Baby Jack's blog

Happy Feet

2012-02-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

Because sometime you just have to move and groove!

Sudoku

2012-02-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

GI introduced Jack to Sudoku today. It was a big hit!

Winter Wonderland

2012-02-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

Winter has finally arrived in the city! We got a nice coating of snow last night. This morning the hill in front of our house was prime sledding territory. Jack was in heaven!

Videos

2012-02-11T05:09:00.000-08:00

We have a bit of a video back log at the moment. I'll try to get them all on the blog again soon. Here is the back log of video from Florida!

Parent Teacher Conference

2012-01-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

We had Jack's first parent teacher conference at school on Friday. His teacher gave us a written progress report on him. It said:

"Jack is now comfortable separating from his mom upon entering the room. Before he participates in activity, he likes to connect with one of his teachers.

Jack follows the classroom rules and daily routine. He is now comfortable transitioning from activity to activity without stress or anxiety as he experienced at the beginning of the year.

Jack speaks in lengthy sentences using a wide range of vocabulary when communicating with us. He freely shares factual information he remembers from previous experiences. Whenever he needs us to help him, he is able to use his words.

Jack is busy throughout free play. His favorite activity usually involves letters of the alphabet such as, putting and alphabet puzzle together, molding and shaping play dough, do the project of the day, helping to cook or set up the train and train tracks. He uses all of the center activities without needing assistance from us. But he does enjoy teacher company while doing his favorite A-B-C puzzle.

Jack exhibits strong fine motor ability. He can stack small blocks, string wooden beads, and handles paint brushes, rollers and sponges, crayons and markers at the art table. Usually he is one of the first to volunteer to do the art project of the day. He takes his time choosing different colors and is proud of his accomplishment at completion. We have been impressed when we see he can write his name.

Whether indoors or out in the courtyard, Jack is on the move. He climbs up the ladder and zooms down the slide, rides the seesaw with his classmates, twirls on the Sit N' Spin enjoying gross motor an in age-appropriate fashion.

Jack remains attentive and interested in what is being read at story. He is not distracted by others who are talking or fidgeting in their seats. He is able to remain quiet and focused throughout the story. Bravo, Jack!

Music and circle dancing is a fun activity for us all. Jack will join hands to do the HOKEY POKEY, HERE WE GO LOOBY LOO, and RING-AROUND-THE-ROSIE. He enjoys doing the finger plays such as, MR BROWN AND MR GREEN, OPEN SHUT THEM and THREE LITTLE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED. When we take turns beating the drum, Jack takes his turn and will politely passes it to the next person.

Jack has enjoyed his first experiences in preschool. He no longer displays desperation anxiety when entering the classroom, is learning how to be a good friend to others, s more easily directed and doesn't remain moody for long periods of time if something doesn't go exactly his way. He is getting the full benefit of what preschool has to offer and is enjoying himself each time he comes to school. I look forward to participating and observing his future progress during the remainder of the school year. Thank you for sharing him with us."

Let's Talk!

2012-01-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

Jack is going through another big shift in play. His latest favorite game is "Let's talk." Basically it is your classic pretend play. He has his character, and he wants me to be a character, and those characters are in direct interaction with each other. For example, we may be playing with his castle, and the king, queen, and knights may be playing hide and seek. Or we may be playing with his toy animals and he may be the bear and I may be the sheep and the two will go on grand adventures climbing mountains, singing songs to one another, and hunting for things like bushes to eat. The big change compared to how he was playing before is that he is no longer just making people climb stairs or building a zoo for the animals, the toys are now characters with personalities who live in their own little world and he wants to play with them in direct interaction. He wants someone playing in this pretend world with him. He is directing most of the adventures and leading me into the little worlds he is creating. It is a fun shift in play. It is also a big shift in moving away from parallel play and into full interactive play.

Things I Never Thought

2012-01-20T19:15:00.000-08:00

As a parent you find yourself saying phrases you never thought you would ever in your life say. For example, last week I found myself saying to Jack "Please don't stick your fingers in your butt and then try to stick them in my mouth. That is not nice." Anyway, on that same subject, for the first time ever, I find myself wishing we had an Indian style toilet in our house. For those of you not familiar with an Indian Style toilet you can read about them here. They are basically squat toilets that you do not sit on. In general, I am not very comfortable with them, however in our on going potty training with Jack we have discovered that the only way he will use the toilet to poo is to stand up on the toilet and squat. Since we started doing this a couple of weeks ago he has not had one accident and he is more than happy to go in the potty. Understandably he can not climb up on the potty himself and stand without falling in, so a squat toilet would be useful for him. Now that we seem to have that process under control, I finally feel pretty confident in saying that we are potty trained. Since we have returned from Florida he has only had 1 pee accident and he has even been dry at nap time. His teacher still wants him to wear a pull up at school, but he has been using the potty there too and hopefully they will let him go in undies soon!

Early Reading

2012-01-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

We had a major reading breakthrough this week. Just to re-cap. Jack has known about 30+ site words for a while. Phonic wise he had known his ABC sounds 100% since early September. He has shown a little interest in sounding words out, but usually would say the sounds then say any word that starts with that sound. For example cap would be read car or cat or canoe or any other C word. He also liked to construct long nonsense words with his ABC puzzle pieces, try to sound them out, then ask me what it says.

In the past couple of days he seems to have finished making the connection that all the sounds need to be present in the word he is reading. All of a sudden he is reading 3 letter words (in a consonant, vowel, consonant pattern) with about 80% accuracy. At first I thought he may have just memorized them, but when he sounded out and read words like wig, jug, bum, job, tab, etc... it became clear that he was sounding them out and actually proper reading them versus having memorized them.

Four letter words are still a bit too hard for him. However words that rhyme with Jack, like sack, back, and rack he can read. Needless to say we are very excited and he is very proud of himself!

New Year!

2012-01-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012!

The family rang in the New Year quietly at my aunt's house avoiding all the drunken revelry that was going on one street away in Key West. Actually, the day was quite fun, as was the whole visit. Jack really enjoys going down there. He followed my aunt around like a shadow, chased the Conch Train every time he saw it, rode on a glass bottom boat out to the coral reef, fed the chickens every morning, and watched a lot of street performers. He really enjoyed the street performers this year. His favorite was the Cat Man, who, as you can guess, had trained cats. We saw his show at least 5 times while we were there.

We spent probably ever other day at the beach. The first week it wasn't so much beach time due to the fact that there were a number of jelly fish washed up on shore and we had to avoid them, but after they were gone it was game on! Jack is a total beach bum. His two favorite activities were the "dig a hole and fill it with the ocean water" game, and then just swimming in the ocean itself. Most of the time the water was incredibly calm, and he had his life preserver, so he really got to go nuts swimming.

We did have one scary day when he managed to get into some pills he wasn't supposed to get into. They were way up high on the counter and he some how managed to get one in the 30 seconds where I was in the bathroom and GI was taking a load out to the car. We were pretty sure he ate one and had to make a call to poison control. Based on what he took and in what dosage they said he would be totally fine and to give him lots of food and water and candy. So all was well and Jack got a lot of sweets that day. Later we realized that the pill was almost the exact same size and shape as some white jelly beans he had been eating earlier which had been kept at the other end of the counter.

Pop Pop also came down for the last couple of days of the visit. We all had quite a nice time playing at the beach, going to the aquarium, painting at the toy factory, eating GIANT cookies, and walking around the town. With two extra adults GI and I even got to go out on a date night. Thanks to my aunt (who seems to know everyone on the island!) we were able to get passage on a sailboat sunset wine cruise. It was a mid sized sailboat with a total of 20 people on board and we sailed just off the coast of the island for about 2 hours while the sun went down. It was fantastic and by far the best date night we have had in a long time.

Coming back home has been nice. The weather has been good and Jack has been doing better about the potty training. At the moment we are only using a pull up for nap time and night time, and he has been dry most nap times. We have had a sticker chart with spaces for around 250 stickers going. He gets 1 every time he pees on the potty. Today he finished off his sticker chart and got his "big prize." His big prize was a toy boat dolphin explorer set. He was so excited for a toy boat probably becasue of all the boats we have just been watching on the island and the boat he got to ride on. He spent about half an hour sailing it around the living room and then he had to have a bath tonight and sail on!

Life in a Game

2011-12-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months Jack and GI have begun a nightly ritual of playing computer games together before bed. Jack loves his daddy time and is completely hooked on the little games they play. Lately, everything has begun to get translated into "video game speak." Book pages are no longer "page 1, page 2, etc....," but "level 1, level 2, etc...." One night we were talking about a book that Paati had sent from India, and he said that India was a level in one of his games (they play in front of a picture of the Taj Mahal). Tonight when we were walking around he said he couldn't chase daddy fast because he was "running out of time," (he was tired!) so I play poked his tummy like buttons to program him some extra time on the clock, and he took off running after daddy.

Little Fish

2011-12-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

We are again off on another grand adventure. This time we are down visiting family in Flordia! Jack has been having a blast. We found a great beach this morning. The water was very shallow and the waves were very very calm. He had a grand time playing in the water and building his sand castles. He could have stayed there all day!

Self Image

2011-12-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

Jack surprised me today. When he was painting he said he was going to paint "Jack." I got out a new piece paper for him to have a clean start. First he drew a big circle and said "This is my head. I have a BIG head" - Yes, I am sure this is directly related to GI saying "oh my god, look he has such a big head" - and other big head comments that are often heard in our family. The circle with a dot next to his head is his tummy and belly button. In a second self portrait he did later he had two circle tummies and two belly buttons like a snowman. He really likes belly buttons. The squiggles below the face are his hands. He put each of his hands on the paper and traced around them with the paint brush by himself. I am very glad to see that when he draws himself, he draws himself with a big smile on his face. That is our happy little guy.

Jingle Bells!

2011-12-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

The new camera has come, so you will see regular videos on the blog again. To start the movies off right, here is Jack in a rousing rendition of his current favorite song, Jingle Bells!

In the whole theme of "we have to do something Christmas every day" that Jack seems to follow, on Monday we were at the grocery store and he spied a Gingerbread Man decorating kit. He told me "Mommy we haven't made these yet like Curious George." In the Curious George Christmas movie George, wraps gifts, writes a letter to Santa, sings Jingle Bells, decorates a tree, mails Christmas cards to his family, and decorates gingerbread men. We had done pretty much all of that save the gingerbread men, so Jack was really excited when he found the kit (who some smart marketing person had placed right at kid eye level). Since GI was working late we went ahead and got the kit. Jack had so much fun decorating all the gingerbread men. Then this morning on his last day of school before the holiday break, we wrapped up a couple of them and he gave them to his teachers. He was very proud of himself.

Growth Spurt

2011-12-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

Jack has been eating like a machine the past few weeks. He put on a pound or two, and as his standard, as soon as he gets an little extra weight on him, he gets taller. I measured him today and he has grown another inch since mid October. That puts him at 37 inches standing/38 inches length.

His second molar is also just starting to pop out. He has had a couple of rough nights sleep and I will attribute it to the teeth.

Under Water Adventures

2011-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Jack had his latest Zoo School Class on Monday. The theme for the day was "Under Water Animals" The opened the class with a book about fish and different salt water animals. The kids in the class were a bit more squirely then they usually are and it took the teacher a while to get through the book Usually there are 4-5 kids in a class, but this time there were easily 10+ kids. The book was a bit long too. After the story she brought out some sharks teeth for the kids to all look at and touch. She also brought out some sharks skin and fish scales.

