No news is ... boring

Jack's been keeping us entertained these past few weeks with some of his new tricks. It's never a dull moment with a growing 9 month old!
Jack loves learning how to stand, especially when it involves hanging on the edge of his new toy box. In fact, he gets pretty angry when Mom makes him take a seat. Currently we're working on keeping our feet flat while practicing standing, and not trying to grab something with both hands when thse hands are the only thing keeping you up!
The back of the couch is also a good chance to practice vertical balance.

Ever since he was a little tyke Jack has loved window time. But now he's starting to get a will of his own. If I'm holding him while sitting on the couch he usually tries to climb over my shoulder until he can get a better view of the outside world. We like to watch the cars and doggies go by. Oh, and I do clean my windows, but they're those silly double-paned ones that get moisture stuck in the middle and always look dirty.

I think Jack may have outgrown the Jumpster, or maybe our doorframes are shorter than average, but at this point he's not able to do much jumping. So instead he uses it for "grooving" and structural support while clearing out Mom's closet. At first, he'd start dancing with the Swiffer.

Then he found out he could reach Mom's kitchen utensils.

Everytime I would hide the last thing he got out, he'd find something new.

"Hey Mom, is this for me?"

A few days later he realized he could yank out all the paper bags and make cool sounds by jumping on them.

After he's pulled everything within reach out of the closet, it's time to move on to the next distraction - the ceiling fan. On more than one occasion Jack has nearly fallen out of my arms while trying to stare down the rotating blades. He can't get enough of it.

And our newest toy - the bike seat! We've been practicing riding on the back of Daddy's bike patiently and QUIETLY. Jack's usually good for he first 20 minutes, and then he starts serenading us on our ride. And it's usually not a happy song. It might be because the view from back there isn't so great. I'm not sure why the manufacturers designed the sitter to be right at eye level with the driver's rear. We'll keep working on our biker attitude before our big camping trip and even longer bike rides with Poppa.

And finally, Jack has been cracking us up lately with his latest gig - the ghetto bop. Even the church nursery ladies commented on how he "dances" to the music. Currently he's got two signature moves - the head shake and the torso bounce. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a good video of this yet, since he always stops when I get the camera out. But really, it's hilarious watching Bruiser get his groove on. You can kind of get an idea from the first few seconds of this video:

Any Veggie Tales fans out there want to name that tune? It's Jack's favorite VT movie, and I'm sure it's not because we only have two and the other one is about a princess...