The Toughest Job

Chances are if you're reading this blog you're a parent of small children, or have been one, or at least know a parent or small child very well. So it will come as no surprise to hear that the challenge of this job really shouldn't be underestimated.

A good time for this fact to hit home is when you have an extended period of time in charge of that child -- for example, when his daycare is closed for a week -- and when your child is a little out of sorts -- say, he has a cold, and has missed or had a couple of recent naps truncated, so he's behind on sleep. And let's say he's a little cranky, and you're a little behind on sleep yourself, and before you know it it's a near perfect storm of the challenges of being the parent of a toddler. And that's my week.

We went up to Vermont last week to visit Jack's grandparents, and because it's a strange place for Jack, he tends to not get as much sleep as would be ideal. Then his daycare was closed this week, but Mommy had to go to work, so Daddy was kind of on his own during the days -- and Jack had a cold.

Now I'm not going to make this out to be worse than it was. (Even though I already used the term perfect storm, but really, that's probably just because I always wanted to use it. Things could be worse.) Jack's grandpa came over this morning to help out, and Jack has had good naps the past couple of days, enabling Daddy to get some work done and loll on the couch a little bit. But when he's been awake, he's been kind of cranky, to the extent of where he says "Draw a circle Daddy," and when I draw it, he whines, "NOOOOOO...not that way....Over there...NOOOOOO.....not over there....." You get the idea. It was even worse when I opened up a set of blocks, and I had to try to read his mind as to what kind of tower he wanted help building: "NOOOOO....not THAT kind of tower....Make one of Mommy's towers....NOOOOONOT THAT TOWERRRRRR...."

Anyway, it's been a week. And the great thing about it is you realize, every once in a while, that being a parent is even tougher than most people realize, tougher than you realize, tougher than it looks from the outside. One library meltdown (we had one of those on Tuesday; Jack, not me) is all it takes to drive home the point that kids are tough, and being a parent is tough, and even though it's all worth it -- and it is, moreso than I ever thought possible -- it's an accomplishment to be good at it most days, let alone all the time. It really is a tough job.

Of course, it is all worth it, especially when Jack gets past the cranky phase into the half-asleep and lovable phase, and starts grinning and giggling at you with half asleep eyes and laughing merrily at silly games like peek-a-boo. That's when you realize that some people have tough jobs that may not be as tough, but they don't have anywhere near the rewards, either.

Sledding

It snowed yesterday, or rather, it snowed, and then it rained, which froze, and there was some ice and sleet and wind and so forth. Quite a mess. Today the sun was out so we dug our way out into the yard, Jack in his snowpants (borrowed from one of Aunt Taffy's kids, fortunately in blue) and jacket and boots and hat, me in my winter jacket and hat. Since what snow there was was under a thick crust, we really couldn't build a snowman or anything, but what we could do was get Jack on his sleigh and I could pull him around the yard. We went up a little slope and then he slid down; he enjoyed it quite a bit. "a-GEHN!" he said. We did that a few times, narrowly avoiding disaster when I was pushing him up and a runner caught in the snow and I fell head over heels over him and the sled. No harm done; I knocked one of his gloves off. Oh, and I bashed my face against the snow, but I realize nobody cares. "Are you okay?" I asked Jack, tears streaming through the ice stuck to my eyes and nose. He kind of shrugged, as if to say, did something happen?

Later on we were inside watching the "Mounties" episode of Backyardigans, which all takes place in the snow. Jack pointed at them and said "Like me!" And I said, yes. And he said, "They need a jacket." (The ski patrol outfits were kind of lightweight.) And he said, "It's very very cold outside." By the end of our time outside, his little face was kind of cold. And then there were players skating, and Jack said again, "Like me!" And I said, do you want to go outside again? And he said, "No......" and: "It's very cold outside." And so it was.

Dining Out

We went out to brunch with Jack this morning, celebrating his grandpa's birthday at a nice old inn in Norwalk. Eating out with Jack is always interesting, in part because we never really know how into eating he'll be, how well he'll behave, or if we'll get to finish a meal we start.

The good thing about brunch is that there is usually a broad selection of fruit, which thus far has been the one food that can occupy Jack's attention for quite a while. Well, that and donuts. Another grandpa story is that he usually attends Jack's swimming lessons Saturday morning and brings donuts for afterward -- or rather, he brought them once, and that became the routine. So now Jack sees grandpa on Saturday morning and although he's always happy to see him, within the first few seconds comes the question: "You bring donuts?" Grandpa's birthday was Friday, and we wanted Jack to wish him a happy birthday when he saw him Saturday morning. "Jack, what are you going to say when you see grandpa?" "You bring donuts?" Um.....

So anyway, dining out is usually me shoveling in food while Emily entertains Jack, her eating while I entertain Jack, or both of us wolfing it down while Jack eats fruit. And then of course he gets interested in eating off our plates, drinking our milk or juice, or (if we're lucky) some other baby or one of the Rosenfeld girls, and then we both get to eat at a semi-leisurely pace. To our credit, at least, we're starting to learn some lessons about the whole thing.

1. Bring other snacks. We love Mexican restaurants, because they usually bring chips and salsa quickly and he's into those things. Most other places don't bring the bread quickly enough, so we're glad to have a little thing of cereal to occupy him. Yes, most parents probably figure this out right away, and it took us quite a while, but whatever.

2. Bring activity books. Some restaurants have things to color and so forth, and they're great. Some don't, so we've recently figured out (yes, we're slow, we get it) to bring along a coloring book or something. We did today, and it bought us 5-10 extra minutes at the end of the meal before he was pretty insistent about going. Plus there was a big sleigh out on the porch that he wanted to see.

So dining out ended up being okay. And although this has nothing to do with anything, pretty much doing anything with Jack is entertaining these days, because he cracks us up. He sings kind of a lot, either the Backyardigans theme, or Twinkle Twinkle, or This Old Man, or a particularly amusing one, which requires interaction, where he says "And on this farm he had a....?" And then there's a long pause, him hanging on our answer with a big smile on his face, and we'll say, "Cow," and he'll say "Cow!" And then we'll start in with the "Moo Moo here," but he's already moved on: "And had a....?" Very entertaining.

Thursday we went to the Aquarium in Norwalk. That was also fun, as Jack was into the crabs (which he got to touch, even though he wasn't sure about it, and then another toddler was willing to, at which Jack changed his mind: "Want to touch it!"), and fish, and sharks, and octopus. Even though we couldn't see the octopus -- it might have been an empty tank for all I knew -- but I told Jack the octopus was sleeping, a fact (or guess) that he repeated for the rest of the day, as if for assurance. "The octopus was sleeping?" Hours later, talking with Mommy about the aquarium, he turns to me: "The octopus was sleeping?" And who knows, maybe it was.