Craft time is one of Jack's favorite parts of the Zoo Schools. The crafts were really neat this time too. The first craft was making a fish from paper plates. The kids got to put scales on their fish with those large dot markers. Jack stamped his all over with gusto. The second craft was my favorite, a make and ocean craft. We put some glue on the paper and covered the glue in sand. Jack chose purple sand for his ocean. The we glued some "kelp", stamped a bunch of animal stamps, and stuck on some animal foam stickers. According to Jack his favorite underwater animals are the jellyfish and the seahorse.

Finally we got to meet a hermit crab and a turtle. The turtle wasn't a sea turtle, but there are very few live sea creatures you can pass around for toddlers to touch and feel aside from a starfish and ray (which were in large tanks outside). Much to the delight of all the toddlers the turtles were allowed to roam around on the floor and they kids all got a kick out of it.

The Christmas List

2011-12-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Jack is very into Christmas this year. He sings Jingle Bells all day long, and we have to something Christmas every day. Sometimes it is wrapping a gift, other times it is a craft, but we have to do Christmas something.

This morning Jack came up to me and said that he needed to make his Christmas list for Santa or he woudn't get any presents. I got him a piece of paper and a pen and he began creating his list. I asked him what was on it and he said "it says for for everyone to be nice." While it was very sweet, it wasn't quite a toddler wish for world peace. He had been watching Mickey Saves Santa in which Donald Duck is told he has to be nice or he won't get any presents. So Jacks wish is for everyone to be nice so everyone gets presents from Santa.

He then folded up his letter and stuck it through the mail slot in the door to send it off to to the North Pole.

They Said What?

2011-11-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

Jack has begun the game of pitting Mommy against Daddy.

Example 1:
San Diego, at our friend's house, Jack is trying to nap on the living room couch. GI had been in the other room and peeked in to check on him.

GI: Ugh. He is still awake.
Jack: Hey Mommy! Daddy says I'm awake! It's time to play.
Mommy: No, Jack. It is still nap time.

Example 2:
GI: Hey Jack do you want to play computer?
Jack: Yeah! (He runs and gets his "computer" in it's case) Hey Daddy, you want to play computer on the couch?
GI: No. Come play computer in Daddy's chair.
Jack: No, come play on the couch.
GI: No, come play on the chair.
(Jack runs pouting to Mommy - he starts pushing his computer off the chair)
Jenee: Don't drop you computer Jack. You know if it falls on the floor you it gets taken away and you are all done with your computer for the day.
(The computer falls on the floor)
Jenee: Ok I am putting the computer away now.
Jack: But Mommy, DADDY wants me to play computer!

San Diego Pics

2011-11-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

Building a Sand Castle

Stomping in the Sand Castle

Coronado Beach

Stomping in someone's abandoned sand castle.

The whale show at Sea World.

Two of the whales.

Lining up all the ducks.

This was his favorite part of Sea World.


Sending the duckies back into the water!

Tooth Update

2011-11-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

Just a follow up on an earlier post, Jack's first 2-year molar has come in. Another is now visible just under the gums. The cutting of the 2 year molars seems to be really hard on him. He is still complaining of tooth pain. I don't know how long this will go on, but I hope the others come in soon.

He also says he has bunnies in his ears. I am not sure why, but hey, why not.

A Peaceful Existance

2011-11-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

Jack has been settling back in home since our return from San Diego. They past few days have been the most fun for him since both Mommy and Daddy are home. He is happiest when we are both here.

Our all activities in general involve a lot of leaf raking. Jack gets a huge kick out of jumping in all of the raked leaves. Then again, what kid doesn't enjoy that? Today he was doing forward rolls in the leaf piles.

Tonight we put up the Christmas tree (which we made from sticks we found in our yard). Jack got a huge kick out of it and firmly believed that since we were putting up the tree it must be Christmas today. He was a little disappointed to find out that wasn't true, but he is really excited for Christmas (Thank you Curious George Christmas Special on Thanksgiving). He had had a blast playing with the decorations and eating a blue candy cane. His tongue and lips turned purple from the blue coloring!

He is also becoming a bit imaginative about ghosts and monsters. This is apparently very normal for his age (especially since we just had Halloween!). He isn't scared of them and they don't have a negative connotation to him. In the hotel last week, any room with the lights off had a monster. His little imagination is running a bit wild

Lessons from Shamu

2011-11-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

Jack and Mommy have spent the past couple of days at Sea World. We have been having a grand time and I have learned a few things about toddlers and theme parks.

1. Don't wear sandals - I have comfortable sandals that I can and do walk miles in, however theme parks may have an assortment of things that a toddler may want to repeatedly crawl on/through/in/over/up. This park had a slide and hanging bridge path that could reached by a series of cargo nets. Jack loved climbing them over and over. Sandals don't work too well with on cargo nets.

2. Bring a backpack - Diaper bags are great, but for the above reasons, diaper bags on cargo nets are not so convienient.

3. Expect to spend money on games - Games are everywhere at theme parks. Jack spent a fair ammount of both trips playing with the pick a duck game. For the most part he was just playing with the ducks, and not playing for prizes. However when I did let him play for a prize he ended picking a lucky ducky and leaving the park with a stuffed Elmo, Big Bird, and a Cookie Monster. He also played his second favorite carnival game which involves throwing rings at a bunch of soda bottles. They gave him a giant bucket of 250 rings that took him about 15+ minutes to throw at all the bottles. By the time he got to the end of it he was all gamed out.

4. Expect tag a longs - The previously mentioned Cookie Monster doll needed to accompany the toddler on all rides after his acquiring. Extra care had to be made to be sure the critter didn't fly out of the ride.

5. Plan multiple days- I honestly never understood how people could spend a whole week at say Disneyland, however after spending 2 days at Sea World I get it (They had an end of the year promo where you buy one day and get a limited year pass, so day two was free). The two days were totally different from one another. The first day we saw 2 Orca (Killer) Whale shows, played in the Elmoland, and saw some dolphins. The second day we rode some rides, watched a Dog/Cat show, and saw some polar bears and penguins. On each day we could only cover maybe 40% of the park (we didn't see it all in 2 days). We could probably spend another day there without trouble, and it is not a big park at all.

All in all it was a very fun two days. Jack napped in his stroller at the park and came home happy every day. The weather was perfect and the park wasn't too crowded. Jack and I had a blast!

11-11-11 A Lucky Update

2011-11-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks have been quite a whirl of activity. We were finishing a lot of major projects like painting, winterizing and leaf maintenance.

Jack had his last gymnastics class this week. He enjoys his classes, however with school twice a week and all the other activities that we do, he seems to have gotten a bit over scheduled. He has been requesting to stay home and play at home more and more. Also with his class now being in the early morning instead of just before dinner, it has become less of a family event. We have decided to skip the gymnastics this winter and perhaps pick it up again in the spring.

School itself is going well. Jack enjoys it when he gets there but getting him out of the door is a task. He has learned how to stall, so he always has to potty, or get an extra sip of water, or do something once we are all dressed and ready to go out the door.

I think a lot of his resistance to things he enjoys and his desire to be at home more may be strongly connected to cutting his 2 year molars. He has been complaining of tooth pain a lot. This makes him both a lot snugglier and a lot more short fused. We are trying to be patient with him and accommodate him as much as we can while these teeth work their way to the surface.

He has also really increased his "assistance" in the kitchen. Pretty much anytime I am in the kitchen he pulls his high chair around back against the counter and climbs up to help. If we are cooking Indian food he presses the button to run the mixie, he chops his wood veggies on the counter as I chop the real veggies, he dumps the pasta in the water, he puts the spinach on Daddy's sandwich in the morning, he toasts the bagels for breakfast, etc...

We have some travels coming up this month so there will be more updates and photos soon!

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

Jack had quite a Halloween Day this year. We spent the morning at the zoo with some friends. The first part of the visit was a fall zoo school class. The theme was "Forest Friends." They learned a bit about woodland creatures and got to meet a bunny, a possum, and a snake. Jack especially enjoyed making the crafts, which this visit were a bunny mask and a rice cake bird feader.

After zoo school it was time for a Halloween trick. We played our trick on the kangaroos. We dressed Jack in his costume and he "tricked" the zoo kangaroos into thinking he was a real one. At our zoo you can actually go into the kangaroo enclosure and walk around with them and on more than one occasion they literally jumped across the path in front of us. It was quite cool and Jack got a kick out of "tricking" the kangaroos.

The treating came later in the evening. We first met up with some friends in the business district for some high energy trick or treating, but it proved to be a bit too high energy for Jack, and he found a few of the costumes the other kids wore a bit scary. We later went to a street not far from our house where we trick or treated last year and that went a bit better. With Jack however, it wasn't so much getting the candy that interested him, but seeing what numbers would be on the next house! We had to guess the next house number and see who would be right! He seemed to quite enjoy his Halloween this year and hopefully he gets a good night's rest tonight as he is a tired boy!

Spooky Fun

2011-10-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday night we had our annual Halloween party. Jack was very excited for the party. He fully understands Halloween now, and he knows what a party is so he was really looking forward to it. We had a full house with about 7 kids and 14 adults. For as much as he was looking forward to the party, as usual he got a bit freaked out with so many people at his house. We had to bribe him to wear his costume and he spent a lot of time on my lap.

We did attempt two toddler games, tape the tail on the black cat, and a little fishing type game. Basically we had a cauldron with mini plastic pumpkin buckets in it and the kids got to fish them out with a fishing pole made of a paint stir stick, fishing line, and a bent paperclip. Jack went nuts for the game. Every day since then he has been saying "We haven't catched one in a while" to play it again.

The kids in costume were very cute. We had a Dorthoy, a princess, Yoda, an artist, a chicken, a Wall Street Protester, a Jack was the kangaroo. Over all the kids had a lot of fun. There were very minimal sharing issues and the party ended like many evenings at our house to, with chasing around the wall. The last 2 kids ran laps with Jack in our dining room for a good 15 minutes. It was quite a fun evening and Jack slept until 8am the next morning, which was fantastic!

Let the Festivities Begin

2011-10-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today kicked off our Halloween celebrations. Between gymnastics, school, our party and trick or treating Jack will have ample opportunities to use of his costume. He decided this year that he wanted to be a kangaroo. It made for some very cute kangaroo gymnastic this morning! He spent most of the time on the trampoline, because that is what kangaroos to. They hop and bounce!

I'm so F&*#ing Cute

2011-10-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

It is not uncommon for GI to say "he's so freakin' cute" after Jack Jack does something, well freakin' cute. However tonight Jack picked up on this, but he can't quite say "freakin'" so you can guess how it sounded when he said it. Attempts to duplicate this on video weren't terribly successful, but you get the idea.

