Jack had his 3 year old well visit (no shots of course) last week. He’s 35 1/2 inches tall and weighs 32 pounds. I almost can’t carry him anymore!
New Year’s 2009 Update January 1, 2009
Jack will be THREE years old next month! Our little baby is now a big boy. Jack is very excited about turning 3, and very much wants a birthday party. “Happy Birthday” is one of his favorite songs.
Jack had a good Christmas. This year, he knew to be excited. He would ask everyday “Is it Christmas?” and we’d have to say, “No, but it’s the Christmas season!”. Jack is a little confused now that Christmas happened. He wants it to be Christmas again.
Our little man made out like a bandit, acquiring a kitchen and food to go in it, many Thomas trains and track, several books, an electronic piano, a froggie towel to go with his doggie towel, and more. You can read more about Christmas in this post.
For the record, Jack is 30 pounds and is about 35 inches tall. He communicates at a five year old’s level, speaking full sentences, using pronouns and prepositions, and making up stories. He’s also singing all the time! This Christmas, his favorite tunes are “Jingle Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman”, and “Away in a Manger”. He’ll put new lyrics in any song, turning “I Like to Move It” into “I like to do anything Mommy and Daddy don’t let me do”.
Oh yes! The boy loves to get into trouble. He’s all about semantics. But he’s also very lovable, and gives hugs and kisses to humans and animals. He still loves to visit the pet store, and he’s getting along better with our neighbors’ dogs.
Jack enjoys being outside more than anything. Because it’s colder and raining sometimes, he’s frustrated at being in the house. Of course, we could tell him that his friends on the East Coast don’t get to go out without a coat from October through April, but we don’t think he’ll understand that.
He does show an interest in going to Disneyland, which we hope to do towards the end of next year.
Jack’s interests include Thomas & Friends (trains), WALL*E, trucks and dirt, music (especially boom-boom-bap), reading (reciting the books he’s memorized), cooking, and pretending everything. The kid has a serious imagination on him.
Overall, Jack is a good kid, who is incredibly smart. He likes school, though due to our employment situations, he’ll be going part time in January. He has many friends, and we’re trying to make sure we cultivate these friendships.
Oh, and although Jack has been asking for a baby, we have no plans to adopt in 2009. Ask us again in 2010.
September Web Site Update September 6, 2008
As usual, Jack is surpassing the milestones of other kids his age. This September, Jack will be 32 months old. (Soon, we can stop keeping track of months. Woo hoo!) In terms of milestones, he’s at about a 4 year level in his language, cognitive, social, and emotional milestones. He’s about average in his physical milestones. For example, he can throw a ball, but can’t catch it. He can’t draw letters, but he can draw lines and other shapes. He can alternate feet going up and down stairs (who knew that was a milestone?), but he can’t pedal a tricycle.
For the record, Jack is just about 30 pounds and is 35 inches tall.
Jack started Montessori preschool in July, just after July 4th, actually. We’d love to show you some pictures from Jack’s first fireworks display, but the camera is gone. It was either stolen from my car, or a gremlin has taken it from the house. I’m very distressed about this. In the end, Jack really did like his first fireworks. Once they were done, he said, “Wan’ it again. Jus’ one more time.”
Jack is learning a lot in school. He can put on his own shirt, shorts, and shoes. He can wash his hands, and indeed hates having dirty hands. His vocabulary continues to grow, with words like “reservoir”, “Neosporin”, “happenstance”, and “dame la mano”. Jack speaks in complete sentences, with pronouns, although they’re not always grammatically correct. He remains ahead of the curve, verbiage-wise. He asks for many of his books by name, and has practically memorized B is for Bulldozer. He has some pretty impressive words from that book too – he knows the names of many big trucks, including the excavator. Furthermore, Jack enjoys hearing “Once ‘pon a time”s, especially the one where “Pooh Bear gets stuck in Rabbit’s house”.
Jack has many friends at school, and he’s continuing to make more as the summer ends and “real” school begins.
Jack saw his second in-theater movie, Wall*e and LOVED it. He now has four Wall*e books, a Wall*e lunchbox (thanks Nana), and a transforming Wall*e and the Reject Bots (thanks Grandma and Grandpa).
Jack really started to love drawing back in May, and will now scribble on anything he can find. He has crayons, markers, pens, and pencils everywhere. He’s pretty good at drawing ovals and circles. He also loves drawing with his sidewalk chalk. Jack doesn’t write letters, but apparently his cousin, our nephew, Orion does. We got the chance to visit with Orion and his brother Cyrus at the end of July. Pictures forthcoming, we promise.
Jack has gotten to the stage where he tells everyone what to do – where to sit, what to draw, what to read, and so on. It’s very cute, in a small dictator kind of way. He’s also into pretend play. He loves his play food, and will share it with anyone. He has a great imagination too. He’s pretended that a basket with cloth napkins is a bucket and shovels. He’ll throw a birthday party for any of his stuffed animal friends.
