Falling leaves, flying time

Fall is racing onward in a haze of long days at school, busy evenings of Jack-chasing at home, and a series of weeks where the sun never made an appearance. I apologize for the lack of blog updates but it seems that my motivation to write is directly linked to the weather and it's current appeal-- or lack thereof.

I have decided I am NOT in fact ready for winter. Or fall, for that matter. Or at least, for kind of wet, very grey 50 degree weather. Sigh.

On a positive note, Jack is nearly equipped to meet the approach of winter-- thanks to 3 weekends in a row of kids resales, he now has a new fall/winter wardrobe, coat, shoes, and blanket sleepers. I really love kids resales.

So, what has the boy been up to recently? Talking up a storm, as usual. Each day he surprises us with a new trick of grammar or turn of phrase. This week its been "I like this one" or "I don't like that one". He has an opinion on everything and is never shy about sharing!

This week we've also seen a spike in his interest in singing. He can now perform a very quiet, utterly adorable Jack-version of Itsy bitsy spider and Twinkle twinkle little star. Or as Jack says it, little tar. I will be kind of sad when he starts to say his "s" 's.

He can also sing the alphabet song now, with pretty good accuracy. "ting aybeetees!" he will say. This weekend at the most recent resale Jack purchased a small white dinosaure (dinotaur) from a bin of Happy Meal toys. He loves this dinosaur. He makes it talk, makes it climb up on things, makes it dance-- and has it sing the aybeetees. One day soon I will treat you to a video of Jack performing the ABC song in the voice of Dinotaur. It is indescribable, really, but does involve a very deep voice and little lips pouted out and a very serious face. It is my new favorite thing.

This weekend we also went to a 2year old birthday party for another of Jack's little friends, Grayson. I first met Grayson when he was 4 days old at a breastfeeding support group meeting! He shows up in some old blog posts from back when the "doctor's wives" playgroup was operational. It is neat to have such a history with little Grayson and his mom, to have watched him grow up alongside Jack. Jack had a fabulous time at the party-- he is really understanding and loving this whole birthday thing. He sang along with gusto to "Happy Birthday" and suggested that we immediately "Do it again!" as soon as the candle was blown out. We struggled a bit with the fact that the presents were for Grayson, not for Jack. But he did all right, because Grasyon had a ride on Mino that made very realistic engine noises. Doesn't take much to keep this kid happy, really.