2.5 year Dr. visit

2011-10-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

Jack had his 30 month well child visit yesterday. They changed up a lot of stuff this visit. First off they weighed him on an adult scale with his clothes and Jacket on instead of only in a clean diaper. He rang in at 27.8 lbs (25%), but now I have no idea what his real weight is because a lot of that is clothing weight. They also decided to take his height standing instead of his length. I though they only did length until 3. So standing, to the extent that he stood still, he stood at 36.25 inches (50%). I asked the nurse if the standing vs. length made a diference, because it look like he has only grown .25 inches in 6 months, which is false. I get around 37+ inches when he is laying down. She said 'No, they are the exact same." However when the doctor looked at his numbers, the first thing she said was "Don't worry about the height, it always drops when we stand them up. It isn't that he only grew .25 inches." So I think the numbers from this visit do not give a real representation of his weight or his growth pattern, but guess they will be the new baseline since it looks like they will be taking standing height and clothed weight from now on.

Everything else in the visit went really well. He was happy and curious about all she was doing. Physically he is developing well. She recommended a stronger cream for his excema, which bleeds when he itches it. Cognitively, she said he is about 6 months ahead of a smart 3 year old. Socially he is right where he should be so she was really happy we had him in a good nursery school.

Later in the evening Jack came up to me and started playing with my back. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was the doctor and he needed to check me, and proceeded to check my spine, head and ears. He also had to give Daddy a doctor exam when he came home.

Pumpkin Day

2011-10-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

On Friday Jack had his first school field trip. The 2 year old - Pre K classes drove up (parents drove their own kids) to a farm about 45 minutes north of the city. It was not an ideal day for a field trip. The weather was chilly and very rainy. Most of the visit was outdoors and much of it was only under a pavilion. The visit started off with a little story about some animals trying to pick a radish. Then they talked about what grows on a farm. Jack was tired and just wanted pick a pumpkin, so he wasn't that entertained by the story. The presentation was also much more geared to the Kindergarten crowd. After the story the kids all went into a barn to see some animals. There were baby cows, pigs, chickens, and ponies.

The real highlight was going down to the pumpkin patch. Jack was very excited to pick his pumpkin. The patch was practically flooded and even walking very carefully Jack still managed to fall on his butt in the mudd. He picked out which pumpkin he wanted and we took it off the vine. He was very proud of it, but we he saw the bigger pumpkin in the other area he wanted one of those. He said we needed to come back with daddy and pick a big one. We shall see.

Jack version 2.5

2011-10-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

Jack has made it to the 2.5 year mile marker. At 2.5 Jack:

- Knows all his basic 26 letter sounds

- Can spell/read a number of words including the written numbers one - ten, Mommy, Daddy, Jack, cat, dog, cow, sun, pig, etc...

- Can do some basic addition on his fingers (1+1=2, 3+3=6 etc...)

-Write most of his letters pretty well. His straight line letters like A, H, I, T and others are very recognizable, but some of the curvy letters like S are a little harder to write. He can write his first name pretty well.

-Solve Mazes. Jack loves mazes and he can do ones require him to back up and try another way when he runs into a dead end.

- Follow Dot-to-Dots up to 40 numbers. He loves dot-to-dots almost as much as mazes. He flew threw through a 50 page dot to dot book in one afternoon. He likes to go back and do them over and over again. He is good with ones up to around 40 dots, any beyond that tend to have more small moves then he can handle and he has trouble finding the next letter.

His 2.5 year well child visit is next Friday so I will save the physical updates until then.

Grandma time

2011-09-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

With GI out of the country (he comes home today) we have been lucky enough to have a visit from Nana (my Mom). Jack has been over the moon happy to have her here. They have been having all kinds of fun making Halloween cut out Pumpkin cookies, painting elaborate pictures, and singing the ABCs 10,000 times. (His writing of the ABCs has actually improved a lot. I'll post a picture soon, he can write basics like CAT pretty well. U,V, and J all look like V though.)

It has been really helpful to have Nana here. GI has only been home for 8 days this whole month and I was very ready to have help. Jack's behavior improved instantly when she arrived! Having her here has allowed me to begin to prep for the massive painting spree that starts on Monday. Jack's Grandpa and Uncle are coming in town and we will be painting the majority of the interior of our house. There is still more spackling, taping, and wall washing to be done, but at least we are on our way!

Zip-a-dee-do-da

2011-09-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Today in gymnastics class they set up a zip line all across the gym floor. Jack couldn't get enough of it. He rode across 10+ times and was itching for more. A lot of the other kids were a bit hesitant to try it on their own, and many of them didn't, but Jack was just non-stop! I apologize for the awful video quality. I took the video on my phone and it is pretty grainy, but you get the idea.

Settled In

2011-09-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

We are in our second full week of school and Jack Jack has settled in nicely. He looks forward to getting up and going to school. He really likes his teachers and the other kids. All the kids have been doing really well being away from their parents and none of us need to stay at the school anymore. He is a bit confused on the time though. Every time we get to school he tells me that "This is my first day at school." I remind him that his first day has passed, but apparently everyday is the first day. Either that or it is part of the name of the school, which is most likely.

GI has been traveling again recently so Jack and I have been finding creative ways to fill our evening time, time that is usually his time with daddy. Last night we were in the basement paining wooden cars (Michaels has a fantastic selection of $1 wooden items to paint). He started out on the first one wanting to paint every color, then unguided he settled in to painting one white with just black wheels, another was all white with yellow accents, and a final one was red and black. I was a bit surprised because they all actually looked like the colors sort of went together. Perhaps his aesthetic eye is developing, perhaps not, but he had a good time painting.

He also painted a wooden cat mask. This was a lot of fun for him because he thinks he is a cat. Honestly. He pretends to be a cat often. "Kitty Kitty" is always doing all sorts of things, usually what Jack is doing. At night he wants me to say goodnight to Jack and Kitty Kitty.

Potty training has taken a major backslide. He doesn't really want to go on the potty and is not telling me when he has to go anymore. Yesterday he peed through 4 pairs of pants and underwear. I think it is probably a reaction to the major shift in his schedule and hopefully he will get back on track as he sees the kids in his class telling the teacher they need to go to the bathroom.

Cookie time

2011-09-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

I love to bake. It has been something I have done often since I was a kid. Needless to say I have been looking forward to when Jack is old enough to get in on the baking action. Last year after each holiday I bought all the clearance holiday cookie cutters in prep for mega cookie decorating with Jack Jack. Yesterday we decided to bake cookies for a fun afternoon project. We put the mixing bowl on the floor for Jack to use. I measured out each ingredient and he dumped it in the bowl. Then we mixed them all up together. He especially enjoyed putting in the chocolate chips and M&M candies. As soon as they were done he pulled a chair up to the table and sat patiently while I transferred the hot cookies to the newspaper to cool. Soon he had a couple dozen fresh cookies in front of him. He was happily declaring "Ooooh look at the cookies. These are all Jack Jack's cookies!" Suddenly I had a vision of him taking one bit out of every cookie so I told him "Jack only two cookies. Don't eat any others. Only two cookies." He looked at me dead serious and said "Oh Mommy, don't be silly!"

School Days

2011-09-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack had his first day of school today. All morning Jack Jack was quite excited and wanted to leave for school pretty much as soon as he finished his hot chocolate. He couldn't wait to put on his backpack and head out.

While walking from the car to the school he was a chorus of "Hey Mommy. I have an idea. Lets go to school! Hey Mommy. This is my school! This is Jack's school Mommy. Those are kids at school Mommy." He was bouncing as he was walking up to the door. Once we entered the room he greeted his teacher and went right to play. They encouraged the parents to stay all day today and about half of us did. The others had kids who had attended over the summer and had kids who were very familiar with the place. The day went like this:

9-10:30 - Open play time (life sized play house/play dough/puzzles/blocks/etc...)
10:30-10:45 - Story time
10:45-11:05 - Outside time in the courtyard
11:05-11:15 - Snack time
11:15-11:30 - Music time

All in all it was a pretty laid back morning. She said they often do a craft time during open play too but these first few visits are more about getting the kids familiar with the teachers (2 teachers and 1 assistant for 7 kids) and with each other.

The kids didn't play with each other too much today. Of the seven 3 are Japanese ESL learners so there is a little language barrier and most of the kids were tuned into a teacher or back and forth from their mom. A few instances of 2 kids working on the same puzzle happened but for the most part they were all exploring.

Jack had a good first visit with an average amount of checking in with mom compared to the other kids. All in all he had a good day and is looking forward to going back next week.

Faster than a Falling Leaf

2011-09-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

Today marks the official end of summer for Jack Jack. Tomorrow will be his first day at school, well nursery school. He seems aware that it will be happening tomorrow and is excited to see his teacher again. She came to our house last week to meet him on his own turf. They seemed to get along fine enough. There will be 7 kids in his class with 2 teachers and 1 assistant. Lots of fun things seem to be planned for the school year including a visit to an organic farm to go pumpkin and apple picking next month. They encourage parents to hang out around school for as long as the child needs to help with separation anxiety. She told me to bring a book the first day.

Gymnastics class began last week. This year Jack Jack is in the big gym and the structure is a bit different. It is a lot less of a free for all gymnastics themed playtime and more of a proper class. They divide the gym into stations and stations are opened up 1 at a time, ending on the big trampoline. They are also weaning the kids off the stamps. Only 2 in this class instead of 5 in the toddler class (or 7/8/9 Jack would swindle his teacher out of). Jack Jack is the youngest in his class. Technically it is a 2.5 - 3.5 class so Jack is a bit young for it, but he is too old for the other one. He does ok given he is the youngest, but he doesn't quite have the general physical development that the other kids do (all of whom are over 3 save 1 kid). He is doing alright though and will pick up quick like always. He is still excited to go which is a big thing, he just doesn't like being limited to the stations that are open.

In other news he is hitting the "kids say the dardest things" phase. Today I had to take a shower in the morning and I had the bathroom door opened. He kept peeking in just to be sure I was still there. Then all of a sudden he piped up. "Hey mommy. That's a big butt mommy! You have a big butt mommy!" All I could do was laugh and say "Well yes Jack. Mommy's butt is bigger than yours."

Down South

2011-08-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Last week Jack Jack got to see his Uncle Jason receive his Army Ranger tab. We flew down to Atlanta on Wednesday were we met up with Pop Pop (Grandpa) and Nana (Grandma), who he was very excited to see. From there we all drove down to Fort Benning to see Jason. Jack Jack was over joyed to see his Uncle. He really is nuts about Jason. The ceremony was a bit tough for Jack. They did a big "Rangers in Action" presentation that involved demonstrations in hand to hand combat, rappelling, helicopters (which he liked) and explosions (which scared the blazes out of him). He was quite happy to hang out with his uncle though when it was all over. I think Jack most enjoyed eating ice cream with everyone almost ever night, specifically pink ice cream.

We also went to the Georgia Aquarium, which is huge and very cool. Cool is actually Jack's new favorite word. When he comes across something he likes he declares it "cool." He found lots of "cool tunnels" to explore with Uncle Jason, and they saw lots of "cool fish."

We were supposed to fly back on Saturday night but the flight was oversold by 6 seats. Jack and I volunteered to fly out on Saturday morning and in return they gave us 4 free round trip tickets on the airline, which we prompt used on Monday to book our winter trip to Key West, Florida. All in all it was a fun five days and we came home with free flights.

