Chats with Jack ⎮ July, 2014

For most of the month of July, I had the task of keeping Jack busy while Daniel worked long hours with very few days off. 

We celebrated July 4th, hosted one of my college friends, went to the discovery museum and library, took music classes, visited the zoo and played with friends.

Then the last full weekend of the month Daniel was finally off work so we went to a Lookouts game, took a fun bike ride, attended an outdoor concert and a movie in the park. It was a fun but exhausting month.

This month Jack enjoyed making smoothies on an almost daily basis. He also discovered Sonic slushies and now asks for them all of the time.

One of Jack's favorite games is to pretend that Daniel and Sophie are scary dinosaurs (or monsters or dragons). He runs away and then chases them in turn, all the while shouting, "there's a scary dinosaur" and roaring.

Jack continues to enjoying building with blocks and likes to try to build what he calls "the tallest tower in the world."

He is now tall enough to get water out of our fridge unassisted and loves playing with buckets of water on our deck – I just have to make sure the mess stays outside.

Jack has great balance and has been practicing walking on raised curbs unassisted. 

He has also mastered climbing on most types of playground equipment, unassisted.

And he likes to pretend to talk on our rotary phone (it came with the house, and works, but we don't have a land line hooked up). Evidently it makes a great toy! Jack is a bit confused though and thinks we need to charge it...

Imaginary play has really picked up this month. I love to see how his little mind works and how he views the world around him.

Below are a few of the things Jack is saying these days:

He calls raisins "errands"

He likes to pretend to drive a ship and says, "Aye aye captain" and "ahoy matey!"

A few of his favorite phrases:

"Yeah, I know." This is in response to when I tell him something.

"That's my favorite!" Right now, just about anything can be his favorite.

"No way!" instead of a simple "no" in response to questions that require a negative answer. 

He likes to say, "Ta da!" when he enters a room or when showing off.

A few funny things Jack has said lately:

About a week ago, someone asked Jack if he was ready for a nap and he said, "I guess so."

"Can I please have the salt, but not the pepperoni" (pepper)

"I need the chip chops" (chopsticks)

"Can I play the PS?" (piano)

"I want to go to old McDonalds." (McDonalds)

And finally a moment involving #mommyproblems with the official list of approved reasons to wake mommy up at 3am: 

You wet the bed. You fell out of of bed. You are sick. 

Not: you have a booger.

It's hard to believe that Jack will be 3 in just a few months! Or that he starts preschool in a couple of weeks.

Chats with Jack⎮ June, 2014

June started off busy with birthday celebrations and goodbyes as my sister and her family packed up and made the move from Tennessee to Florida. After a low-key middle of the month, we wrapped up the end of June celebrating Daniel's youngest sister's engagement. 

Last Friday, we drove to Smyrna to meet up and surprise Emily at a pre-planned engagement dinner. I think she was pretty surprised when we walked up! On the way to dinner, we coached Jack to say, "Congratulations Aunt Emily!" He kept wanting to say, "Happy Birthday!" but did manage to say the correct thing once we arrived.

We are very happy for Hunter and Emily and wish them many happy years together.

Other stuff from this month: 
Jack had his first tick incident. We calmly removed it from his head at bedtime. I don't know what it is but I have a knack for finding ticks. 

Then Jack had a bee sting on the playground. I saw him running as as soon as he started screaming hysterically I knew he had stepped on a bee. Oh the woes of summertime. I gave him some Benadryl and an ice cream sandwich. We don't typically use food as a reward (or for calming) but sometimes ice cream really does fix things.

Jack has also been running more and had more scraped knees this month. It can be hard to watch, knowing he is going to fall, but letting him run and learn anyways. Hopefully his balance and running abilities will continue to improve this summer.

Since Jack has been eating at the table with us (in a booster and not strapped in), we have worked hard to teach him that he has to sit at the table for the duration of the meal. My sister does this with her children and we have watched several friends with kids do this as well. It makes life so much easier when we go out to eat and he can sit through an entire meal without running around a restaurant. Earlier this month, we met up with friends for dinner that ended up lasting 3 hours (45 minutes just to get seated). We had 5 kids at the tables (three were under age 4) and ALL OF THE KIDS sat through the ENTIRE MEAL. The manager even came by and commented on how well behaved they were. I guess this is a humble brag, but it really is possible to have young kids sit through a long meal.

Some things Jack is saying these days:

"I'm gonna chomp you" while pretending to be a shark.
"I sure can" with a very southern accent. We're not sure where he picked this up, but it makes us smile.

