Pictures and Videos!

Sorry to have been remiss recently. Here's your visual fix of the newly-21-month-old Master Jack. Ironically, now that he can call himself "beebee Dack," it is becoming a misnomer.

By the way, thinking of Dack-- we are gathering significant evidence that Jack may have his first imaginary friend. Both yesterday and today, Jack has yelled out "Duck!" when there is no duck present. And yes, it's duck and not druck (truck); the difference is subtle but definitely there... When we asked him yesterday if he talked to Duck and if Duck talked to him, he did answer "yeah" with great assurance. :)

Oh, and I simply must tell you my new favorite Jack word: Doop. We got him a new board book, starring the character Scoop (the bulldozer from Bob the Builder, of course! You mean you didn't know that??). He simply adores this book, and now calls Scoop "Doop.' Tonight while tucking him in, he was looking around for the book, calling out "Doop? Doop?" When he got a hold of the book he picked it up and said, near-rapturously, "HI, Doop!" Gotta love him.


Sliding at Rocky River park.


Jack and the stick. "Mo, mo stick, wa-wa" was the cry of the evening...


It was Becca's prom last night!! Can't believe it! Here's the boy cuddling with the princess!


picturesque, isn't he?

21 months old!

Happy 21 month birthday, Jack! Hard to believe that little baby Jack has been making our lives more exciting 1 and 3/4 years already...

Time for the official "milestone update" at this milestone month...

SO much of Jack's recent development is linguistic, but I will try to summarize some other areas first.
*Jack can now walk up and down stairs on his own. Not a whole flight, mind you, but he can do up to 3 steps up and 2 steps down. With a hand or a railing to hold, he can climb forever. He likes to do it on his own, though, shouting "Jack!" and pulling his hand away if I try to hold it...

*He is becoming quite the runner. "RRunnnnn!" he will yell, and take off, arms flinging back and forth at his sides, shoes clop-clopping on the ground, big s**t-eating grin on his face. This love of running, particularly on the sidewalk, has led to a significant increase in skinned knees and elbows as well as bumped and bruised shins. If the mere marked passage of time weren't enough to convince that he is no longer a baby, his scarred up little legs would do the trick.

*His drawing skills are emerging. He tries to "color in" pictures in his Blue's Clues coloring book and while he doesn't stay inside any lines, he can localize his scribbling. He can also draw a line when we ask, versus a "round and round."

*He can identify: circle, star, triangle, rectangle, oval, diamond, hexagon, and crescent when asked to point at the one that is named. He can do this with me, using books, but much prefers to interact with the game on my iPod, which he can play independently, and which rewards him with an electronic sticker collection when he completes the choices correctly. There is something about stickers. And something about iPods. He can ask for the iPod by name as well as several of his favorite games.

*He can recognize and name the letters S, T, O, H, A, and sometimes E, and the numbers 2 and 8. He can count to 3 pretty clearly, and has learned how to count to three for himself when he is doing something wrong. He is learning how to push the limits of what we allow, looking straight at us with a sly smile as he refuses to follow our directions...

*Thinking of technology, Jack's current favorite media options are Blue's Clues (I think he has a few episodes memorized now) and watching videos of diggers, dumptrucks, and cement trucks on Youtube. He asks for the former by saying "Boo boo" (blue blue) and the latter by saying "up. Doogoo. Meet truck" (upstairs. Digger. Cement truck.) and heading up the stairs to Nat's computer.

*Some of our favorite new Jack words (
in addition to the above mentioned language):

Ee-ih-is!-- here it is! Said with great excitement and inflection. Sometimes changes to "Theh-ih-is!" as well.


mo mo dat! -- more of that! Said many, many times a day.

Dat!-- said while pointing to a motorcycle, this can be roughly translated to "someone please say the word motorcycle for me, because I can't say it yet!" When we oblige, he then says "Whoa!!" in this wonderfully awestruck tone of voice. Every time. He really admires motorcycles. Lawnmowers also fit in this category, but the "whoa" is not quite as intense.

Keekoo-- cookie

Crackie-- cracker

Oat and Choose-- Open and close. He is very into concept words right now. On, off, up, down, in, out...

up high! -- he loves to throw things, or even better, have us throw them, as high as possible...

pie-- play, as in play at the playground.

outdies-- outside. His favorite thing ever.

