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.
Weekly Update, Including Halloween Plans September 21, 2008
So, let’s see if we can actually manage a weekly update, now that Mommy has a new laptop.
This was Jack’s second full week of actual pre-school. He started Montessori in July, but they do a modified program over the summer. Actual pre-school started on September 3, while we were in Pittsburgh, PA. Jack is now in a classroom of 7 kids. We had Back to School night on Wednesday to see how the program really works. His teacher is sweet. Jack seems to like school, although when we ask him what he did, he always says “I cried” because he cries when Max drops him off in the morning. He gets about a 2 hour nap/quiet time, which isn’t quite enough, but better than nothing. Jack does have friends at school. In fact, one day after school, he and Max met up with some of Jack’s friends in the grocery store. Jack talks about it whenever we pass the Raley’s: “I saw Luis and Joolana in that grocery store.” (Juliana, that is.)
He also asked me, “What that grocery store by pizza place and pet store?”. I told him, “Trader Joe’s”. The fact that he can articulate so clearly what he means continues to amaze me. And then, of course, it frustrates me when he points to a table full of toys and says, “Want that.”
Jack got some new toys in Pittsburgh, and Grandpa Clyde sent him a new toy on Friday. We are now the proud owners of Transforming Wall*e and Interactive Wall*e. Jack is very proud. The first thing he did (once Mommy got our new Wall*e out of the packaging) was to get his “little Wall*e” and introduce him to “big Wall*e”. Jack then tried to put their hands together so they could play “Ring aroun’ Rosie”.
Jack is also into Super Why and Thomas and His Friends. Daddy has ordered Jack’s Super Why costume for Halloween. How did we arrive at Super Why?
Monday
Mommy: Jack, remember how we talked about Halloween, and how you get to go to people’s houses and ask for candy?
Jack: TO-day???
Mommy: No, not today, but soon. Well, what do you want to dress up as? Super Why, Wall*e, or do you want to be a cow again?
Jack: Ladybug.
Mommy: OK. Super Why, Wall*e, Cow, or Ladybug?
Jack: I wanna be Princess P. (One of Super Why’s friends.)
Mommy to Daddy: I think he’s a little young to dress in drag.
Daddy: Yeah.
Mommy: OK Jack, do you want to be Super Why, Wall*e, a cow, or a ladybug?
Jack: Ladybug.
Each night, we asked Jack what he wanted to be for Halloween.
Tuesday it was a ladybug.
On Wednesday, Jack informed us that he was going to be Super Why, Mommy was going to be Princess P, and Daddy was going to be Pig. Daddy wasn’t happy with this plan.
Thursday, it was Super Why again. And Mommy was going to be Princess P. (Daddy wasn’t in the room at the time.)
Friday, it was Super Why, with no mention of the other characters.
So, Jack will be Super Why for Halloween.
This morning, Jack tried to put Daddy in time out. Jack hit Daddy a few times by accident, and wasn’t respecting Daddy’s personal space. Daddy swatted him on the hand, and Jack said, “You do not hit me. I put you in time out.” Daddy’s response: “Nice try, but NO.”
He’s precocious, this boy of ours!
Week in Review June 20, 2008
Anything I want to remember about this week?
Oh yes!
First, we went swimming at our friend’s house. Jack always has fun playing at Morgan’s, especially when swimming is involved. After swimming, he twirled around the living room with the little girls. (There was only one other boy there, and he and Jack don’t get along.)
The next day, we went to a birthday party for another friend. When she was opening her presents, someone tried to look at an open one, and she said, “Mine!” in a voice and face that was a perfect impression of Golum (Lord of the Rings).
Our friend was selling her “boom-boom bap” kit, so I ended up buying it for Jack. He wanted to play it immediately, but he had to go to day care, so I fibbed: “Daddy has to put it together.” When we got home, though, a happy Jack played boom-boom bap for us.
Over the weekend, I came down from bed and Jack jumped off the couch yelling, “Mommy’s awake! Mommy’s awake!”. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to get my hug. But no! Jack ran to his drum set and started playing.
Jack Playing Boom-Boom Bap
First Sunday Update April 6, 2008
Still haven’t gotten around to announcing the existence of this blog yet. It’s work’s fault.
Some goals for this blog:
- Posting weekly updates
- Cataloging Jack’s numerous words
- Sharing incredibly cute stories
- Publishing more pictures more often
- Adding some extra pages with Jack’s “reading list” and toy reviews
So, for this week – It was a decent Jack week. As I type this, he is asleep. Today, we went to the park and played in the sand. I think he must have got some in his eyes as he had been rubbing them all day. By bed time, they were extremely puffy, even after a bath. We gave him some Benadryl.