Another Solo Day

Had another solo day with Jack today -- as has been the case for a while, he's been in daycare Monday through Wednesday and alone with me Thursday and Friday. Sometimes I loan him out to relatives (Aunt Taffy, Grandpa) if I've got a commitment or they're available for part of the day), but lately everyone's been sick so it's pretty much been just us. Except for last Thursday and Friday, when he and I were both sick and miserable, so we borrowed Grandma for a few hours to keep me from going insane. (Naturally, she's now sick. Probably a coincidence.)

Anyway, despite the tough moments, which are mostly him wanting one thing one minute ("cereal!") and then changing his mind moments later ("I don't want CEREEEEAALLL!"), the days are usually fairly positive, and I'm starting to cling to the positive moments more as I feel, yes, that he's getting older. Plus we're going to be moving soon, ideally, and everything is going to get more complicated. And he's just getting bigger, and more talkative, and more engaging, and more demanding. "Daddy, do puzzle." And then: "Go work at your computer." And then: "I want a snack." This in the span of, oh, 5 minutes or so.

Jack's 2 and what's scary is he's never going to be 1 again, and those great days are gone. They're replaced by new great days, of course, but I'm already starting to get nostalgic about those. I know, it's nuts.

Anyway, today was nice, because I didn't try to work. I just tried to enjoy him, and deal with the negatives and embrace the positives. Watching Backyardigans with him ("They fell down aGEHN!"), reading Kat Kong ("Forget science -- think of the money we'll make!"), drawing pictures (His easel is currently an ode to Tyrone, the moose from Backyardigans, who I draw for him over, and over, and over). Tomorrow we'll draw more, read more stories, do puzzles, play with trains, and I'll probably try to get him to eat something besides his favorite foods right now: yogurt, and fruit. Saturday we'll go swimming and the grandparents will be around; Sunday is the Super Bowl. Monday he'll go back to daycare, and I guess I'll work as much as I can -- until it's Thursday, and another solo day comes around again.

It's too soon to miss the days I'm actually living in, so I guess I'll try to stop and just enjoy them while they're here.

Kind to Others

Jack's got a lot of great qualities, but an amusing one lately is his politeness to inanimate objects. For example:

In the mornings, as we're leaving his room, he says goodbye to his Cow-shaped humidifier. "Goodbye, cow!" He waves. "Goodbye, cow!"

His trainyard is enhanced by the presence of a Hulk action figure that years ago I gave to 2-year-old Laura, my niece, and which found its way back into my possession when she was, understandably, terrified of the thing. Jack's okay with it, but he also treats it with respect. As he moves a train past him on the tracks, he says "Excuse me, Hulk." And: "Excuse me. ... Excuse me, Hulk."

He's also very respectful of injuries. If you say you have a boo-boo, he says "Want to kiss it." Then he comes over and kisses said boo-boo -- a scratch on my arm, or whatever. Of course, if he hits his head or has a boo-boo, it's the same story: "Kiss it," he says, holding out the damaged appendage or leaning forward so you can kiss his head. "Thanks!" he replies afterward. Nothing defuses concern over an injury, like when he hit his nose the other day, then him saying through tears, "Kiss it," followed by "Thanks!" Can't hurt that much.

Emily told me she picked Jack up at daycare once, and they'd told her that a child had been out sick. When he returned, Jack went over and hugged him to welcome him back. (Of course, Jack's sick as a I write this, so.....)

Jack Playing

A real-time account of Jack playing on Thursday morning...

8 a.m. Jack walks around the living room holding his baby dinosaur toy, his current favorite.

8:02. Jack picks up his toy harmonica. He had been inhaling, rather than blowing, but he finally figures out, sort of, how to blow and make it make noise. A single note comes out. "I did it!" he says.

8:05. Jack opens up Mr. Potato Head's silly suitcase. He likes Mr. Potato Head best when everything is removed -- arms, eyes, hat, whatever -- and then he has two noses. That's his favorite Mr. Potato Head, and he sets about having that become a reality. "Where'd the flower go?" When it's Mrs. Potato Head, she has a flower on her wrist. I find the flower for him. He opens up the butt compartment and begins putting pieces inside. And taking them out. "Take the eyes out...." and then: "He's naked!" Right now it's a bare potato. But Jack wants to put the moustache on, which of course can't be done without a nose to hold it in place. He holds up the second moustache. "That's a beard," he says. And now he doesn't like the noses, either. "I want the beard and the moustache on!" Well, I say, they won't stay on without the noses. "I don't want the noses!" This goes on for a few minutes. And then: "I want the baby dinosaur!"

8:15. Jack gets up and asks to watch "Backyardigans on the 'puter." And thus the blog ends.

Birthday Jack

Jack likes birthdays, even when they're not his. He sees a candle -- like at Aunt Taffee's, where there might be a pre-dinner Jewish tradition -- and he starts singing "Happy ... Birthday ... to ... you."

So when it was his own birthday last week, he was plenty into it -- the streamers, the balloons, the presents, the cupcakes. It was funny seeing him open gifts: the stereotypical tossing of clothes over his shoulder, plus the "OH!" when he got a toy he liked. "OH! Pablo!" when he tore off the wrapping paper of his Pablo of the Backyardigans stuffed toy. His favorite gift during the party was Cowboy Tyrone, which sang songs ("Riding the Range," etc.). He'd then pick up Pablo, which didn't sing, and say, "Not working."

His favorite gift in subsequent days was probably what also happened to be our favorite gift, a Mr. Potato Head from Aunt Casey. It's funny; he has no use for the eyes, or ears, or anything, he just likes to put noses all over it. So Mr. Potato Head typically has two noses and no other features. And then Jack puts him into his silly suitcase and carries him around, and says he's going out "to the post office and the library," and says "Bye, Daddy. Bye, Mommy. I'm going to the post office and the library." He also calls him "Mr. Tater Head," which makes me wonder if the word "tater" for Potato came from somebody who had a two-year-old.

Random Fun

I have a stuffed Daffy Duck in the back of our car, that my sister gave to me about 15 years ago on the eve of a cross-country trip. Today Jack looked at it and said "Goofy Duck." I said, what? Jack: "Goofy Duck!" Big smile from Jack. I said, no, that's Daffy Duck. "That's Goofy Duck," he said, laughing. All righty.

