Happy Halloween

This was Jack's Halloween outfit for today. We didn't get him a costume because we couldn't find one we liked and we weren't going anywhere anyway -- early plans to go to a special Disneyland event fell through when we couldn't get tickets. So Jack got to wear this cute outfit -- for about ten minutes this morning, when it was irretrievably soiled necessitating a quick change before day care. Oh well. Just wait 'til next year.

In general Jack news, a few weeks back Jack graduated to solid foods, oatmeal and rice cereal in his case. Just the yesterday Jack had his first taste of something other than thin gruel -- squash! And quite a sight it was to see him covered in bright orange ooze. Very autumnal and Halloween-y. Onward to peas soon!

Mommy's sure selling it being delicious and exciting....

Jack is definitely interested....
The payload is delivered...
...but he's a tough critic.

Genevieve snapped these cute shots today. He sure takes a cute picture.

Cheesecake

Well, here's a blast from the past for you. In March of 1964 these photos were taken a long, long way from California. This is Dad himself in all his glory . . .

Not to be outdone, and not at all ashamed of showing a little skin, Jack struck a similar pose today, some 41 years (and change) later. Couldn't choose just one to post, so I had to choose them all. Bear rug (for bare baby) courtesy of Jack's Nanny and Pop.


Even the hottest model gets a little sick of these photo shoots after a while . . .

Happy 6-month birthday, Jack!

Jack is officially six months old today. Incredible to believe that 6 months ago tonight life as we know it changed irrevocably for the better. We love him so much, more than we ever thought it was possible to love somebody.

Here's some quick pictures from a few minutes ago, just to celebrate. Be sure to click on them to see the bigger versions, they are much cuter when seen large. I love the drool-icicle (droolsicle?) in the third one along.

Incredible Saturday

Yes, that's Mrs. Incredible, whose movie son, you'll recall, is Jack-Jack. We went over to Disneyland on Saturday for a little family relaxation time. We are annual passholders at Disneyland and we just love it. While it is a considerable expense to purchase annual passes, it is literally the only thing we do for entertainment. And there is so much to do or see, we generally only do a fraction of the attractions on each visit of 10 hours or so. It's just something Genevieve and I love and enjoy a lot, and it's very, very baby-friendly, with very nice baby-changing and nursing rooms for some quiet time, plenty of chagning areas throughout the park, and generally a colorful atmosphere that Jack loves taking in.

The night before, Jack had a little entanglement with an educational toy. No, Butz, those are not Redskins colors. They are Boston College colors, though.A baby needs a little rest-up before a big day at Disneyland and Jack caught some Z's prior to departure. The big hit with Jack this visit was "Turle Talk" with Crush from Finding Nemo. It is so funny when he takes a huge interest in something he sees. He stands up, stiffen and strains his body toward whatever it is, eyes as big as saucers, hand as often as not plunged into mouth. On huis last visit Haunted Mansion Holiday was the big hit, but Crush got the honors today, though Mommy's favorite ride (below) also won big points with its gushing geysers and fountains.


One of mommy's favorite rides is the Grizzly River Rapids ride, a very nicely imagined flume/river ride that runs around the giant Grizzly Mountain in the middle of Disney's California Adventure. The imagineers did an amazing job making this ride and indeed this whole section of the park seem very natural.

Jack eagerly watched the passing riders, looking for his Mommy among them.


Finally, mommy came whipping around the corner in her spinning raft.


Mommy's pretty cool, isn't she?

Bon apetit

Jack just started on his rice cereal about a week ago. Should have been at 5 months exactly, but he had some tummy problems that delayed it. At first he was thoroughly grossed out by it but now he is devouring more than his share, even opening his mouth when he sees the spoon coming -- or when he feels like showing you what he's just ate, as above.

Of course, when ya can't get rice cereal, toes will do. Some garlic butter with those for m'sieur?