Dowm-- down

Dowm choo choo-- this refers to any place with a train table. He recognizes many of the areas of town that contain these locations, and will begin to request "dowm choo choo" a few blocks away in the car....

He can also say a remarkable number of words perfectly clearly. At least, they sound perfectly clear, to us!
horse, kiss, bump, big, dog, upstairs, Mike, Phil, gram-gram, sit, eat, bite, milk, juice, night night, sleep tight.... the list goes on...
It seems like he can say just about anything he puts his mind to, these days. Most things are still 1 word utterances, sometimes 2 strung together. Often there will be a string of 3 or 4 single-word statements, which, when combined, express rather complex ideas...

Jack at 21 months is a talkative, insistent, slightly mischievous, charming young man who gives wonderful hugs (complete with a pat on the back) and flirty, moon-eyed smiles. We are finding him to be remarkable, amazing, and a whole lot of fun.

Finally, some pictures!

Jack heading down the slide at Turtle park. Always be prepared with your sippy--never know when you'll need it...


So I've been a total blog-slacker recently. Sorry, all! Here a few recent pics, with more to come as soon as I upload them! Jack is doing wonderfully, talkative and very into running around in circles, reading books, and pointing out a wide variety of wheeled vehicles and small animals in the neighborhood. We've been blessed with a wonderful week of dry, sunny weather and so the kid has been practically living outdoors. Which I will blame for my posting delinquency... all of a sudden his bedtime has moved from 7:30 to 8:30 or even 9, because we are so busy enjoying our evenings together. Wonderful quality time with the baby, not so much quality alone time for mommy before her bedtime (which has not changed!)

3 more weeks of school! I'd like to think that will mean more regular posts, but you know how vacations go...

More to come!

Hanging out with friends Evan and Linus at a backyard barbeque this weekend.


Turtle park is cool, but this is the slide 20 month olds dream about... the BIG slide at Coventry park. I still don't let him go down it alone (mommy's such a stick-in-the-mud) but he likes to climb up onto the bottom of it by himself..)


Watching Deegohs and ment-trucks on Youtube. A now-daily pastime.

Community

Wow, I just noticed how precariously close to the end of his "2nd year caterpillar" the little replica of Jack is getting. Oh my. I really just can't believe that I will be planning a 2nd birthday party for my little tiny baby in a few more months. Little moments recently bring into perspective just how much he has grown and change. Not that we don't notice and revel in his new accomplishments and developments day by day, but-- this evening he plunked himself down in his bike trailer, and got all excited talking about bikes, and rides. First of all its pretty wild that he seems to remember what that bike trailer is for. But the real shock is how HUGE he looked sitting in there! He was just over a year the last time he used it. A tiny ten month old the first time.... I remember we thought he was a pretty substantial kid back then. Now I am glad I am not going to be the one pulling this behemoth up the hills!

But I digress. I wanted to tell you about the lovely evening Jack and I had tonight, and muse a bit on my conflicting feelings about our neighborhood.

Jack has been taking exceedingly long naps recently-- like, 3 and a half hours. Can't complain about that!! But it is changing the timeline of our evenings and somehow making me feel very relaxed with our evening time together. Today little man didn't wake up til 5 and by the time he nursed, got himself all sorted out, and read 3 books with me in the nursery, it was after 5:30. We puttered around in the yard (where we checked out the bike trailer) and he helped me write our shopping list for Zagara's, sitting carefully on his new favorite sitting spot-- sideways on the "big" step, the last stone step from the top as you walk up to the yard. (He says "big" everytime he walks up this step. It IS in fact the biggest of the steps. He loves it.) We headed out at 6:30 for our walk to the store at 6:30-- last month that was "getting ready for bed time!" Had a great shopping trip, took the long way to Coventry, and then we had the most delightful time at the Coventry playground. It was swarming with children there. Go figure, the first sunny day over 70 degrees in a week or so. Even though it was crowded, I decided to go ahead and bring Cor onto the playground proper as I followed Jack around, as I'd promised him he could play and it was a fantabulous day out. I shouldn't have worried because within moments we had the Corydon Fan Club following us around the playground. I think the dog had at least 3 children petting her at all times, and we had a little group of 5 regulars who just couldn't get enough of her. One little guy, who couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years old, took a shine to Cor, and followed as close as he could whenever she and I moved to follow Jack. Eventually, he just decided to stick with Jack, and before long he had grabbed Jack's hand and led him up the steps and ramps to the top of the big slide. Jack was very happy to take his friend's hand and follow along. "Are you going to the big slide, Jack" "Yeah!!!" (said with a big smile). It was a little nerve wracking but my little independent guy navigated the playground just fine with his friend's help. ..

