On the move!
At the beginning of last week, Jackson was still barely scooting around on his belly.  Now, he's in full-blown all-over-the-place-getting-into-everything crawling!  It's amazing how quickly he learned and advanced in his "technique."  Within a day or so, he already seemed like a pro.  He still doesn't do it on hands and knees, but mostly uses his arms to pull himself forward; it does seem like he's learning to use his legs more and more though. 

This is a video of Jackson first practicing some crawling:

And here he is just a short time later, already getting better at crawling (and this was several days ago....he's already improved his form even more)!

The stacking cups came in handy for luring him to crawl :)

So we quickly advanced to babyproof planning mode.  We've removed anything within the reach of little hands on side tables and the floor.  And I promptly did some online shopping for baby gates...definitely planning to gate off the office, kitchen, and top of stairs (for now ... bottom of stairs to come later). Our open floor plan downstairs is causing us to have to drop a lot of $$$ to put up baby barriers...

And, sadly enough, he's already pinched his fingers twice in the drawer of the side table.  So lesson learned...at first I tried to think of a way to prevent them from opening...but then I just decided to take them out!  So we have a coffee table and a side table with missing drawers.  And the sofa table may be next to lose its drawers...  He's also fascinated with opening the drawers in the office, so it will be nice to have that area gated off!

Here's a video of him exploring/opening/pulling up on the office drawers.... such an active little boy!

Swim Class
We had our first swim class at the YMCA this past weekend.  We planned to sign up with some of my "Moms in Motion" friends -- the other 2 boys are very close to Jackson's age.  When we got there, we found out there was one more person in the class -- and it turned out she was from our Moms in Motion class too!  J especially enjoyed getting to interact with the other little guys (they're all boys!). 

Jackson is such a water lover -- drinking it, choking on it, playing in it, splashing...he loves it all!  And swim class was no different.  He was thrilled with being in the water, and splashed all over the place.  The class is geared towards a very basic introduction to water / swimming with just getting the babies used to being in water, in different positions, jumping/splashing, etc.  It was very low-key and progress at your own pace.  None of the push-your-baby's-face-under-water craziness that I've heard some others mention!  But...the only part he didn't particularly enjoy was "floating" on his back, but I think it was just because he couldn't see anything/anyone in that position.

Here's a video of Jackson "chasing" the ball in the water:

 
Boys getting ready for the swim (Jackson is top right)

I was like "simmah dahnow with the splashing!"....but his enthusiasm was just too cute :)

He loves the water ... .and the boat... and the ball... and Daddy behind the camera!

 
We played a couple of games -- a popping up out of the water to "Pop Goes the Weasel" and jumping in to Humpty Dumpty (above).   

Up this week:  flu vaccination, Halloween fun, and another swim class.  And hopefully getting used to the new Taggie transitional object so as to not get so upset when Josh and I leave him for nap and bedtime (it's usually just a few minutes of crying, but it's progressed to gut-wrenching pitiful tear-filled crying.... :(    )  Taggie -- work your magic!!