Frequent Flier

Just a few hours ago we got back from Albany, New York, where my sister got married to a fine young man named Travis. Snapped this picture this evening in the tunnel between C and D terminals in Cleveland where we connected our Albany flight to an LAX flight. Jack was, simply, amazing. Even the other passengers commented on it. He never cried or was fussy, except at his usual times when he was just about to fall asleep or eat. Literally, didn't make a peep except a bunch of giggles of delight when we played with him or fellow passengers made faces at him. Really unbelievable, and this was both ways to and from Albany, with a long 4 1/2 hour layover in Newark on the way there and a hurried connection in Cleveland on the way back. We are so fortunate to have such a sweet-natured baby.

Jack had quite a weekend! He more or less recovered from his tummy problems, though his teething still produces some, er, alarming results on the changing table. On his voyages he met many many family and friends and admirers (and readers of this blog whom I don't even know, really). Rather overwhelming at times for the little guy -- at the reception it was hard to get through the room without many well-intentioned hugs and grabs -- but he stayed cheerful and happy most of the time, ever-curious and smiling. Only once, at the reception, after about an hour and a half of steadily being passed around, pinched and smooched did he have a mini-meltdown, but after a nap (see below) and some quiet time with Mommy in the cloakroom he was back to his curious self.

I walked my sister Siobhan down the aisle, being her godfather and all. I will post a lenghty update about the wedding and the other fun grown-up times we had on my own blog later but I know what you all really want to see, and that's Jack strutting his stuff. Met a lot of people who read this blog who didn't even notice I had my own -- George Bush supporters and those faint of heart, visit at your own risk.
Jack, dapper as can be and extremely well-behaved at the ceremony.
Jack investigates Rose, due to arrive mid-December courtesy of Aunt Becca and Uncle Teige. Part of what we might call the New Power Generation of Sheehan Cousins.
Jack's cocoon at the wedding. Tried to keep him a little isolated from the music and general hootenanny for a while. Seemed to do the trick. I don't think we'll be bringing Jack to another wedding. Not that he wasn't an angel, but it's hard to really get into the spirit of the thing in the kind of gung-ho, take-no-prisoners style we favor when you have a little baby in the mix. Fortunately our next wedding is in close proximity to Grammy and Grampy Smith (see below).

Here's a snap from Siobhan's house just before the wedding of ALL the Sheehan/Barrett cousins. I think we tried to coerce Becca to include her pregnant tummy but she understandably demurred.
Backtracking one day to the rehearsal dinner, here Jack makes a move on the lovely bride-to-be.
As always, those fingers make for a refreshing delight.
One of the things we'll do if Jack is getting even the tiniest bit crabby is suddenly start applauding and crying, "Yayyyyy!!!" Jack will be confused for a second and then just kind of figure, well, something good must be going on, and then he'll get all excited and start smiling and forget about being crabby. Well, he was a teeny bit overwhelmed and my brother-in-law John was walking him around at the rehearsal dinner and Jack was whining a little when his little cousins -- who had seen Genevieve and me do our "Yay" trick earlier -- did it on their own. It worked, as always.
A variation on the "yay" story is that every morning when I have Jack all changed and dressed for the day I say "You're all dressed! Yay!!" as I pick him up. He gets sooooooo excited -- his eyes get super-wide and he has to cram both hands in his mouth.

Our lovely and sweet niece Nora held Jack for a spell at the rehearsal after-party at my sister's.
Even by Monday, I was pretty beat after all the festivities. So was Jack. Er . . .
Monday, G's folks had driven up from Philly with her sister Elizabeth. We has a nice family afternoon. Mom laid out quite a spread, I made some really good scrambled eggs and everyone communed with Jack-Jack.

Cheating a bit, this picture is actually from this morning, but what the hey.
Jack's Grammy had a swell time playing with the big man.
This was Elizabeth's first time meeting Jack. She's enthused whilst Jack seems skeptical . . .
And finally, Jack with his ladies . . .
And with his posse.

Spoke too soon

Well it seemed as if the tummy bug was passing . . . but then after our visit to the doctor yesterday we were back to . . . well, not square one, more like square four (out of ten) or five. The doc checked Jack out thoroughly; Jack is still gaining weight, maybe an ounce or two off target because of his pooping problems, but the doc says he's OK, it is no big deal, Jack just has an upset digestive system that will take some time to get better and we just have to be patient. It's been almost a month of ill baby now so patience is -- well, not wearing thin, exactly, but harder to muster.