Yesterday Jack wanted to have a glass of juice, but when I went to put the lid on his cup, he said, "No, big boy!" Huh? "I big boy." OK, you're a big boy. I gave him his juice without a lid. Jack: "Lid."

I have this great superhero wall calendar that my sister, again, gave to Jack and me. It's not enough for Jack to see on the wall: "Touch it!" he cries. So I get it down and we flip through it. We came to the Spider-man page and I sing the Spider-man song. "Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can..." so on and so forth. We turn to the other pages, and Jack wants a song for them, too. Now, I don't know of any songs for Captain America, the Hulk, etc., but I'm making things up: "Here comes Captain America, here comes Captain America!" And "Hulk, smash! Hulk, smash! HULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLkkkk - Smash!" He seemed to enjoy it.

Singing Jack

Jack sings himself to sleep sometimes, either when we put him to bed, or when he wakes up early. Some recent favorites follow. It's important to imagine his little voice piping up, occasionally scratchy, occasionally loud and boisterous or high-pitched.

"B...I...B...L...E... Yes that's the book for me...." (A song his Grandma sings to him.)

"Drumming.... Drumming... Drumming...." (A Backyardigans song.)

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells....Jingle.... All Da Way....Jingle Bells...."

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rein-DEER!!!! Has a .... shiny ....Nose!"

"Santa Claus...... Is. Coming.....Town!"

I imagine we'll still be singing Christmas Carols come June, although I can hope.

Jack's Christmas

I went in to get Jack, while Emmy went downstairs to turn on the tree lights, the Santa and the Sleigh outdoor display (which I of course hooked up inside, since we live over our garage and I don't don't have a ladder), and all the other various lights I connected to set the scene. And make coffee, seeing as it was 6:15 a.m. and all. As I brought him downstairs, I explained to him that Santa had come last night and brought presents. "Yeahh..!" he said. "Santa!"

I set him down at the bottom of the stairs and he headed for the living room. Santa had thoughtfully taken the train tracks out of their box, set them up, and added all the various features -- tree, Sir Topham Hatt, trains, stop sign. Jack went right to it, oblivious to all the new presents underneath the tree and his other unwrapped gift, a musical band box with different instruments. "Trains!" He spent the next 10 minutes or so playing with those, while Emmy and I slugged down coffee. Then we each opened a present, and introduced Jack to his band box. He showed some interest in the various things, of course particularly in the ones that make the most noise, and then returned to his trains.

Then chaos set in. Ian, Cathy, and the rest of the Rosenfelds -- Reanna, Lyndsay, Stacey -- came over, and the girls were immediately at the tree. I think I blinked and in that time all the presents had been distributed by the twins, there was a flurry of paper in the air, and suddenly everything was open and it was impossible to walk anywhere. Jack played with their toys, they played with Jack's toys, I spent some time trying to open this realistic looking monkey that made noises and said ooh ooh ah ah and so forth, finally got it open, and gradually came to feel it wasn't quite as frightening as I thought initially. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Linda were on hand as well, and there was much in the way of food, hors douvres (probably misspelled), drink, all that stuff. Ian set up the Mousetrap game we'd given Reanna, which was great fun for everyone, including Jack, who had little interest in the game but liked making the ball-bearing roll down the staircase.

At some point we let Jack go upstairs with his cousins, and they were going to color with markers. I'm not sure I need to explain where this plan went awry, but merely telling the twins to make sure Jack only colored on the paper was, of course, not good enough. No, instead they came down and notified us that Jack had started coloring all over his rug, rocking chair, etc. And so he had. I'm well aware that he'll do worse in the future so I won't complain too much.

A good dinner was had by all, nice work Emmy, and more playing with toys occurred. One of the twins -- no, I can never really tell, I try, but what can I say -- had some fun with Jack's Backyardigans Colorforms set, creating quite a nice scene with all of them in their pirate uniforms and so forth. I played with a wooden car Jack got that had some very cool craftsmanship. And read Jack some of his new books, including one with pigs and Dragon's Merry Christmas, which he showed his appreciation for by saying "Again."

His favorite toys -- on that certain day, but it changes a lot -- were a bucket of plastic food and a wooden crate of plastic fruit. And a plastic pizza. I don't know that I really understand why kids like imitation food, but the Rosenfeld girls do and so does Jack. He made me a waffle and pizza sandwich, which I pretended to eat, and then he cut slices of his little plastic pizza, and we ate those. "Here, Daddy," he'd say, with the same tone he'd use when handing me a apple skin after he'd eaten the apple out of it. "Here, Daddy."

I put him to bed that night by reading him his new books, and singing him his favorite songs (Rudolph, Frosty, Santa, Twinkle Twinkle, Edelweiss), and letting myself out of the room. Down to the living room and the Christmas Tree and Emmy and a glass of wine, and the knowledge that it would be Christmas again some time, and maybe next year it would seem to move more in slow motion, rather than in fast-forward, like far too many things with Jack tend to do.

"How was your day, good?"

Jack talks a lot, as I believe I've mentioned before. One of the recent fun things is him coming up to me in the afternoons or evenings, all serious, and saying "How was your day, good?" There's only a slight pause there; he's answering for me. Almost as if he believes "good" is part of the question, rather than the answer. I tell him, and then I ask him how his day was, and he says good. And sometimes I get details, and sometimes I don't. Frequently the details don't make sense. He'll say "Teddy and Jared," who go to daycare with him, but beyond that, I don't know what they actually did, just that they were there. Or that he is happening to mention their names.

He likes to have me draw things on his doodle board, this magnetic art board. Lately's it's "Frosty and Santa and the Christmas tree." I'll draw Santa, and he'll say "And now Frosty." And I'll draw Frosty, and he'll smile a little wider, and then he'll say "And the Christmas Tree."

His favorite books right now are a few he got up in Vermont at an early Christmas up there. "Are you my mother," by Dr. Seuss; "Carl's Christmas"; "If you're happy and you know it," and "Over in the Meadow." We read all four of them, every night. I make up different dialogue for the Carl book, since it's mostly pictures of a dog taking a baby out on the town, which doesn't seem safe, but anyway. The Dr. Seuss book is a riot, the other books are fun. Jack claps his hands and stamps his feet, he says "Oh no!" in the Dr. Seuss book when the baby bird gets picked up by the Snort, and is happy when he's back in the nest and sees his Mommy.

He walks around with two wooden ornaments on his wrists, one a train, the other a truck. I put them back on the tree, but he keeps managing to get them off, and they're back on his wrists.

