October in Pictures

moonfinder...

We had a busy and fun Sunday which involved travel to Pittsburgh and Youngstown, and the creation of a new song...

I was scheduled to sing in a concert in Youngstown on Sunday evening with WSC. Spur of the moment, Nat and I decided that if we were going that far, why not drive just a little further and head to IKEA? :) It was a lovely crisp blue-sky day but a bit on the cold side, so, perfect for a drive. The foliage was lovely, about a week past it's prime, I think, but still rich with oranges and yellows on the rolling PA hills. We had a fun time at IKEA, kept our spending under fair control, with our only real disappointment being that they were out of stock of the kids plastic cutlery Jack is using these days. The kiddo was adorable. He is really becoming quite adept at shopping, as on numerous occasions he picked up an item he fancied and tried to hoist it up into the cart. This was particularly cute when that item was a toddler sized chair!

After IKEA-ing we headed back to Youngstown and managed to find the church for the concert after getting only marginally lost. The concert was wonderful, actually. I'd been bitter about having to miss Melinda's baby shower thanks to the unfortunate midday timing of both events. But I have to say it may have been almost worth it. It was a really meaningful concert for John and the emotion of it carried through for the whole choir, I think. The audience was primarily members of the congregation and it was a while new experience to sing religious songs for a wholly religious audience. They really got into the spirituals section of the concert. After our first encore (and second standing ovation--- very enthusiastic religious audience!) John shared a story of being 13 years old, a member of the church we were singing in, when the Capital University Choir came to sing. He and a friend, dragged to the concert against their will, sat in the very back of the balcony, determined to not enjoy the show. “And then,” he said, “ the choir sang this arrangement of A Mighty Fortress is Our God-- and it changed my life.” We ended with that song and I think there were tears in a lot of eyes by the time we finished.

Jack managed to sit through about 2/3 of the concert pretty quietly before Nat had to take him out for a walk. After the show we snacked a bit at the reception and then headed home-- with a stop at Dunnkin Donuts on the way. While Nat ran in for our snacks, Jack and hung out in the car, and Jack decided to look for the moon. He's been very into the moon recently. He managed to find the moon, not much more than mere glimmer in the still-light evening sky, and pointed in out to me. I commented that he was quite a “moonfinder” and thus a new song was born. Sung to the tune of “moonshadow” of course, it went something like this:

I'm in the car with a moonfinder, moonfinder moonfinder.

My little boy is a moonfinder, moonfinder....

The moon is shining in the night

Shining in the sky so bright

Shining for my Jack to find,

Moonfinder moonfinder...

OK, so its a little insipid all typed out here. But he decided that he loves the song and all week, any time he has seen the moon he has wanted to hear the song. “Ting moonfinder!” he will say. “Tine-ing bright!” He is very cute!

Finally Fall!

Happily, the month of October has taken a turn for the better and we actually had a day of fall sunshine, golden leaves shining against the blue sky... this is the way fall is supposed to feel! insert sigh of relief here....

Accordingly I figured I had better do some blog updating, now that I haven't got depressing weather to blame.

Recent developments in the world of Jack include:

Leaps and bounds in conversational skills. He can now chat with us in 7-8 word sentences, and can come up with alternate ways to express himself when we don't understand him the first time. He continues to say all his "S" sounds at "t" and so those sentences are exceedingly adorable.


Some favorite Jackism's:
When asked what he will be for halloween: "I be Max wearin wolf suit. Max from wild things are!"
Greeting me today upon returning home: "Hi mommy! one mitititppi, two mitititippi...." (he ad been watching daddy make kettle corn, and listening to him counting the seconds, apparently.

Singing continues. This week's favorite? Baa baa Black sheep have any woof, of course! We have been listening to that one on repeat...

More updates to follow soon. Promise. But for now a couple of incomplete videos of Jack's award winning rendition of "ABC's as Dinosaur"

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.

Booful day!

That is my favorite of Jack's new catch phrases. Especially as he tends to utter it, all sleepy eyed and soft-voiced, when we look outside into particularly gloomy weather. He is such a little optimist. Last night leaving Gram's house, we stepped out into a blustery, spit-raining, 50 degree almost-October night. And Jack looked around and proclaimed "Iss booful day ouside!" It's hard not to appreciate life around this little guy.