He’s liking his new day care provider – Angie – and so are we. She’s incredibly sweet, and very communicative. She has 4 other kids there around Jack’s age, as well as her 9 y/o daughter and one baby girl. We went to the Jungle (a play space) on Saturday, and I met one of the other parents. Nice time.
What else we did this week:
- Saturday (4/5): Went to Contra Loma Regional Park and saw lots of cows (I have video, and it’s adorable! Jack kept saying “Hello cows. Nice to see you!” and “Moo!”)
- Friday (4/4): I worked until very late and was very upset about doing so.
- Wednesday (4/2): Playgroup in the morning, and we had fun, although someone brought up vaccines. I had to leave the room. I brought Jack to Angie’s after that, then came home. I was in a lot of pain on Wednesday and Thursday, probably from a lot of walking.
- Tuesday (4/1): I fell prey to one April Fool’s Day joke.
- Monday (3/31): Jack did two cute things that I want to write about. I wrote them down in my paper journal, which I don’t have with me right now. I will remember to post them eventually.
Some of Jack’s new words this week: digest (digesting), insane, static electricity
I haven’t downloaded any of April’s pictures to the computer yet. I’ll have to add one in here from March and just deal. I have 283 pictures from February, and I’m still going through and renaming and cropping them. I have 274 from March 1 – 27.
We have been reading Micawber, by John Lithgow, as our last book each night before lights out. I highly recommend it! It’s about a squirrel who paints, but that brief synopsis does not do the book justice. It’s written in rhyme, complete with big words like “peregrination” and “beguiler.” I love it!
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.
Seven Months August 22, 2006
On August 17, Jack turned 7 months old. Apparently, he was very photogenic between July 18 and August 17, as we have 38 photos of him on our web site right now. On August 25, we go to Kansas City, MO to finalize his adoption. From there, we go on to Pittsburgh, PA to visit Max’s family and some friends. We are so excited to see everyone and to have them meet Jack.
Important note: Jack has 2 teeth! Sharp teeth. And he’s really good at getting a grip on your fingers and then pulling them directly into his mouth so that he can have something to teethe on. Teether toys? P-shaw! He wants human flesh.
He also doesn’t like “solid” food so much. Thus far, he likes orange foods: Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash, and Carrots. We’re not concerned, as he is growing bigger everyday. He’s about 18 pounds now, so just growing out of his 6 month clothes.
Fortunately, he’s been doing better about napping. Until about 2 days ago, he was taking 2 – 3 naps per day, of 1 – 3 hours each. Two days ago, he apparently decided that he needs to be with us, so today he napped with my t-shirt. I guess he’s learning “object permanence.”
Five Months June 18, 2006
So much time has gone by so fast, and though he may still seem like a
little baby to y’all, to us he’s growing to be such a big boy! Jack is12
lbs. 6 oz. and is cuter and cuter everyday. He’s also crankier and
crankier — not taking naps will do that to a baby (and to his parents).
We’re working on that, so please pray to the deity of your choice that
Jack will sleep and be more like his happy go lucky self more often.
Other than the not napping thing, Jack is great! He’s very sharp and
observant. He’s learning to be gentle with Sassy (when Sassy will come
near him). He’s eating applesauce (sometimes mixed with oatmeal cereal)
and learning to drink water from a sippy cup.
Four Months May 25, 2006
Jack turned 4 months last Wednesday, May 17. His Royal Cuteness is becoming a real handful, so we’re a little late in spreading the latest in pictures, pages, and movies.
As always, the latest pictures and movies can be found on our web site at:
http://www.rmcsquared.net/jack.htm
Jack is trying to do so much, including sit up by himself, grab everything interesting, and drink from grown-up bottles. He doesn’t like rice cereal yet, but he does eat his formula well. He is manipulating objects, such as his pacifier and rattle, with both hands. It’s amazing to see him grasp and shake a rattle that he couldn’t even hold a month ago. I think he’s going to go straight from sitting to walking, because he loves to “stand” and put weight on his feet while we hold him up.
Two Months March 17, 2006
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Jack is 2 months old today! He is growing and learning in leaps and bounds. At the beginning of March, he weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces. Throughout this month, he has learned how to hold onto his own pacifier. He smiles real smiles now, and has laughed once or twice. He looks around the room, especially towards light and voices. He has started to “talk”. He has “ah-goo”, “ah-guh”, “oh”, “oo”, and other sounds that I can’t spell.
