Yipper shoes

That's my new favorite "Jack-ism". He is currently quite fond of a pair of hand-me-down Stride Rites, from cousin David, which zip up the front. Adorable shoes, actually, even though they are approximately 3 sizes too big. No matter. The only shoes he wants to wear are his "yipper shoes." I love it. He likes to yip them up, too, but often needs hewup to do so. Today after nap I asked him if he was ready for a clean dap and shorts back on. He sat for a moment, considering, before shouting out "yipper shoes" with absolute conviction. He consented to the diaper change, secure in the knowledge that his shoes were on their way.

Another wonderful thing about Jack right now is the singing. He is starting to make up his own songs, tuneless little ditties that have a lot of "doot doot doot"s in them. He also tries to sing some of his favorite "real" songs, too. I put "real" in quotes because his current favorite is the Diaper Time song, which we made up for him ages ago. It goes like this:

Diaper time, it's
Diaper time.
It's time to change your little bum/stinky butt/diaper now (words are interchangeable)
Diaper time, it's
diaper time.
It's time to change your bum.

It's a work of art, no?

Jack will now launch into a rendition of this song, all on his own, when he wants to be changed or is ready to comply with our request. I don't think there is any way I can express how adorable it is to hear him sing this. " Diaper time. Isss. Diaper time. Tinky butt..... Change bummmm. "
He is even pretty close on the tune. I shall have to try to catch it on video.

Jack's verbal skills over all have been exploding these past few weeks. He is now repeating EVERYTHING we say, and what he hears around him. Farewell, foul language. This evening in the car he repeated "Kandahar" in response to a story on NPR. We even got him to try his hand at Ahmadinejad. He wasnt half bad; I'd say on par with former Pres. Bush, actually. He also enjoyed talking about Can-ah-dah during our trip.

Motorically, he loves running and jumping. The multiple scabs and scrapes on both knees attest to this. The way he enthusiastically swings his bent arms as he says "rrunnnnn!" is hilarious. He can also climb in and out of both cars and the minivan, all on his own. He is loathe to accept ANY sort of help with this process these days, which means we get to be very Zen about the pace at which we load and unload vehicles.