Yesterday we were looking at Christmas decorations. He said, what's that, and I said, that's Santa in his sleigh, he said, oh, and then we looked at Frosty.

Jack: "Where's Frosty's sleigh?"

Daddy Sing a Song, and more

Putting Jack to bed is occasionally challenging, because we aren't always good about keeping to a routine, and since we both enjoy doing it we go back and forth, and on and on. Sometimes we put him down and he wails, but rather than a vague, frustrated wail, it's usually something specific, like

"Daddy sing a song!"

I'm not a particularly good singer; I'm sure most would agree. But Jack, because he's young and inexperienced, enjoys my warbling attempt at Edelweiss, and now Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So sometimes it's "Daddy sing Edelweiss," and other times, "Daddy sing Rudolph!" (On the particularly bad nights, he'll want me to sing a song, and THEN he'll want Mommy to sing a song...we try to avoid those ones.)

Anyway, there's something very heartening about his little voice piping up "Daddy sing a song," or, as I'm bringing him upstairs to bed, "Sing a song?" And better yet, he chimes in, singing along to Edelweiss ("bloom.....an grow.....for-ev...er...." "you.... happy .... meet me....") Frequently as the song ends, he says, "Again?" And we go again.

What's amazing is that he already knows a surprising number of the words to Rudolph. Tonight I heard him singing it with his Mommy: "hadda very sy-nee nose... AND if ever saw it...."

Good stuff. As of yet, I'm not tired of singing those songs over and over to him. Not sure I ever will be.

PRE-CHRISTMAS

Jack's getting into Christmas. It's quite amusing, that he used to fear Santa, and maybe still does, but he also loves pictures of him, and Rudolph, and Frosty the Snowman. He has a couple of little toys, a little wind-up Santa and Frosty that we've had for years, that he's fascinated with. We have a couple of window decorations that he takes out of the windows and carries around the house; they're of Santa and Frosty, and he likes to lay them down, pretend they're sleeping, whatever. He stacks them up into a tower ("Tower of Power," he calls it, a Backyardigans reference), plays with them, says they're "friends." He has a Santa hat he occasionally puts on and walks around wearing; it's big and slips over his eyes, and so he walks a little slower.

He points to snowman and Santa ornaments on the tree; points out pictures in his Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer book (his current favorite book); brings me his drawing board and wants me to draw pictures of "Rudolph, Santa, Frosty, and the Christmas tree." I think everyone in the family down here has read him the Rudolph book.

(At this point I should mention that last week we went to the Greenwich tree lighting, and there was a person in a Rudolph costume there. This is before I'd got him the book. Jack was transfixed; we went up near him and I put Jack down, and Rudolph's elf helper said, "Do you want to hug Rudolph?" Jack did a little half nod and threw out his arms and went up to Rudolph and gave him a big hug. It was classic.)

One final Jack thing, not necessarily Christmas related. Last night we were sitting in the living room near the tree, and Jack started bringing us his toys. "Hold. Hold, Daddy." And then he started bringing us our shoes. And our jackets. And then he came in clutching the two basketballs we use for his hoop outside. So we're sitting there in a pile of stuff, and he's like "Be right back," and he'd come in with yet another item. Just funny.

I'm sure there are other recent things I don't want to forget -- like when he saw a picture of himself from the zoo and he said "I'm at the zoo," even though there was nothing in the picture to indicate it was at the zoo. Like when his grandma was cracking him up by saying "gook," in reference to food on his cup. And things I can't even remember, sadly, which means I really need to write this blog more than once a week.

He's a great little guy.

Nice!

Jack and I went out Christmas shopping today. Christmas decorations shopping, really. Jack has kind of a love-fear relationship with Santa. He was afraid of Santa last year, when we tried to get his picture taken, an incident that was probably partially our fault. He just wasn't ready. Now we've talked up Santa, and our neighbor -- who had a huge inflatable pumpkin at Halloween, a huge inflatable turkey at Thanksgiving, and now a huge inflatable Frosty the Snowman, Christmas tree, and Santa Claus on his lawn -- has this big Santa that Jack is fascinated by.

So we went to Party City and bought a stuffed Santa for Jack, a Santa hat, and a series of window decorations -- Santa Claus, Frosty, reindeer pulling a sleigh. Jack approved and was very attentive as the clerk put them in the bag.

On the way home we went over to Aunt Cathy's, and I brought Jack inside, but he was very out of sorts, and kept saying things like "On floor" and "Santa," and it was all fairly confusing. But gradually we figured out he wanted to go back out to the car, where the bag of stuff was indeed, on the floor, and I got everything out and he clutched it all to his chest and under his chin and we went back inside. And showed things individually to Cathy, and Jack of course wanted to wear the hat, and hold the stuffed Santa. At some point I held up the window decoration Frosty, and Jack looked at it and smiled like it was the greatest thing in the world.

Jack, as he saw it: "Oh! NICE!!!!"

"Hold you."

Somewhere along the line Jack started expressing himself in complete sentences. And here some of them are.

"I need some more milk." (This is usually expressed with urgency, as if he's dying of thirst and only milk can save him.)

"I need some water." (This tends to be matter of fact, like, hey, I need some water, would you mind?)

"Hold you." Jack has figured out that being carried up and down stairs is easier and faster than actually walking up and down them himself. We may have to work on that in the future.

"Next to you." Jack either is or wants to sit next to you. Variations include "Next to Mommy" and "Next to Daddy."

"What's THAT?" (Explanation follow, e.g., that's a hat, or that's Daddy's coffee, followed by "OHHH!")

"Do puzzle." (Let's do the puzzle.)

"Can't reach it." "Too big." "Heavy." "Happy." "Too fit." Okay, these aren't sentences, but I wanted to write them down anyway.

He's been singing a lot. Verses of songs. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star....How... wonder what you are Up above world so high like ...diamond ...in the sky." And: "Shake .... shake... shake...shake your body." (From the Backyardigans CD.) "Wiggle it. Wobble it. Wiggle it." He still sings Edelweiss with me. "Bloom and grow.... forever... Edelweiss..." And: "I like this song." Me: "You like this song?" Jack: "Yeah!" Although it's partly a question. "Yeah!?"

Sometimes when he's talking he's just happy, other times he's earnest, solemn. Like what he's saying is very important. "No... Daddy sit there." "I need some milk." So on and so forth.

As always, I forget things. There's just too much good stuff in the average day, average week, with Jack, to remember it all. Him running around the park, like yesterday, happily going up and down slides. (Until he'd had enough, of course, at which point it becomes "All finished." And this, too, has urgency, as if to say, I don't want to be on this teeter totter another moment, thank you.

