and here she is now ...

Amazing Tintype Photo by: Kari Orvik

We recently had our family portraits done with Kari Orvik Tintype Studios - if you are looking for a unique way to celebrate your family in photos - look her up! As a photographer myself,  this was so special to me. I always press my clients to print the digital images I deliver to them and so this year we had an amazing opportunity to get tintype portraits done. And now, we will do it every year! We actually won the tintype portrait session at a charity fundraiser for an Oakland charter school that my friend help start - it is a French Immersion public charter school called Francophone.

Some recent videos:

i love the faces he makes! if you can  believe it, jax is a mere 8 weeks from turning into a toddler (although he pretty much toddles any chance he can get) or what I call part baby part boy (a boyby, if you will). he is absolutely amazing and he really provides much of the strength I have to not fall apart sometimes. like yesterday - which was the 1 year anniversary of my mother's death. its kind of odd to call it an anniversary, why would anyone want to celebrate that? - thats because its really to celebrate the life she did have. i know she is with me in all the parenting that i do. i miss her and i am glad i have jax here to share with him memories of her.

*I forgot to include a link to the annual AFSP walk that we will participate in again this year. Please visit the link and if you can (I know times are tough money wise for everyone) please donate and support this cause. You can even support it by walking with us at the crack of dawn the day after my birthday! Its at Lake Merritt in Oakland on October 16th.

when i get a chance ill scan some photos i stole from my brother when i was in oregon. he had salvaged a box full of photos of us growing up as kids from their move from LA to oregon. theres some real treasures there.

it was busy busy busy at the Wagner household this past month. on memorial day weekend we flew to visit my dad and younger siblings in Oregon. where we were also able to squeeze in visits to other remarkable people and places, like friends in Seattle, Beaverton, Portland and even Charlie's Aunt Lesley who lives on a farm in Scappoose. The farm is home to a bunch of wonderful animals like 8 dogs, 3 cats, lots of chickens & roosters, some cows & bulls, 4 horses and even a miniature donkey named Elvis. Jax was on cloud nine. his favorite was chasing the chickens and roosters. we all had an amazing time together that we wished we could have stayed longer. and as for me - i had to head straight into work when we landed back in Oakland - :(.

Jax is now 9 months old. he is pretty mobile these days and gets into everything! he isnt a seasoned crawler just yet (and thank goodness!) he goes back and forth from his typical frantic army crawl to the more common on the knees crawl. and still no teeth, even though we thought we saw one coming in. it wasnt a tooth but is a calcium deposit that will simply go away on its own. we've become lazy and simply feed him food from our plate which luckily he hasnt had any allergic reactions to. we still put him on the potty but since he's been eating more solid foods he's been having a bit of a #2 problem.  when we went on our trip we made sure to bring his potty with us (and he went on it) but we forgot to bring it to the farm. i decided to try and let him pee while holding him over the toilet, and to my surprise - he went a little, looked back at me and when i said good job, he continued to pee. no, really! i was shocked too. i was so amazed i wanted to high five someone.

and recently on a whim last Sunday, we ventured to the San Lorenzo river in Felton (near Santa Cruz). we had to sort of scale down a hill to get to the river (something the website didnt mention. they also failed to mention that the railroad tracks are still in use) but it was totally worth it.  we found ourselves a secluded spot along the river. we swam, played in the water and had lunch. good times, great weather. yay, summer!

I'm always worried (and terrified) that since Jax spends most of his days with his dad, that he will start to favor his dad over me. but each time i see him at the end of my work day, he always seems super excited to see me when we say hello after being apart for the day. it's something i  look forward to after a rough day at the office. 

he's getting so big now and becoming such a little boy right before our eyes :( . we think he will start crawling soon. hes been lunging at things, getting up on his knees (or trying to and teetering) and getting boo boos on his head. he never seems to sit still these days, especially when you try and put on his diaper or dress him. pretty soon we will have to baby proof our cluttery house (uh-oh). no teeth yet (and thats ok by me!). he's been eating more servings of solid food (this week its broccoli) and has had plain pasta, soba noodles, yogurt,  and his daddy's tortilla de patatas.

got a new toy from auntie jenny (thanks! he loves it - i was trying to find it online to recommend it but no such luck)

Jax is almost 6 months old! WOW. half a year has gone by already and oh so fast. so far, Jax is able to sit up on his own (sort of). We usually sit by him when he does and I'm always trying to catch him when I think he is about to keel over but he usually never does. he just corrects himself and manages to wobble back to a stable upright position. he hasn't quite mastered rolling around (whenever i say roll over, i just think of dogs, so roll around it is) which is probably only good for us and not so much for him, seeing how we are still co-sleeping. he still likes to babble and squeal in excitement and his bedtime is now at 8 pm. we start the bedtime/bathtime routine around 7:15. we adjusted to this time completely naturally. and by naturally, i mean by way of a meltdown. on that meltdown night i was only able to put a diaper on him (sorta. it was half falling off) and nothing else. he just wanted to nurse and sleep, but sleep he did. he always manages to wake up with a smile at around 7:15 in the morning. every morning. he doesnt get that he/we can sleep in on the weekends. we are basically on a reverse cycle, where he takes in fewer bottles of milk during the day and sorta waits to be attached to me when i get home. and, well i kinda like it. its our time together and since we co-sleep, its easier on me this way. i do manage to get some sleep.

We have also started to introduce solid foods, although we're pretty bad at being consistent. On the weekends it is much easier to incorporate the solid foods but cw is, I hope, trying to get in the habit of at least one feeding of solids during the week. We give him rice cereal for breakfast (with some breast milk of course) and for dinner a fruit or a veggie. He loves pears, doesnt care too much for bananas, likes avocados and is trying out carrots and yams.

ps. i've moved the growth stats onto its own page that will get updated regularly with his developmental milestones. or just what he/we are up to lately. i still need to post more stuff from our denver trip, hopefully i can get to it this weekend.