Quick post. Max is giving Jack a bath, and all of a sudden, I hear Jack counting. He gets to 20 and keeps going … 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 (pause)
Max: Jack, the number that comes after 29 is 30.
Jack: 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,
Not bad for 2-11/12ths.
Jack is 2 years old! We will celebrate his 2nd birthday with a small party on January 30. (We had to postpone the party due to illness.) His grandparents are here for his actual birthday on January 17. Jack is 28 pounds, 8 ounces. He is over 33 inches tall; he will not stand or lie still long enough to get a measurement. We continue to believe that he is the smartest baby boy ever. At age 2, most kids will have 50-70 words, but Jack’s vocabulary keeps growing. Fortunately, he has not yet learned to ask “Why?”, but we’re sure that’s coming. He routinely speaks in 3-5 word sentences. Some of his favorite new things to say are:
In October, Jack was a cow for Halloween. Mommy dressed up like a farmer to take him trick-or-treating. We only went to about 10 houses. Jack was a big hit, but he was too shy to say “trick or treat” very loud. This Thanksgiving, Jack was old enough to actually eat a turkey dinner, which he generally enjoyed. He requested “apple pie” for dessert. Jack began going to day care twice a week in November, in anticipation of Mommy getting a job. He made Mommy & Daddy a lovely Christmas present, which we will cherish for quite some time. Jack himself was completely spoiled on Christmas. However, he did not want to open his presents! To read more about our Christmas, see Robyn’s LiveJournal entry, Christmas at the Chittisters’.
Jack is still obssessed with trash, and Jack and Robyn seek out David the garbage man every Thursday morning and follow him around the block. The garbage man now stops and waits for them at the corners, so he’s sure they can see him picking up the trash. Thanks to the yucky trash, Jack can now accurately identify green, blue, and brown. Now Jack can correctly identify the major colors, although he sometimes gets orange and yellow mixed up. He loves to draw! He really likes it when Mommy or Daddy draw “ginormous” yucky trash cans, lollipops, or cups of tea for him.
Jack tries to be helpful by throwing things away in the yucky trash, getting shoes from the basket at the door, and putting his toys and bibs away.
So, according to the Milestone Charts, Jack should be able to: Name at least 6 body parts, make 2-3 word sentences, speak so that about half of his words are understood. About half of kids at age 2 are also able to talk about themselves, arrange items in categories, walk down stairs. More advanced 2 year olds can understand abstract concepts, jump, and be aware of gender differences. He can do all of that, except put items into categories. He’s learning about opposites, and understands that, even if two colors are different, they can still be blue. (There are 2 shades of blue and 2 of green on a drawing web site that we frequent, and he asks for “blue” or “other blue” and “green” or “other green.”)
Jack can count to 12, although he can’t always stop counting. For example, if the snowman has 3 buttons, Jack will sometimes count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. He can recognize the existence of letters, such as looking at a sign and knowing it’s comprised of letters. He now calls them “ABCs”. He knows the entire ABC song. He recognizes the letter O by name. (Robyn thinks it’s because of Cheerios.) He also recognizes J (for “Jack”), and sometimes A and E.
Jack has the vocabulary and communication skills of a 3 or 4 year old, according to the milestone charts. He’ll at least try to say anything you ask him to say, including “apocalypse”. You haven’t heard cute if you haven’t heard Jack say “pocalypse”. Signing Time! and Johnny and the Sprites are his most-requested shows. He knows almost all of the body parts; he certainly knows the major ones – ear, eye, mouth, etc., and is learning some others – forehead, cheek, and chin being recent additions.
Jack also loves to sing! He’s getting better and better. His repertoire includes “Row Row Row Your Boat”, the ABCs, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “Old MacDonald”, “Rock-a-Bye Baby”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “Johnny and the Sprites”, and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?”. He also sings his own tunes while playing. He also correctly identifies ALL of the Winnie the Pooh characters, and he’s getting better at saying “Christopher Robin.” He now knows that Mommy, Daddy, Nana, Pa, and Great-Grandma have other names. He always knows Mommy’s, Daddy’s, and Nana’s names, but he’s not so consistent on the others. We are teaching him his last name. The day after Christmas, we were working on it, and he said, “Chi-ister. I like Chi-ister.” Again, so cute!
Robyn loves this story from September: Last night, in the Costco parking lot, Robyn said “Chocolate momma, Chocolate up the milk.” and Jack said “Drink milk. Black tan.” The line is from the book Black is Brown is Tan, which is a new favorite of his (and one we highly recommend).