So I keep writing it down, in hopes I'll remember it always.

Thankful

My parents came down for Thanksgiving, and the best thing about it, aside from seeing them and stuff, was that Jack pretty much acted like he'd known them his entire life. He called them Nana and Baba, which is what their Irish grandchildren call them and we've encouraged it both for consistency and to distinguish them from his grandparents on Emily's side. He hugged them good night, they read stories together -- I came out into the living room and my Dad was reading "Thomas the Tank Engine - Thomas helps out" while Jack sat next to him in rapt attention. Dad's got a great reading voice, always did. Soothing. I pretty much just stood there watching for 5 minutes...I could have stayed longer.

Jack looked at pictures and pointed out Nana, Baba, and Aunt Robin, who will be here early in the New Year. In the morning he asked where Nana and Baba were. Two days after they'd gone, today, he said "Nana and Baba go home?" which we had explained to him the previous day.

At Thanksgiving Dinner, at Aunt Cathy's, there were about 18 people, and us, and Jack. And it was quite a change, seeing as in Colorado it was usually us and at most a guest or two - relatives, or a work friend. Certainly not that much family. And Jack was happy.

And even though we've got some stresses and worries and still haven't sold our house and are still trying to adapt fully to our new lives, Jack is happy. And we're thankful for that.

Up and Down Jack

I think sometimes we forget how much Jack has been through. Our move across the country was tough on us, but it was even tougher on him, and not because I made him drive (I thought about it) or handle setting up utilities and stuff. (The only thing he says into the phone is "Hi Ekan" and "Hi Grandpa.")

It was tough on Jack because we couldn't fully explain why suddenly he had a brand new room in a brand new house -- temporarily a basement at Aunt Cathy's, then our new rental house here. Why he was being taken out of day care in Colorado, and away from places he was used to going like Benny's and Hanson's. Okay, that might be stuff we miss more than he does, but the point is that there was a routine, it was everything he knew, and it was taken away, and we really couldn't explain it.

I mention this now because Jack had a very tough time at his new day care this past week. He cried when we dropped him off, he cried off and on in the morning, and we were told he cried at other times, and walked around saying "Daddy? Mommy?" Tough to think about, tough to write, and tough because we have to make day care work -- I can't really do my job otherwise -- so we'll be taking him again on Monday morning, and it will probably be hard all over again. So he didn't have a good time at day care, and (perhaps related) he wasn't his happy self most of the week, and he had one just awful night, Thursday, where we were all basically awake from midnight until 4 a.m., trying to soothe him, trying to let him cry it out, trying to sleep ... it was terrible.

The tough thing (among others) is you have to keep telling him how great it is, because it will be, once he gets accustomed to it. They do fun things, they run around, they go down slides in the indoor gym, he makes little friends, so on and so forth. And we need to tell him how great it is while knowing that right now he doesn't really want to be apart from any of us, and so he can't view it as a positive when his first thought is "Where Daddy go? Where Mommy go?" Yeah, it's brutal.

We forget how hard it is, because he is very resilient. As he has proved over the past two days, when he's been his happy self again. This morning we went swimming, and then he went to feed ducks with Grandpa, and apparently he played in leaves, and he came back and was happy, smiling, as happy as he's ever been. Doing all of his little cute things, sitting next to me on the couch and saying "Next to YOU!" And picking up the phone and saying "Hi Grandpa!" even though there's no one on the line, and when we DO have Grandpa on the phone, and put it next to his ear, he tends to say nothing at all, just listens and smiles. And he says "Thank you," in the cutest, sweetest little voice imaginable, and "Do puzzle, Daddy." And we go down in the driveway to play basketball, and he runs around with the happiest smile on his face, bubbling with laughter. It's the same after swimming, when we shower (we do this together, he enjoys it) -- he just laughs up a storm at the water pitter-pattering on his back.

I guess the point is that we forget sometimes that Jack's not always happy, and the hard part is that sometimes we need to do things that he's not going to be happy about. It's hard to do, and hard to live with. We just hope that some of them become things he is happy about, and we can make it work. Even if it's going to be really hard to get there.

Other Face

Quick one because I'm tired, but I don't want to forget it.

Jack generally wakes up in the mornings in good spirits -- not always, but generally. He'll be in his crib, taking time occasionally to liberate all of his stuffed animals, and he'll be kind of talking, babbling, and sometimes singing.

Grandma Pat sings to him, when she's putting him down for naps or just busying about the kitchen, and one of the songs she sings, when she's giving him food, say, grapes, is "I...love...grapes...They taste good....I love grapes....They taste good." And Jack occasionally sings it too.

The other morning I could hear him in his crib, singing, singing that song, but rather than a food item, he was including all the people he sees on a regular basis. And so: "I ... love... Aunt Taffy....They taste good. I love Daddy. They taste good. I love Mommy. They...." And there'd be a pause before the name, so it was "I..love... Aunt Taffy. They taste good." And he'd run through almost everyone he knows. "I love Lyndsay. They taste good...." Cracked me up.

The other thing is that Jack likes to hug and kiss us goodnight, which is quite nice, but then lately he's started doing this kiss on each cheek thing, like we're European or something. I crouch down and he kisses one cheek, then moves over and kisses my other cheek. And tonight he added "Other face!" to his routine, so he'd kiss my cheek, say "Other face!" and move my head so he could kiss my other cheek.

And then he'd run off into the next room so Mommy could put him to bed.

"Whuhs Dis, Daddy?"

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

SUPERHEROES

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

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

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

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

PUMPKINS

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

SINGING

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

TRAINS

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

LAUGHING

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

RELATIVES

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

DANCING

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

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

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

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

Edelweiss

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

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

A nice moment.

Breakfast of Champions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Dass fonnee!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"MY DADDEEE!"

Gak! It's been almost a month since my last blog entry.

I've got an excuse though. I wasn't changing any diapers for a couple of weeks because Jack was in New York with his Mommy and I was in Denver. This real dad was real lonely, packing up our lives in Denver while Emily started her new job and Jack got to know his cousins and maternal grandparents.

I couldn't believe how much I missed him. I mean, I knew how much I'd miss him, but I didn't realize how bad it would feel. I didn't care about the house, about showering and shaving regularly -- OK, wait a minute, I don't care about that stuff as much as I probably need to anyway -- I didn't eat quite as regularly as I should have....I just missed my son. And my wife, don't get me wrong, but the difference was I knew she knew where I was and why I wasn't there. I didn't know that about Jack.

