The Chittister Family

Jack is Amazing!

18 Sep 2007 Leave a Comment

by chittisterchildren in my kids are great Tags: abcs, animals, colors, counting, grandparents, mailman, manners, reading, signing, singing, yucky trash

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!