Hindi Fun Music

2011-08-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

Like most kids Jack Jack loves music. Lately he seems to only want to listen to Hindi music in the car. He has always loved the song Desi Girl, but now after listening to the Laagan soundtrack once in the car he requests it all the time. He knows a few of the actual titles of the songs, like Chale Chalo, but some of the others he has given his own names to. For example, Mitwa is "Hindi Fun Music" and Radha Kaise Na Jale is "One Clapping Song" because in the movie they are clapping and dancing with sticks while they are singing (you can watch a video of the song here). He loves to listen to Radha Kaise Na Jale and dance, jump, and spin on the couch. He literally requests it every time I open up my computer and as soon as we get in the car. He tries to sing along, and wants me to sing along, but neither of us really know the words well so Jack and I sound like two cats getting their tails pulled.

Since his music phase is in full force the other night GI got out is violin for the first time in a while and played for Jack. Jack was captivated. He sat on his couch with a bowl of cheerios and watched GI like a person sits at the movies with a bowl of popcorn. He really got a kick out of it. Then last night he made a brief attempt to sing some baby version of the notes sans words. It was a quick moment, but very cute. Since Jack enjoys it so much I think playing the violin at night after dinner may become part of our routine.

Riding the Waves

2011-08-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday we all drove up to the lake house of one of GI's coworkers. Jack Jack got to take his first speed boat ride. He seemed to enjoy the boat a lot, but he wasn't quite sure how to react to its rocking on the waves. The highlight of the boat ride for Jack was being pulled in a tube behind the boat. The tube had a solid inflated bottom so there was no way he could fall through the middle and he took turns riding with Mom and Dad who kept a firm grip on his life jacket. He seemed to enjoy the rocking sensation a lot more on the tube then on the boat. Above all he wanted to lean out of the tube and splash in the oncoming waves. Once he was in he didn't want to get out, he just occasionally wanted to switch which parent was with him. It was quite a fun time and we are thankful to GI's coworker for letting us enjoy a day on the lake.

Attitude

2011-08-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately we have begun to see a lot of the negative typical toddler behavior from Jack Jack in the past week or so. Our neighbors and their 20 month old daughter Vita were over at our house the other day and every toy she would pick up Jack would try to grab and say that it was his. Jack would give them back if I told him to, but Vita got really frustrated by it. He also wanted to play his new favorite game with here, one in which he says "Boo" and the other person says "Ahhhh!" He was up in her face saying Boo! Boo! Boo! and it kinda freaked her out.

Everything now is accompanied by the phrase "This is Jack Jack's" or "This is mine." Jack can also be frequently heard saying "Excuse me" as he shoves me or anyone else who happens to be where he wants to be.

We have a few people skills to brush up on before nursery school starts next month!

Is it normal for a two year old. Pretty much. No one wants to see their child being bossy though (this coming from a Mom who was know to be a bit of a bossy child herself).

Uncool

2011-08-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sadly, I seem to have lost all of my toddler (sesame) street cred already. If one of the characters on his shows is singing or dancing or being silly and I sing or dance along with them Jack Jack turns to me and says "Oh no Mommy! Just Mickey Mouse (or whoever he is watching) do it!." If it has started already what will it be like when he is a teenager?

Saturday Morning Variety

2011-08-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

Jack's first attempt at writing his ABCs by himself.

There is a variety of Jack Jack "news" report this morning. First, Jack's latest obsession is his "school time books," which are basically workbooks. We bought a bunch of workbooks for him at Boarders when our local one went out of business in the Spring, but he didn't have enough pencil/crayon control to really work on them. This summer he pretty much had a chalk in his hand all the time, so needless to say his control over a writing utensil improved greatly. About 2 weeks ago we brought out the workbooks again. In two weeks he completely finished 3 80 page workbooks (tracing, coloring, Upper Case Letter) and is well into 4 more books (Numbers, Number Games, Lower Case Letters, and a Finding Nemo Aquatic Life/Science one). He is completely obsessed with them. He honestly spends over an hour on them per day and cries when we tell him we need to put them away. He hasn't mastered all the skills presented in the books, but if he wants to practice, practice, practice and gets so much enjoyment from workbooks we will encourage him to continue!

The second news with Jack Jack is that we are really focusing on turning down the TV time. Jack watches way too much TV. He gets some cartoons when he wakes up, more at lunch time, and more at dinner time. A big part of why he watches so much TV goes back to when he was younger and just wouldn't eat much solid food at all. For a long time we would read him books while trying to feed him, then it got too hard to hold a book and try to stick a spoon in his mouth at the same time, so we turned to cartoons to hold his attention and give us 2 free hands to feed him. Jack's eating has greatly improved across the board so we are starting to not use the cartoons at meal time. We have begun with no cartoons at dinner, but he does like to listen to music. So far it is ok. He is eating a bit less at meal time but a combo of music, counting, and Mom and Dad telling silly stories seems to be working. Once he is good at dinner, we will cut the cartoons of at lunch too and then combined with turning off the TV earlier in the morning I think we will have cut his TV time down a lot.

Jack is also sleeping in a bit more. About two months ago I got really frustrated and exhausted because Jack Jack was waking up for the day at 5:45 am multiple times a week. In the morning when he would wake up early (some times as early as 4:30 am!) and we would tell him it was still night time he would cry and scream. A temper tantrum at 4:30 am is the worst. This pattern continued over a couple of weeks It left both Mommy and baby very cranky and sleep deprived. No one was having fun. Then we broke down and ordered bunny. Bunny is basically a visual alarm clock. During the day it lights up with a picture of a bunny up and playing in the sun, and at night you flip it to a illuminated picture of the bunny sleeping in bed. Every night we put bunny to bed and at 6:30 am the picture silently changes to the illuminated picture of the bunny playing under the sun. Jack Jack loves it and putting bunny to bed has become a part of the evening routine. In the morning if he wakes up before bunny he will quietly lay in bed or quitely lay down in our room until bunny wakes up. It has been fanatic. When bunny does wake up he comes happily scampering to our room and my alarm clock is Jack saying "Bunny wake up! Wake up Mommy! No more sleeping! Open eyes! Bunny wake up! Time to go downstairs!" So he wakes up happy and we have not had a really early morning or morning tantrum since bunny came. Everyone is better rested and more pleasant in the morning. When school starts next month I am going to change the "wake up time" to 7 am so he will sleep in a bit more.

Circles

2011-08-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took apart our big living room play mat to really scrub it down and get it really clean. I usually surface clean it once or twice a week, but it has been peed on so much lately we wanted to really scrub it. Jack Jack was delighted to see it taken apart. He always wants to take the mat apart himself and play with it but he isn't usually allowed to. Last night he got to play with it since it was already taken apart. He took all the circles and spread them all over the living room and was hopping from one to another counting them. It made him immensely happy.

Adventures in Parenting

2011-07-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

Dinner Last Night:
It was hot. Jack and GI were wearing only shorts.
Jack Jack: Jack Jack shirt off.
Us: Yeah Jack's shirt is off.
Jack: Daddy shirt off.
GI: Yes Daddy's shirt is off.
Jack: Mommy shirt off.
Mommy: No Mommy is going to leave her shirt on.
Jack: Mommy shirt off!!!
Mommy: No honey, Mommy is not taking her shirt off.
Jack: Daddy, take Mommy shirt off!
GI: No Jack, Daddy is not going to take Mommy's shirt off.
Jack: (almost in a panic) You can do it Daddy! Take Mommy shirt off!
At that point we were laughing to hard to talk.

Potty training.
Overall it has been going pretty well well, but today he peed on the floor through his underwear and quickly started to dance and jump in the puddle. Pee went everywhere.

No Words Needed

2011-07-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Swimming Bug

2011-07-22T04:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning we had Jack Jack's second zoo camp. This one was bugs. He was so excited to get there. They read a book, made a couple of crafts and got to meet a bunch of bugs. Jack even held a cricket who climbed up his arm and around to the back of his shirt. Jack was cracking up. He really enjoyed these classes. I was really surprised by how much he has enjoyed the craft time. I think they do a craft every day in his school, so he will really like that. Nursery School starts in about a month and after these zoo classes Jack has been really excited for regular school.

After nap time we went with my friend Michelle and her 23 month old daughter Evelyn up to her Mother-In-Law's house. They have a really nice pool which was great since it was literally an honest 100 degrees out today. Jack really enjoyed it. At first he just kinda had me bring him in the pool, but then he was playing around in the floatys and kicking and swimming with me. Soon he was jumping in while holding my hands and by the end he was jumping in to me on his own. It was really cute. He and Evelyn would stand on the edge, count to 10 together, and then both jump in to the pool to their mommies. We swam for almost 3 hours and he loved it. He didn't want to go home!

Zoo Camp

2011-07-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today Jack Jack had his first Zoo Camp. He has two this week. We've been calling them Zoo School, and reminding him that it will be a bit like real school in the fall. This morning's theme was "Down on the Farm." The camp went like this:

* Coloring while waiting for all the kids to come
* Read a farm book and talk about animals on a farm
* Meet a barn Owl
* Make a piggy mask craft
* Talk about what is grown on a farm
* Meet and pet a duck and a bunny
* Make a squawking chicken craft
* Sing the Farmer in the Dell and place your animal on the felt board when it is sung in the song.

The whole Zoo Camp was about 45 minutes long, which was fine. Two year olds have kinda short attention spans and that was too long for some of the kids. Jack was a bit quiet in the first part, just paying attention and taking it all in. He still gets a bit shy around lots of kids he doesn't know. However by the second part he was quite into it and asking to pet the duck again. He really enjoyed singing the Farmer in the Dell since he knows all the words to that song.

Afterwards he kept wearing his pig mask around and was just in a generally happy mood. He asked if we could go back and do it again. Which we will. Thursday is the Bugs and Insects Zoo Camp so that should be quite fun too!

Plugged Back In

2011-07-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack has been off on another adventure. For much of the first part of the month all three of us were out in California. It was quite a trip, but unfortunately the place we were staying in had no internet, so the blog is a bit behind.

We made the trip to visit GI, who had been working out there for a couple weeks already. Jack Jack was beyond excited to go. The morning of our flight (he knew we were going that day) he ran up to me in the kitchen and said "I have idea. Let's go airport, fly all the way California, see Daddy!" He was practically jumping up and down while proposing the day's activates. He did great on the flights out and was overjoyed to see his Daddy.

After a day to adjust to the time change we went up to the San Francisco Zoo. Jack Jack had really been looking forward to this since the San Francisco Zoo now has a hippo. Jack loves hippos, but he had never seen one. As exciting as the hippo was lounging in the water, he was quickly overshadowed by the male and female lions near by.

The one weekend we were all there was spend catching up with friends. We had a picnic on the oval of Stanford Campus, ran around a playground, attended a mini-birthday party for one friend's daughter, and Jack Jack rode his first paddle boat. The paddle boat was a big hit. Jack sat in between GI and I and with the speed of well, a paddle boat, we chased the sea gulls on the lake. It was quite fun but he was very tired afterwards!

On Monday we ventured over to Happy Hollows Park and Zoo with some long time friends and their kids. Happy Hollows is and odd mix of carnival, 6 Flags for the 7 and under crowd, playgrounds, puppet theatre and a zoo. A strange set of items to throw together in one location but all together they can entertain small children who have short attention spans for quite some time. Jack Jack loved driving the little firetrucks and he even rode the little kiddie coaster. The kiddie roller coaster left him a bit confused. He didn't seem to dislike it (i.e. he didn't cry or fuss) but he had that "I don't quite know what to make of this" look on his face, and when given the option didn't want to ride it again.

The trip home was a red eye flight, and by red eye I mean we left at 6:30 pm and got back to our house at noon the next day. 3 airplanes and 2 layovers. It was a LONG night. Jack Jack only slept about 5 hours (maybe) that time in total, but he didn't really fuss or complain to much. I am very thankful that he tends to travel well on airplanes. However the past two days have been difficult. He has been sleep deprived from the trip and just a bit off in general. We're talking hour long meltdowns at nap and bed time. Today was bit better and he seems to be getting back on track.

Fair Game

2011-07-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

Since visiting Bullhead Days near my Dad's town a couple of weeks ago Jack Jack has been asking to go to a carnival. By asking, I mean asking "shall we go a carnival? Mommy I need ride a carousel." about every other hour. This Saturday we drove up to the big county fair. It was HUGE. We went up there with our neighbors and their daughter. At the fair there were tons of 4H animals, horse riding, rides, games, and lots of food. Jack Jack was in heaven. He rode the carousel, the spinning dragons, drove the little cars, and flew a helicopter. He was so thrilled. We played a few games, mainly the ring throwing and pick a duck, and he won a green ball playing pick a duck, so he was quite happy. Both of the toddlers happily crashed out in the car and a fun time was had by all.


Flying the Helocopter

A Conversation

2011-06-30T17:18:00.001-07:00

Mommy: Should we call daddy?
Jack: Yeah
(I call, there is no answer)
Mommy: Sorry. He isn't answering the phone.
Jack: He's doing math.

Play that Funky Music

2011-06-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

I think I have mentioned before that Jack Jack is in a bit of a music phase. He sings songs everywhere. plays his drum, and just about every other music toy every day. He even took a ball and a stick and made it into a "microphone." Yesterday he discovered the funnel. Yep a normal funnel from our kitchen. It has now become a horn, and Jack's latest obsession. I think I should glue all his instruments together and he can have a "1 toddler band."

Minnesota Rewind

2011-06-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Here a a quick video of our ten days in Minnesota in 2.5 minutes. Highlights include Jack Jack playing at the carnival, singing in a mirror at the mall, and feeding Jon the Goat. Unfortunately our camera died about half way through our visit to Minnesota so we don't have pics and videos from everything and there will be no videos on the blog for a while now.

Welcome to the Madness

2011-06-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

It seems like we have officially entered the terrible twos. Non-enjoyable new behaviors include:
- throwing toys - why did we buy wooden toys again?
- hitting - not hard, but he is watching for a reaction
-whining - he NEEEEEEEEEEEEDs things now
-peeing everywhere - in the diaper bag, today all over the couch. He is actually doing pretty well on the potty training, going 2-4 times a day on the potty, but he misses, a lot.
-not listening - ever.

It is worth noting thought that he only does this when he is just around his parents. So far he doesn't throws toys at other kids, rarely refuses to share, and has yet to hit another child. I am tired of this behavior already. Most likely it is somewhat attention seeking. He also NEEEEEEEDs to snuggle a lot. I think with the summer travels and massive routine shake ups he is feeling a bit insecure.

All in all, it is the makings of a very long upcoming month.

John the Goat

2011-06-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack made a trip up to the Minnesota Zoo on Monday. We were up there just before 10 and Jack Jack was cranky. He has been up at 5:45 am almost ever morning this week. So by 10:30ish he was a mess, cranky and moody. Lucky he fell asleep in the stroller pretty quickly and we just walked him around the zoo for about 2 hours while he slept. Once he woke up he was the happiest little boy ever. The Minnesota Zoo has a good sized mock farm/petting zoo area. Every time we go to our home zoo he asks to see the piggies and cows, but our zoo doesn't have them, so when he saw them at the Zoo Farm he was ecstatic! He loved all the cows, sheep, rabbits, chickens, and pigs. However it was the goats that really got him. The kids could feed the goats with goat food bought from a quarter machine. After a bit of initial reservation Jack Jack really got a kick out of feeding the goats. We named one John and he has been talking about feeding John the goat constantly for the past two days. He even had to get out his farm toys at Pop Pop's house and recreate the whole afternoon. I have a video of the goat feeding, but it won't be up until we get back home.

One unfortunate casualty of the zoo seems to be our little camera. The image stabilizer or focus function seems to be going out, so there may be a few less videos and movies from this trip than usual.

Carnie

2011-06-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack is once again in Minnesota. Yesterday he got his first taste of a carnival. He loved it! We were there about 15 minutes before it opened and his eyes were as big as saucers taking it all in. The first thing he had to do was the "pick a duck" game. If you know Jack Jack at all you know he loves ducks. Well this was a whole kiddie pool full of swimming yellow plastic duckies. He could barely contain himself while waiting his turn (I have some very cute pics of him waiting, but I seem to have left the camera cable at home!). He picked his 3 ducks and won a stuffed frog, which came completely second to the excitement of picking a duck. He also played a game where you try to toss a ring on the neck of a glass bottle. That game was also a big hit and he did about as well as everyone who plays that game, i.e. he didn't win anything, but had a giant grin the whole time. He really wanted to ride the little cars that go around in a circle, but unfortunately that ride was broken. He waited very patiently for 45 minutes, eating french fries to pass the time, but ultimately we had to ride the carousel and swinging dalmatian ride. All in all he left a very happy boy!

Marching to the Beat of His Own Drum

2011-05-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack has been entering a major music phase. For the past few days he has been saying "Santa bring you(me) a drum. I need a drum." This weekend we cashed out a gift card we had from his birthday to get him his drum. He has been the happiest boy in the universe ever since (and yes it has made getting rid of the binky easier). He is often running around the house drumming and stops at random points in the day declaring that he needs to drum. He has been in little boy heaven ever since.

Baldy

2011-05-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

It has been hot, hot, hot the past couple of days. Jack Jack has been sweating buckets and pulling and itching at his hair when he is really hot, so tonight we just buzzed it all off. I am not sure it is my favorite look for him, I kinda liked his hair longer, but he will be a lot cooler with it gone. Jack Jack got a big kick out of the clippers. I think they tickled him because he was laughing and giggling the whole time. Jack Jack also got a big kick out of watching GI get his hair cut. GI and I were both shocked by how much blonder he looked with his hair sort. You can't tell so well in the picture, but it looked really blond in person.

Thought for the Day

2011-05-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

Potty Party

2011-05-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

We decided to make some level of an honest go at potty training this week. The whole thing got off to a rough start. Jack Jack was extremely opposed to sitting on his potty for any length of time, so to "motivate" him we took his binky and told him that he was only allowed to have his binky at nap time, night time, and potty time. Well, as you can imaging that did not go over to well. However by day 2 he was happily sitting on his potty wrapped up in his blanket for long periods of time, but without doing anything in the potty. After he got up of it though he would pee on the floor, or in one case inside my diaper bag (that was fun).

Today (Day 5ish) he was sitting with his binky and actually peed in the potty I think by pure fluke. We made a big deal out of it and gave him a bunch of m&m minis after and he was so happy. He ate his candy and danced naked around the living room saying "I did it! Hooray!"and then sat back on the potty trying to eek out more pee because he wanted more candies. All in all he peed on the potty 3 times today and on the floor twice. He made a sound attempt to poop on it too, but was was to no avail. He did want a candy for the toot he forced out, but he was not rewarded for that. So he seems to be a lot more enthusiastic now and we shall see how the next few days go. He is also doing a lot better without the binky so this far in we shall continue to wean him down on it. We also stopped doing the bottle at bedtime and he drinks a little milk (like 5-6 oz) from a sippy cup. We are going to completely stop that soon since it will be hard for him to go through the night without peeing the bed if he is full of milk right before he sleeps. The last bottle went away with no issues at all. He hardly noticed.

Who's There?

2011-05-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

This evening Jack Jack ran up to the screen door to look in the back yard and called out "Elephant! Elephant!" Then he turned to me and said "No elephant there." All I could say was "You're right Jack Jack, there is no elephant there."

Happy Dance

2011-05-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

The Mind of a Child

2011-05-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

Once again my iphoto is being a bit odd with pictures, so I don't have any to share at the moment. Words will have to suffice. Here is Jack Jack's week, in his own words.

Mommy: Ugh (grunts as I lift him up along with his blanket, stuffed Pluto, diaper bag, and sippy cup)
Jack Jack: I'm getting heavy.
Mommy: Yes Jack Jack, you are!

Jack Jack was sitting on the kitchen floor rummaging through a drawer of plastic kitchen tools. He pulled out the mold for making homemade popsicles and fliped it upside down.
Jack Jack: I'm making milk. I'm drinking milk. (pretending the Popsicle stick was a straw)

Negotiating:
Mommy: Time for lunch kiddo
Jack Jack: Need to color chalk
Mommy: Maybe after lunch.
Jack Jack: Need to color chalk 5 seconds.

Jack Jack: Need a teeny tiny little hot chocolate.

Clothing:
Jack Jack: Shoes getting little small.
Jack Jack: Need Elmo shorts
Jack Jack: I need a hat. (he loves his little straw fedora)

And he is also drumming along to many of the songs he hears and sings. Pretty normal, then we realized he was actually drumming on the beat a fair percentage of the time. Things that have been used as a drum:
-The plastic Halloween trick or treat bucket
-His potty
-Mommy's arm
-The dinner table
-The patio table
-The stairs
-The couch
-His bed
-basically everything

Song and Dance

2011-05-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Jack Jack has been singing non stop lately. His song of choice is usually Old McDonald sung is a silly voice. Old McDonald usually has a horn on his farm that goes beep beep. Every now and then he actually has an animal. Other songs he is always singing include the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, and various Disney cartoon songs. He is also trying to work on his dancing skills. Right now they consist of shaking his fists together on one side and then shaking them together on the other side. Next week we will teach him how to Dougie.

Capitol Events

2011-05-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Last week Jack Jack made his first trip to Washington DC. We went there for GI to get a visa for an upcoming conference. Unfortunately the visa was not obtained, but we had lots of fun anyway. While GI was at the embassy Jack Jack and I hung out in front of the White House. Jack Jack was rather unimpressed by the White House, but rather obsessed with a duck swimming in one of the fountains. He told me "mommy take a picture a duck" and sat down on the edge of the fountain for a photo. He has never asked me to take a picture of him before, but he really wanted his picture with the duck, so I got out the camera and he put on a very serious face. After we walked around the Mall a bit and ran around in front of the Washington Monument. Since the hotel was a bit of a distance we decided to nap him in his stroller, which we seldom do, but he did manage to sleep almost 2 hours while we walked around in front of the Lincoln Memorial, WWII memorial and others. We ended up in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where he later woke up. He quite enjoyed seeing all the dinosaurs, rocks, and bugs.

The next day we spent the morning at the National Zoo, and it was, well, a zoo. The place was crawling with tourists, locals, and school groups. While it was quite fun and we enjoyed seeing the animals such as the panda bears which we don't usually see, the layout of the zoo leaves a bit to be desired and we ended up going from one end to the other often and the next animal Jack Jack wanted to see always seemed to be at the other end of the zoo. We spent a good 4 hours there happily seeing the animals play. The little lion cubs were a big hit with Jack Jack since they were all "baby Simbas."

Missing 1

2011-05-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

GI's mom had been visiting with us since late March. In the past few weeks I missed posting what all we had been up to, which was in fact a lot and a little. We were all down sick most of last week. Jack Jack was throwing up and running a nice little temp and all of the adults caught his cold. He is a lot better now and the timing actually worked out ok since we have been having a new roof put on our house so we were pretty much stuck at home all day anyway.

The week before however we were out a fair bit. One of the things we did was hit Target for their clearance Easter goods. This year, aside from Halloween and Christmas we kinda let the holidays go. Jack Jack is a bit young for it, and with Easter and his birthday falling around the same time we didn't want to overload him with stuff (see previous post about his little case of the gimmies - which to follow up is mostly over). I have been picking up all the holiday stuff after the holiday is over so that we can do something next year when he will get it a bit more. Anyway, we were in the clearance section at Target and Jack Jack got the Easter basket idea on his own. He claimed one of the baskets off the bottom shelf and filled it up with everything that captured his interest. We did bring a few of the eggs home, but they are now put away for next year.

Jack Jack seems to have grasped the concept that GI's mom is back home. He has said repeatedly that we had "go a airport. Patti go home. Back a Patti's house." So he seems to understand what has happened. When we tried to catch her on Skype today though and we couldn't catch her he got a bit upset because he really wanted to "talk a Paati." Over all he misses her not being there but I think he understands the concept that she has gone home.

Book Worm

2011-05-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

Jack's attempts at reading are getting stronger. GI quizzed him today (he wrote the word on his computer and asked Jack Jack to read it to him, no context clues at all). Jack Jack correctly read:

So the list of words he can read (and he can spell most of them if you ask him to) is slowly growing. He is just growing in general. He grew an honest 1/2 inch in the past 2 weeks. His speech has improved again as well. Common phrases in our house are:

Can we fix it?
I have three cows. Missing one cow.
I go pick a book. You'll (I'll) be right back.
Not Yet.
Almost Done. (-a generally improved sense of time and order)
Mommy cook dinner. I play chalk.
Can I have colorful candies?

He also has literally memorized most of his books. Complected one like ones covering opposites and "wordy" texts with long sequences on each page.

If he sees a number chart he can count all the numbers up to 100, although every now and then he gets lost transistorizing between 50 and 60. He consistently counts 1-20 on his own when playing hide and seek.

So he is moving right a long. More and more attempts at being silly are being made. His favorite "silly" game is to give us a letter or shape and try to pretend that it is another letter or shape and then finally tell it what it is.

Gems from Jack

2011-04-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Mommy: What is your name:
Jack: Jack Jack
Mommy: What is Mommy's name?
Jack: (pausing for thought) Mommy Iyer

2 Year Check-Up

2011-04-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Jack had his 2 year well baby appointment today. The visit went rather quick. It started off with taking his "stats." So at age 2, Jack Jack by the numbers is:

Weight: 25.5 lbs (about 19th percentile)
Head Circumference: 49 cm (59th percentile)
Length: 36 inches (87th percentile)

Thankfully his weight percentages went up a fair amount. This isn't too surprising since he has been eating really well. And per usual he still came off as tall. The doctor commented about how long he was more that once. She also mentioned that his legs were really muscular in the the calves (probably from gymnastics - and the Laackmann genetics).

Next the nurse took some blood to check his iron levels. Jack Jack didn't cry at all. He seemed really intrigued by the whole process. He also liked the band-aid, but asked me to take it off about half way through the visit. No shots this visit.

The rest of the visit went pretty quick. She checked him over and all was well. She asked some basic questions but didn't pry to deep into anything. He isn't behind in anything, which we didn't expect him to be anyway, and we didn't talk to much about the other things he is doing developmentally. We probably only spent 5 -10 minutes with the doctor so she really didn't ask many questions beyond the general ones (Does he jump? How is sleeping? etc...).

Post 2

2011-04-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

The most common phrase out of Jack's mouth post 2:

"I do it all by a (my) self!"

This applies to going up and down stairs, eating food, singing the ABC song, brushing teeth, and pretty much everything else.

Sillyness

2011-04-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when we were at the Natural History Museum we had to take a short food break. Jack Jack got some potato chips, which he doesn't get too often, and he was really enjoying then. The following conversation ensued:

Paati: Jack can Paati have some of your chips?
Jack: No
Paati: Can I please have some of your chips?
Jack: No
Paati: Can I please have some of your chips Jack? Paati is sad.
Jack: Paati take a nap.

So there you go. If you are sad, go take a nap, but forget getting some of Jack's chips!

Out on the Town

2011-04-13T04:06:00.000-07:00

With GI's mom here we we have been going back and visiting all our favorite tourist/toddler "hot spots." Since the last post we have visited the Aviary, Conservatory, and the Natural History Museum.

The Aviary here is quite neat. The building itself is a fair size and quite warm (which is a plus for GI's mom who is finding it quite cold here). We started off in the tropical room which houses some of Jack's favorite animals, flamingos, toucans, and owls (why the owls are in the tropical room I have no idea). They did a bird show there were GI's mom feed one of the birds with a worm. I birds flew right up and grabbed it out of her hand. We got stide tracked a bit at the penguin house where Jack wanted to stay most of the morning and play hide and seek in the under water/mountain tunnel area. We managed to check out another live flight bird show and even go into the room where the feed the lories.

Friday we visited the Conservatory. They were having their spring flower show and it was quite beautiful. The Conservatory here is huge. We didn't see it all in the 2+ hours we were there. Jack most enjoyed running through a faux tunnel they had in one of the gardens. We too his 2 year pictures (previously posted) while we were there and just enjoyed a relaxing moring.

On the day of Jack actual birthday we visited the Natural History Museum. The Natural History Museum is very neat and we go there quite often. GI's mom really liked all the dinosaurs. They are huge to put it lightly. Jack Jack was pretty much of a one track mind; he wanted to dig! They have a little faux archaeology dig set up where one can "dig" for dinosaurs. We had to wait a while because some school groups had reserved digging time, but once he started digging we could hardly get him out of the pit.

Party Time!

2011-04-13T03:48:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we celebrated Jack Jack's birthday with all of his baby friends. Everything was Mickey Mouse, since Jack Jack loves Mickey. Saturday afternoon we baked his birthday cupcakes and Jack Jack happily sprinkled all the red, blue, and yellow sprinkles on himself. He also insisted on sticking all the little Mickey Mouse decorations in the cupcakes.

His party was quite fun. We kept it small and simple. About 6 of his toddler friends came over to the house with their respective parents. Most of the kids were too young still to play any sort of party games so we just pulled out all the toys and let the kids roam free in the living room while most of the adults hung out in the dining room. For the most part everyone played well together and there weren't any fights. Everyone stayed for about 2+ hours.

Jack opened most of his gifts on the morning of his birthday. He received a lot of very nice gifts including a number of puzzles (he is a major puzzler), some stickers, a soccer ball, a memory game, a wooden shopping cart (which he uses like a stroller for is stuffed Pluto), a harmonica, some "treasure coins," and even a toddler couch. He really likes everything and were are very thankful to all.

2 Year Pictures

2011-04-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

What Did that Say?

2011-04-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight before bed we were in Jack Jack's room playing with his alphabet blocks. Per his latest obsession he was having us spell out numbers for him. He would call out what number he wanted and we would spell it with the blocks. At one point he called out that he wanted me to spell 3 and I spelled F-I-V-E. He looked at it kinda funny and then said, "5." We all applauded him and said that he was right that was a five. Later on he wanted me to spell 7 and I spelled out T-W-O and again he paused, looked at it funny, and said "2." He was quite proud of himself for catching it when we were trying to trick him!

Moving Pictures

2011-04-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the video from Friday's visit to the Children's Museum

Fun With Paati

2011-04-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

GI's mom has arrived and Jack Jack couldn't be happier. He took to her right away and has been happily showing her all his toys, puzzles, cartoons, and the ins and outs of his little world. Everyone had a couple of quiet days last week as we took some time to get over the jet lag and allow the two, Paati (grandma) and grandson to bond and play and play and play. There were also some "technical difficulties" (read computer problems) to get sorted out, but all was resolved.

The real fun has begun. Thursday Paati came to Jack's gymnastics class and got to see his trampoline and trapeze skills. Friday we visited the Children's Museum and Jack Jack happily played in the toddler zone and had the most fun paint a number of pictures in the art studio. When Jack Jack paints the goal seems to get as much paint on the paper as possible. I ran his paintings through the drying machine 4 times and they were still wet. The paper had more than doubled in thickness by the time the paint dried!

This week looks like we are going to settle into a "normal" week. We all went to the gym in the morning and did some grocery shopping afternoon. We have plans for the Aviary, the popcorn shop, and maybe even the Natural History Museum this week. We shall see what all we make it too.

On a side note, the following conversation happened at bath time tonight:
Mommy: Jack are you peeing in the bath water?
Jack: Yes.
(A bubble escapes to the surface of the water - you can guess from where - Jack smiles and makes grunting noises)
Mommy: Jack are you tooting and trying to make bubbles?
Jack: Mommy help you (me)!
Mommy: (laughing) I can't help you make bubbles in the bath tub, kiddo.

Slow News Week

2011-03-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

I realize that it has been a while since I have posted. Well, honestly, not much "news worthy" has been going on this week. GI's mom is arriving tomorrow so much of the past week has consisted of cleaning out the guest room, donating boxes and boxes of stuff we don't need to goodwill, and checking things off the never ending to-do list. Jack Jack himself has had a bit of some kind of illness so he mostly wants to snuggle and watch cartoons, or listen to music and help me dust. He loves to dust.

I mentioned that GI's mom is coming tomorrow. Jack Jack is very aware that she is coming. He knows that tomorrow we will "go airport get a Paati" and that Paati (grandma) is going to stay in "Uncle Jason's Room" a.k.a. the guest room. He also has said that he wants to take her to see the "mingos (flamingos) and owls." It should be an exciting month to make up for the slow news week this week.

Sleeping in the Day, Awake at Night

2011-03-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

We finally got Jack Jack a proper toddler bed. He seems quite happy with it and looks forward to crawling in at night.

On a side note, I have mentioned before that Jack Jack has vampire teeth. Here is a close up of that smile.

Thems the Rules

2011-03-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

When ever we have guests over we usually call them over around 6:30, all eat dinner together, then put Jack to bed per his normal routine, and then everyone hangs out after he is a sleep and talks or watches a movie. Part of Jack's evening routine is "family brush teeth" where, you guessed it, we all brush our teeth together. Tonight we had some of GI's math co-workers over and after dinner Jack Jack grabbed one of our guests by the hand, drug him upstairs saying "family brush teeth." We all ended up up stairs brushing and flossing our teeth per the rules conveyed via Jack Jack. Not brushing was not really an option. Thankfully we went to the dentist recently so we had lots of spare toothbrushes on hand and our guests were good sports!

Little Boys are Gross

2011-03-15T15:17:00.001-07:00

Mommy: Jack Jack hold still, you have a giant nose booger. (Mommy retrives the booger) Ew, look at that giant nose booger!

Jack: Mommy eat it!

Managing Emotions

2011-03-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

As we enter into the beginning of the "terrible twos" Jack Jack has been breaking down into tears when he gets frustrated by something he can't do (usually this is when he is very tired). When he gets really frustrated he crawls into our lap and sobs "binky, blanket, Pluto, milk milk, beddie bye!" Then he usually goes down for a nap or for bedtime.

This morning he was watching a cartoon on TV and he ran up to me and said "Candice sad. Candice take a nap." Well if it works for him it must work for everyone else!

All Wet

2011-03-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

We decided that since GI is on spring break this would be a perfect time to take a little road rip. Yesterday we made the 3.5 hour drive up to a giant indoor water park theme hotel. The drive went really well, but the water park so far has been a bit of a washout. We though Jack Jack would really get a kick out of it. He loves playing in the water and will happily stay in the bath for half an hour or more, but the water park seems a bit much for him. This surprised us because he is usually so fearless. There are a couple of reasons we think he is not so over the top happy.

1. It is cold. The water is heated and so is the room, to a temp that is fine for adults, but after about 5 minutes Jack Jack is so cold he is shaking strongly from head to toe. This morning we tried to keep him dryer and spend a bit of time with our toes in the hot tub.

2. The big kids are mean. He was climbing a cargo net in the tree house area and a big kid turned a sprayer on him. Jack Jack cried and cried and I gave the kid a bit of a talking to about spraying babies.

3. He doesn't like the life jacket. They have life jackets for the little kids, they don't have to wear them but it is a good idea to wear them. Jack is not keen on them at all.

4. He went down a slide yesterday and went underwater. I think he didn't like that and it left a bad impression.

Last night he didn't sleep hardly at all. He was having bad dreams or something and woke up almost every hour (except for between 1:45 and 4:45). He is napping soundly now and snoring like crazy (he has a bit of a stuffy nose).

We went back in the water park this morning and he did a bit better. His favorite thing seems to be standing outside of the pool and tossing the "basketballs" to Daddy. He also played in the the toddler pool and even insisted on going down the big yellow slide which ran from the top/roof of the park, through a tube outside, and down to the bottom. He and GI went down it on a tube together, but by the time he reached the bottom he was insisting that we go "back a Jack Jack's house!"

We will see how everything goes after nap time. He has warmed up to the park a bit and I think a big part of why he hasn't been as excited as we thought he would be has been that he is very tired. He only napped 1 hour yesterday and as I said above, he was up most of the night last night.

On a funny note, in the past couple of days he seems to have learned that Daddy's name is GI and Mommy's name is Jenee. He often calls us this. He says "There's GeeeeeEyyyyyyeeeee," in his drawn out baby talk, and "there's GiiiiiinAAAAAA" (think Forest Gump pronunciation of Jenny). It is quite cute and he is very proud of himself, but I prefer Mommy and Daddy.

Planning and Playing

2011-03-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to the big Home and Garden show at the convention center. It was kind of a last minute decision to go, but I am very glad we went! I have very fond memories of visiting various shows (sporting goods, home, etc...) with my family as a kid and I was looking forward to taking Jack Jack. He really really liked it. There was just so much to see and do. The show was a lot larger than the one we went to in California. This one took up 2 huge rooms, one about as big as a football field, and the the other probably the size of a professional baseball diamond. The also hand a huge kids section with tons of model trains an turtles that raced each other. It was really fun. All in all we stayed there about 5 hours. Jack Jack was beyond well behaved, and was thrilled to eat fresh french fries while walking around (he loves them but doesn't get them too often). For us it was really good because we found a good interior painting company that uses non-VOC paint, found out a bit about what our local native plants are (which we intent to plant in our garden this spring), talked to a few people about getting leaf caps on our gutters, new energy efficient window options, and others. Each vendor also had special show only coupons for 10-20% off per job so that made us pretty happy too. It was a fun and productive day.

Bringing the Heat

2011-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack seems to have taken a strong liking to "spicy" food. It all started last month when he decided to try some of "Daddy's spicy cheese" (Jalapeno pepper jack cheese). He took one bite and even though the cheese had quite a kick, he loved it. Now every morning when GI is making his sandwich Jack Jack has to come to the kitchen and eat a bunch of "spicy cheese." This quickly escalated to him wanting to try other things from Daddy's sandwich, including his 40 spice hummus, which as the name suggests, is quite spicy. Jack Jack again went nuts for it and he eats probably 2 tablespoons of it at various points of the day almost every day (this morning he was eating hummus by dipping a raw red pepper in it and then chowing down on the whole thing). In fact last week he woke up and said "want hummus" and that was it, it had to be hummus for breakfast. He is also quite happily eating Indian food now. Pav Bhaji, Dahl, Aloo Gobi, and others are regular parts of his diet. What it took us forever to realize is that he really really likes rice. He is such a bread junkie that we didn't try giving him Indian food with rice for a while (before we would give him a bite with bread and the meal would devolve into him just chowing down on bread). Once he had it with rice though there was no stopping him! Now we have Indian food probably 3 times a week and something else (usually American or Italian - I think risotto is his favorite food) the other nights of the week. His sudden penchant for spice has surprised us a bit, but we are not complaining at all as we all get to eat a bit tastier food now that we can flavor it a bit!

Learning Curve

2011-02-27T05:23:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack really has a good grasp of a lot of concepts. He can count very well and quite high. He has known all his letters, shapes, and parts of the body for a while. His speech is quite complex ("I helping Daddy shaving. Please Mommy get some water. The green one's missing. Mommy and Baby buy Daddy orange juice."). A lot of his learning is pseudo self directed. We introduce something to him and he becomes some level of obsessed about it until he masters it.

Lately he has shown a real interest in reading, so reading we are learning. Jack has been able to read/recognize his name for a while now, and that is kind of how it all started. He would take the pieces from his letter puzzle and string them together and say "I make name Jack." He got a little white board and marker for Christmas and we started showing him how to spell with numbers. For example we write the number 5 then spell it out F-I-V-E, then tell him the sound each individual letter makes, sound out the word again, spell the word again, and then say the word. Often will repeat what we have just said "F-I-V-E 5!" He quite enjoys this and this can go on for 15-20 minutes. It becomes completely Jack directed as he excitedly shouts what number he wants next. He also has a spelling puzzle which used lower case letters. There are 16 different words in the puzzles. We give him a board and ask him which letters he needs to put the puzzle together. He tells us the letters, we give them to him, and he puts the word puzzle together. Then we do the same thing as the letters (Cat! C-A-T cat. C says Ka, A says aah, T says Tuh, sound out the word cat again, spell the cat again, and then say the cat). He also enjoys this a lot. We are also spelling words out with his ABC blocks and he can easily say objects for every letter, like A airplane, W watermelon.

All in all he gets his name right about 100% of the time, and words like Cat, Dog, Hen, Five, Six and others right maybe 50% of the time. So not fantastic accuracy, but we have just begun and he is having fun with it so we shall see where it goes.

Becoming a Man

2011-02-26T18:39:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack is quite a little Daddy's boy. His Daddy is his hero and he wants to be just like him. One of his favorite activities is to "help Daddy shaving." He has a little "razor" (a very blunt metal shoe horn) and very meticulously tries to shave his face like Daddy and tries to shave Daddy's arm for him. All in all, it is very sweet to watch.

Sunny Days

2011-02-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I put some pics up so I though I would share some from our morning visit to the playground.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

2011-02-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

As parents we want to be sure to raise a grateful and thoughtful child. Granted Jack Jack is nearly two and as such he is very focused on his wants and needs which is how children of that age naturally are, still though we don't want him grow into a child with a constant case of the "gimmies." This was not something I had really worried about too much. Neither GI nor I are shop-a-holics (although I do love a good bargain and enjoy window shopping) and Jack Jack has yet to throw a tantrum trying to convince me to buy a toy or take it home. Jack Jack is really good about saying bye-bye to toys and books in the store and leaving it at that. He may ask to take something home, but if we don't it isn't a big deal. We don't actually spend a lot of money on toys for him. He has a decent amount of toys, but many of them I have gotten free or extremely cheap through various means (we spent all of $15 on him at Christmas and he had about 8 toys from Mom and Dad). That being said he is often getting a "new" toy even if it is just a hand-me-down from someone else. I hadn't really been concerned with it since my thought was "hey if the toy is free, well why not? The more the merrier. We can afford free."

The problem is that Jack obviously had no real concept of money, used toys, or new toys. To him a toy he has not seen and played with before that shows up at his house is a "new toy" and thus a present. Christmas and opening presents made a sound impression on him. He remembers it strongly. Last week when he woke up from nap I told him I had a present for him downstairs (my old hippo piggy bank, so a very used "new toy") which he was thrilled with, but as soon as it had played with it a bit he said "want more presents!" I told him there were no more presents that was it. Then a couple of days later a friend of ours came over for dinner and he very kindly brought a present much to Jack Jack's delight. This present ended up needing to go back to the store, so Jack Jack got to pick out a new presant. In the past week or so he has also gotten a few other things here and there from various people (all much appreciated and loved), but he is now telling us at least once a day that he "wants more presents." We have told him that there are no more presents until his birthday in two months.

I have never met a child who didn't have a desire for more presents and more toys, but this is new from Jack Jack. As I mentioned earlier, he does not throw tantrums for toys in stores, or ask other people for presents, just asking mommy and daddy while we are at home. It isn't that big of a deal because he probably thinks we have presents hiding everywhere that just pop up when he asks for them (and to his credit he knows that I do have a closet with toys in it that he is not allowed to have since they are gifts for other kids). His asking however has made us think though about how we want to structure how we give toys to him. Obviously as parents we will need to continue to buy toys for him. He can't play with baby rattles and stacking cups when he is 11 years old, but I think I am going to have to stop picking up every free toy that comes my way and pace out the quantity of toys that we offer to him. In the end it will probably be better for him to have 3 really good open ended toys that he will play with for a long time then 30 little toys I picked up for free somewhere that he will grow out of quickly and simply take up space in our house. We will probably have to eliminate using the word present except for when referring to Christmas presents and Birthday presents as well as introduce some new vocab for gifts, like special ____ only for today gift or a "school time" toy for educational/developmental toys that he is ready for but are not purchased in conjunction with a gift giving occasion.

It is still a very mild case of the "gimmies" and don't think that it necessarily even registers as the "gimmies" since he is not asking or tantruming in the stores or to other people and it is relatively normal toddler behavior, but it is a good wake up call/parenting check for us as we strive to raise a child who is both grateful and thoughtful.

The Outer Limits

2011-02-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

Since Jack Jack is now nearly two he is beginning to test the boundaries of his little universe. While this is totally normal, kiddo is landing himself in time out almost every day. He gets a warning first, but it usually goes something like this:

Jack climbs up on the railing and looks at me.
Mommy: Jack Jack you need to get down off the railing.
Jack: (Smiles and giggles)
Mommy: Jack you need to get down off the railing or you will be going into time out.
Jack: (Smiles bigger and laughs harder)
Mommy: Ok. Time out. (grab him off the railing and take him to set the timer for 60 seconds then set him down on the step for time out.)
1 minute later
Mommy: Ok Jack you need to say 'sorry mommy for climbing on the rail.'
Jack: Sorry Mommy a climbing a rail (he says a for the and other small filler words)
Mommy: Thank you for saying sorry. Remember, we don't climb on rails. You can go play now.
Jack skips off happily.

This scene usually replays about once a day for various "offenses" like throwing a toy, playing with the baby gate, occasionally lightly hitting mommy or daddy, trying to climb on the stove, or not listening.

So he is certainly testing the limits of what he is and is not allowed to do. This is completely normal for his age and we are doing our best to guide him in what is and is not acceptable.

Love...

2011-02-12T05:02:00.000-08:00

In recognition of Valentine's Day I thought I would share one of Jack Jack's more endearing quirks, inclusion of love.

For example, last night we were reading the Ear Book. In the ear book there is one page that says "Our ears hear popcorn, pop, pop, pop!" Jack chimes in:
Jack: Love popcorn!
Mommy: Yeah you love popcorn.
Jack: Mommy love popcorn.
Mommy: Yes mommy loves popcorn.
Jack: (speaking rapidly)Daddy love popcorn, Pop pop love popcorn, Nana love popcorn, Paati love popcorn, Uncle Jason love popcorn.
Mommy: Yes we all love popcorn.
If he loves it was must all love it.

He also sometimes just goes of singing a song of all the things he loves:
Jack: (singing)Love chocolate. Love popcorn. Love Blanket. Love Mommy. Love treasure coins. Love Daddy. Love Pluto. Love Pop Pop. Love Paati. Love Binky. Love Nana. Love One Blue Hippo. Love Choo Choo.
This can go on for a long time.

Return of the Giant

2011-02-11T06:01:00.000-08:00

Every now and then it seems like Jack Jack suddenly gets huge over night. They day before Yesterday we put his 18-24 month fleece pajamas on him and I could hardly get them zipped! Jack Jack has been eating like a horse lately (our last home weighing of him has him at just over 25 pounds) and those long legs have gotten a bit of chunk on them. In the last two months he shot through two shoe sizes (now in a size 8 shoe!) and put on just over a pound. This usually heralds another big height growth (he is still around 34.5 inches). All his 18-24 month shirts now look like baby muscle shirts (or milk belly shirts) and all his comfy cotton pants now hang about 1/2 and inch above his ankles, although most of his jeans still fit. Looks like over the next month or so we will be fully transition to the 2T (well we started 2 months ago with some 2T pajamas). It is funny like clockwork Jack Jack moves fully into a size about 1- 1.5 months before the size tag (i.e. he hit 18-25 month clothes at around 16.5/17 months). It is nice that his growth seems be so predictable, but the shoes I can never guess on. Interestingly we have been going to a lot of preschool visits and seeing all the two year old rooms. Yesterday he was taller than all the boys in the class! His height seems to be slowing in growth rate a little bit, but not much.

Stink Bugs

2011-02-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

Last summer the city was infested with Stink Bugs. They were everywhere and, well they stunk. This winter a few have crept into our house and we find them every so often. Jack is very well acquainted with them. Tonight while we were finishing up our post-bath routine Jack Jack piped up an the conversation went something like this:
Jack: Stink Bug
Mommy: You see a stink bug?
Jack: See a stink bug.
Mommy: Where is the stink bug?
Jack: There stink bug.
(I look and notice that is it a big piece of lint from his black sweatshirt/jumper)
Mommy: Why do you think there would be a stink bug in the bathroom? Do you think the stink bug would want to take a bath and get all clean or stay stinky?
Jack: Stink Bug stinky
Mommy: Yeah I think the stink bug would want to stay stinky too.

Treasure

2011-02-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

One of Jack Jack's favorite books is One Blue Hippo, an Ancient Egyptian Counting Book. He has had it for about a year and can happily "read" the whole book from memory. Yesterday while he was sleeping I searched through the last few boxes in the garage and found my blue hippo piggy bank that I bought while working at the museum. It is modeled after the same blue hippo that is featured in his one blue hippo book. Jack Jack was thrilled when I gave it to him. Not only was it an object he recognized, but it was full of coins (spare change from years ago). Jack Jack loves coins. I am not sure where the fixation comes from since he doesn't really get to play with them, but I suspect it may come from the fact that Mickey Mouse often pays with and counts coins in his cartoons. I think Jack Jack liked the coins almost as much as the hippo bank. However it was not all the coins he liked, he only wanted the quarters! Much to my suprise he knew exactly which ones were quarters, called them quarters by name and refused the other coins (which made me happy since other coins are really too small to be played with and even quarters can only be played with under very close supervision). He put them all in the hippo bank and then demanded them back so he could do it again. This went on for quite some time. Then I dug out a couple of "gold" Sacagawea dollar coins. These were a huge hit because they were gold, like real "treasure coins" and they were bigger than the quarters. He has been on a bit of a treasure coin kick since we got back from Key West. I think this is partly due to the fact that while we were down there we attempted to get him a little treasure coin from one of the stores and told him about it and he got all excited about it. Unfortunately the place that had them was out while we were there. The coins were freebies for tourists and the Christmas crowd had taken them all. In December he also got a counting book about two characters at a beach and the last thing they do is find treasure in a cave. What ever the reason Jack Jack likes coins and treasure coins. Often he used to run into the kitchen, shake his head, and say "no coins here," then go to another part of the house and say again "no coins here." I think he may have been on his own little treasure hunt. Now he just drags me upstairs, multiple times a day, to inspect the horde in his hippo bank and play with his treasure.

Strange Connections

2011-02-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack sometimes puts things together in odd ways. Thoughtful and somewhat sensical, but odd. Like how he likes to hold up the rectangle puzzle piece of the letter I and hold it up to his eye and pretend it is a camera. While this morning he made a connection between the heat vents and hair dryers. He was dragging me over to the heat vent and saying "dry hair!" and bending over sticking his head in front of the heat vent. Then he said "dry mommy hair" and made me do it too. Well, they both do blow hot air, so it is logical right? He was a bit confused when the furnace switched off though.

Arctic Monkey

2011-02-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

Since it was a balmy and sunny 46 degrees out today Jack Jack and I decided to spend the morning at the zoo. Most of the animals were inside (no flamingos much to Jack's dismay) but the winter animals were in a grand mood. The Siberian Tigress was playing with her three cubs and the polar bears and otters were chilling. The tiger cubs were actually really cute. They kept rough housing with each other and tagging their mom. Jack Jack really liked watching them. I even managed to capture a rare Jack Jack giggle on film (not that he doesn't giggle often, but I never seem to get it on video! Note the vampire fangs when he giggles. He has some serious and sharp long pointy fangs!). We also popped in to the monkey house (they were all sleeping) and saw a bunch of elephants in their shelter. After spending about half an hour or so with the outdoor animals we went in to the aquarium way at the back of the zoo for just over an hour. Jack Jack loves all the fish, starfish, and sharks. We hadn't been to our zoo since October so he really enjoyed running around and exploring everything again. There were only about 15 people at the zoo, so it was really nice to have almost a private visit.

Disney Magic?

2011-01-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

A major event happened today. We took apart the crib and put it away. We have been building up to it for a few months now as Jack Jack could probably climb out of his crib and he has been trying. For weeks we have been getting him excited for his big boy space ship bed, but we hit some major snags in getting one because the toddler bed we tried to order from 3 different places seems to be on company back order untit the end of Feb. The end of Feb is too late for us. Honestly, last week was probably too late. After another two days of failure to find a decent toddler bed, we decided that today we were just going to take the crib apart and put the mattress on the floor and order the one we want and he can just sleep on a mattress on the floor until it arrives.

Jack was already very excited for his big boy bed, but up the antie a little more we decided to take him to the Disney Store. Jack Jack is a MAJOR Disney fanatic and LOVES his Disney cartoons. His eyes practically bugged out of his head when he saw the store and he ran straight back to the plush animals. We told him he could pick out one and we would take it home with us to sleep in his big boy bed with him. Picking one was not an easy task, because he wanted all of them, and by all I don't mean one of every character, I mean all the stock in the store. He chose carefully though and took it to the register to pay. No tantrums at all for more. He was very good about just getting one. You can watch the video to see which one he picked. We were actually pretty surprised by which one he chose. It wasn't what we expected.

Tonight we kept the routine for bedtime pretty normal, except that instead of reading books and drinking a bottle in the chair, we did that in his bed. He crawled right in, listened to his books, and happily drank his milk. I stayed in the room patting his back for about 5 minutes, but then I decided to leave and let him fall asleep on his own like he does most nights. I stood outside the door to see how it went, and it took a little longer than usual, but within less than 10 minutes he was fast asleep with his head on his pillow, blanket in one hand and Disney plush toy in the other. It was honestly our easiest bedtime all week. He didn't crawl out of bed at all. Will it last? I have no idea. Probably not. We shall see.

Happy Baby 1, 2, 3

2011-01-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

I think I have mentioned before that Jack Jack has memorized a lot of his books. Here he is reading one of his favorite books; Happy Baby 1, 2, 3.

I have

Quiet Days and Loud Nights

2011-01-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

It has been a long span of events and non-events. The past week or so has saw very little activity as far as things we have been up to. Lots of ice and snow meant that the first part of last week we were pretty much hanging out at home, then on Wednesday night Jack Jack came down with a fever and illness of unknown origin that meant we spent about the next 5 days at home. Overall it was very uneventful and very sleep depriving.

The nice thing about being home a lot is that there is lots of story and cuddle time. Jack Jack has a fair portion of most of his books memorized and while he was sick he took great pleasure in sitting in his little orange chair trying to read books to himself. He would read them out loud and depending on the book, he would recite anywhere between 20% (complex long stories) and 100% (simple colors and numbers) of the book.

We also visited another nursery school. It is quite nice. They have 3 teachers for 12 kids, an indoor playground and outdoor playgrounds, a large art studio, and lots of story/play space. Jack Jack really liked, so we shall see if they take us.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1

2011-01-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

The baby gate is up at the top of the stairs and the toddler bed has been ordered. The countdown to the end of the crib has officially begun. Jack Jack has had his toddler bedding for about 2 weeks now and really likes to pounce on it like a pillow and is super excited for his big boy space ship bed (the bed isn't a space ship, but the bedding is). Now to get him to sleep in it...

Not Just For Snuggling

2011-01-14T04:34:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack's blanket seems to have taken on a life of its own this week. He just discovered that it is a square/rectangle shape. One of his favorite things is to spread it out perfectly flat and declare its shape. They he says he is folding it into a rectangle, triangle, square, or what ever shape he wants to make with it. Then last night after gymnastics he was pretending it was the parachute from class. He was moving it like the parachute and singing the parachute song. It was quite cute, but we had quite a hard time getting him to bed since he kept talking about and playing gymnastics.

School time

2011-01-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

Jack Jack had his first nursery school visit/interview yesterday. It was at a very good nursery school that is part of a K-6 private school about 1 mile from our house. The visit went really well. Jack Jack played decently with the other kids (driving trucks), completed some puzzles, and did some art projects like play dough and painting. Overall both he and I liked it. The program is 2 times per week for 2 1/2 hours each time. They only take 12 kids a year, but the teachers and I got along really well and she makes the decisions on who gets in and who doesn't. I was left with the impression that if we want Jack Jack to go there they will be really happy to have him. Actually I could have enrolled him on the spot for next year, but we don't know yet if we will need full day or part day/part week care/school for Jack Jack and he has applications in to 3 other programs. I will be setting up his visits to those schools later this month. We do know though that he will be in some level of school next fall.