For a couple of days we tried to have me talk to Jack on the phone and it only went so-so. He'd listen at the phone, apparently, and smile, but it wasn't clear that he understood what was going on or that it was me. And then after they'd called me at lunch a couple of days, the phone rang around that time, and it was Emily's sister Cathy explaining that they brought Jack into have his lunch and he pointed to the phone and said in a loud voice "TALK TO DADDY!!!!" And so they called me, and he babbled a bit, and I asked what was going on, and it was great.

So I came here after about 10 days apart, and the plane was delayed so Jack wasn't awake when I got here, but I peeked in on him, and he looked so much bigger, and then the next morning Emily got him and brought him down and although he seemed a bit uncertain, he wasn't afraid of me or anything I was worried about. In a very short time, I think, it was like we hadn't been apart, and he was bringing me toys and telling me to "Sit, Daddy, sit," and we played with Legos and I read him books and put him to bed and all that. And after a couple of days if I left the room or was away I could hear him explaining his feelings and needs in no uncertain terms:

"Myyyy Dad-deeeeeee!"

Yesterday we went to the Park ("Daddy ....Park" he informed me), and rode on the slides, and ran around the jungle gym, and he pointed out butterflies. Today we went to get his haircut, and while we were waiting at the barber -- who had a picture on the wall of him cutting hair from probably 40 years earlier -- Jack climbed in and out of the leather chairs, and I pointed out that they were slippery, to which he responded with peals of laughter...he liked the term "slippery." Got his haircut, came back and had lunch, he had a nap, and in the afternoon we read a book and played with some toys and I realized how much I'd miss him when I went back to Denver for another couple of weeks to finish packing up the house and drive back.

Moments when I wonder why we're doing this and if it's worth it, there are moments like today, late afternoon, when he and his cousin Reanna were downstairs in the basement, playing with a toy kitchen, making plastic toy breakfast. I heard Reanna, who's six, yell and clap "breakfast! Yay!" and I heard Jack say "Yay" and they spent the next half hour or so just playing with the toys. And then they both came running up the stairs and jumped on the couch, and Jack's face was bright and beaming up at his cousin, and I said, yeah, it's worth it.

My Dinner with Jack

Emily was having a farewell happy hour with her co-workers tonight, and there was a showing at our house at 6:15. Thus, Jack and I had to eat out, and although we could have done McDonalds or something, we'd had good success at a Mexican place, Benny's, early in the week, with the three of us, so I decided to take Jack there. They bring chips quickly, which is always key.

I had hoped to sit next to Jack in a booth, but unfortunately it's a bit more crowded on Friday at 6 than Monday at 5:15. So we ended up at a small table in the corner, outside on the patio, facing each other - me in my chair, Jack on a little booster seat. Other patrons about 4 feet away at our elbows.

And Jack was great. The guy brought chips, and Jack shoveled them in, dipping them in salsa, which was hot, but he only minded when he got a really spicy bit, which he would react to with a brief yell of discomfort -- then go right back to shoveling them in. Every once in a while he'd pause to glance at the couple next to us...okay, he'd stare openly at them...and then go back to his food. He ate chips, ate a taco, let me eat my enchiladas and drink my margarita. The whole time I was worried he'd fall off the booster seat or something, but in fact he didn't move -- just sat still and ate. He even started to figure out the straw toward the end of the meal; that when you're drinking milk with a straw you don't need to raise the entire cup above your head.

The only problem with having a meal alone with Jack like that is that, well, he doesn't talk a lot. He just sits there and eats, making noises every once in a while and so forth, laughs at times, but you can't really have a conversation. I thought about having both sides of the conversation, but that would have been a little odd too. So we both just ate, and then at one point music came on, and we both bounced and smiled, and he danced a little in his chair. And then the meal was over and I scooped him up and we went home.

Life moves pretty fast

That's what Ferris Bueller said, and probably somebody else, and it's true. It's been an insane couple of weeks since the last time I wrote...

1. We gave up our dog, Charlie. We could not get him past his aggression toward other dogs and it was starting to worry us, and cause us daily stress. It just became too much. It's a tough thing to do and we went back and forth on it a lot, but it just wasn't working. I miss him, I think we all do -- although Jack, strangely enough, hasn't seemed to notice -- but I have to believe he will find a better life in a home where there aren't so many dogs around him, and maybe he can run and play in larger areas than our smallish yard in a crowded Denver neighborhood. I have to because I can't bear to think he won't. He's a beautiful dog and in many ways a good dog, just must have had a bad experience before us, and hopefully he'll get into a home that doesn't have many dogs around.

2. Emily got a job offer in Connecticut, so we're moving back to the East Coast. Last week we got our house painted, this week it went on the market. The past few days we've walked about our house like it's a museum, afraid to touch anything, since it's all "staged" for potential buyers, which is to say really, really clean. No dishes on counters, no newspapers and magazines lying around -- it looks like the homes at Roanoke, I guess, where everything looks normal, and the people are just gone.

3. Jack is busier than ever. Running around the house clutching toys he cared nothing about 6 months ago, putting together his puzzles, bringing us books from the shelves (a Curious George book I just bought, about which he says "Monkey! Monkey!" until I read it to him), asking for cereal ("Cereal! Cereal!"), smiling a lot, laughing, eating -- pretty much oblivious to the fact, naturally, that next week will probably be his last week at his day care, and that we're all moving back East.

And that's kind of the big one, because it is mostly about Jack, both lately and in general. We want the best for him, and that's part of why we're doing what we're doing, and part of what we do every day, every week, every month.

It's scary to sell one's house, to start a new job, to move across the country, to say goodbye to a lot of people and hello to a lot of others. It's all scary.

But I look at Jack, and he's all excited about having his monkey shaped pancake for breakfast, and can't wait to read a book with me or go outside and play with a basketball or help Mommy pick up leaves from that strange tree in our backyard that used to drop leaves and now drops banana shaped pods or something, and I say, well, it will be okay. We'll make it work. Because there's Jack, and he's a happy guy, and we'll do whatever we can to make sure he stays that way.

Happy Daddy!

Pretty tired tonight, but I want to write down a few random things before I forget them...

- My birthday was a couple of days ago. Emily tried to teach Jack to say "Happy Birthday Daddy!" Jack said "Happy Daddy!" and then went around saying it, with a big smile, for a lot of the day. "Happy Daddy! Happy... Daddy! Hap-py....Dad-dy!" Best birthday present ever.

- When Jack hears a dog bark outside, he says "Woof!" He's in the bath, playing with his toys, and hears a dog bark. Stops what he's doing for a moment. "Woof!" Then goes back to playing.

