"Whuhs Dis, Daddy?"

Jack is quite chatty, and inquisitive, and it's hilarious. So here's the talking-themed blog.

SUPERHEROES

I have this T-shirt that has images of Marvel Comics' "Avengers" on the front - The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man, and the Wasp. The original team, of course, because I'm old school. Anyway. Jack was kind of intrigued by it when he was a baby - he'd pull at it and grab it, and I used to not understand it until gradually I figured out he was trying to grab the figures on the shirt.

I don't wear it a lot, but I wore it yesterday, and Jack, sitting on my lap, started pointing at all the figures. "Whuhs dis, Daddy?" He asked, pointing at the Hulk. "That's the Hulk," I said. "He's a cartoon character, like the Backyardigans." "Whuhs dis, Daddy?" He points at another character. "That's Iron Man." "Whuhs dis, Daddy?" "That's Giant Man." And so on until we've run through all five characters. But Jack's not done. "Whuhs dis, Daddy?" "Um...that's the Hulk again." "Whuhs dis Daddy?" "That's Iron Ma--" (Before I can finish answering) "Whuhs dis Daddy?" "That's Giant--" "Whuhs dis....."

This goes on until we've run through all the characters 3 or 4 times. Apparently satisfied, he moves on to something else, but about 10 minutes later, he's at my side pointing at my shirt. "Whuhs dis, Daddy?" "That's the Hulk, Jack." "Tha Hulk," he says. "Whuhs dis?" "That's Iron Man." Jack says, "Ion Man." Then we go through all the characters, some whose names he pronounces, some about whom he says "Whuhs dis?"

So basically, I will probably wear the shirt more often from now on.

PUMPKINS

I carved our pumpkin last night. Jack was fascinated. At first he wanted to put the nose piece back in where I'd cut it out of ("Back on! Back on!"). Then he figured it out (once I lit it up), and he began saying "big pumpkin....pumpkin lights...BIG pumpkin..." Later, he moved the similarly sized plastic pumpkin with the classic black triangle eyes and nose (used to carry Halloween candy around) over next to the carved pumpkin. "Friends," he said. "Friends." He nodded approvingly at his work.

SINGING

Jack sings a couple of TV show theme songs. (We only let him watch a couple, honest, and they're great. The Backyardigans, by far the best kids show on TV, and Wonder Pets. That one he started watching with his Grandma, but I admit it's kind of charming, and it's all about teamwork and stuff...whatever. The animals are cute too.) "Baccckkkk wif your friends ... the Back. Yard. Agains!" and "Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, OnnOURway! Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, save thuh day!" He sings Edelweiss with me when I put him to bed, and he also sings, sometimes, "Twinkle twinkle Litt-uhl Star!"

TRAINS

Jack plays with his trains, which are from the "Thomas the Tank Engine" series. As far as I know he's never seen the show. But they all have names, and he can recite them (he has one of the books which we read together). "Thom-as....Top-pam...Hat...Har-vey....Thom-as...."

LAUGHING

I like to lift Jack up and hold him (carefully!) upside down. He screams with laughter. As I ease him down, he says "Das fonneeee! Das fonneeee!" And laughs and laughs.

RELATIVES

Jack picks up the phone and says "Eekan!" (Uncle Ian.) "Aunt Taffy!" (Aunt Cathy.) There's a knock at his door and he says "Damma!" (Grandma.) Or "Dampa!" (Grandpa.) When he comes down from a nap and somebody who was here when he went to sleep is gone, it's "Where Mommy go?" or "Where Damma go?" Sometimes he wakes up and just chants: "Linsey tacey ranna (Lyndsay, Stacey, Reanna) ... Linsey tacey ranna ... "

DANCING

He likes to dance, a kind of shuffling, stomping, spinning around dance that I dearly hope he just came to naturally, as opposed to learning from watching one of us stumble around. I hope. Still, it's hilarious to watch him do it. And always smiling.

And there's more, but I can't think of it right now. Which is a shame.

You know why I have to write all this stuff down? Because I forget it. For everything I write down here within a day or two after it happens, there are probably a dozen or more things that I forget.

I just hope that I remember most of it, because it's too good not to. I don't ever want to forget it. I know I'll lose some, but if I can always remember him putting that plastic pumpkin next to the glowing carved pumpkin and saying "Friends," that'll be something.

Edelweiss

Is that even the right spelling? I don't even know. But that's the song I've been singing to Jack as I put him to bed these days. Badly, of course...I only know a few of the lyrics, and I tend to repeat them, and just kind of muddle through.

Anyway, today Jack started singing along with me. Head on my shoulder, hopefully near sleep, he joined in: "ayyydle-vyse...ayydle-vyse.....you....happy....geet....me...."

A nice moment.

Breakfast of Champions

With acknowledgment to ESPN's columnist Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, I'm going to keep a running diary of Jack eating breakfast this morning....

7:23: Jack sees the counter and says "boobies." He is in fact referring to "blueberries." We bring him a plate of blueberries and sit him in chair. He begins to shovel them in by the fistful.

7:25: Plate cleaned, he says "more boobies! more boobies!" He holds his plate up. Mommy brings him the entire container of blueberries. "Giving them to him piecemeal just creates more work for me," she explains. Jack says "thank you."

7:27: Jack has transferred all the blueberries onto his plate and hands me the empty package. "Blueberries" -- he's got the "L" in there all of a sudden -- "all gone."