Jack knows his colors, and recognizes most capital letters. He understands things that are the same and things that are different. He enjoys pointing out similarities between himself and Mommy and Daddy, for example. Jack can count to 20 (though he sometimes skips 16) and can recognize most numbers from 1 through 11.
Jack loves playing outside, and since we had our front and back yards re-sodded, he spends lots of time out there.
One task Jack hasn’t mastered is toilet training. He was very into it at the beginning of June, and we thought our gDiaper days were numbered, but, upon starting preschool, Jack became very anti-toilet. We need to be more consistent about it here at home, and encourage him to use the toilet more often.
We just got back from Pennsylvania, where we visited with Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Clyde, GG (Great-Grandma Trimble), Aunt Pam, Aunt Molly, Uncle Wayne, Aunt Lolo, and cousins Bryan, Joe, and Marie. We went to the zoo for the first time, and played at Pleasant Kingdom. Again, pictures will come soon.
Ten Stories About Jack April 28, 2008
Work has been heating up, so I’ve not had a chance to do much, blog-wise. I have been jotting down notes, which add up to 10 stories about Jack.
Story One – “I like”
Jack is very big on sentences. His new favorite seems to be: “I like x.” and “x like me.” For example, “I like Alex. Alex like me.” (Alex is a girl at day care.) “I like Mommy. Mommy like me.”
He is also very into the concept of friends. Last Friday evening (4/18) when I was taking him home from day care, we had to stop at Trader Joe’s, which is right next to the pet store, one of Jack’s favorite places. He asked, “We go to peh-store?” I said, “Maybe.” He said, “I see birdies, fishies, and squeak-squeaks. I like birdies. I like fishies. I like squeak-squeaks. They my friends.”
The way he says “friends” is so adorable! I can’t write it phonetically. It’s just the way he intones the word “friends”. It’s almost Southern in pronunciation.
That leads me to a related topic – “mine”. In the last week, Jack has gotten very possessive. If he’s holding it, it’s “mine.” He likes to say “My Mommy.”, “My Daddy.”, “That Jack Mommy.”, “That Jack Daddy.” and so on. (Sometimes he does say, “Jack’s”, but sometimes he doesn’t.
Story Two – Boo Boo
Jack had a boo-boo on his leg – his knee, to be exact. He looked at it and said, “I am broken.” Really – all 3 words.
He then asked for a Band-Aid. He also remembered on Friday (4/18) that I told him we would get him Pooh bear Band-Aids, thus necessitating a trip to Target. They didn’t have Pooh Band-Aids, but they had Spiderman, and that was OK.
Story Three – Toilet Training
I never understood the excitement and pride that parents seemed to feel when announcing to the world that their child had used the toilet. Personally, I feel that such information is best kept to oneself.
Now, to be a total hypocrite, last week (Tuesday, I think), Jack used the toilet for the first time. He’s been sitting on it since January. We bought him a little seat that goes over the real toilet. I’m reading The Everything ‘Toilet’ Training Book (I don’t use the p-word) and it told me to get a couple books for Jack to enjoy. I found two that are pretty neat. Uh-Oh Gotta Go! and the Karen Katz book A ‘Toilet’ For Me. Anyway, we had been in the hot tub (see next story) and I took Jack out of his kick-kick clothes. He peed on the carpet. I said that was OK and asked him if he’d like to sit on the toilet. So he did. And while we were reading, he pooped! Woo hoo! Now, I get the excitement and pride.
Story Four – Height
Jack is now tall enough (34 inches) to stand with his feet touching the bottom of the hot tub, and his chin just touches the water. He’s very happy about this. Sadly, our hot tub seems to be broken, so we can’t go kick kick anymore. I hope we get this ironed out before the summer, when it’s too hot to go in the hot tub.
Story Five “Hi-Oh”
Jack now says “Hello” but he says it “Hi-Oh” like “Ohio” without the first “O”.
Story Six – Dolphin?
All I have written down is “dolphin.” I don’t know what that means. I do know that Jack can recognize dolphins as opposed to fish. But I’m sure that he did something cute involving the word “dolphin” and now I just don’t know what it is.