Fortunately it doesn't seem to affect Jack's mood, in the main. After our trip to the doctor I had to bring him to school, because I had a meeting and class, and G drove up to pick him up. I introduced Jack to all the faculty who have been asking after him and he couldn't have been more sweet and jolly and happy. He's like this all the time, with the exception of some late night or early AM crabiness, but as long as he has this tummy problem day care is out of the question. I don't want to bring him back there until he is at 100%, and I don't want to bring him back even then. It's a perfectly fine place as these things go, but it is probably the source of his illnesses just by the nature of the thing. Anyway it is very frustrating because we don't really have a choice -- I have classes and drop-dead responsibilities, and of course G has work. The only blessing is that this semester classes are few for me, so we have the option of keeping him home with me. Next term will not be so easy -- in fact I will not be around much at all, because I will be editing my thesis films. So I dearly hope that having these little illnesses now will strengthen Jack's immune system some and make him less prone to these little bugs.

A long time coming

Hard to believe it has been so many days since this blog was last updated. But, there's good reason for the delay. My school schedule for this first month was absolutely brutal, all day and night for several weeks. On top of everything else, Jack came down with a cold, caught another one just when he was getting over the first, and then got a nasty stomach bug which produced an astonishing array of colorful diapers. He seems to be just now getting over that, but in a few minutes we are going to the doctor to check everything out anyway. We've kept him home from daycare to give his little body a chance to heal up -- especially because we have a major event next week, my sister's wedding, which means Jack's first airplane trip.

I have to add that Jack has been an exceptionally jolly patient. Unless he's been wracked with a cough or drowning in his own boogers, or crabbily waking up mommy and daddy in the middle of the night, you would not have any idea he was ill. Such is Jack's sunny disposition and his insatiable curiosity about anything nearby that's even remotely entertaining.

So there has not been a whole lot to report on, but in the interim we did get some darn cute photos.

Jack has kind of been trying to sit up straight but can't quite manage it. His bobblehead-like imbalance is still too challenging for him, so he manages to do this kind of tripod move if we coax him. He's getting better at it all the time.


Nope, doesn't look sick, does he?

Who can resist a relaxing Sunday loungin' in the lving room watching football? Jack loves to watch sports but is especially entranced with football, Jimbo will be pleased to note. The colorful, high-contrast uniforms and whiz-bang graphics and sound really hold his attention.


Far out, man.

Problems with images

I was going to make a brief update here, but there seems to be a problem woth images hosted on Blogger not showing up. As of this writing, the post below has no images at all. Just awaiting a fix.

Jack has a really bad cold which has been progressively getting worse the last 10 days. It seems to be peaking now and for the first time ever he's been really cranky for hours, poor lad. Hope he feels better in a couple of days. Breaks your heart; you can't really talk to him and he can't tell you where it hurts.

Bath time!

Jack was in an exceptionally good mood today! And good thing too, because it was a big day for Jack. It was his first day at school! Well, daycare anyway. (Dad is back in school this week, of which, more here.) And it was only kind of 3/4 of a day to start him out. G dropped him off this morning and picked him up this afternoon. "He sure does like to roll around a lot!" said the daycare lady. Yep, he does! Apparently Jack was a happy and playful little boy all day and was in a great mood all night. He really responded to the whole thing very well. My turn to drop him off tomorrow. It was bath night so G was getting him ready and he was so cute I grabbed the camera, which was still on the nightstand from earlier, and snapped off this quick shot. Blurry -- didn't use a flash and the ligth's low, heck it's only a point n shoot with limited settings -- but really gets the sense of the moment. Which is, happy baby bathtime!

I really love playing with Jack and getting him laughing. He's my Boo-Boo Bear. If you think that sounds totally wussy or something, you don't have a baby.

This one's for Auntie Fish. 'Nuff said.