack spent pretty much all day standing at the play table and dancing to the baby music. He is so into standing now that it really is the perfect toy for him! Except for when I had the camera out Baby Jack pretty much ignored me all day he was so absorbed in his toy. He got pretty good at figuring out how all the bells and whistles work.

Splish Splash