Jack can toss a ball, but not catch it. He likes to play with our neighbors, who are 4, 6, 9, and 10. The 4 year old likes to hug Jack. He likes to run, and is actually understanding the difference between the sidewalk and the street. Another fun playtime activity involves feeding a baby bottle to his baby, his rabbit, his cow… really, all of the stuffed animals. He can sort shapes and put the blocks in the proper slots to get them back into the shape sorters. Jack also loves to play with Mommy’s scissors. Fortunately, she has the decorative ones that cut in waves, so no sharp edges. Of course, he really likes to spin the scissor holder around. I don’t think Aunt Ann knew she was getting Robyn a child’s toy when she gave her those scissors for Christmas in 2004. Jack likes to play peek-a-boo with us, himself, or inanimate objects. Sometimes, he’ll simply cover his own eyes and say “Where’s Jack?”. Hilarious! Jack likes pillow pits, which is a big stack of pillows, often on Mommy & Daddy’s bed, into which he is thrown or jumps. He likes to “fwoomp”. Jack is also learning to jump, and boy is he getting good at it! We began playing hide and seek about two weeks ago. Jack is getting much better at climbing, though he still hasn’t figured out how to climb out of his crib.
Jack enjoys the typical boy toys – cars (“car says vroom”) and trucks. He also likes puzzles, which he can do better and better each day. He seemed to master the shape sorter overnight. One day he couldn’t do it without help, the next day, Great-Grandma’s telling him how wonderful he is for putting the blocks in the right spaces. As part of putting things away, he will often take his toys and rearrange them in the play area or on the shelves. It’s really amusing to see him so seriously place each toy exactly where he thinks it should go. Then he generally knocks them all over or dumps them out of the container. He spied the Duplos that we were saving for mid-year (thank you Great Aunt Sue) and now dumps them over on his floor everyday to play with them. He really likes playing with other kids, so enjoys going to day care and playgroup.
Jack still chooses not to feed himself with a fork (but he does with a spoon). He plays with his food too much, stuffs it into his mouth and spits it out, it’s just too messy. Apparently, children in Guatemala don’t feed themselves until age 3, so we’ve got some time.
We got Jack a little seat for the toilet, and he sometimes asks to sit on it. He loves toilet paper and flushing, so we’re slowly getting him to think that the toilet is super-cool.
Jack doesn’t take off his own clothes yet, though he can and does take off his socks and shoes. Jack can now walk down the stairs, while holding hands, but doesn’t usually walk up (he climbs). Usually, he slides, scoots, or jumps down the stairs (with parental supervision of course). And while Jack loves to draw, he can’t draw anything recognizable. (Apparently, some children can draw straight lines at this age.) Mommy saw him kick a ball for the first time on November 12. Speaking of kicking, Jack has entered a violent phase, and is biting (through clothing) and sometimes hitting people for no discernible reason. We use time outs, which work relatively well, but not always. Something else Mommy isn’t entirely proud of, the day after Christmas Jack got up on a stool and started yelling “Damnit damnit damnit damnit!”. So, yes, Jack has learned how to repeat words and snippets of conversation.
And what is Jack eating these days? Crackers, especially goldfish (he can say “goldfish”). And “mac and cheese” which he says and signs. He simply loves mac and cheese, which fortunately means any pasta with cheese on it. He can say “pasta” and kind of signs it. Tomatoes are his favorite fruit. He can successfully eat an entire container of yogurt by himself. At Halloween, Jack discovered candy. Especially “lollipops”. We’re going to hide it all after his birthday and try to convince him that candy only exists from October to January. It might work.
We spent a couple of weekends in September sick. Jack got a cold, then gave it to Daddy and Mommy. Daddy got it the worst. Mommy introduced Jack to Jamba Juice, which he really liked! The last weekend in September, Jack got a stomach bug, then gave it to Daddy and Mommy, who were hit worse than Jack was. Jack got sick again when he started day care two days a week in November. He had a persistent sniffle that turned into a sinus infection on December 31. Max and Robyn have also been hit with colds, though Max’s is far worse than Robyn’s. So, we began the New Year ill. Hopefully, we will avoid so much sickness this year.
I haven’t posted about how wonderful my son is for awhile, so I thought I’d try while he’s being all rambunctious with Daddy about his bath.
On the way down the stairs, he started, well, babbling about something. Then I realized, he was reciting the text from the book Black Is Brown Is Tan – and doing a pretty darn good job for a not-quite-2-year old.
While eating yogurt, to get him to eat instead of play, we counted. He can generally count up to 10 or 12, though he sometimes skips 4. Anyway, I count and go to 21, then he says, “22?”. And I say, “Yes!” and then, “What’s next?” and he says, “23!” and he then did 24 and 25 too.
Finally, when I offered him a peanut butter and jelly cereal bar (by Earth’s Best – a wonderful culinary invention) he sang, “Peanut, peanut butter, jelly”. Very cute.
So, many of you may notice that I’m constantly talking about how smart my son is. Tonight, he was scary smart.
