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. 

I Don't Want to Forget October 12, 2007

I’ve been thinking recently about all the little things that I forget. I’ve been working on journaling Jack’s baby book. (OK, books – 4 to be exact. From pre-birth to his 1st Birthday Party. Anyway…) There were times when I was great about writing – either here or on paper. Then, there are times when there’s nothing. Basically, from October 24, 2006 until his birthday, then from birthday, it’s all sporadic. So, I’ve decided to write a bit, even though it’s late, about what I don’t want to forget.
Tonight, Jack and I went Kick Kick for the first time in a month. It was a lovely evening for it. Jack was a little fish daredevil, which I think is great. I don’t want him to fear water, at least not when a parent is around. He was jumping around, “swim”ming, blowing bubbles, tilting his head back into the water. At one point, he accidentally swam underwater. I think he went to jump and to tilt back at the same time. Anyway, he didn’t freak out or cry – just sputtered and held on to me for a minute or two.

He has so many new words each day! He’ll actually say words when you ask, “Can you say?” like, Pomegranate. It sounds a lot like pomegranate. He doesn’t miss a trick, and is so clued in to what’s going on. He knows most of his books by title and cover. Like “More Baby” and “Swee Mimi”. He’s just a little knowledge sponge. And yes, I am totally getting overbearing about it.

Today, Jack was a VERY GOOD BOY. He only threw 2 mini fits. Well, and when he woke up and Daddy wasn’t here (long story), he cried. But he missed Daddy. The first fit was, after we found the garbage man, we went to walk ahead of him. Jack couldn’t see the truck and started kicking in his stroller. But I stopped and turned his head so he could see. The garbage man, such a nice guy, actually waited for us to get to where we could see him pick up the trash every time he turned a corner. I gotta call the number and say this guy deserves a raise. The second fit was when I asked him to climb onto the stool to wash his hands. He just didn’t want to do it.

He ate well, and didn’t throw any of his food on the floor. This is an amazing accomplishment. He learned a new sign (school). (I never wrote down when he signed his first sign. I just know it was “more” and a few days before Christmas.) He didn’t go down for a nap for me, but he didn’t complain either. Then Max came home and was able to put him down pretty easily. He went in for his bath without too much trouble, and was all about snuggling up and having me sing him to sleep tonight.

OK. I have to go. I should add that Jack’s friend Keegan now has a little sister, born today. Yay!

Jack is Amazing! September 18, 2007

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!

Feel free to comment with how amazing your kids are.

General Update September 12, 2007

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 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.