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.