Brief background: My sister had an old-fashioned Mickey Mouse stuffed animal that somehow ended up here. I introduced Jack. Then, today, he’s wearing pants with MM on them, but the modern version. Apparently, he told Max that he was wearing Mickey Mouse. While we were marveling over this, Jack starts pointing at my shirt. It has postage stamp size pictures of Pooh, a broken honey pot, Tigger, and Eeyore, with a small, intact honey pot and some bees embroidered on it. He points to Tigger and says “Tigger”. Then, he points to the honey pot, and says “Honey pot.”
Max and I were freaked out. I’ve not worn this shirt in at least 6 months, if not more. And we didn’t discuss what the items on my shirt were today. So for him to say “honey pot” … I guess he has reading comprehension?
Scary smart.
Oh, and he can say the whole alphabet and count to 10.
Jack has had some very cute moments in the last 3 days, so without further ado, I will share them. (Then I’ll install more web design software so I can create a site for Meant to Be.)
To start with the most recent first, tonight before bed, Jack and I read The Baby Goes Beep. This is a great book, and although it’s expensive I highly recommend it! Jack was repeating what the baby went: Beep, Boom, Flip, etc. The cutest was “the baby goes la!, the baby goes la la! the baby goes la! la! la! la!”. He repeated the “la”’s with musical inflection. When it came to the baby going “splash” he counted the ducks. Now, there are only two ducks, but the fact is, I asked “how many ducks” and he counted by pointing my finger at them, saying “one, two, two duckies.” Earlier today, he counted “one, two, two shoes”. So, he can officially count to 2. He counted one frog and one baby, as well. Then, he started saying numbers, “one, two, four, five, eight, ten.” Not bad for 20 months. He was so darn cute I read the book to him twice.
He’s very into Signing Time right now. With the sale and a discount, the entire DVD set comes to $202, including tax and shipping. We had wanted to pay half price,which would be closer to $170 + tax + shipping. Anyway… the point is, Jack is signing up a storm. Sadly, I cannot always tell what he’s signing. New signs include “happy” and “watermelon.” He also knows “mouse” or “squeak squeak” as we call it, and “doll”, which are almost the exact same sign. He signs “dog” when he sees “donkey”. How often does he see a donkey?, you may ask. One of neighbors has a ceramic donkey in the front flower bed. I’m trying to teach him “donkey” = “hee haw” while “doggie” = “woof woof.”
Jack can Baaaa! Like a sheep. He’s really good at it, and it cracks him up when anyone does it, including himself.
When he woke up from his crazy nap today, despite the fact that I left him in his crib to get himself to sleep after trying for an hour, he saw me and gave me the biggest smile. It was heart melting. He pointed to his stuffed animals, now outside of the crib, “Uh-oh bear”, and I gave him his bear, “uh-oh moo-cow” and I gave him his cow, “uh-oh Pooh Bear”, and so on. I asked if he was hungry and he signed “hungry” and said, “food.” So when I changed his diaper, I asked what he wanted and he said, “wawrmaymay”. I looked and he signed “water” and “melon” for “watermelon”. Another new sign! His sign for “apple” is much better than it used to be too.
Jack is obsessed with yucky trash, and with the mail man. The mail man was impressed that Jack recognized his truck from halfway down the block. He asked Jack, “Are you going to be a mail man when you grow up?” and I told him that my dad was a mail man. (Although he rarely drove the truck; he worked inside the mail sorting center.) The mail man also has a wicked tattoo of a dragon. Anyway, the best way to make Jack happy is to hand him something to throw in the “yucky trash.”
Jack is constantly practicing his signing of “mommy” “daddy” “pa” “nana” “great-grandma”. And yes, he says Great-Grandma. Just when I thought I’d never see my grandmother smile so big again, Jack says, “Hi Great-Grandma” as she walks in, and she just beams. The energy from her smile could have powered a small country.
Today, when we were watching Baby Einstein, he sat down and said, “The Baby Einstein Company.” Max was there. He heard it too.
Jack is speaking more sentences, even using “the” to join words. He’s really good about “please” and “thank you.” If he has something in his hand that he doesn’t want, then he’ll hand to the nearest person and say, “Thank you!” Very silly! He says, “Mommy please pick up” when he wants to be picked up, or when he wants me to stand up. I’m trying to teach him the difference between pick up and stand up. Today, he said, “Mommy please pick- please stand up.”
He also said “excuse me” unprompted, when he burped yesterday. I expect that was a fluke.
Finally, Jack is getting better at singing. He knows more words to “Row Row Row Your Boat” and can ask for many different songs. He LOVES the alphabet! Most of the time, he says, “CFP”. But, when I sing “ABCDEF” I’ll pause, and he says, “G” and sometimes “H” as well, and then I sing “HIJKLMNO” and he yells out “P”. Max got him these foam letters and he’s all about picking them up and saying a random letter. He can identify H, but otherwise, it’s all a crap shoot.