"Marsh-a-bellow" for marshmellow
"Neptile" for reptile

"1, 2, 3, lift off!" or "3, 2, 1, blast off!" He is really interested in rockets blasting off into space right now. Also, he is consistently counting to 10 these days.

"You rule!" Something he picked up from The Lorax. He can also quote a good portion of the movie The Lorax as it plays.

In June Jack discovered Dr. Seuss and as we read Jack will repeat the words as we go. In addition he has started to memorize books and can "read" them with us at bedtime.

Since it is still light until after 9pm here, we started allowing him keep books in bed and he reads himself to sleep after we do our bedtime routine.

This month Jack also conquered the swinging walkway at the Y. I'm so proud of this guy.

And finally, bedtime prayers now involve Jack listing that he is thankful for EVERY type of truck and tractor that appears on his pillowcase. We eventually have to cut him off, but overall we really love to see how he is learning and interpreting the world around him with each passing month.

Chats with Jack ⎮ May, 2014

Daniel and I have this habit of quoting random lines from songs as a part of our daily conversation. About a month ago, we started quoting a couple of lines from the Cake song "The Distance" before Jack's bedtime. 

The line goes:  

"The sun has gone down. 
And the moon has come up. 
And long ago somebody left with the cup..." 

Now when we quote the sun/moon part, Jack automatically says, "somebody left with the cup." For some reason this always cracks us up. In more recent weeks, Jack will tell us "somebody left with the cup" when he is ready to go to bed.

Whenever we drop Jack off at Bible class or at childcare at the Y, he likes to run in and shout, "I came back!" in a very excited voice.

If you say Jack's name and he is within hearing distance, he will hold his hand up and say, "I'm right here" in his little sing song voice.

Recently Jack was saying that he wanted something, so Daniel started telling him that he wanted a pony. This happened a couple of times when all of a sudden Jack said, "Ok, I'll get you a pony." And he sauntered off. Daniel and I laughed and wondered what he would bring back. He brought Daniel a kiwi and said, "Here's your pony."

We had a good chuckle over that and I let Jack eat the kiwi – which he liked.

A couple of days later, a similar conversation ensued. Daniel said he wanted a pony and Jack ran and got a kiwi. So I told Jack that it wasn't a pony and asked if he knew what it was. He looked at the kiwi and said, "a zucchini?" Well, that's a lot closer than a pony!

I recently asked Jack what his favorite toy was and he told me, "when it's my turn."

Conversation between Jack and Daniel 

Daniel: Are you going to be a greenie?
Jack: Yes. 

Daniel: Are you going to be against nuclear and coal when you grow up? (Daniel works in the power industry) 
Jack: No. 

Daniel: Do you think electric cars are going to take off?
Jack: Yes. We drive cars.

On Memorial weekend we asked Jack if he wanted to go camping. He was very excited about this prospect, but said he needed his own backpack... which we have since purchased.

One of Jack's current phrases is "That's cool." How old is this kid? 

He also started saying, "Let's roll" when he's ready to go somewhere. I think he picked this up from me. I realized that I say it when we are biking.

Jack has a fascination with pretending to put out fires and just about anything works as a "hose" for him to put out said fires. He is also into pretending he is on a rocket ship and likes to yell "blast off!"

He calls lemonade "lemon-cade" and I love the sweet way he says "rests-a-raunts" for restaurant and "breaks-fast" for breakfast.

We potty trained Jack over the Memorial Day weekend. I think he was just ready because we only had a few accidents and once I told him that he needed to tell us (or a teacher) when he needed to go, he pretty much caught on right away and did it. Even for church and childcare at the Y. We didn't do treats, but he does like giving us a thumbs up or a high five when he is finished. He basically seemed to understand that this was the next step to becoming a big boy. Interestingly we were out doing lots of fun activities that entire weekend we potty trained and he did really well, with no accidents.

We are still doing diapers at night until we are sure he can go all night but we are just about free of the diaper stage! I am grateful for Daniel Tiger and the episode where Prince Wednesday learns: 

"If you have to go potty, STOP, and go right away. 
Flush and wash and be on your way."

My only complaint is that I feel like the song needs a couple of more lines:

If you need to go potty, STOP,  
and tell a parent, and run to the bathroom, 
and go right away. 
Wipe, and flush, and wash and be on your way.

Jack really likes the song and will sing it when he goes potty, so thank you Daniel Tiger for your catchy little tunes to help little ones learn new things. 

Over the weekend, Jack started going to the potty independently and will tell us, "You stay there" and we are supposed to stand outside the bathroom door. He also told one of his teacher's at the Y that he could wipe by himself... It looks like we have a fairly independent kid.