It’s been awhile since I did a good Jack post, so I decided to write some random cute stuff that he’s been doing lately.
The first thing that comes to mind involves his books. He’s always loved to turn the pages in books, and he loves to read. He can say and sign “book read”. We bought the book Peef The Christmas Bear on clearance on B&N. We read it through once or twice, then put it back on the shelf (as opposed to in the pile of new books). One day, Jack went over to his shelves and I heard him say “Peef”. I thought, “He must be saying “pee” or something.” But no, he pulled out Peef and was very excited by finding the book, as though we’d hidden it from him or something. For awhile, we were reading Peef 2 or 3 times a day, and it’s still one of his favorites. (Aside: It’s written by a CMU alum.) Now Jack has one word titles for all of his favorite books: “boom boom” for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, “mommy daddy” for our adoption profile scrapbook (he loves the picture of me with Pooh bear at Disney World), “mommy” for any book about moms, “daddy” for his books about daddies, “pa” for Grandpa and Me, “night moon” for Goodnight Moon, “ha ha” for Noisy Jungle (the monkey sound), etc. He actually often goes to the shelf with a specific book in mind.
He has learned how to turn on the TV, and to request specific shows. He has 3 favorites: “prites” (Johnny and the Sprites), “sigh-time” (Signing Time, which he can also sign), and “beebee” (Go Baby, which he can also sign). Johnny and the Sprites features my very first drama teacher as the voice of Ginger, and Michael Patrick Walker from Scotch n Soda is one of the musical contributors.
We also figured out that Jack can say “Einstein” – actually, it sounds like “outside” which is why I was always puzzled when he would announce “outside” and dump his Baby Einstein DVDs on the floor. But this past weekend, we came home with a new Baby Einstein DVD and I asked Jack if he wanted to watch Baby Einstein, and he said “outside” – which is really more like “owsigh”. We got Baby Shakespeare. It’s really cute! He can request Baby MacDonald by saying “e-i-e-i-o.” He has to really concentrate to get the vowels in the right order though. We’re trying to get him to sing “Old MacDonald” with us. He knows a lot of the animal sounds.
Jack is trying and succeeding in saying more and more words. In a long overdue letter to his birthmom, I’m trying to include everything he says and signs. It’s hard to document all of them.
One more anecdote: Our neighbors have an insane number of cats, one of whom is a black cat named BooBah. BooBah loves me – always has. And I love him, and would adopt him in a minute if anyone gave my neighbors any crap for having too many cats (but don’t tell Max)). BooBah allows Jack to get fairly close if BooBah has food in front of him. Jinxy hates BooBah, and he’s afraid of her, so he never comes to the back, only to the front. So, when we saw BooBah yesterday, I went to the laundry room to get the cat food and brought it out to the front. I left it on the top shelf in the entry way. Jack saw it this morning and pointed, saying “Eat Kitty BahBah… BahBoo… BooBah!” Later, when I was getting ready to put him down for his nap, he disappeared and I found him in the entry way with something that rustled. I yelled, “Jackson!” and dropped the bag and crawled backwards onto the carpet, then looked up at me like, “What? I wasn’t touching the cat food.” It was the first time he’d ever done that – realized that maybe he could get away with it if he just walked away. I had to laugh, but I at least told him that it was only funny this once, and if he did it again, he would be in big trouble.
That is why my son is cute and smart.