It’s the same way with colors. He knows the names of all the major colors, and can often identify green and purple, but usually, he just says colors at random. He now has sidewalk chalk (that he managed to break into bits in less than 2 days), so that’s yet another reason to go “outside.” He always wants to be “outside.” Fortunately, the weather is getting better so we can be out and not want jump into a body of water. We went to the park yesterday for the first time in probably two months, and he figured out how to shovel the sand into the contraption with a funnel that makes a wheel turn when sand is dumped into it. It’s more fun than it sounds.
He can also identify whose shoes are whose, and can usually match them up. Instead of giving me, say a sandal and a sneaker, he’ll give me two sandals. Usually, they’ll even be the proper pair, as opposed to, say, a Teva and a dress shoe.
Other than these wonders, Jack has just been a cute little guy these past few days. Don’t get me wrong, he’s hit, bit, and kicked us from time to time. He’s thrown fits when we say no. But that’s eclipsed by this smart little guy who doesn’t miss a trick. He’s really amazing!
I’ve been using digital scrapping software to create pages, including an entire custom storybook for Jack.
Business and Mom…
I’m lucky if I get 18 hours of work done in a week. I have no idea how I’m supposed to work with a child. I can’t plunk him down in front of TV – not that I’d want to do that anyway, but it’s just not an option. Multi-tasking is all well and good, but when you have a kid pushing at you saying “pick up Mommy pick up” (he means “stand up”) or putting his stuffed animals in the water table, multi-tasking isn’t what you need.
I said to Max a few days ago: My job is to be Jack’s mom. That’s why I’m here. When Jack is awake, I need to be with him. That has to be my first priority. That means that business comes second and anything else comes third, fourth, etc. I have a baby-sitter but she has been rather flakey the last 2 weeks. Even at $5/hour, we can only afford her for a couple of hours a day, a couple of days a week.
Mom…
Jack, is, of course, the smartest boy in the world. Until I met ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sm00bs, I thought he must be the smartest child, but her daughter has more signs and words than Jack, so I’ll just have to qualify the statement with boy. He speaks sentences. Newer words include helicopter, I love you, I like X (where X is puppy, doggie, star, etc.), star, everybody, great-grandma, starlight/starbright. New signs are doll, water, and mouse. He’s getting more into signing now, but we can’t always tell what he’s signing, esp. since so many of the signs are similar. He signs “Signing Time.” Our TiVo just deleted our Signing Time stash, which Max unhappily said was a sign to buy the entire 13 DVD, 4 CD set. With shipping and tax it’s $202. A steal yes, but hardly cheap.
Jack also sings. Here are excerpts:
“e-f-p-nnnnnn-p”
“e-i-e-i-o”
“row row row boat… stream… maymaymaymay…”
“donny… sprites… donny… sprites”
He is very much into letters and numbers. Before his grandma came to visit, he could count 1-2-3. Now, he counts 3-4-5. Sometimes he remembers 1 and 2. I put some alphabet window clings on the office window and he loves to look at them, un-stick and re-stick them, and to look out the window.
Jack can also recognize many books by their covers, and also asks for books by name. His favorites are “Peef” (Peef The Christmas Bear), “Elmo”, “Chick-Chick-Boom-Boom”, “Chick-Chick 3″, “Hop Hop” (Pat the Bunny), and “Mimi”. A friend bought him a book that is also an Elmo puppet. The book is really the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, which is now known as the “Elmo song”. Everytime he sees Elmo in a store, or really anywhere, he exclaims Elmo Elmo! Do they put subliminal messages in these things? Narcotics? I don’t think it’s lead-based.
Speaking of lead-based, OY! I’m now going out of the way to not buy toys from China (so hard to do!). Also, we’ve gotten – OK Max installed – a reverse-osmosis water filter to take out the fluoride. And I’m hoping to get Jack off the bottle sooner rather than later because his bottles are made with plastic that leaches not-so-good chemicals into the fluid. We’re using gDiapers, a cloth/disposable hybrid that is much better for the environment than disposables (and 12 cents per diaper more expensive, but they’re so cute!). I need to post about all the green, granola stuff I’ve been moved to do since becoming a gDiaper parent. I’m driving Max nuts, I know, but so far I haven’t insisted on eating only food grown within 20 miles or only buying organic everything.
Today, Jack played with sidewalk chalk (or “Cray” as he calls it, for crayons) and loved it! He has a water table with rocks and water, but it used to have seeds, so he calls it “sees and wawer”. He started trying to brush his teeth seriously in the past few days. That’s a battle! I could post about that too. I wonder if it would be as boring as this probably is. If you read to the end, you should put a comment as to why. This is very long.
