Christmas

Jack woke up at 5:40. Too early. Despite his protests, I put him back to bed.

We woke up around 7, and he was still asleep. Made coffee, checked the email, finally said, well, guess I'll start making noise. Eventually he woke up. Probably the last Christmas morning he'll sleep past 7, so I should have enjoyed it while I could.

I gave Mommy the heads up to get the video camera rolling and we headed downstairs. Went into the living room, where presents in special Santa Claus wrapping paper were displayed. Also his stocking, overflowing with a Santa toy and a Rudolph toy sticking out the top. "Santa came!" we said excitedly. Jack: "Yeah!" But it wasn't quite an exclamation point. It was more of a, well, yeah, OF COURSE Santa came, Daddy.

I'd have to check the video tape, but I'm assuming he went for the stocking first. Maybe he went for one of the wrapped Santa gifts. Tough to say. He pulled out the stuffed toys, and there was much happiness. He pulled out the Harold the Helicopter toy from "Thomas the Tank Engine." It was in a little cardboard box with with Harold's picture on it. "What's that, Jack?" We asked. "What did you get?" He looked at it, then literally tossed it over his shoulder with disdain. "This is just a box," he said. And we said, "No! Look inside it!" He goes over to it and gives it another look. "Oh, it's Harold!" He's about to move on to another present when we say, no, it's not just a picture! He finally opens it, with help. "OH, it's Harold the Helicopter!"

He opened a book. Might have been "Chicka Chicka 1 2 3." Takes a look at it. Then: "Read it, Mommy." The next 5 minutes are spent with Emily reading the book to him. Opens another book. "Read it to me, Mommy." Emily reads the book to him.

As Emily noted, the cool thing about this Christmas was it was the first one where he was actually fully into opening his own presents, enjoying each thing, moving on to another one ("I want to open another present now"), and enjoying it.

We opened his Lincoln Logs from Nana and Baba. Spent a while building a house. "This is Santa's house," he said when it was done, putting the little Santa figure I'd put in his stocking by it. Then he put the toy digger truck we'd given him by it. "Santa's digger," he explained.

It's a few days later now, and stuff fades. I know it was all pretty great.

A favorite memory of mine involves the entire history of this big blue dinosaur, by Imaginext. He mentioned wanting it about a week before Christmas ("I want my big blue dinosaur"), and we had no idea what he was talking about. Turns out he'd seen it while out with Grandpa, so we called him up, and he said, yes, I know what it is. So, he shows up one day before Christmas with the dinosaur. I sort of assumed something the size of, I dunno, a loaf of bread at most. The thing was half the size of Jack. And when you pushed a button on its tail, its eyes lit up, head turned around, it make a roaring noise, its whole neck twisted. It wasn't even in an actual box, just kind of half on a cardboard platform.

So I wrapped this enormous thing in a huge box, and toward the end on Christmas, I gave it to Jack. He got the paper off, but was left with the box. I told him to have Grandpa help him. They got the box open, and Jack's eyes get wide, "Ohhhhhhhhh" (he kind of draws in his breath in a big way, I don't know if "Oh" is really appropriate, but it's the best approximation) "My blue dinosaur!"

After that I got distracted, but I looked over 5 or 10 minutes later and Grandpa was still trying to get the dinosaur off his cardboard platform. They make these toys basically impossible to get free of the packaging, I guess so parents get to incur hand injuries while opening them, or maybe damage the toys so they'll have to buy more. Anyway, they finally got it out, and I saw Jack and Lyndsay playing with it. They were kneeling there, and the dinosaur was standing between it. Jack pressed its tail, and its eyes lit up, its head reared around, and it sort of glared at Jack. He was smiling and laughing, but also backing away so quickly it looked like he was slipping on ice. Grandpa was laughing. The dinosaur? Still roaring.

It was great.

Christmas Eve

Jack's almost 3 now, so Christmas was much different than a year ago. First, he was really into it, all about Santa and Frosty and Rudolph and so forth. He's a little unclear on the details -- to him, they're all good friends and stuff, and he knows the Abominable Snow Monster is tied up in there somehow, though he's not too sure about him. But he's seen the specials, read the books, and talked a lot about them. (Plus they're all on his Christmas list -- "I want a Santa toy and a Rudolph toy and...." I hate to say it but I think he even HAD an Abominable Snow Monster toy, or would have, had I not given it away to Goodwill recently, figuring at the time he either wouldn't be into it or would be afraid of it.)

So he's into Christmas now, and the other way things were different is that he can do so much more. We thought taking him to church, which I knew would make both his Mommy and his Mommy's Mommy happy, was reasonable, because we could tell him to keep his voice quiet and he'd understand, as opposed to last year. And he could open his own presents, and write a letter to Santa, and all that stuff. And so we did.

The letter was funny. "I love you Santa. I have a baby sister. I want a Santa toy. And a reindeer and Frosty toy. And (at this point we prodded him by mentioning things we knew he'd like, and he, reminded of them, agreed) ....... And a candy cane. So I can eat." (Jack, incidentally, did not like the one candy cane he had. Too tart, I think.)

On Christmas Eve, we went to church. Initially, Jack wanted no part of it. But I told him his cousins would be there, and that we'd see Christmas lights afterward, so he came around. We all got dressed up, me in a shirt with a collar and Jack in his red Christmas sweater, and Kate in a dress with leggings that looked like a Santa suit -- just beautiful. We headed off to church with Kate, as she often does in the car, wailing somewhat. Jack soothed her by saying "SHHHHH!!!!! Stop, Kate!" and singing "Baby Kate, Baby Kate..."

We sat in the back and hoped he wouldn't be too loud or disruptive. And miraculously, he wasn't. (If he had been, he'd have been drowned out by the kids behind us anyway.) Kate was slightly more disruptive, but easily soothed by her Mommy as only a Mommy can, and Jack primarily spent the time saying things like "Why aren't they singing now?" and "They're not singing anymore," and so forth. He liked the singing. And the pictures in the books Emily brought from the back, featuring Noah loading a bunch of animals onto his ark. ("Why is he doing that?""So they won't get wet.") He had a chance to go up for the Children's Communion, or whatever it was called, but was afraid. Instead we all went up for Communion, Jack in my arms and Kate in Emily's, all of us looking beautiful of course and Kate drunkenly sleeping on Emily's shoulder. Jack hugged my shoulder as he was blessed, and we edged past the people offering wine. At the end, they sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing, which we called Jack's attention to; he recognized it as the Charlie Brown song.

We drove home -- very low on gas, I admit I spent some time thinking about running out of gas at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve -- by way of various neighborhood side streets, admiring the lights and decorations. This was cut short for three reasons. One was that we were low on gas. Two was that it was already an hour or two past Jack's bedtime. And three was that Kate woke up and wailed louder and more violently than we'd ever heard her before; so much that she became hoarse and it was just a scratchy, rattling gurgle of woe in her throat. I'm saying, "Look, Jack, it's Rudolph!" over the din while Emily is saying, "Er, can we drive a little faster?"

We got home, and left a note for Santa Claus. As with the list, Jack didn't quite get it. OK, Jack, 'Dear Santa:' Now what do you want to say? Jack: "Cookies for you Santa. I love you Santa." And what else? Jack: "I love you again." And? "Hi Rudolph! And Frosty too. And Bondable Snow Monster." Then we drew pictures on the note, Jack drawing a series of broad scribbles ("That's a picture of Santa's cookie") and me drawing, at Jack's request, Santa, Rudolph, and the Abominable Snow Monster. And then we each had a cookie, went up and read some stories, and I put Jack to sleep.

He was upset that he wasn't going to get to see Santa. I explained how Santa came when boys and girls go to sleep. This didn't really soothe him. There was some crying. I explained how when he woke up, Santa would have left presents for him, and eaten the cookies we left, and replied to his note. (And so he did.)

I don't know if that made Jack feel better, but he slept until morning. Which I'll write about soon.

Rudolph Book

"Where's the adomible snow monster?"
"Is THAT the adbomibled snow monster?"
"Why is he not waking up?"
"I don't LIKE the adbombidle snow monster!"
"Why is the abdomible snow monster out there?"
"Where is the abdominable snow monster?"
"Why did they drop a big rock on him?"
"Because they didn't want him to wake Rudolph up?"

"Where is the adbodmible snow monster?"

"Mommy, let me show you the abdomible snow monster...."

"Why is he up there? Is he going to fall down?"

"Where is the abomidable snow monster?"

Frosty

Jack likes Christmas songs, but Grammy, when she puts him down for naps, tends to sing religious songs. She sang one, and Jack said, I don't think that's a Christmas song. And Grammy said, it is if you go to church.

So then she sang Frosty the Snowman, and came to the line about him dancing around, and Jack said, but Frosty doesn't have any feet. And she said, you're right, how do you think he dances?

And Jack said, "He dances right on his butt."

Went on the train with Mommy and Daddy

Since we live in the New York City area now, we felt compelled to do those things that New York City area people do, which is to go into Rockefeller Center at Christmas time and see the big tree and the lights and stuff. And we figured, hey, it'll be great for Jack: He'll get to ride a train for the first time, and see the biggest tree ever, and see some lights and stuff.

So we lined up a babysitter for Kate, talked up the trip to the City all week, and when Saturday morning rolled around, off we went. First came dressing really warm, which Jack is typically reluctant about -- I think he doesn't quite get that just because it's not cold INSIDE the house, it will be cold outside. But we put on heavy jackets and hats and gloves; well, most of us did. I forgot my hat, which is ironic since I have the least hair. Anyway, that wasn't the worst of the things I forgot.

We left the house fully expecting to miss the train, seeing as it came every half hour, we had about 10 minutes to get there, for the next one, and we had to stop for cash. We were still on the way for cash when we realized that I'd forgot to bring the umbrella stroller. Which meant I'd be carrying Jack a lot in the city. If we got there. Fortunately, we made the train, and stood on the platform to see a whole lot of trains zoom by -- one of which was finally ours. This was one day after I'd got Batman for Jack (see below blog entry) so he was carrying Batman, who I naturally knew had only about a 50-50 shot of not being left on the train, dropped between the train and the platform, etc.

Jack was properly appreciative of the train. I think he was quiet as it got started, but since it started up slow, he was like, "Why is it stopping?" And then it picked up, fast, and he was like, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh." At some point he was on his knees at the window. At another point he was standing Batman up on the windowsill to look out. Toward the end of the trip, which was probably half an hour or so, he was already starting to fade. We'd got a late start and it was kind of close to when his nap would be, plus he often falls asleep around midday in the car anyway, so why would it be any different with the train.

We got off the train and walked through Grand Central Station. "Daddy, carry me! Carry!" Hands reaching up to me. He was heavier with the bulky jacket, I think. I'd been to Grand Central once before, maybe, but it was still pretty insane on a Saturday. There was Christmas music playing and a light display flashing on the ceiling above us. That was kind of nice. Jack was interested. Not enough to walk much, but interested.

We walked to Rockefeller Center. I think I thought Emily would know where she was going a little better than she did. We referenced the map a lot, with my mind racing, yes, this is how people get robbed in The Big City: by looking like they don't belong and don't know what the hell they're doing.

And it was cold. Really cold. Unseasonably cold, actually, in the 30s. And windy. Walking between buildings on our way there, it was like we were in a wind tunnel, or maybe Alaska, and I was carrying my sled dog in my arms. Or Jack, whichever. Who wasn't named after Jack London, although that's kind of a cool name. Jack London Richardson. Anyway.

We finally got near, got swept across the street in a sea of people. Jack had been talking about going home for a little while. He was cold. But we were going to see this huge tree first. Got there. Saw it, took some pictures, said, Jack, isn't that a big tree? Jack: "Yeah, that's a REALLY BIG TREE!" I think he was into it. When he wasn't feeling really cold. We stood up on a bench to get a picture, like everyone else, and got reprimanded by some security type. "Can't do that," he said. Er, everyone else is. But OK.

At the ice rink underneath the tree I saw Santa on ice skates. I did! I told Jack, and that piqued his interest quite a bit, but we didn't see him again and I suspect Emily thinks I was lying. Oh well. I saw him.

Somebody offered to take a picture of us, and we have two -- Emily and I are smiling in both, while Jack has his head buried in my shoulder. Tried to get him to look up and smile; no luck. Forgot to bribe him. Oh well.

Jack: "Want to go home!"

And so we did. We rode the train on an hour-plus round trip in order to spend about 30 minutes in the city (20 minutes on the disoriented round-trip walk from Grand Central to Rockefeller Center, 10 minutes there, which by the way I now recognize when I see it on the Today show and stuff - hey, I was there! I'd never been).

Monday afternoon when I picked Jack up at school, I checked the board outside his class where they say what every child said they did over the weekend. Next to Jack's name, where it often reads "Played with Mommy and Daddy" or something, no matter what we do, it read,

"Went on the train with Mommy and Daddy."

I'm Batman

So I kind of like superheroes and comic books. Have for a while. We all have our weaknesses. So, when we went shopping to Old Navy and Carter's in Stamford today, I brought the kids to the comic book store. Which is to say, while Emily went to the stores to shop for clothes for everyone, I pushed sleeping Kate in the stroller and half walked with, half carried Jack (When he gets tired he stops and holds his arms up to me: "Carry!") the two blocks or so to the store.

Ran over a couple of guys' feet on the way into the store with the stroller. Doorway is a bit narrow. We get inside, I exchange pleasantries with the owner, Jack says, "What's THAT? What's THAT, Daddy? Why is that back there? What is that DOING there?" And I live in fear that he's going to grab something valuable, destroy it, and he'll have the world's most expensive coloring book.

Anyway. In the store, Kate woke up and started wailing, which made sense; she's a girl, and there's not a lot of female energy in most comic stores. I actually had wanted to find a Daredevil action figure for Mikey, my nephew (I'll keep looking, Robin), but couldn't, but in the clearance rack there was a Batman figure, which caught both my eye, and Jack's. So yeah, we bought him. And Jack carried him around in his box for the rest of the excursion, into the other stores, and meeting up with Emily, and back home. And at home we got him out of the box, and played with him and The Flash together. This is really the best part -- Jack had Batman, who had a cape, and figured he flies, so he goes, "And he FLIES at the Flash!" and kind of holds him aloft. And I said, well, really, he kind of uses his cape to glide. And Jack says, "Oh." And then, regarding The Flash: "But him doesn't fly. Right?" And I said, no, he just runs really fast. And then Jack grabs the Batman and says "Oh no, he's chasing me, he's chasing me!" And I ran after him with the Flash, saying, I'm going to catch you! And we ran around the downstairs for about five minutes, living room, kitchen, dining room, hallway, living room. Etc.

Later that evening, shortly before bed, Batman was missing. And I asked Jack where he was, and Jack didn't know. And we looked a bit, and then I remembered that Jack had brought him outside with us at one point. We'd gone to get the mail, and we'd gone in the backyard to grill a steak in the evening. And of course, it's dark now. But I said to Jack, did you leave Batman in the yard? And he said no.

But Batman still didn't turn up, and while Jack was taking his bath, I said to him, are you SURE you didn't leave Batman outside? And he said no, but didn't sound convincing. And I said, well, maybe that's where he is, huh? And Jack said, maybe. And I said, well, after your bath, I'm going to go out and look for him, because we can't leave him out there. And Jack said, Why? And I said, well, he'll be lonely in the dark. And Jack said, why will he be lonely? (Silly me, I figured that explanation would make sense to him, but it didn't.) So I said, well, actually, we just can't leave toys outside. Another kid could find him, or a dog or something.

Now, THIS made sense to Jack. "Yeah! A dog could find him. And he could BITE him! Or another kid could take him. Don't do that! Don't take him or, or BITE him!" So we were in agreement that I had to go out to get Batman.

You can probably guess the rest. I went outside in the pitch dark with a little lantern light and walked around for 10 minutes, expecting to find Batman at best and dog poop or half-eaten animals or something or whatever at worst. But instead I found nothing. Went back inside and told Jack I couldn't find him but I'd keep looking. And then I put Jack to bed and spent another 15 minutes outside, walking up and down the yard, in the dark, looking for Batman. And I realized that me in the dark with a flashlight on a manhunt -- a Batmanhunt -- well, I was Batman, really.

Later that evening, I found Batman, inside, sitting in plain sight on the sideboard next to the dining room table.

Bad Pronouns

Jack's latest charming thing, to me anyway, is his misuse of pronouns. He's totally attached to his stuffed puppy right now, and that's where it crops up most often. Not "He needs a bath," but "Him needs a bath."

"Him is SLEEPING."
"Him got a shot."
"Him wants to go upstairs."

Part of me wants to correct him. Say things like, "Oh, HE does?"

But I let it pass.

Him won't be this little forever.

Nighttime Visits

Jack's been waking up during the nights, or early in the morning. There are various factors. It's gotten cold, and he tends to kick his blanket off, so he wakes up cold sometimes. Kate might wake him up on occasion with her crying. Daylight savings. Whatever.

Anyway, he's been waking up. Here are some of the stories.

- Heard Jack wailing. Walked into his room. He was standing next to his bed, his stuffed puppy locked in his elbow, head back, wailing. "Jack!" I said. "What's wrong?" "WANT MY LITTLE TEDDY BEAR!!!!!" He has these two little bears they gave him at the hospital when he had surgery. They tend to get lost in the blankets. I found the missing one and gave it to Jack. He immediately stopped crying, flopped on the bed, and fell asleep.

- Jack was at the side of the bed, holding his step stool for the bathroom sink. I groggily awoke, it was almost time to get up. "Jack...whu...?" I mumbled. "Want to get into bed with you and Mommy." Now, we're not opposed to this, except for the fact that 1) he doesn't sleep, 2) he chatters away and we don't sleep, and 3) he'd wake up Kate, who's about 4 feet away in her crib. I walked Jack back to his room.

- Jack was at the door. I got up, walked him back to his room. It was around 1 a.m. He sat down glumly on the side of the bed. "Jack, what's wrong?" I asked. "I don't want to be all ALONE in here....." he said pitiably. I really didn't know what to say there.

- I went to bed at 11. Slept. At 11:30, I woke up to see Jack there. "I'm coldy, Daddy. I'm coldy." I put the blanket on him and went back to bed. 11:45, he's back. "Don't want the blanket on." "OK, Jack, well, you can just kick it off, but I think you'll be warmer with it," I said. 12:15. Jack again. "Daddy, will you put the blanket on me."

- 5:30. Jack at the bedside. "Is it morning time?" No, Jack, it's the middle of the night. I bring him back to his bed.

- 5:45. Jack again. "NOW is it morning time?"

Jack's Halloween

Thought I'd try something a little different this time. I'm going to turn this one over to Jack.

Playing outside at school when a big car pulls up. It's Daddy's car! He's coming this way! "Daddy!" I run over to greet him. We're going home! No...wait....this is Halloween! Yeah! When I get candy! He picks me up, I say goodbye to the teachers, and we go to the car. Hey, there's my baby sister! She's not usually here for the pickups. I want to touch her head! "Baby Kate....Baby Kate...Baby Kate...How much is today." That's my new baby song.

Mommy was inside getting my stuff. There's my treats bag! And my dragon costume! And my treats bag. With CANDY! Mommy says Heyo to me. "Heyo!"

We're going to Aunt Taffy's. Kate starts crying. "Bay-beee Kate....Bay-beeeee Kate...." We leave Mommy and Kate there. Daddy asks if I want to go get the pizza for dinner. "And garlic balls?" Yes, he says, and garlic balls. "Want to go get pizza with Daddy."

At the restaurant these men are throwing pizza dough into big ovens. "What are those men DOING? Look at those guys! What are they DOING?" Daddy says they're making pizza. And garlic balls? I wonder.

Back at Aunt Taffy's. We're eating pizza and garlic balls. StaceyLyndsay is crying. She wanted chicken fingers. I like chicken fingers too, but this is PIZZA.

We finish eating. LyndsayStacey is crying. She hurt her hand. She's sad.

Now we're all in our costumes. Mommy is taking pictures. When do we go get our candy?

We go outside. StaceyLyndsay and Ranna go first, with Uncle Ekan behind them. Uncle Sam next. Then us. "Carry!" Daddy says he'll carry me some but I have to walk up to the houses, say trick or treat, and Thank you.

First house. I walk up the driveway. Long driveway! Pumpkins on the lawn. "Daddy, look at that big pumpkin!" People on the porch. I hold out my pumpkin bag. She's saying something to me. Does she have candy? There's candy! Daddy's yelling to say thank you. "Thank you." She's smiling at me. She gave me candy!

Next house. I'm walking again. Woman on porch. She says, ooh, what a scary dinosaur. "It's a dragon," I say. More candy!

Next house. Woman calls somebody inside to come out. It's a BIG DRAGON. That scary. Want Daddy. Da....Hey, she's got candy. OK. Get the candy and go. Daddy's there. "Jack, that guy has a big dragon costume like you do." I say, "yeah...."

More houses. I have a lotta lotta candy. Tired now. "Daddy, carry." Daddy carries me.

We're back at Aunt Taffy's. Daddy's not walking as fast as he was when we left. Not sure where Ranna LyndsayStacey are. They were moving FAST. I couldn't SEE them. Yeah.

Sitting on Aunt Taffy's porch. Daddy says, you can have 5 pieces of candy. Aunt Taffy: "FIVE? I let my kids have one." Daddy says, as I was saying Jack, 3 pieces of candy. "Okay." I eat three pieces of candy. I have a lot of chocolate on my hands and face.

In the car on the way home, I'm still eating that third piece. Full now. "Daddy, I want to save this one for later. Daddy, I want to save this piece for later." He says okay and holds out his hand. I hand him the rest of my chocolate bar. It kind of melted. It sticks to my hands a little bit. And his.

Jack, he says, we can't save this. You have other candy. I'm full and tired so I say OK. I watch as he drives one-handed and asks Mommy for a wipe. I think he has a lot of chocolate all over his hand.

We go home and go see Max's Mommy next door. She gives me a bag of treats. More candy? Or toys? Tired now.

We're back in our house now. Daddy and I go out on the porch to light the pumpkin. He says, "Happy Halloween" to us. Max and his Daddy come over and we give him candy.

We blow out the pumpkin. Halloween is over.

But I have a lot of candy.

Is tomorrow Christmas?

Breakfast table

Jack's been waking up too early a lot of morning. Sometimes I think Kate wakes him up, sometimes it's cold (he kicks the covers off), whatever. This morning he woke up around 5, we put him back in bed, he got up 20 minutes later, etc. Finally I got up with him, went downstairs, made coffee, watched Red Sox highlights (Sox win). Later there was some kind of meltdown -- I think he wanted more raspberries, or he didn't want milk, or some other kind of thing that only would upset him if he, you know, woke up around 5. He wailed a lot.

Anyway, so he and I are eating breakfast, which is to say, I'm guzzling coffee and he's eating raspberries and cheerios. Emily comes downstairs, and she looks at Jack, says Hi, and then: "Jack....what was the matter this morning? What was the problem?"

Jack looks at her, still shoveling in raspberries. He pauses, then raises a fist in the air.

Jack: "Red Sox win!"

Excitement

Jack burst into the door this afternoon. "Daddy, LOOK!" He was waving a piece of black construction paper that had little jack-0-lanterns and other Halloween stuff glued onto it. "Look at THIS. It's a pumpkin....and a pumpkin....and a ghost. And a pumpkin!" I said, Wow, Jack, did you make this? "YEAH!" Well, it's great, I said.

Later, I asked him if he wanted to put it on the fridge. Silence. Fridgerator? "Oh! YEAH!" He grabbed it and ran off to the kitchen. We put it on, and he took the magnets off of everything else on the fridge to use all 20 or so of them to hold it up. He's thorough.

The Cherry Man

I'm too tired to remember all of the funny things involving Jack in the last few weeks. What's great is that he actually makes jokes -- says and does things that he knows are funny. And he merges different things and comments and so that he'll be telling a story that gets funnier because he's mixing something we talked about earlier with something we read in a book with a Backyardigans episode.

So the one I'll remember for now is just that there was this big construction site truck with a crane on top of it and a basket at the end of the crane for a guy to stand in. And I would have had no idea what to call the thing, obviously, except Jack has a book with a picture of a construction site, and they call that truck a "Cherry Picker." So I told Jack that, and he repeats it. "Cherry picker."

The next day we're at his school, day care, and I'm dropping him off. Out the windows, across the street, there's all this construction going on. And what do we see? Of course: a cherry picker. Jack runs to the window, as does this other kid, Teddy, and they stand on little chairs to look out. And Jack says, "What is the cherry man doing?" And the crane start going up higher into the sky. And Jack's all, "Oh! Look!" (He kind of says "yook," which is very cute.) "The cherry man is going up into the sky!" And then: "Yeah! He's going WAYYYYYYYY up there." Finally I left, while they were still marveling at the cherry picker.

I guess I've got one more story, which is that I picked him up the next afternoon, and it was a gray day, so they were inside (normally they're in the playground if it's nice). I walk into the room and I see him over at this little low table, kind of leaning over it, talking to other kids. Funny; it was like he was in high school or something. Anyway, he sees me out of the corner of his eye or something, and runs over -- he has a little, it looks like part of a book in his hand. There are pictures on it of various insects, spiders, frogs, that kind of thing. "Daddy, look!" he says. "A spider! And a, a....what's this thing?" I say, that's a beetle, Jack. And he says, "Oh! A beetle!" And then he points at another one: "And what's that?" That's a bee, I say. And he says, "Oh! A BEE! And he will STING me! Don't sting me, bee!"

Just something about Jack easily transitioning from talking to other kids to talking with me to talking with a picture of a bee. It's good stuff.

Halloween Song

Jack has a new song about the upcoming holiday, one that he made up himself and sang several times today. It features his basic understanding of the holiday, as well as impressions from the decorations on our neighbor's lawn. It varies with each telling, but goes something like this:

Halloween
Halloween
And I go trick or treating and get candy
and the Pumpkin snowman
and the goats* in the truck
and I get Murdoch (a Thomas train he's been on about lately) and go trick or treating
Halloween
With Mommy Daddy and Jack and Kate
And the Tigger and Santa and pumpkin snowman on the lawn
and the very big spider spinning her web
Halloween

* (He means "ghosts.")

Something like that, anyway.

New Kid in Town

Haven't blogged in a while, largely because I'm exhausted, or don't have the time, or am too tired to find the time, one of those. But a lot's been happening and I'll try to recap....

We have a new baby, a girl named Kate, who's exactly three weeks old as I write this. Pretty cool, and I'm going to have to write about her at some point being as I've been changing some of her diapers, too. For the most part, though, she's been attached to her Mommy by, as an old codger in Fletch might say, one of those two protuberances about grab height. Anyway.

We kind of expected this to be a little tough on Jack, and it is. Mostly in subtle ways. He hasn't thrown tantrums about her, or been angry or jealous of her, at least not outwardly. He likes her, actually, wanting to hold her -- he looks so proud when he's sitting on the couch with his arms out and hands upturned and we place her in his arms. He's awkward about it, but also kind of beaming. When she cries or wails, he's all "What's the matter, baby?" And, "It's okay baby! Don't cry. What's the matter, baby?" So sweet. And he's already taken to including her when he goes around naming us all and pointing: "Mommy....Daddy....Kate...and JACK!" with a big point to himself.

It's the little things. Him getting more upset over minor stuff, partly because I think he's tense, partly because he's not getting as much sleep (which might have something to do with Kate -- as I write this, he's only napped at home ONCE since Kate came home), partly because of this new kid in town...a combination I'd guess. He wants Mommy to come kiss him goodnight, for the second or third time, and Mommy can't, because she's feeding Kate. Or he keeps getting out of his bed, wanting more stories, or whatever, but it's late and Daddy is starting to get upset, because jeez, Jack, you've got to sleep, and you'll just be even crankier tomorrow. And of course it gets worse, not better, because we all get less sleep and then he doesn't want to eat as much ("I'm tired....I'm sleepy, Daddy"), some of which is because he actually is tired and some of which is just an excuse to avoid doing something he doesn't want to do. And the result is we're more frustrated and more tired and he's more upset and.....yeah.

There was a stretch of bad days, and then a good one, and I think today was okay. Tuesday, Emily's birthday, was a little of both. He was whiny in the morning, and didn't want to go to school, and woke up early, and all that. Then in the afternoon I picked him up at school, and he was playing with trains, and was happy. I went over and he gave me a train, and he said, I don't think this one has a name. And I said, well, maybe he has a name...let me see. And I checked the bottom, and I saw his name was Murdoch. So I said to Jack, see, he has a name, it's Murdoch. Jack looked down and smiled at the train. "Murdoch," he said, with a certain satisfaction. "Oh! His name is Murdoch, Daddy." That's right, Jack.

And then we went home, and the guy next door is apparently having his paved driveway extended over half of his lawn, I have no idea why. But there was a big digger truck there, and Jack was pretty excited. And then his cousins showed up for Emily's party, and Jack was happy, and said, "Look at the BIG DIGGER." And jumped up and down.

On the downside, the evening ended badly, partly because the playing doesn't always go great with the girls, a combination of him being a so-so sharer and them being older or whatever, and partly because he was so tired. But ultimately we did go upstairs, and had his bath, and read a story, and when we lay down he fell asleep fairly quickly, his arm tight around my neck. Took me 5 minutes to extricate myself and leave the room.

Basically it's just tough. Emily told me she talked to him once about his feelings during one of his little breakdowns. She said, "It's all very strange and different, isn't it?" And Jack, in tears, said, "Yahhhsss!" which was part sob and part shout. And it is, for all of us, but especially for him, because of course he didn't know this change was coming, no matter how much we tried to explain it.

But we're going to get through it, starting with getting a little more sleep. Right now.

Surgery, Part II

Leading up to Jack's surgery, we stressed a lot, worried about worst case scenarios, heard stories about how scary it is when your child gets anesthesia, all that. We gave Jack ice cream and gummi bears and all that, and told him that a doctor was going to fix his owies. Meanwhile, Emily was worried she was going to go into labor the night before or day of. I had images of Father of the Bride, either 1 or 2, I don't know which, where Steve Martin is running back and forth from his wife's room to his daughter's. Probably it was 2. Anyway.

We slept badly, then got up and entertained Jack until we had to go to the hospital. We had to be there at 8:30 a.m. The morning had a feel of wanting it to be over with, so we kind of just got ready and went, early, and were there. Paperwork, admitting, and then into a room. Jack wasn't crazy about it. Not surprisingly. We had to get him out of his clothes and into these little flimsy pajamas, which we later learned we put the top on backwards (with the ties in front), and they said, well, they'll come get you at 9:30. And then we sat on his bed and watched TV, and tried to act like we weren't worried.

They finally came around 10. I carried Jack, Emily walked beside us. Then we got to the operating room area and they let me and Jack go through the door and Emily went off to the waiting room. A tough goodbye. Jack and I were directed to a chair sort of in a hallway just off the operating room. The anesthesiologist who looked a lot like Jerry Seinfeld came out, asked us questions, I might have signed a form or something, so on and so forth. Seinfeld left and we sat there for another 10 minutes. Jack: "I want to go." Me: "Well, we can't, yet."

They came to get us and we walked into the operating room. Lots of big lights and equipment extending from the ceiling. Very X-Files-ish. Seinfeld was there and he told me to put Jack on the table. Jack was great, just lay there, trusting. Seinfeld commented on it. I held Jack's hand and they put the mask over his face and counted, and in less than a minute he was asleep. It wasn't as scary as I'd been told, actually. And they said, OK, he's great, you should leave now. And so I did.

Emily and I waited in this little room. Bad coffee. Bad TV. Bad magazines. Comfortable chair I guess.

About 45 minutes later, Dr. Peter walked through the door. He was only halfway in the door as he was saying, "Jack's doing fine!" Love Dr. Peter. Thank you for not being all, "Hi there, how are you doing? Emily, how's the pregnancy...."

We went into the post-operative (I guess) room to see him. It was big, with lots of beds -- really, it looked like something right out of MASH. Kind of scary, actually. Jack was in a nurse's lap in a chair (rocking chair? can't remember), kind of curled up. His back to us. Mostly hidden. He was awake but really out of it. We had been warned the anesthesia was very disorienting and stuff, but still. Scary. We both touched him, held his hand, talked to him. He was kind of like, "Mommy...ahhhhhnnn....Daddy....." Kind of not making a lot of sense. First Mommy held him, then me. They had me sit in a wheelchair with Jack on my lap, and then they wheeled us out of the room. We had to sit there for a good 5 minutes, with Jack moaning, while they filled out some kind of paperwork or whatever. I'm sure it was important, but geez, we didn't have to sign anything, get us out of there, please. So they wheeled us out of the room eventually, and all the way back to his room, where we'd started out.

We put Jack carefully on his bed. He wanted us with him. We all kind of squeezed onto the little single hospital bed together. Not easy. Plus he had the IV in, and various bandages and such, so we're trying to lie there without hurting him in some way. They needed to keep him there for a couple of hours after the surgery, to make sure he was OK. I think we watched some TV, and as he gradually became less disoriented and plaintive, we gradually calmed down and relaxed. He was OK, it was OK. And it was going to all be over.

And then they offered popsicles, and Jack -- starting to be himself again -- said, "A red one." And then: "TWO popsicles." And everything was fine.

Grandma and Jack

OK, we've got a new baby, her name is Kate, and she's fantastic. And I still need to write about Jack's surgery, Part II. But this was too good not to write down.

With the baby, Emily's been in the hospital and I've been there a lot the last two days. Jack has, understandably, been off his routine....Grandma got him up yesterday morning and put him to bed last night, he went to Temple with the Rosenfelds on Thursday (while we were, you know, having our baby), and Grandma put him to bed last night. He woke up early this morning, he's a little off his game, missed his nap, we took two trips to the hospital, etc. Busy day.

So Grandma brought him home tonight and gave him dinner and put him to bed. Here's how it went, according to Grandma.

"We got home and I made him a hotdog and some macaroni ('What's that?' he said, so I called it pasta, and it was fine). And he also wanted applesauce. I said, you have to eat two hotdog pieces and two pastas. So he ate the two bites of hotdog, and a pasta, and said, 'Now can I have my applesauce?' and I said, did you have two pastas? and he said, no, I only had one. And I said, well. So he ate it, and I gave him his applesauce, and he ate it all and then he ate down his entire hotdog and pastas, and then he sat back and said, 'Holy Cow, I ate my whole dinner!'

"And then he sat back in his chair and said, Grandma, I'm sleepy. So, I took him right upstairs, and decided not to do the bath. And I was getting him changed in his room, telling him he's not going to have a bath, and he said, 'Do I get pajamas?' And I said of course. And then I was washing him off a little with just his diaper on, and he said, 'Do I get a new diaper?' and I said of course, and got him his new diaper and pajamas. And then as I was doing that, he wanted to sit on the potty. And he sat down, and then after a minute he said, 'Grandma. I'm very sleepy.'

"So we went into the bedroom and he was all ready for bed, and he said, 'No stories. Just songs.' So I started doing songs, and he was tired and falling asleep, so I was going to leave, and he put his arm around me and said, 'Don't leave yet.' And we were lying there, and the doorbell rang. (It was flowers from Robin, thanks Robin! And Mom and Dad yours came too, thanks!) And I said, well, I have to get that. And Jack said, 'I'll wait for you.'

"And when I went back upstairs five minutes later, he was fast asleep."

Surgery (Part I)

Last Tuesday was kind of a typical day with Jack. His school was closed all week, so we went to the beach in the morning. Emily and I had been going back and forth on whether we should see a doctor for what appeared to be an allergic reaction/rash he had. It showed up occasionally....didn't bother him, but it was noticeable. We thought it might be his sunblock, or strawberries, or prickly heat...whatever. Anyway, at the beach that morning it seemed worse, so I made an appointment for that afternoon.

We went to the doctor, and while she was checking him all over, she noticed a swelling in the groin area. She thought it was a hernia, but wanted him to see another doctor to be sure. She kind of shrugged off the allergies ("Keep a food diary," she suggested, "Or try Benadryl if it itches") which was just as well, since I'd totally forgotten about it too. Especially when she said if it WAS a hernia, he'd need surgery. All righty then.

We drove home, and I was kind of teary. My son needs surgery. Pretty scary. I was torn between regretting the visit which had dumped this in our lap and feeling lucky that we'd found out this way, and not -- as the doctor had said -- him waking up crying and in pain, which might have happened down the road. He, of course, was acting perfectly normal, wanting to play with the trains in the doctor's office, smiling and laughing during the examination, etc.

She had said she hoped the doctor would be able to see us to confirm her diagnosis by next week. By some weird coincidence, the doctor she recommended, one of the leading pediatric surgeons in Westchester County, turned out to be our brother in law's Dad's...well, kind of confusing, but he was Ian's Dad's cousin's husband. Or something like that. And he'd had Thanksgiving dinner with us. As a result, we were able to see him the next day, and yup, it was a hernia. Surgery scheduled for the following Tuesday. This office visit, Jack's second in two days, wasn't as much fun for him. Although he enjoyed playing with the toys (a little kitchen, some trucks, so on and so forth), he was a little wary of the doctor, who he didn't remember, of course, and the whole place was unfamiliar. Plus it was his naptime.

Anyhoo, we drove home, and that night Jack got ice cream, gummi bears, pretty much whatever he wanted.

There were some tears (ours, not his).

There were the various explanations to friends and family members (turns out it's the most common surgery performed on children, and even Emily's boss's daughter had had it done, by our surgeon, too!).

And on Saturday afternoon we went over to the neighbor's and Jack played with their son Max, and we told them everything, and we watched the kids play. And it was nice, you know, because it felt like the kind of thing that Jack should be doing -- not sitting around our house while we fretted and worried about him, worried about him suddenly saying his groin hurt or something.

And that's when we really worried about him having surgery. Because everything was supposed to be fine, but all I could think about was what if it wasn't.

So the next few days we basically spoiled him rotten.

To be continued.

Jackisms

Jack had surgery recently, but I'm going to blog about that another time. Some cute stuff to get to first....I'll call them Jackisms.

(After going to see boats with Grandpa) "I never seen a lot and lot of boats...I never seen so many boats!" (Holds both hands out for emphasis)

(The next morning after his surgery) "Some of them had masks....kind of scary." (Presumably talking about the doctors.)

(Also) "I'm going to call the people at the hospital who fixed me, because they found my bears." (Jack had been given a couple of little stuffed bears wearing 'Greenwich Hospital' t-shirts. Somehow, they'd been left in the room. I went back to the hospital later that night, after Jack had gone to bed, to get them.) "I'm going to give them to my sister. They're babies too."

(Told to me) "You have a bandaid. I have TWO bandaids. A big one and a small one." (Talking to mommy. OK, maybe everything he says isn't fascinating to everyone.)

(Jack asks about dessert.) Me: "What did you have in mind?" Jack: "Um...(smiles)...Green stuff?" (Lime sherbet.) "OK, Jack, I think we have that. And maybe there's a special treat, too." Jack's eyes get wide. "Do you know what?" Jack: "Um....gummi bears?" "That's RIGHT." Jack, like his Daddy, loves gummi bears.

"Help, the monster's coming!" (Laughter.) "Monster coming!!!!" (Runs across room, hides in corner.) Me (or mommy) "I'm not a monster, I'm your Daddy (or mommy)!" Not sure where this came from, but at some point Jack decided it was quite hilarious, if one of us was coming to put him to bed, or change his diaper, or whatever, to say "The monster's coming!" or "Monster coming!" It really is pretty funny.

Jack noticing Mommy's pregnant belly at the breakfast table. Big smile: "It looks almost like a ball!"

Jack has a Spider-man pop-up book (actually it's mine, but you know). Each page has little inserts that you can pull out and they have information about Spider-man, his friends, his foes. Jack's favorite part of the book is finding them and pulling them out. "This also gets out," he says. And then: "This ALSO gets out...." (Smile.) "This also gets out....."

Me reading a new book to him today, where the little yellow dog finds out that what he hoped was a big bone is actually a skateboard. "Phooey!" says the dog. This is apparently the funniest word Jack has ever heard. He cracks up. I say it again. Screams of laughter. And again. After a few more times, Jack, gasping with laughter: "Don't say it again!"

OK, tomorrow or the next day I'll write about the surgery.

Told to Me

I don't actually see all of Jack's best moments. Sometimes I just hear about them....

1. Aunt Cathy has had a major cleaning project going on in her finished basement, with the result being that Jack can't go down and play with all their toys when he's over there -- there's just too much chaos. Last weekend Jack went over there with Emily. When he saw Aunt Cathy, he said, "Are the toys clean yet?"

2. Today he was playing with blocks, while Emily was working at her laptop. "Look at my trees, Mommy." She was kind of mmhhmm, mmhmm. He persisted, so she went down to look. He'd made two beautiful little trees by stacking blocks. And was very proud of them.

3. Yesterday at daycare Emily was getting his stuff after picking him up. She heard Lila's Mom say, "Jack, no, wait for your Mommy." He'd started to leave with a girl in the class and her Mom.

4. This one I was there for. We went out to dinner with Cathy and Grandma and the girls. Afterward I sat out front with Jack (he was antsy in his seat) and then the twins came out with us. The three of them suddenly broke into first, Twinkle Twinkle little star, and then, Now I know my ABCs. Sweet.

5. According to Grampa, whenever they go out Jack wants to walk. A lot. Everywhere. Unless he's really tired.

Repeats

Jack often repeats things we say, and what's funny is that even if it's words that he has no idea what they are, he blusters along anyway. So today we were making a big train out of blocks, and as I added the last one I said, Ah, the creme de la creme! And Jack laughed and nodded, saying, "...the creme da la googly...the creme da la dideee..." Basically just cracking himself up with the words, repeating them just to hear them roll off his tongue.

We were lining up his trains on top of their little information cards, and he came to two trains that didn't have any cards. "Where do these trains go?" he asked. Er, they're, um, supervising, I said, standing them near the other ones. Jack started lining up other random trains and things. "They're supervising, too," he said.

Putting Jack to Bed

Putting Jack to bed is interesting these days, because things kind of follow a routine, albeit a protracted one.

We go up the stairs, and I start the bath while Jack runs around the upstairs rooms. Sometimes he plays with toys in his room, or reads the big Snoopy book in the office, or turns on his music. Usually it's 5 minutes of me running the bath while Jack burns off energy.

Then comes tracking him down to get him into the bath, which occasionally is laborious. "I'm just going to play a little." "I'm just putting these guys away." "I need to put these books back."

Finally, I get him in the tub. For all his delaying and protests before the bath, once in he has little or no desire to get out. "I want ALL the toys." "I need to wash my seagull." "He wants to drive the boat." I give him his shampoo, and he wants a clean washcloth to dry his eyes. I scrub him, and he asks what I'm doing, resists, etc. I explain, Jack, this is what baths are FOR.

I hoist him out and he stands on the rug. If I'm not careful, he'll dash out into the hallway, naked as a jaybird. (Old expression, I really have no idea what a jaybird is. Blue Jay?) Sometimes I pick him up wrapped in the towel. "Hold me like a baby," he says, big smile. He's huge now, but I do it anyway, his gangly legs and arms everywhere, us trying to squeeze through the door. He laughs, water drips from his hair and feet onto the floor.

I bring him into his room and put on his diaper. Then come pajamas, but there's often an interlude where he runs around in just his diaper. Then pajamas, which sometimes he puts on. Some of those times he even puts them on forward rather than backward. He runs around again. I comb his hair, frequently while he's playing with some toy.

Brushing teeth. He does this grudgingly. But, he does it.

Then it's finally story time. We sit on his bed reading 2 or 3 books he's picked out. Recent favorites are "The Very Busy Spider," which I also like, and "I'm a Big Brother Now." We read both of these twice, sometimes.

Then I tell him it's time for songs. Jack gets up and gets water. "I need a sip of water." I don't know if he actually needs a sip of water. It's like a Pavlovian dog thing. I say it's time for songs, he needs water.

We lie down together and sing songs. Swing on a Star, Edelweiss, Working on the Railroad, The Tigger Song. Others, sometimes, but that's most of my repertoire right there. For a while I did "On top of spaghetti," but he's not into that right now.

Then it's time to lie down to sleep. Jack: "Sleep with me a couple minutes." I do. We lie down together, and sometimes he touches my cheek, my upper lip. "Do you have stubble?" he asks. Usually, the answer is yes.

Tonight, Jack looked at me and said seriously, "I'm going to get a sip of water. And then I'll come back." And he did.

Big Monkey

As I was putting Jack to bed tonight, he said he wanted more soft toys (the soft toys are the ones he can have in his bed). I said, well, you've got your Backyardigans, and then I guess you've got the little monkeys over there (I pointed out his monkey chair in the far corner of his room, with two smaller stuffed monkeys in its arms. The chair is bigger than Jack). He said, okay...

I just checked in on him. He was asleep, and the little monkeys were in bed with him.

And the giant monkey chair, which he had dragged across his room, was sitting right next to his bed, head down, evidently sleeping too.

According to Jack

- Ronald McDonald is bad, Old McDonald is good. I don't think he minds McDonald's food as much as it being a case of, he saw a commercial with the Ronald clown jumping around and waving his arms and didn't like it very well. He also likes Wendy's, I think mostly because of the little girl on the bag.

- Dancing is essentially stomping feet up and down and pumping arms when music is on the radio; running out of the room saying "My song, my song!" when it's on a CD he's playing; or running circles around the room while Daddy is singing his goodnight songs, particularly the catchier ones like "Personal Penguin." Tonight we ran circles around the room to music, Jack saying "I'm going to catch you!" and me saying "I'm going to catch YOU" and so forth.

- Any reference to "Jack" of any kind, means him. (And I don't blame him for this.) So, there's a show on Nickelodeon called Jack's Big Music Show. At some point he saw something he didn't like, probably the way the puppets make loud noises or jump around sometimes, I don't know. Once we had the channel on and it showed a commercial for it. I said, Oh, it's Jack's Big Music Show. Jack: (near tears) "Don't like my big music show....!" Then tonight, it being my birthday, I had bought some Jack Daniels and was going to make myself a Jack and Coke, which I mentioned to Emily. Jack overheard, and said: "Don't put me in Coke!"

Daddy's Magazine

Aunt Cathy was over this morning, and she noticed a couple of the fantasy football magazines on the coffee table. She said, Oh, is this your magazine? Before I could say anything, Jack comes over, says "No - " then goes over near the TV, where my magazine, Fantasy Football Index, is on the rug. I think I showed it to him when we first got it a few weeks back. He gets it and holds it up. "THIS is Daddy's magazine." Cathy says, oh, OK, can I see it? She reaches for it, and Jack walks around her, over to me. "No....it's DADDY's magazine."

Random funny Jack stuff:

Jack knows he has to eat his dinner to get dessert (even though he doesn't always get dessert, we've slipped a little in that respect, and it's more frequent). Regardless, he knows we'll say no if he doesn't eat his dinner.

So he repeatedly asks us during dinner if he has, in fact, eaten his dinner. Plate gets put down. He has a few bites of something. A minute later: "Are I done eating?" Us: What? No! You just started. A little bit later: "Did I eat all my dinner?" At least half his meal remains on his plate. Us: No, there it is right there. Of course, on those occasions when he does eat everything, he lets us know. "I ate all my green squash, Daddy. I ate all my green squash." You sure did, Jack.

Thursday

Pretty soon -- August -- Jack's going to start going to daycare on Thursdays, too. I'm getting busier with work, we've got a new baby on the way, he enjoys school, and one day he'll be going 5 days a week anyway (sigh). Because of that, I can feel my Thursdays with Jack starting to dwindle, and I thought I'd keep track of everything that we did this past Thursday. It's two days later, but it should be pretty close...

Getting up: I hear Jack calling for his Daddy, and it's about 6 a.m. (which is usually as late as we get), so I head in. Jack's sitting up in bed, holding his current favorite sleep toy the baby Dragon, talking to it, which he does some time. He looks up at me. Smiles. "Is it morning time, yet?" I say, close enough. Jack jumps up out of bed, announces he stayed in bed, announces he had a bad dream (it's hard to know whether this is true or not; he says it like it's no big deal, or rather like he doesn't completely understand the concept; maybe he just heard us talking about one once), and then runs over to play with his pirate ship. Just one of many presents he had little to no interest in when he first got it and now, a year or more later, plays with regularly. "Are I going to school today?" he asks. No, you're staying home with Daddy. This sounds fine to him and he continues playing. I tell him he can stay in his pajamas, which he prefers (not allowed on school mornings), we change his diaper (not poopy), brush his teeth (something he's more interested in now that he has Thomas the Tank Engine toothpase), and head downstairs. Mommy has drifted in to say Hello and gone downstairs to make coffee, good job Mommy.

First breakfast: Jack's first breakfast is usually some kind of fruit (raspberries, blueberries, cantelope) and cereal, either Cheerios, Shredded Oats, or Puffins. These things go in cycles. Might have been cantelope, he's been on a kick lately. Depending on when he eats it -- I can't recall if we watched Maisy beforehand or not, possible -- he is either mildly hungry or very hungry. When he's very hungry he sits quietly and just shovels the food in. That's always nice.

Second breakfast: At school they usually have waffles or somesuch at 8:30, so I try to give him breakfast around then too. Again. He usually takes to it, whether it's waffles or (in this case) scrambled eggs and bacon. He's particularly fond of the bacon today. Scrambled eggs can be hit or miss; sometimes he'll eat his and mine. When I make fried eggs he eats the whites but doesn't like the yolks. Last week I ate four over-medium yolks and he ate four whites.

Home Depot: The movers lost our crib hardware so I've been trying to match it, and it's taken me a few trips. Home Depot with Jack is interesting; they have a nice racecar cart that he enjoys, but it seems like it was designed for much wider aisles than Home Depot's. We squeeze by other shoppers and I give him random things to play with (socket wrenches, drill bits, circular saws....no, just kidding) while I look for the right sized screws. Naturally, I'll end up going back on Sunday anyway, but at least Jack had fun.

Train Station: Jack likes to go look at trains; he started doing it with his grandpa. Oddly, it's kind of a love-hate thing; he likes seeing the trains, but he's also a little afraid of their size and the noise, so he doesn't like to get too close and sometimes not even onto the platform. We're there 15 minutes and see 3 trains, and then it's time to go.

Playground: Then it's off to the playground, which Jack insists on even though I can see he's getting tired. I don't think we ever see the same kids there, and it's always a little different. Once there was some kind of head start graduation thing going on and we left; it was so crowded I was worried that I -- I mean, Jack, of course -- would get trampled or something. Once it was a little cool with a threat of rain but still okay, and we were the only ones there. You just never know. Today there are a few kids, and Jack sleepwalks around a little and then perks up. We go on the big teeter-totter, and he laughs happily, and we ride the motorcycle and sidecar type of thing; that's fun. It wouldn't be a trip to the playground if Jack didn't 1) stare at some other child for a few minutes, or 2) ask to climb on some dangerous looking ladder that I ultimately relent and then have my heart in my throat the entire time. But, a good time is had by all.

Lunch: I keep Jack awake all the way home -- if he falls asleep in the car it's hard to move him without waking him up and screwing up the nap -- by offering him raisins or poking his foot or whatever. It's only about 2 miles anyway. Lunch is yogurt, cheese, cherries, and a little turkey, which I think he eats a bit of between shoveling in cherries.

Nap: We read his favorite stories these days (Personal Penguin and Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs, both by Sandra Boynton) and lie down together for a few minutes ("Daddy, lie down with me. Stay a couple minutes. Just a little bit.") I sing a couple songs, and if he asks for one I don't know -- which happens, Mommy and apparently school have different songs -- he says, "Just a little bit," so I make something up which uses the title of the song he's asked for. Usually he stops me: 'That's Mommy's song." Allrighty then.

Driveway: He has a good nap, and when he wakes up we go play in the driveway. Sometimes this is basketball, but lately it's been worrying ants with sticks. I might have mentioned this before, maybe even last blog. I tell him not to hurt the ants, because I'm soft that way, and mostly we just watch them and occasionally he pokes at them with a stick. The ants are a little faster than Jack so it's mostly okay.

Yard: We hit the baseball around, off his tee-ball set. Sometimes he looks into the Big Kids yard; nothing doing. Haven't seen them much lately, maybe they're at camp or whatever it is kids that age do in the summer.

Dinner: Mommy is home, and we usually have something easy on Thursday, because we're both too beat to do anything major. For the life of me I can't recall what we had, just two days ago. Hmm. Hot dogs were Friday....maybe pasta, I dunno.

Bed: Mommy puts Jack to bed, because Daddy needs a break from Jack. And that's pretty much Thursday, more or less, these days.

I'm going to miss it.

Been a Busy Week, so...

I'm going to go day by day since the last post. Here goes:

July 4: Independence Day! Which for Jack meant, staying in his pajamas most of the morning, Daddy going out to get donuts, and then heading over to Aunt Cathy's to play with his cousins in the scorching heat. Jack first wanted to ride in his big car, and then the girls were on tricycles, and so HE wanted to be on a tricycle, and then there was a bit of a scene where he wanted Stacey's and she wouldn't give it up and of course Lyndsay wasn't even using hers which was exactly the same, but Jack didn't want that. Then I took Jack home for his nap, and after he woke up he immediately wanted to go back to his cousins, which we did, for hot dogs and salad and I'm not sure but I believe Jack ate an entire grove of grapes. It was overcast that night so fireworks were limited and Jack slept through them and I'm pretty sure we didn't see a one, except on TV. Oh, aside from Ian setting off a few bottle rockets off the porch which mostly fizzled, but about 1 out of every 5 actually went "Bang," and when it did the girls and Jack all jumped happily in the air and said Hurrah! It was pretty funny.

July 5: Drive to Vermont, dinner in Vermont, ice cream for dessert, and then Jack having a bad cold and cough and not sleeping well, and us not sleeping well, and all being very tired. BUT, Jack immediately took to Vermont and Nana and Baba, like he'd never been away, and wanted Baba to read stories to him before bed, and so he did (Harry at the Beach, for the record). It was all very nice.

July 6: Everyone's tired, but Daddy and his Daddy go off to play golf and Mommy and Nana entertain Jack with puzzles, books, and the like. When I return from my 18 holes of golf and big lunch, Jack is napping and everything went well. It's a long nap, which figures since he was exhausted. That evening we get food takeout from the Country Kreemee -- burgers, hotdogs, fries. Not memorable. Nana and Baba get fried scallops and we discuss the risks inherent in getting seafood from a Southern Vermont greasy spoon, but no one got sick as far as I know. Tonight Nana reads Jack stories, and Jack -- perhaps because he had such a good nap -- doesn't sleep until 9:30, a record for him I believe.

July 7: Jack's 2 and a half! And a wreck from sleeping probably 7 hours or so, tops. Still, we're a hardy bunch and we head out to the Agricultural Fair anyway. Jack falls asleep in his car seat halfway down the driveway. We stop by Mrs. Hunter's, because Nana said we would, and she gives us a jar of homemade strawberry jam (with the benefit of having now eaten it I can say, top-notch!) and admires Jack through the car window as he sleeps in her driveway. We head off to the fair, waking Jack up when we get there, and although I was worried, he immediately shows an interest in walking around, seeing the big tractors, sitting on them, and seeing all the animals. The bulls are huge, he pets the sheep, and at the very end comes the highlight: three little pigs! Jack touches them and they snort and he literally jumps with glee. And runs around the pen (Pigpen, get it?) trying to touch them again, while they run around trying to avoid him. Lots of fun, and then we go home and he actually naps again, to everyone's great relief. That night he enjoys his bath again (we play with the rubber shark that I had when I was a child and clearly says 1976 on its side), gets his best night sleep (as do we all), and of course Daddy and his Daddy play Yahtzee, because that's what we do when we're in Vermont.

July 8: In the morning, Mom makes pancakes, which are outstanding. Has to be the secret ingredient: being cooked in bacon fat. Jack eats waffles and bacon, which is great except I don't get any bacon, drat. We drive back to Connecticut, stopping at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and once we're back I go out to buy an air conditioner because it's 95 degrees outside and 10 degrees warmer in our apartment.

July 9th-July 11th: Too ... hot ... to ... think .... or ... remember ... or ... write .... anything.

July 12th: Today. My first day alone with Jack for a while. And it's good to have these days, to remember that man, he can be a real challenge, and I have no idea how anybody raises a child on their own or stays at home with their child full-time, because it's exhausting, and I have a huge amount of respect for it. But fortunately, he's also wonderful, for example...

-- Telling me to lie down when I tell him I'm tired, and then carrying his little rocking chair over to the couch so he can rock in it, and say "I sing to you. I sing you to sleep." And singing this song called "Pitter Patter" which I don't know where it comes from and if he made it up or not, but it has a line about Winnie the Pooh, I know that much.

-- Talking to his new favorite toy, a soft plastic dragon which is actually part of a game Aunt Robin gave him, but he pretty much disregards the game and just carries the dragon around everywhere. Sometimes he talks to him ("How are you dragon? OK? Shhh. Daddy, I'm talking to my dragon.")

-- Playing out in the driveway, where a brief basketball game is quickly forgotten in favor of sticks fallen from the tree and then ants crawling across the pavement. "What's THAT? Go away, buggy! Hey, what's that buggy DOING?"

And that's pretty much Jack.

Mr. Inquisitive

Jack's young, so he doesn't know a lot yet. He asks a lot of questions...

- At dinner, looking out the same window he's been looking out for the past 8 months: "What's that big tree DOING?" Us: "Um....he's just standing there." Jack: "Oh." Then: "But what's he DOING?" And then, because I think he asked the question another night, and I gave this answer, he said, "He's guarding the other trees."

- "What's THAT?" "Er, that's your chair." (Or something equally ordinary.) "Oh." And then: "What's THAT?" "That's Daddy's drink." "Can I SEE it?" "Sure, sure." Looks. Then: "Can I TASTE it?" "No, that's just for Daddys." "Can I TOUCH it?" "No, no." "Want to see it." And so he does.

- Not so much a question, but more a request that can't possibly be met. We're reading a book, that shows animals standing outside a building or something. "Want them to go in the house," or "Want him to wear his hat," or "Want him to go inside." In some respects, Jack wants to change what happens in his books -- he wants to be able to move the characters around himself.

- Jack sometimes shows only minimal interest in his meals, but he has tons of interest in his play food. His big thing now is to set up chairs on his "table," which is actually a play store, and set up meals of plastic pancakes, waffles, etc. And no, this has nothing to do with the topic, but it's what he's been doing a lot of lately.

- We've been talking up going to Nana's and Baba's house, where we're going in a couple of days. Jack's in favor of the idea, as he enjoys them and the various toys there -- ones we had as kids.

Yesterday he asked Emily, "Are we going to Nana and Baba's house?" "Yes," she said. Then he asked, "Will Nana and Baba be there?"

- His favorite stuffed toy seems to change by the week; this week it's Winnie the Pooh. The other night he wailed for us, and I thought he was saying he was poopy. Nope -- he was looking for Pooh.

Vacation

Short vacations are interesting. Just about the time everyone gets adjusted and settled in, it's time to go home.

That's sort of how it was on our trip to The Cape, for four days last week. Jack didn't sleep well -- we were all in the same room, basically a disaster, but that's what we get for not making our plans sooner than we did -- and didn't nap at all on our first full day there, with the result being he was terribly cranky that evening and terribly exhausted the next day. Then he had a great nap Saturday and we all had fun that afternoon, evening, and the next morning. And had to leave.

Best way to handle this trip is a highlights/lowlights sort of post....

Highlight: Our room was ready and beautiful, with a picturesque view out over the beach and the ocean. Since we'd never been there and really didn't know what to expect, it was shocking -- we couldn't have picked a better room. A Room With a View.

Lowlight: It was one room, which we knew, but we also had these illusions of us hanging out on the balcony while Jack slept. Yuh. No lights out there, and Jack took a while to fall asleep each night (because it was all new to him, being in the same room with us), so a lot of the time we were in the room was trying to get Jack to sleep or dealing with him being unhappy because he was exhausted.

Highlight: First time we stepped onto the beach, Jack was afraid to put his feet down -- for about 2 seconds, after which he ran across it like he was Lawrence of Arabia. He didn't want to go in the water -- not many people did, actually, because it was cold and dense with seaweed near the shore -- but that was okay. (Later I asked him, Jack, what was your favorite part of the beach? Jack: "Um. Seaweed!" That might have had something to do with us buying "Harry At the Beach" before the trip, a great book about Harry the Dog getting covered in seaweed.)

Lowlight: Not many, beyond the fact that the first day there high winds drove us from the beach with sand stinging our eyes. It got better though.

Highlight: Jack loved the beach. He ran about -- faster than we expected, once we turned and he was halfway over to the playground just seconds after we'd last seen him -- and collected rocks and shells, and built sand castles with Daddy, and played with his truck. And the great thing is, since we don't live in Denver anymore, we can keep going to the beach over the next few months! Probably go Thursday, in fact.

The absolute best moment was Jack's efforts to meet a seagull. He ran toward them when he saw them, and they flew off easily. He'd stop and yell: "Hey! Big Bird! Where you going?" And: "Hello, big bird! Hello! Where you going!" And he'd run off again. I'd say, Jack, I don't think you're going to catch the bird. And Jack said, "I want him to say Hello to me." I explained, well, Jack, I don't think he's going to say hello to you... And no sooner had I got the words out than one of the birds made a cawing, squawking noise. Emily and I were kind of dumbstruck, while Jack said, "He said Hello to me! The bird said hello to me!" Yep, he did.

Lowlight: Probably meals, since the first restaurant was just mediocre (and Jack was rambunctious), the resort's lunch was weak (and dinner available until "in-season," which started, er, today), we were too tired to do anything but order pizza into the room the second night, and it was only later that I found out about a seafood place that had counter-style ordering, which would have been ideal. Oh well, next year.

Highlight: Jack's exhausted 3-hour nap on Saturday, where he was nearly falling asleep on the beach that morning and ultimately we went back to the room and I sang him to sleep with about two lines of a song. That resulted in us getting takeout lunch/dinner from a nearby seafood restaurant, with me getting a huge plate of steamers (excellent) and various sides. Can't get anything like that in Colorado.

Lowlight: I guess the not sleeping thing should be mentioned again, especially since I'm going to have to wrap this up to try to catch up.

Highlight: Two things that must be mentioned before I go to bed.

We went to a Cape Cod League baseball game, which we wanted to do and thought Jack might enjoy, since his grandpa takes him to his Uncle Ian's softball games on Sunday mornings. We walk through the gate, the game is going on, I'm holding Jack who's looking around, and the first thing he says is, "Where's the playground?" We didn't stay long.

Second: ice cream. I don't think there's much more fun than watching Jack eat ice cream. We went out the last two nights there, each more fun than the night before. As the picture at right, assuming I uploaded it properly, makes clear.

One last highlight is, of course, Jack himself. He goes off on little speeches, waving his arms expansively, about the birds, or the water, or the seaweed, or the food, or his books, or his toys, or "big kids" he saw across the beach. He peppers us with questions ("What's that girl doing? What's that man doing? Where are they going? What are those birds doing?") Hearing him go off about this or that, so invested in what he's saying or asking -- it just never fails to amuse.

Which is why vacation was great, and always is.

Going on Ay-caytion

We're going on vacation at the end of the week, kind of a mini one to the Cape, so we've been talking it up. Jack has come around, saying "We're going on Ay-caytion?" So he's into the idea.

Tonight I brought out our luggage, which we really haven't used in a while, and Jack might not even have remembered it. "These are our suitcases," I said. "The bags we'll bring on vacation." Jack nodded and proceeded to drag his turtle bag around the upstairs hallway for a few minutes.

Later, as I was trying to get Jack back into his bed for the umpteenth time, I helped sell the idea by saying, "You've got to rest up, because we're going on vacation at the end of the week."

Jack: "Ay-caytion?" That's right, I said.

Jack: "Are we going to bring our caysing bags?"

Our suitcases, Jack, that's right.

Kind to others

A couple of days ago when I was putting Jack to bed, he got up a couple of times.

First he went over to his monkey chair (this big stuffed chair as large as him), knelt in front of it, hugged it, and sang to it:

"Take me out to the ball game .... take me out... crowd ... buy me somepeanutscracKERjack..."

He came back, but got up again. He had to put a blanket over the monkey chair.

Finally he came back. Lay down. Looked up at me: "Want to snuggle."

And so we did.

Random

- Tonight before bed Jack got up, went over to his wire jungle gym type toy, and started singing, while drumming on it softly with a book. The song was Oh My Sherman, a Backyardigans take on My Darling Clementine. He did this for a good 5 minutes, singing some lyrics I could understand, and some I couldn't. Big smile on his face, singing and drumming, and as he repeated lines, it was as if they were new each time, as if he was singing one long, 5-minute song, with very little uncertainty or pausing. I was torn between stopping him, seeing as it was bed time, and just fascination with how invested in the whole thing he was.

"Daddy, come here," he said. I went over, sat down near the toy. "No, you, with the book." I started drumming as well, with another book, but since I didn't really know the lyrics, I was a little off, trying to keep off. "No, I show you," he said. And he started up again.

After I finally got him into his bed and left the room, he continued singing it for another 5-10 minutes. Finally, I think, he slept.

- Before his bath tonight, Jack was running around. Wearing only a diaper, I saw him run, full-tilt, from his room into the office. Then the office into our room. Yelling. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Pause. Then back across the hallway into his room. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

- Speaking of music. Jack knows how to use the little CD stereo, which I might add we bought for his room in the first place, when he was a baby, so I guess it's kind of his anyway. He picks out CDs by color of the jacket -- "I want the blue one!" -- which is how he ended up with Moby's 18 in the player yesterday. Moby is kind of techno pop, I guess; not exactly what you'd think of as kid's music. Anyway, the first track on the disc is called "We Are All Made of Stars," but its chorus repeats "People they (may? whichever) come together," and so Jack now says, "Want to hear the come together song!" And so we've heard that Moby song about 10 times in the last two days, not the kind of music I ever figured I'd be listening to with my son. He's also learned random lyrics in the song, which he repeats (big smile) when they come up. "Left in my mind," he grins. And: "Growing in numbers."

- I don't presume to know what Jack's favorite things are, but eating watermelon has to be up there in the top 5. Tonight we told him he got dessert, and he said, "What IS it?" And I said, it's one of your favorites, and he said, "One of my FAVORITES?" And I said, watermelon, and he was practically giddy with joy.

So he sat down at the table and I brought the watermelon over. And we sat, me drinking a beer and Emily drinking her water, watching him eat. And as he finished, or paused, I don't know, he suddenly launched on a lengthy monologue that included watermelon, potatoes, and things about "So I could get..." and "but I couldn't have it" and an old standby, "Because I had a job to do." And his explanation included hand gestures -- putting his hands out palms up, and occasionally pointing, and maybe even a little shoulder shrug. This went on for several minutes with fairly a pause for breath.

It was like he was telling us the best story he'd ever heard or experienced, and he wanted us to appreciate it as much as he did.

Funny.

Jamberry

We're slowly trying to get things ready for Baby No. 2, and one part of that entails trying to steal all the things from Jack that he's had since he was a baby so we can give them to his coming sibling. Step 1 was moving him out of his crib into a bed, and that went fairly well.

(As an aside, Step 1 was probably boxing up all of his baby toys, some of which we'll eventually give to his sibling, but we have no illusions there -- as soon as he sees them he's going to want them anyway. In fact, he and his Mommy had the first chat today about whether Jack's toys were going to be in jeopardy from the newborn, something Jack seemed pretty concerned about, so that's going to be fun.)

Anyway. Today I extricated the glider / rocking chair from his room, which we rocked him, read stories to him in, and sang songs to him from basically when he was a newborn until a few months ago. That was when we moved him to the bed, and since then he's pretty much been content to read stories there. So he's not really going to miss it, but of course, I knew he would. So I wanted to try to decorate that area dramatically enough that he wouldn't mind the missing glider.

I put up a poster from a Natural History Museum I went to in New Mexico, with pictures of dinosaurs on it, and then I drew a big picture of a dinosaur and an Ichthysaur (probably misspelled, sue me). There was still a big space, so I pulled out another big piece of paper and tried to figure out what to draw.

My eyes fell on his Jamberry book, this great book that he's loved on and off since he was very young, of a boy and a bear dancing and singing through fields of berries -- raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc. Great book. Using his markers, I spent the next 15 minutes or so recreating the cover of the book, the bear in brown (with his purple hat of blueberries) and the boy in his blue shirt and pants, also holding a hatful of blueberries. It was a pretty accurate likeness, if I do say so myself, all colorful and happy. So I put it up on his wall and everything seemed good. I put his big monkey chair in the spot the glider used to be.

So Jack gets home and ultimately we go upstairs to see his new room. He sees the pictures and runs over to them, standing there to marvel at my efforts. He looked pretty happy, and Emily came in too, saying, wow, it's the bear and the boy from Jamberry, isn't that great, Jack? And he's smiling and I'm thinking, yeah, that worked out pretty well. And then he turned to look at us.

Jack: "Where are the strawberries?"

The Beach

Colorado had a lot of great things, but a beach obviously wasn't one of them. I think there might have been reservoirs or somesuch, but in the 5 years we lived there, the only time we went to the beach was when we flew to Los Angeles and Mexico. The last time we took Jack; he started walking there.

Back East now, we went to the beach twice this past week -- Jack and I on Friday, Jack and Emily and I on Saturday. And although the beaches themselves were mediocre at best (broken glass was fairly prevalent on one), it was great. Jack wanted to be carried at first, didn't want to put his feet on the weird sand or in the oceah, but within minutes he'd gotten past that and was running back and forth across the sand, from towels to water and back again, over and over and over. He had a little watering can he wanted to fill, to help us make sand castles and sand bunnies and sand turtles. "Another one!" And we'd run to get more water to mix with more sand to make more.

On a couple of occasions we saw horseshoe crabs, moving along the edge of the shore. I pointed them out to him. "Can I touch it?" he said. Er, no, probably not a good idea. Once we saw a mother duck and her ducklings. Jack ran after them, not getting within 20 feet of course before they scurried away. "Bye, ducks!" he yelled.

We'll see them again next week.

Are you sick?

We've been sick a lot this year. One of us gets something and the rest soon follow. We had a great, healthy Memorial Day weekend, somebody Jack played with had a high fever the next day, and naturally, Jack got it too. I picked him up at daycare a little early on Tuesday and he was home all day today.

It was funny putting him to bed last night, which is when he was really starting to feel bad. He lay down for reading stories. Was cold getting out of the bath. Went to sleep early, before 7 I think.

Today, I was also feeling crummy, although with me it might be allergies. But Jack was here, and had a fever of 101, so I was trying to get him to drink liquids, and rest -- he napped on me at one point.

At one point I either looked or sounded or said I was tired. Jack: "Are you sick?" Me: "Oh, maybe a little." "Do you need a glass of water?" "Er, well..." "I go get you some water."

He disappeared, went downstairs, and came back a minute or two later with a glass of water -- his plastic Spider-man glass, perhaps with the water that was already in it, or maybe from the bathroom sink, which I think he can almost reach. Gave it to me: "Here's water for you, Daddy."

Good stuff.

Big Kids

Jack and I set up his tee-ball set out in the backyard. We'd bought it in Denver, at a point when I think he was too small to really use it. Anyway, he took to it immediately, perhaps in part because he's gone to see his cousins Lyndsay and Stacey play tee-ball at the park on several previous Saturdays. That's a riot in and of itself, as the kids stand there in baseball stance while the ball rolls by them about a foot away, or alternately, the entire team swarms to the ball like bees.


Anyway, I'd place the ball on the tee and he'd really sock the thing, with a big, full-around swing. Pretty impressive. At one point, a couple of older boys -- 8 and 7, I believe, or so -- came over from the house next door, where our backyards connect. "Can we hit some, too?" "Sure," I said.

Well, it was pretty great. They'd haul off and sock it, but once they'd had their turn, they set it up for Jack, and gave him coaching tips ("Don't stand too close," "Hit the ball, not the red part," etc.). This went on for about 15-20 minutes, with them running around, and Jack either hitting, running to get the ball, or just watching the bigger boys in awe.

The best was the next morning, when Jack and I went out there again. Jack: "Are the big kids coming out?" "I don't know, Jack, I don't see them. They must be in their house."

Jack ran across the backyard, to the edge of theirs. Stopped, and shouted:

"Big kids! Big kids! I'm in my YAAA-RRRRD!!!!!!!!"

More sleep

- Sleep has been bad lately, because Jack has been going through a period of getting out of bed early in the morning, getting up after we put him to bed for up to an hour or more, getting up sometimes in the middle of the night. There's nothing quite like waking up and seeing a little person standing next to your bed. We started putting a gate up, and that helps a little. At first he really didn't like it, but then he was okay with it. "It's to keep you in your room, so you'll get more sleep," I explained. Now when I'm going to leave the room, he says "Put the gate up. Put the gate up, Daddy."

It's all been very frustrating, seeing as how none of us are getting enough sleep, but we'll figure it out. On the bright side, every once in a while there are moments like today, where he was so tired that I was able to sing him to sleep at naptime. I sat on the edge of his bed and sang "Swing on a Star," and he curled up on his side and went to sleep. His eyes slowly grew heavy, fluttered a bit, and then he slept.

- Ian's parents, "Nanny and Pop," have this shopping cart toy that Jack likes, he played with it when we were there last. This morning we were playing with his little dragon toy, and also the smaller dragon that goes in a game Aunt Robin brought. The larger one is the Daddy, according to Jack. Anyway, Jack wanted to give them a ride in the shopping cart, and he's going to the door and saying, Bye, I'm going to Nanny and Pops, bye. So we dug out this "Hungry Hippo," that Emily got when he was like 6 months old, and he pushed that around, with a collection of toys riding in it, as if they were in a cart. That seemed to work.

- The other night, Jack woke up crying for us. Emily went in, coming back some 5 minutes later. "He was cold," she said, "And had taken off his pajama shorts (it was warm when he went to bed) and pulled a pair of long pajama pants out of his top drawer. 'I picked these out myself,' he said. 'You put these on me.'" Kind of cute.

I could write much more, but I'm pretty tired.

Sleep and Potatoes

1. Sleep.

Jack's been falling asleep too late (preceded by an hour or so of singing) and waking up too early. The latter part usually involves him coming into our room -- 3:30 one time, 4:30 another, and then pretty much every 10-15 minutes from 5 to 6 a.m. It's been getting lighter earlier, maybe that's it. In any case, it's been rough on us -- and him.

Yesterday, after about 3 days of this, it probably came to a head while dining out. We needed to get out of the house, and met his cousins and family for wings at a place that had "kids eat for 99 cents night." Seemed like a good idea, aside from Jack getting progressively more restless and cranky as the meal wore on, and it ending with us hightailing it out of there with Jack wailing about his buttons (I still have NO IDEA what he meant), which lasted all the way home. Then came a relatively quick bath where he still dissolved into wails every once in a while, followed by getting ready for bed that included him actually walking into the wall at one point (that was nice), and finally, finally, sleep. For Jack, it ended up being nearly 11 hours, interrupted just once. For us, we probably got almost 8 hours! For all, it was bliss.

So yeah, sleep, very important for everyone.

2. Potatoes.

Jack enjoys his Mr. Potato Head toy, at times wanting it near him at night ("I want him to watch me brush my teeth") and when he's sleeping. Yesterday's mail brought a new toy from his grandparents, a Red Sox Mr. Potato Head -- he's a slightly smaller version, that can be dressed up in a little Sox jersey, helmet, face (blowing bubble gum!), and shoes.

Jack immediately started dressing up his little potato head. "He's getting ready to go to school," he explained. And again, as he put the little hat on him: "He's getting ready for school." And then he started taking all of his features off again, so he was just a little potato, and put him next to Mr. Potato Head. "He's not getting ready for school. He's going to stay home with his Daddy."

Railroad

I just put Jack to bed.

He's singing "I've been working on the railroad" at the top of his lungs.

"I've! Been Working! On! the! Rail! Road!
All
the livelong
Day!"

Yesterday his Mommy put him to bed, and he was singing "Take me out to the Ballgame." At one point she walked in to tell him to go to sleep, but as she walked in, she saw he was lying facedown, forehead on his arms a bit, singing with pauses:

"Take ... me ... out to the ball ... game...
Take
me out to the
crowd ...."

Thump. Head goes all the way down. Singing stops. Jack sleeps.

As just happened again.

Good night, Jack.

Daffy Duck

So one of the things that Jack and I do on occasion is walk down to this nearby office park that has a duck pond in the middle. And we throw the ducks bread and say Hi and Bye to the ducks and all that.

Tonight I was sitting with Jack and drawing pictures on his Magna Doodle (it's sort of like an Etch a Sketch with a pen, just in case you're not up on the lingo, I probably wasn't 2 years ago). And I'm drawing ducks all over it. So Jack says, "Draw his necklace." And I'm like, Huh? And he says, "You have to draw the duck's necklace." And so I draw one, and he's like, "And that one, too. And his necklace, Daddy."

So I'm sitting here drawing necklaces on ducks, thinking, What the hell? And then I realized: In our car I've still got the Daffy Duck my sister gave me, way back before my cross-country trip with Lucky (a year or so after college) -- I've moved him about from car to car since then. And that Daffy Duck is still wearing the necklaces that we got at Mardi Gras and put on Daffy, way back when.

So thanks to that trip, my son believes that ducks are supposed to have necklaces.

Talking to, and about, everything

I really need to write in this thing more often. In theory, a blog gets updated, you know, every day or at least every few days. Not once a week at most. Sorry.

Anyway. Lots to talk about with Jack these days....

When he's happy, Jack likes to talk a lot. And jump like a frog. And dance. And talk about what he's doing. "I'm jumping!" "I'm a baseball player!" (Complete with baseball hat.) "Nice job, Daddy!" (When he gives me the hat, making me a baseball player, and I hit the ball.) He talks to his trains: "Lie down, Salty!" And, "Hello, Thomas!"

He announces what we're going to be doing. For example, he goes around turning off the lights, and says "It's sleepy time now." If I reach for a toy, he explains, no, it's not playing time, it's sleeping time. We lie down together on the rug for a couple of minutes. "You lie there," he explains. And, "Mommy lies over there," he adds. And of course, old favorites: "Do you want to play with my toys?" Or "Play with me?" And "Play with me, Daddy."

Sometimes, and I know this is bad, but it's also very funny, he tells us what not to do. "Don't touch my toys." And, "Don't touch my trains." Not an order so much as a request. "Daddy, don't move my trains." He's on his way upstairs, but wants to make sure we don't play with his toys without him. Funny.

He can also be sweet, like when we were playing in the driveway the other day with the 2-year-old boy next door. Jack had his basketball and Max had a little ball, which of course Jack was fascinated with, and didn't want his own ball anymore. So for a while they traded, and both were very happy, but then the time to go in came and I said, Jack, give Max back his ball. And he walked over and handed it to him and Max handed his back and it was really quite touching. It was funny, too, to watch them playing, putting the balls through the hoop and jumping up and down with happiness.

Jack likes to turn the radio on in my room, the little clock radio, and gradually we find music -- which is to say, Jack turns the dial and the volume around randomly and ultimately I'm able to lock it in on an actual station, with music, and then Jack starts clapping and jumping around.

I ultimately got whatever eye problem Jack had, pink eye or more likely allergies, and had to have eye drops. Jack watched as Mommy gave me the eye drops -- I was incapable of doing it myself. When Mommy was done, Jack said, "Do you need jelly beans, Daddy?" Since that, of course, was how we got him to accept the eye drops.

Jack sings himself to sleep and sings in the mornings, too. He sings Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Twinkle Twinkle, and Can't Stop the Cops (from Backyardigans). We went to the library for reading group one day and the teacher sang "Where is thumbkins, where is thumbkins, etc." So the next morning, when we woke up, we could hear Jack singing:

"Where is my daddy,
Where is my daddy,
where he is,
where he is....

Where is my mommy,
where is my...."

So, he's fun.

Big Boy Bed, Pink Eye, and More

Start with the worst, the pink eye. First off, giving Jack eye drops, not much fun. There has to be an easier way to give kids eye-related antibiotics. (Tomorrow Emily's calling to find out what it is.) He cries, he screws his eyes up, he twists away -- always at the exact instant the droplet of water, in slow motion, finally falls off the eye dropper. We did it for five days as instructed, 3 times a day, but either because we missed a couple of doses or some of the ones he did get were flawed in the delivery, or because he was re-exposed, or something else entirely, we're thinking he might have it again. So we've started giving them again, with jelly beans as before; it's about the only way we can get him not to pitch a fit about it. Giving a crying child with a runny nose (yes, he also has a bad cold) jelly beans creates a whole new set of problems, but you can probably figure it out.

The runny nose, also frustrating. He's not happy about it ("I have a BOOGER!" he wails), we're not happy about it, and it's all very messy, unsanitary, and probably not good when you're trying to get pink eye cleared up. The times when he doesn't have a cold seem to fly by, the times when he does seem to drag.

Despite that, there's some been some fun recently:

- Today, at Reanna's birthday party, the girls drew a hopscotch board in the driveway and started jumping around it. Jack, who primarily didn't want to give up the big car, which he loves, nonetheless got out of it to join in. But Jack just basically wanted to jump in the air and then drop on his knees, kind of like a frog. He doesn't quite get hopscotch yet.

- At the same party, all three of the girls were in a silly post-dinner mood, and wanted to entertain. Which was fine with Jack, who acts like he could sit there watching them sing and shout and jump around forever. Later came the running circles around the yard, pretending to be a train (Jack chimed in with saying "Choo-choo" and putting his fist in the air) and the dessert portion of the day, where Jack started out wanting cake and ended up drooling over apple pie, ice cream, and strawberries. I think he ate an entire strawberry patch. Grove? He ate a lot of strawberries, let's just say that.

Last Saturday we got Jack a mattress, and then this Saturday we picked it up. We kind of thought he might take a while to really get interested in sleeping on it, and felt the same way when we got it home and told him what it was for and he basically had no interest in it. Even after I cleared a spot in his room and put the mattress down, he was kind of like, eh, okay, I guess. But the idea of him sleeping on it seemed pretty remote.

And then Emily put nice sheets on the bed and all his stuffed toys and little blankets, and just like that, when he and I went in there after his bath, he acted like he'd been sleeping on it his entire life. Crawled up onto it, stretched out onto it, asked me to read him stories on it, and when I'd read all the books he picked out -- the same 8 short books I've been reading to him before and after virtually every nap and bedtime for the past week -- he said "Good night, Daddy." And lay down. I got up, said Good night, and left the room. And a few minutes later I listened at the door and he was singing Tyrone the Mailman quietly to himself, and when Emily and I looked in on him an hour later, he was sound asleep. Slept through the night. We're on night No. 2 and sleeptime No. 3, and so far, so good.

He didn't even need me to sing to him, as I always do when putting him into the crib, and while part of me was glad -- lately the songs have tended toward silly stuff like, yes, Tyrone the Mailman -- part of me also really missed it.

The next morning after his first night in the bed, of course, we were profusive with praise. And you could tell, he was pretty proud about it. So much so that when we talked to relatives that day, we put Jack on the phone. "Jack, where did you sleep last night?" "I slept in a BIG BOY BED!" he said. Darn straight.