- He has a large, lap edition of "Goodnight Moon" as well as a small board book of it. This morning he came out of his room with both of them, as he often does. I was in the kitchen, and I heard him saying "Sit. Sit." I look out, and he's sitting on the rug with the lap version in his lap, and the small version a few feet in front of him. He's pointing at it and looking at me. "Sit."

- A little bit later, I'm at the computer, and Charlie is lying near the wall in the back of the room about 10 feet away, as he normally does. Jack comes up with the two books and puts the small one between Charlie's paws, then sits down next to him with his big lap edition. So Charlie could read along with him, I guess. Classic.

- Aunt Robin gave Jack a boat, sea captain, and seagull bath toy. Pretty cool. Jack loves the seagull. "Seagull!" he says. A bath isn't happy until I bring in the seagull and throw him in the water; these days, the seagull makes a bath a bath.

- Jack's favorite food these days is cereal. He likes these wheat pillow like things. The other day he was asking for them, and we'd give them to him, and he'd wander off, then come back for more. We found out he was collecting a tiny little bowl of them, with the bowl being one of the little cups from the egg poacher. I picked it up on one of his treks back for more cereal, because Charlie would likely have eaten it eventually, and he came back with a fistful of cereal, saw his little cup missing, and did a double-take, literally. Mystified. I showed it to him on the edge of the desk. He was happy.

- He likes drawing and coloring with markers. He mostly likes me drawing with markers. I draw him airplanes and sharks over and over again. "Airplane!" "Shark!" I try drawing other things, like a whale, but he says "shark"!

- I'm a huge dinosaur fan. We got him a book called "Dinosaur, Dinosaur." Good book, he likes it. He says "Nanosaur!" Funny to see, and to hear. "Nanosaur!"

So yeah, Jack's doing great.



-

Shooting Star Daily Sheet

If you have your child in day care, every so often you get a pang of guilt. Usually it comes most often on the days you leave him and he wails like you've betrayed some sacred trust, which happens occasionally, or on the days when you don't really have that much work to do and are just hoping to go back to bed for a few hours or find something good on TV.

Most of the time, though, he's in day care because you do in fact have to get some work done, to keep him in diapers and Pirate's Booty snack food and so forth. But sometimes there's that guilt -- I'm letting virtual strangers take care of my baby! These are 9 hours of his life I won't be spending with him!

Recently Jack moved to the "Shooting Star" class at his day care, which I'm very pleased with since I believe his previous one was Pufferbills or somesuch, and I don't even know exactly what that is. I think I'd rather my son be a shooting star than some sort of poor man's version of a penguin.

Anyway, in his new room they've started providing daily sheets at the end of the day which recap his day's activities. We get to find out if he ate his meals well, fantastic, or was not hungry; if he was sad, happy, or energetic (we've yet to get a sad); and if his sleep was "good" or "restless."

At the bottom is a space that reads "The things I did today were:" with a bunch of lines to fill in. And I don't mind saying, I absolutely live for these things. They totally thrill me and break my heart at the same time, in a good way.

7-17: "The things I did today were: climbed slide, ran, jumped, danced, sat, listened to a story, put together a puzzle, and looked at the frog." (There's a frog in an aquarium type thing in their room.)

7-26: "The things I did today were: played with puzzles, pop beads, string beads, pails and shovels, and stacking toys."

7-28: "The things I did today were: playing in the sand table, stringing wooden beads, and playing with the legos. We had a fire drill and it made a very loud noise - it was scary but I was very brave."

I know his teachers write these things; obviously I know that. But still, I just see him there with the fire drill, with an alarmed look on his face, yet maintaining a certain security in the knowledge that it would be okay. Being brave. And singing and dancing, and playing with Legos, and listening to stories.

All stuff we do with him, the four days a week he's not in day care, but all stuff it makes me happy that he's doing there. I read these daily sheets and it's like I'm right there with him.

Which I guess kind of explains this blog, too.

Toys, Puzzles, and Words

Jack is taking an interest, at last, in his toys. So many things he's had for six months - a pirate ship, for example, and various little toy cars and trains - he typically ignored, but no longer. Now he can sit with his pirate ship for 20 minutes, assembling the pieces of the mast, taking them apart, and assembling them again. He runs the trains across furniture, our legs, and Charlie's back (Charlie accepts it stoically, which is nice), saying "Wheeeeeeeee!" and "Choo-choo!" He finds a spot to sit -- recently on the slightly raised threshold between the kitchen and the sun roon -- and sits, then rolling his engines forward as far as they can go. He smiles and says "Wooooooooooooo!"

Then there are puzzles. It used to be that he would just spend time carrying the pieces around, or wrecking it as I assembled it. Now we assemble it together, and he sits patiently as I help him position pieces correctly, waiting to wreck it only AFTER I've completed it. He picks up pieces -- like the two halves of the penguin -- and says "Pengwin!" and then places them in the general vicinity of where they're supposed to go. Tonight he spent several minutes trying to properly put the polar bear head in place; it seems like only yesterday he was running around the house with it saying "Puh-bll"and considering throwing it into the bathtub or down the back stairs.

This brings us to words, and the way his mother beams with pride over what our doctor told us yesterday at his 18-month (sigh...) appointment. "He's very advanced verbally." (Pause to beam with pride myself.) And it's true; Jack probably knows even more words than he uses, or at least, he connects a lot of words with things, and knows a lot more words that he might not necessarily associate with things -- but he's getting there. In the morning, he wants cereal, banana, juice. He likes "booty," which, er, is a "healthy" snack food, Pirate's Booty, which is basically popcorn (um, but healthy). He wants "My milk," and can say please ("Peas!") and thank you ("Atchoo!"). He'll repeat things back to us, immediately, which has us watching our language more than ever. In the bath tonight he asked for his duck ("My duck!"), noticed the faucet protector ("Big duck!"), and requested I get his seagull out of the net hanging on the shower wall ("Seagull!"). So, yeah, he knows a lot of words, even if he doesn't always pronounce them correctly. If I'm not careful, I might slip into his language on occasion myself.

Like saying "nigh-nigh, and atchoo for reading."

Ready For Bed

Tonight I was putting Jack to bed, sitting in the chair with him on my lap, and we were reading "I Spy," this 30-year-old, falling apart hardcover edition that we'd had when we were kids. On each page are pictures of common objects and things - a door, a house, a car, an apple, a rabbit, etc. And he was into it, maybe as into it as any other book I've read to him, which is probably only partly due to it being a good children's book, and partly due to him being 18 months old, and getting smarter, and more interested, and having more of an attention span.