The sense of community at the playground was so wonderful. Little clumps of parents and friends and neighbors talking, a few dogs running around the green space. Groups of kids kicking a ball or playing chase in the grass. Swarms of children, all ages and races, tearing around the equipment, laughing and shouting, taking turns and climbing and holding hands. Smiling parents in tow. No one the least bit unhappy about my dog being there. I was just filled to the brim with good feelings about my neighborhood, feeling that this was the best possible place to raise an open-minded, trusting and confident child.

Then we got home and learned that Phil's car had it's window broken, most likely by some kids walking home from school on our street, sometime this afternoon. In broad daylight. Arg. There went those warm feelings. All of a sudden I wondered how I could think to raise a child in a neighborhood where windows ar being broken, where people litter on our sidewalks and random homeless people come up to our door with their stories of woe and requests for money. I think to myself that this is NOT why we are paying obscene amounts of property tax, to feel like we may as well be living in the inner city, that our neighborhood is unsafe, that we don't want our child to go to the same school as these kids who walk home down our street.

These kids who may well be the same ones I was enjoying so much at the park, for all I know.

I am feeling so torn about our house, this neighborhood. Not that we have the option to move, even if we wanted to. And I am not sure I would want to. It was fabulous to walk to the store and the park and the bank, to people watch on Coventry and to see our neighbors gathered at the playground, to come home to our cozy, if slightly run-down, big old house. If only we could move our house to the back of our lot, face out to Radnor and not Superior, turn our backs on the "through traffic", the litter and the young hooligans and pretend they're not there. Instead, though, I am stuck trying to reconcile my espoused respect for diversity, and my increasing understanding of why there are gated communities in the world.

A little love and affection...

One of the wonderful things about 20.5 month old Jack is the fact that he is becoming more spontaneously affectionate. He is quite the hugger these days, sometimes running up and wrapping his arms (and sometimes his legs) around our shins... One of the loveliest moments of my day is when I get home from work and he comes running to find me, calling out "momma!", that big smile on his face, a wave and a "hi" and then, sometimes, that spontaneous hug. Of course all this loveliness is quickly abandoned for the next shiny object, television, or passing notion that walks by!
We've been having some nice, cool spring weather this week. It's stunning how fast everything is greening up. Our lawn is positively lush, and last weekend we brought the plants out to the porch and bought some big pots of purple petunias for the porch rail and things are looking pretty nice out there. Jack continues to be obsessed with all things outdoors, so it's nice to be able to head outside with ease. Over and over. And over. :)
We actually are starting to let him play outside on his own... with the gate closed, and some surviellance from the kitchen window and backyard, he can tool around the patio and yard while we cook or clean up. Crazy. We have this KID living with us. We used to have a baby, and now we have a kid, who can play out back on his own, and chat with us about all sorts of things, express his wants, joke around, and sometimes tantrum. Parenting seems to be a constant state of adjustment to the new person we have living with us, day by day. Crazy.

diggers, dodos and three

Just a few of Jack's latest words. Here are my current favorites:

Yeah. along with cheese and please this is one of the words that are impossible for him to say without a smile.

Otay. (okay, of course). He is, most of the time (when he is not having a tantrum) a very agreeable little chap. So we get to hear this absolutely, stinking adorable mispronunciation all the time.

Dodo. while I am pretty sure the has no idea what a dodo is, he can say the word, and it is cute. He started imitating it when he overheard Nat say that something had "gone the way of the dodo," and he repeated it for a while after. dodo, dodo, dodo... it is rather run to say. And you know, I really wouldn't be surprised if he does know what it means. He is a very astute little monkey these days.

three. Or rather, "tee." This is Jack's new stock answer for the question "How many....?"

deegoh. you know, digger. Jack adores all things wheeled, and diggers are among his new favorites (along with motorcycles and grapple skidders, but he can't say those words yet). Deegoh is always stated with great excitement, the first syllable slanting up with an undercurrent of joy.

I am often rather envious of Jack, and wish there was any one thing in the world that could bring me as much sublime pleasure as deegohs bring to Jack.