Our most recent "booful day" was a trip to Woofstock on Sunday-- an annual dog festival at Holden Arboretum. I adore dog festivals. Nothing like hundreds of well-behaved, beautiful dogs out with their doting humans, booths of dog-related crap, and dog contests to watch. We had a great time petting dogs and recieving admiration on Corydon's behalf. Jack loved the "extremes" of the dog world: his favorites were little white fluffy dogs, and a huge mastiff we saw on our way out. He is most certainly NOT afraid of dogs, reaching out to "touch him" with every dog we saw. We should probably work with him on that as not every dog is a Woofstock dog...

A lovely weekend

Can't complain about the weather this week. Unfortunately being back on our new fall schedule means that there wasn't much time to enjoy it during the week... but we were able to make up for that this weekend. Friday night we went out for a great dinner at California Pizza Kitchen with Melinda and Will, spent some time listening to a festive band and wandering around Legacy before returning home, putting a boy to bed and having a fire in the backyard. Saturday Nat went down to Bedford to play henchman and Jack and I headed off to get his hair cut. It's kind of crazy how much he "grew up" in the few minutes it took to cut his hair! It's his first real "boy" cut and now instead of looking rather like a Beatles reject he looks "all-American kid", with it very short in the back. (this evening we realized that if we use a bit of mousse we can spike it up in front for a wonderful Eurotrash look. I have this feeling some boy may be wearing hair products to group on Tuesday...) On the way home from the salon, a cute place that specializes in kids cuts, complete with chairs that are actually cars to drive and a flat screen TV playing kids movies at each station, we went right past the "preston's hope" playground, a fabulous looking place we can see from the highway and always talk about stopping at. So, we stopped, and it was fabulous. As you can see from the pics above, Jack had a pretty wonderful time, running and laughing and riding in as many more cars as he could find. He and I played for a good hour before we headed home for lunch. It was a great morning with my boy.
Saturday night Gram came out to watch Jack, and Nat and I went out to our first movie in about 6 months. The Informant. Good fun.
Today, we had an exciting road trip to Wooster, for the occasion of sending Becca off to COLLEGE! I can't believe my baby sister is actually moved out, starting college... all grown up. It was neat to see all the kids moving in, all the excitement and possibility in the air.
Being only 30 minutes from Strasburg, we stopped and had a nice visit with the Cobes side of the family. Jack was so excited to see cousin Emma (he'd bee talking about her all day). We sat in Diana's yard enjoying trail and swiss and a decadent ice-cream dessert while updating one another on our lives and talking quite a bit about Strasburg athletics while the kids ran about in the yard. With all of John-Johns trucks, Emma fawning over him, as well as a real, live ride-on Mino, Jack was pretty much in heaven. Nice day.

On a side note, we have been thinking recently about some of the things that Jack says that just tickle us. Here are a few:

"Cue me" -- Excuse me. He is quite polite about this, except for the fact that by the time he says it, he's already pushing past.
"Let's do it!" -- this is a new one. Said, like so many other things, with tremendous enthusiasm.

Sparx in the city....

Jack's most recent adventure out on the town was going to the annual "Sparx in the City" tour of Cleveland neighborhoods. On a wonderful, warm Saturday, we took advantage of free buses and trolleys running loops through 7 different Cleveland "boroughs" if you will. Jack was thrilled with the chance to ride on actual buses, and we were thrilled to explore parts of our own city as tourists for a day. We drove through midtown and Asia town and explored an artists live-work community in a fabulous old factory in what is apparently known as "the Quadrangle", a neighborhood I never even knew existed. Jack got into looking at the art, standing an inch away from the canvases and saying "I like this one!" He almost moved in with one of the artists, establishing himself on the couch in his studio. We explored downtown, ran into a friend from the parent center in the East 4th neighborhood, walked to the Warehouse district, found about a gazillion new restaurants we ought to try, and then got back on a trolley to head to Ohio City and Tremont. In Tremont we were treated to an Art festival where Jack decided to sit on a chalk drawing of a cat. A very cute photo op, as you can see above, but as it turns out, a not-so-smart parenting moment for Nat and Amanda, who then spent 5 minutes attempting to de-chalk the boy. Sigh.
We were out and about for 3 and a half hours and I think mom and dad were more ready for bed than Jack by the time we got home! It was a wonderful afternoon....