Story Seven – Tigo Beads
On April 15, Jack came home with a bag full of toys and books from day care. His day care provider, Angie (who is WONDERFUL!) had gone to a forum presented by First Five, about their Tigo program. First Five is dedicated to helping children ages 0-5, and the Tigo program teaches parents how to play with and read to their children. I think it’s awful that a program like that has to exist. Angie was actually supposed to give us (all the parents) a 3 hour class on how to use the toys, and the toys came with this pull out card with instructions, telling us what skills the toys develop. Anyway, one of the toys was lacing beads! I’ve been wanting to get Jack some lacing beads, but I wasn’t sure he was ready. Well, he dumped them out and wanted to play with them. At first, he couldn’t figure out how to do it, and got frustrated, so he asked for help. (I love that he asks for help instead of getting so mad he wants to stop.) I showed him how to lace the beads once, then I held his hands while he did it, then he did it all by himself! I was so excited! I took a video, which I’m putting here (Or not. It’s so big, I have to upload it to YouTube then link it, and I don’t want to do that tonigh. BTW: When he says “Wanna see Jack” he means that he wants to see himself on the camera’s LCD. He’s starting to take pictures, but that’s another post.) I did include a picture of Jack playing Tigo beads.
Story 8 – Cake
Jack loves cake. All kinds of cake. But other than that, I cannot remember why I wrote down “cake.” This story isn’t that good, is it? It’s just a reminder that Mommy created this blog because she couldn’t remember these stories, and therefore should post more often.
Story Nine – eBay
I’ve been bidding on items on eBay. In the middle of last week, the Red Sox “curse jersey” was up for auction. It was on the eBay home page. Jack saw it, and said, wrinkling his nose, pointing at the screen, “That shirt all dirty.”
Story Ten – 1, 2, 3, 4
On Wednesday night (4/23) at 11:54pm, Jack called out from his crib, “One, two, three, four!” then stopped. I have no idea what he was dreaming about. (I know the time because I was working on my computer and wrote it down.)
Plus One
To make up for the dolphin and cake stories, I will tell you about something that happened today (4/28). Jack found Max’s Wii guitar for Guitar Hero. He picked it up and said, “I wanna rock” (only “rock” is still pronounced “wok”, but close enough). Sadly, I was on the phone with my friend Anna and not able to get to the camera in time.
January Year-End Update January 16, 2008
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:
- I like this, or I like “dat”, or I like this thing (where thing is food, a person, a toy, etc. with which he’s playing)
- I want “dat”, or I want this.
- Appetizer
- Ginormous (as in, “Draw ginormous yucky trash.”)
- Jamba Juice. Green Jamba Juice. (Jack’s favorite Jamba Juice is the Matcha Green Tea Blast, which we get twice a week.)
- Mommy do it, Daddy do it, or Jack do it.
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.
Nine Months October 27, 2006
At 9 months, Jack is meeting pretty much all of the milestones listed in What to Expect the First Year. He’s figured out the “If I drop it, it still
exists and Mommy and Daddy will pick it up for me” game. He does not crawl, but he does creep, schooch, and roll himself all over the place. Thanks to Auntie Trisha, he now walks when he stands holding on to someone’s fingers. While we were in NH, he finally learned how to sit up from a lying down position. This has brought his schooching to a
whole new level. Now, all he wants to do is stand! Holding onto us, holding onto a table or chair, holding onto the crib rail.
Most importantly, Jack has TWO words: “Hi” and “Daddy.” “Hi” definitely means “Hi” but “Daddy” may mean “Mommy” and “Daddy” as he often says it to Mommy. The cutest behavior is watching him
saying “Hi” to himself in a mirror. For the record, he first said, “Hi” on October 2, and “Daddy” on October 13.
Jack will often respond to his own name, but he usually responds to “Jackson” better than to “Jack” or “Jack-Jack”.
At his 9 month check up, Jack was 20 pounds and 26 and 3/4 inches.
He is 50th percentile for weight and is finally on the chart, length-wise, in the 5th-10th percentile. His head circumference is in the 90th percentile.
His two bottom teeth are in, and his two top ones are still growing. He loves to bite and chew on anything he can grab. Yes, we have teether toys, but items that he’s not supposed to chew are so much tastier,
including human fingers. As for food, Jack does like yogurt (Yo-Baby), and combinations of cereal and fruit from the jar, in addition to his orange foods.
Jack’s favorite toys are blocks. He now has a few different sets, and he loves them all. He loves knocking towers down, and banging blocks t
ogether. He has also learned how to drum on empty containers and tables.
We were in New Hampshire for 18 days this month, and we were happy to see a lot of our friends. Jack didn’t take too well to the time change, so spent the first week being cranky and not sleeping well at all. The
second week, he was great, but because we lost the first week, we didn’t have a chance to connect with everyone we wanted to see. On October 8, we had a small dedication ceremony for Jack, at which his godparents and parents promised to look after him in all ways, including spiritually. As we are not members of a church, this occurred at his godparents’ home. His godparents are Marc & Joanne Gamache, of
Bedford, NH. Jack was a big hit at the Swonger household, where our flower girls, Jenn and Katie, clamored for his attention. They spent lots of time constructing elaborate towers and then letting Jack destroy them.
He still sleeps well at night, going to bed between 7 and 8pm and waking
up between 5:30 and 7am. Naps continue to be a challenge. So what else is new?