7:30: Jack asks for "more milk" with a full glass of milk in front of him. I point it out, and he drinks from it.

7:32: Blueberries mostly gone, I suggest we bring coffee cake. Mommy has divided it up into three pieces. Jack takes two for himself, gives me one, and then takes the third piece for himself, too. Then gives it back: "Here, Daddy." Thanks, Jack.

7:33: Jack points at my coffee. "MY toffee!" No, I say, that's Daddy's coffee. "MY toffee!" But he's smiling, this is kind of a game.

7:34: "Can I have a bite of coffee cake?" says Mommy. First Jack says "No," then gives her a bite. Then he starts stacking it up next to me. He's not really into coffee cake these days. We won't buy it again for a while.

7:35: Jack points at the floor. "OTHER BLUEBERRIES! OTHER BLUEBERRIES!" He's correct, there's a blueberry on the floor. I pick it up, wash it off, give it to him.

7:37: Jack begins singing twinkle twinkle little star, kind of. "Enh enh kl inna ty! ly a dime en inna ty!"

7:38: Jack makes monkey noises. Halloween is going to be great. Then he says, "Monkey sounds."

7:39: Jack starts stacking his coffee cake fragments, saying, "Tower!" The playing with the food portion of the meal has begun. Mommy brings cereal. "Thank you" he says. Thank you, Mommy.

7:41: Jack eats his cereal piece by piece. Then begins using the spoon to spoon milk onto his coffee cake. Somebody filled up on blueberries.

7:42: He begins naming the Backyardigans characters on his bandaid for his arm ow-ey. "Tyrone....Austin...." Great show, although Jack gets a little obsessive about his bandaids.

7:45: Done eating, Jack begins playing with the blueberry package. Knew I should have thrown that thing away.

7:46: "Mommy sit bucket. Mommy sit bucket." There's a bucket in the corner of the kitchen to be returned to Cathy and Jack wants Mommy to sit there. Mommy: I don't think I feel comfortable about sitting on a bucket. Jack then points to the open chair: "Mommy sit."

7:47: Jack is eating cereal by hand, interested in his food again. Mommy asks why he's not using a spoon. Jack begins to slowly use a spoon, watching Mommy all the time. Very good Jack, says Mommy. "Thank you," says Jack.

7:48: Jack notices the tree outside the window. "Bird?" And then "No bird." And then "bird ... HOME!" And then, with a point for emphasis, "bird ... DOWN!" followed by "bird, high tree." and "bird, round and round."

7:50: Jack is spilling a lot of milk as he eats cereal.

7:52: He starts putting cereal from his plate into his bowl. "Two...free....four! One...two...free....four!" Milk is splashing. Now he starts drinking the rest of his cereal milk from the bowl. Breakfast just about better be over. (Nod to the old Saturday Night Live talk show skit, where things start to get out of hand, and the Bill Murray host says "Well, we'd better run out of time....")

7:55: Jack says "All done. All done!" And so we are.

"Dass fonnee!"

So I'm in Connecticut now, at least until I drive to the end of the street or so, at which point I'm in New York. And we don't have our furniture yet, which is kind of a shame, but there are worse things.

The important thing is that the family is together again, which means that I can write about Jack again, because after all I am in fact changing diapers. And on a side note, let me just say it's great when I've buttoned him into his sleeper and am about ready to put him in his crib when he suddenly says, "Poop again," and I say, are you poopy?, and he says, "Yah!" And so he is.

The best thing about seeing Jack here is that he's really happy. I think he was pretty happy in Colorado, but clearly he loves his Grandma (he wakes up from naps now calling not for Daddy but for Grandma - excellent), his Grandpa (who takes him to feed the ducks on Sundays), loves his cousins ("Ranna? Lidsdy? Tacey?"), loves "Uncle Ekan" and "Aunt Taffy" -- for the uninformed that's Reanna, Lindsay, Stacey, Ian, and Cathy -- and loves his family. We drive down the road and he says "Aunt Taffy's house?", he calls for Grandma sometimes, and when he talks in a half-awake state he sometimes runs through all the names he can remember, which includes everyone here and sometimes "Baba" (Grandpa) and "Neve!" (Niamh) And I think, living here, he'll get to know all the rest of those relatives pretty well, too.

And since he is happy, he laughs a lot, and he's now at the point where he announces his feelings on these things. And everything, really. "New house!" and "Big pumpkin" have been popular observations in the week I've been here, as has "Dass Fonnee!" with a big grin, also known as "That's funny!" Or occasionally, if we dare to presume that something is funny that he himself isn't sure about, it becomes "Not fonnee," which he expresses by shaking his head and looking serious.

He runs about the house and plays with his school bus ("My buhs!"), he asks for his milk ("My milk!") and shows an interest in Daddy's coffee ("My coffee!"). No, I tell him, my coffee. He laughs and says "My coffee," and then, "Daddy coffee."

Today we went to get pumpkins at a nearby pumpkin patch, and he walked around amidst them saying "more pumpkins" and "big pumpkins" and all that. He had some pretty strong opinions about them: I'd point one out and he'd say "No," and shake his head, or "Yuh," and we'd either take it, or I'd rule it out - a bad spot, or mushy, or what have you. And in the car on the way back he'd say "My pumpkin," and I didn't dispute it, just smiled, because like everything it was, in fact, for him.