Jacob now gets to stay home with Mommy all the time, since I am on summer break. We have already done a lot of exciting things, including going to the Farm Park (he touched one of the goats and loved looking at the rabbits), story time at the library, and something called "Stroll and Sign" (a stroller walk followed by some sign language). When it's nice we are outside as much as possible. I have a ton of ideas from pinterest, and so far we've already done some finger painting, made colored ice cubes to play with outside, used sidewalk chalk, and even painted with Kool-Aid. In addition to these activities, I usually take him on a walk in the stroller each day and plan to take him to the pool several times a week. He definitely loves being outside and is good at climbing the steps on the playground jungle gym and is able to go down the small slide by himself.
A few weeks ago I bought a stuffed animal that plays music and projects lights on the ceiling at bedtime, and that has really helped Jacob to fall asleep in his crib. He still wants one of us to rub his tummy or back until he's asleep, but we don't really rock with him at all when it's bedtime. I still want him to be able to fall asleep on his own (or at least not freak out if we leave the room), but I'm thankful for the progress we've seen so far. We've been able to keep his bedtime pretty consistent (around 8:00), whereas in the past it's been anywhere from 6:30-10:00. It's nice knowing that he'll actually fall asleep the first time we take him back for bedtime. We still have 1-2 night wakings, but we just bring him to bed with us until morning. He typically wakes up for the day around 5:30 or 6:00.
I guess those are all the updates I can think of. Below are some pictures of Jacob from this past week:
