Greetings from NYC!

We have arrived in Brooklyn for our rather spur-of-the-moment trip to NYC for New Year's... Jack is all tucked in and we are a quietly recovering from a LOOONG day of travel. All I can say is, I dislike the Holland tunnel a great deal. Ugh. Remind me to take the train here next time!

Jack was an absolute angel all day. Really. We ended up only stopping once in our 8 and 1/2 hour drive. Kiddo took a 2 hour nap in the first stretch, made friends at McDonalds and waved at trucks for a bit at our stop around the 230 mile mark through PA, then sat and played, babbled, sang, looked at books, ate snacks, and played peek with us for the next 4 and 1/2 hours without a single complaint. He is a trouper. I think I complained far more than he did, when we encountered the general inability to drive that is Manhattan...

As we were driving I realized that it's been a while since I posted a good, old-fashioned update of Jack's current progress. So, as we have not yet gotten any exciting pics of Jack in NYC, here are some recent accomplishments and changes:
* Tooth number 14 has come through! Jack currently has 2 out of 4 of his incisors in and wow are they pointy... Buckets of drool and continued, sporadic whining indicates that another tooth is on the horizon.
* Jack is a very proficient walker these days. He attempts to walk quickly now, which does not always go well. He also falls over a lot when he is tired, which is handy as he no longer admits that he's sleepy when asked. Another offshoot of his newfound verticality is his propensity to walk into the corners of tables, and also to stand up after crawling underneath tables. Jack is certainly learning from experience these days. It is so interesting to have this shift in his personality after so many months of Jack being more an observer than a do-er.
* Recent words include: Truck (he now points them out, consistently, when we are driving), Cheese (to the camera), Keys, water (wa-wa-wa), thanks (tek or teku)-- this one, combined with his winning smile, practically guarantees that he will get anything he wants in life. At least from Mom. Overall, his speech is much clearer these days. What was once just baby babble is taking on the resemblance of words more and more often, and he mimics so much of what we say...
*Sleep: Jack goes to bed like a dream most nights, between 7 and 8. Usually he's up once around 3-4 am to have some num-num's-- about 10 minutes of half asleep snuggle time which I don't mind at all, as long as its just once a night! He is up for the day between 6:30 and 7:30 am, and then naps around 11. He has been going on just one nap most days these past few weeks.
* Eating: continues to NOT be Jack's forte. He subsists largely on Trader joe's French Vanilla Whole milk yogurt, Kashi cereal bars, and Daddy's gourmet scrambled eggs. His diet could be worse, I suppose, but I do long for the day when he will eat a wider variety of food and whn ensuring that he has eaten enough is not such a full time job.
* Play time: Jack is hungry for novelty these days. Anything is fun, as long as it's new Christmas was a good time for Jack! Today in the car we barely made it with the number of toys I'd packed-- each one was great fun for 5-10 minutes, at which point it was cast to the floor and
greeted with a resounding "no!" and a swat if I offered it to him again...
Some current favorite toys are-- his mega-block legos, train cars, toy trucks, his new vaccum, books, wooden spoons, and any cell phone or remote he can get his hands on! He is starting to do more imitative play, such as driving his car the way I drove mine, as well as pretending to hug/feed etc his stuffed animals. He is also starting to do more "purposeful" drawing.

Pics of NY to come soon!!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas take 2!!!
Jack and Alex hang out...
Jack's new cheesy grin... he says "cheese" at the camera now!
Jack shows his stocking who's boss...
Trying out his new snowsuit on Christmas day...



Little boy who loves his new hat....
Hooray for tissue paper!

Jack and mom-mom on Christmas morning...Jack explores the tree at Lulu's house...

We've been having a lovely Christmas in Aurora these past few days. It's been a combination of lots of relaxation (Claire is a sublime hostess!) and very busy visiting with family. The group here has expanded significantly in recent years, and this year's Christmas dinner had 19 guests, 5 of whom were under 5 years old. The "under 5 " set changes the dynamic of family gatherings, that's for sure. We are very kid-focused now, and the opening of presents goes very quickly. And loudly. But, lucky for us, its a family full of adorable and really, well- behaved under-fives, so its been fun.

A quick run-down of our Christmases so far: We kicked everything off on the 23rd, with fake Christmas eve-- Nat and I headed off to Severance Hall for a wonderful evening with the Canadian Brass; a great concert and all the better because it was free! :) Then, Grandma and Auntie Bec joined us for cookies and the traditional opening of one gift. The morning of the 24th we woke up and had a second "fake Christmas morning" whereupon we opened our Dollar Store stocking presents. Jack took charge of his stocking this year-- he knew exactly what to do! His favorite gift by far was the "monster truck". The boy is seriously truck-obsessed.

We then packed up and headed off and were in Aurora by 3:00. We enjoyed a nice evening with Randy and Amy and the kiddos, went to the Fargo with Jamo and Casey while Lulu stayed with sleeping Jack, then Nat and I went to church at 11... It's not Christmas if you're not exhausted and busy, right?

Christmas morning was great, relaxed and fun with 5 adults and Jack. Jackster was a good participant all around, saying "wow" about his presents and showing good appreciation for what was inside the packages, in addition to the bows and (his favorite part) the tissue paper. We made it through stockings and half of the tree presents before he needed a nap...
We relaxed through the afternoon and then (rinse and repeat!) we did it all again, only with even more presents. (Note the photo above, Christmas take two!). It was complete unwrapping madness this year with 3 4-year olds, a 3 year old, and Jack in attendance. Jack, by the way, LOVES his older cousins. He bonded expecially with Alex. They seemed to know that they were close agemates, and I think Alex enjoyed the chance to be the "big boy" for a change. Presents were followed by a lovely Christmas dinner and socializing and then BED!

The 26th, once we recovered, we headed out on a marathon day of shopping the sales, in Ithaca and at the Mall in the field. As if we did not have enough stuff already..! Today, we had planned to go skiing, but the day dawned rainy and warm and we opted to save our $80. We stayed close to home-- Jack is currently fighting either a cold or a tooth or both. Nat and I did scamper off to a movie this afternoon while Jack enjoyed quality time with Lulu. Randy et al came over again tonight. Tomorrow we visit with the Kuhn's again, to see the newly arrived Emily, Grant and Megan, before we head home...

Fake Christmas Morning

Today we spent a lovely day entirely in our Pj's. Melinda and Will hosted Fake Christmas Morning, a laid back gathering of friends in which we enjoyed the best parts of Christmas-- cookies, brunch, presents, lazing around, playing Wii-- with none of the travel or awkward small talk with Aunt Millie. (Not that I have an Aunt Millie that I am complaining about, mind you, but some people might.) I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend lots of time just hanging out with some of my very favorite people. I love our "family of friends!" We were also treated to a visit from Laura and Steve, who ventured up from Columbus with 11 week old Noah for the day! He i so cute and little a squishy... thankfully he did us the favor of fussing a bit before Nat could decide that he needed a new little squishy thing around again....
Jack, while certainly no longer little or squishy, was a superb baby all day. He spent most of the day walking around somewhat aimlessly, doing loops around the first floor of M and W's house. That seems to be one of his favorite pastimes in general these days, since the advent of walking. He appears to enjoy the view from his vertical standpoint. He refused to take a morning nap and subsisted mostly on cookies, yet kept a pleasant demeanor from 11 am to 6:30 pm. He can be a pretty fantastic little boy.

Here for your viewing pleasure are some recent pictures.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We are busy getting everything ready for Jack's second Christmas! Sadly, we are using our artificial tree this year, as we will be out of town for a week over the holiday, and as life has been a bit of a blur recently and, with the Bedford house insanity, we didn't feel up to the tree hunt...
So, our scraggly little trouper of a tree is up, on a little table, and full of 200 white lights and as many Hallmark ornaments as we could fit, it looks all right. For a $30 tree that has been to Winnipeg and back, it's doing pretty well! We've gottene a few packages wrapped and lights up outside and in spite of busyness at school and lack of renters for Bedford at the moment.. I am beginning to get in the spirit.

Jack is enjoying the Christmas decorations. He loves to watch the tree lights come on. He also really enjoys our snow globe. He knows to turn it over and turn the key for the music, and my little detail-oriented guy noticed and pointed out, by name, the little truck hidden amongst the decorations around the base...
He is getting very good, actually, at pointing out lots of things. He is very involved in looking at books these days, and will point out any dogs he sees, as well as some cats. He says "whoo" for the owl in his Lonely firefly book. And he is loving "5 little monkeys". He pats his head during the part of the rhyme where the monkey bonks his head, and then points his finger and babbles emphatically in imitation of my "no more monkeys jumping on the bed!" It's hilarious.

It also partially makes up for how "opinionated" (read, whiny) our little guy has been these days. He is so very fast to say "no" to anything-- tonight he said no to dinner all evening until just before bed when he realized he was starving, and that perhaps that was the cause of all of his whining and distress... sigh. I have to try to remember that as frustrating as it is for me to deal with Mr. Whino-pants, it must be even more frustrating to BE Mr. Whino-pants, unable to fully communicate or control anything in his little world. Poor bub.

Whirlwind of a week... and walking!!

First and foremost! Jack has upped his "step count" from 5 to 20! Today at group (reports Nat) he walked a good 4 feet across the room, and actually repeated the performance for mom tonight at home. It's very exciting. He seems to enjoy it, until he decides to chicken out again...

Now, for Jack's week in review:

Time is flying. Not only is the holiday season afoot, with all of its ensuing chaos and joy, but we are also very busy getting the Bedford house ready to rent out again. Jack has spent much of the past week traveling down to Bedford with daddy and crawling around on questionably clean floors while Nat makes repairs. We are close, now! We will hopefully be showing the house to potential renters this weekend and if the fates are with us, a lease will be signed by Christmas. Please.

Last weekend was a busy one. Saturday Jack and I headed to Lakewood in the morning and he played with Grandma while mommy went to WSC dress rehearsal, then played with Auntie Bec while mommy and Grandma did some Christmas shopping. Home again home again in time to be left with grandma again (this time at our house), while mommy and daddy went out on the town . (It was the annual holiday party for school, and was really quite fun. I even played a round of cornhole, against my better judgement. Luckily no one was injured by my errant throws....)

Sunday afternoon mommy had bookclub and daddy had work to do in Bedford-- so Jack chose bookclub. He had a great time exploring the joys of a salad spinner and eating ritz crackers while sitting on the couch at Melissa's house, while we talked away. I think we did talk about the book for about 5 minutes... Sunday evening was the WSC concert. Jack and I met up with Nat for dinner at Aladinn's and then Jack helped his dad usher for the concert. He actually sat in one of the auditorium seats for a large part of the concert. It was so sweet to look out into the audience and catch glimpses of just the top of his little head in that seat. I also got to hear his little voice a few times as he "talked" about the songs, in the quiet moments between numbers...! I had to work hard to keep from laughing. We'll see if we can hear his little "da, da, da" on the recording...

It was almost relaxing to go back to work on Monday! Almost. Nothing slows down at school. This year continues to be a doozy, with the curriculum and meetings and lots of pressure racing on towards the finish. At least my students are, for the most part, delightful kids. When I get to work with them! This week I will be out for meetings 2 1/2 out of 5 days. Next week, I will be out of the building 1 day and then we have on day and then tests on 3 days in a row. And then it will be winter break! whew!

Ok, that was mommy's little vent. All done now.

Jack, for his part, seems remarkable unconcerned with the fact that we don't yet have our Christmas cards out or our tree up. He is a terrifically happy kid almost all the time, when he is not throwing his head back and wailing at some injustice in the world. Luckily, he usually recovers quite quickly from these tantrum-ettes.

Recently, Jack enjoys:
*the song "Peanut Butter... and jelly." Belly laughs when we do the "and jelly" part with a little tickle involved.
*The book "bow wow". He anticipates what is under each flap with appropriate noises and word attempts, and asks for the book by name...
*finding his body parts on our request. So far he can identify his nose, mouth, teeth, head, hair, ears, hands, feet, and toes. We are working on eyes and knees...
*Anything to do with cars, trucks, and buses. How did he get to be such a boy????
*The microwave, or anything else he can open and close. Shh, don't tell him, but he's getting a kitchen play set for Christmas... :)

Slacker mama...

..that's what I am. I blame birthdays for the lack of recent updates. Mine, then Nat's, in quick succession. Not that it was really unexpected or unusual for them to be in quick succession, but this year it rather caught me off guard. At any rate...

Photos! Of Jack with family members, as promised, as well as Jack being randomly cute around the house....



On Thanksgiving


An old one that never got posted-- from October, I think...



Jack loves to climb up in this chair by himself now...


meeting Jen for the first time!


At a rest stop on the way home from Michigan. He's rather short in this picture, I think...


Happy boy who loves his auntie!


With Bec and cousin Laura Kay, the world traveler!

Video! Of Jack singing along with his train bank. Sorry for the dark picture quality. We seem to have no light in our home. To our credit, he was getting ready for bed at the time of this video.



15 month doctor's appointment! Jack's most recent stats:
Height-- 32.5 inches, or 90%
Weight--25.6lbs, or 60%
Head--18.4 inches, or 55%
He has gained about a pound and a half in the last 2 months! We thought he seemed heavier... He was pronounced healthy and on target, so the fact that he is STILL not walking on his own (at least not more than 5 steps) was not a cause for concern.

Mobility update! As stated above, Jack is still not really walking. Though this evening he did charge around the living room holding onto to my finger with just one hand.

New words!
Truck (g-u-CK), Sock (g-o- CK), Walk (G-o-CK-- you have to be there to hear the difference!), quarter, out (ow), and one Jack-designed sign--hands side by side, palms up, lifted in front of him-- which he uses, depending on context, to mean "all done", "where is it", or "help." He also is now saying "OHHHH" when he is excited or wants something, with a perfectly round little mouth. It is hilarious. This evening he managed to get 4 adults to all mimic his "OHHH" face and then laugh uproariously at him. He thought he was quite something.