Anyway, at some point I thought it was getting near that time, and so I put the book aside, and was going to turn out the light and rock him a bit, and instead he got off my lap, walked the two steps to the shelf where I'd put the book, grabbed it, and brought it back to me. And I said, well, all righty then. Guess we'll read a little bit more.

It got me thinking that sometimes I'm a little impatient with others; other adults, other kids, Jack. My mind moves a little too quickly at times, and sometimes I've left one thought behind and moved onto the next one without even realizing that I glossed right over the previous one that's still important to somebody else. I thought it was time for Jack to sleep, I thought he'd had enough of that book - and I was wrong. He had a few more minutes, and he hadn't had enough of "I Spy."

Sometimes, like tonight, I see Jack running around, which he's doing, hugging his Mommy's legs, and mine, patting Charlie ("Teddy!"), drinking his water (his, not Charlie's), and playing with his toys. And I want those moments to last forever. I don't want them to end. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. They're just too beautiful.

Of course, there are times when he wants to stay up and it really IS time for bed, but there's a happy medium there between making sure he doesn't stay up too late, and putting him to bed too early. And the next time my mind is racing about to the next moment rather than the moment we're in, I hope I recognize it, and take a step back. Him going to bed five minutes later isn't the worst thing in the world. Reading an extra five minutes, sometimes, is one of the best.

We read the book for about 5 more minutes, me pointing out different pictures, him recognizing some of them (train! boat! big car!), me being patient. And then I put the book aside, turned out the light, and he put his head on my chest. And I sang him froggie went a' courting or somesuch and put him to bed. And not much later, he went to sleep, because he was ready.

The Sit Game, Airplanes, and Haircuts: How Jack Spent His Summer Vacation

Sometimes there's just too much to remember, too much to write about, to cover it all. This is why blogs should be updated daily, but that's hard to do on vacation. So I'm going to start with some of the best memories from our summer vacation to the East Coast, and sprinkle in some of the worst...

- In Vermont, visiting Nana and Baba Richardson (the name Jack's Irish cousins came up with for my parents), Robin and Michael McArdle (sister and her husband), and their four lovely children, Jack seemed fascinated by his older cousins - 11-year-old Laura, 9-year-old Niamh, and 4 1/2-year-old twins Abbey and Mikey. He followed Abbey around, got horsie rides on Laura's knee, let Niamh carry him around like a sack of flour, and had the occasional tense moment battling for toys with Mikey, who wasn't used to there being another boy around hogging some of the attention.

Jack taught everyone in the McArdle family what they called The Sit Game, which - as I've mentioned in a previous blog - basically involves Jack telling everyone where to sit, then crossing them up by telling them to sit elsewhere, or commandeering their seat for himself and directing them to another chair, and then repeating it for the next, oh, indefinite amount of time. When Emily and I played golf with my Dad, Jack played The Sit Game with Robin, my Mom, and whatever kids were around. The game was made particularly entertaining by the fact that two of the chairs on the porch were kid sized, and not at all meant for adults; that didn't matter to Jack. "Sit," he'd say. "Sit." And so everyone did, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Everyone seemed to enjoy this game a lot, as did Jack, since they played it basically every day.

- In New York, visiting Emily's sister Cathy, husband Ian, and their three kids - Reanna, 6, and Stacey and Lyndsay, 4 - as well as Mom Pat and Papa Earl (their name for him), Jack didn't play much of The Sit Game. That's because he was captivated by playing on their deck and paved driveway, which had the attraction of being under the daily route of a lot of airplanes from nearby Westchester County Airport. Jack would hear a plane and stop, look up, point, and say "Airplane!" This did not get old for him, or for us really, because it was so damn cute.

- The New Yorkers gave Jack a large, riding Thomas the Tank Engine toy, which he wheeled around the driveway on, or got pushed around on by (mostly) Reanna. They also had a little car, presumably Reanna's, which he got a great kick out of. So basically when he wasn't standing and pointing up at the sky, he was sitting and wheeling around saying "Car. Car. Car," or pushing the buttons on the train and saying "Choo-Choo!" Good stuff.

- No vacation is complete without minidramas, and there were certainly several on this one. For one, Reanna wanted Jack to sleep in his crib in her room, and we had no problem with that, and so he did. This went well on some nights and not so well on others, like the one where he woke up and was, evidently, terribly scared. Emily and I (sleeping in the finished basement, two floors from where Jack was wailing) were awakened in the night by Cathy holding Jack, his eyes like saucers, staring at us through the darkened room. Not sure whether he'd be okay to go back upstairs to his crib or needed to sleep down there with us, we tried to ask him what he wanted. After a long silence, a wretched, miserable, "Momm-MEEEE...." escaped his lips, so we brought the crib downstairs and that's how the night worked out. Other nights he either slept through or Cathy was able to get him back to sleep, while Reanna evidently slept right through all of it. Or at least most of it.

- Then there was the incident which began with The Phone Call (Robin calling from Vermont to say that one of her children had picked up lice in Ireland the previous week), followed by The Panic (finding a bug in Jack's hair), followed by The Haircut (Jack going from looking like a member of The Beatles to looking like River Phoenix in Stand By Me - Buzzcuts 'R' Us, thank you again Aunt Cathy). Followed by the frequent shampoos and baths, which Jack had previously enjoyed but now wailed and cried all the way through, being as he didn't really get to play during them - he just had us searching through his head. At the moment we appear to be all lice-free, but we're still making daily checks. That wasn't the funnest.

- Back to the happier moments, which included a trip to Billings Farm in Vermont (we saw lots of cow butts and Jack got very close to a lamb and then a chicken which clawed at its cage and either hurt him or at least scared him, judging by his reaction); Jack drawing pictures with Niamh (his signature style is one we refer to as "diagonal scrawl"); Jack playing for hours with the three girls at Cathy's, including puzzles, markers, and a thrilling puppet show put on by Reanna; and Jack meeting Emily's friend Karen's 8-month old daughter (he got jealous when she held him) and Sue and Dave's two-year-old daughter Emma (they played in a toy house in the back yard, both sitting at the little table as though having breakfast together). Jack laughing when Michael tickled him, happily chasing my parents' dog Molly around the house, and playing tee-ball at Cathy's. And I have to add, figuring it out so quickly that he could set the tee up, put the ball on it, and then whirl around saying "Bat!" and careening off to find the bat. That's m'boy. Good times.

There's one particular moment, though, that I won't forget, or at least I hope I won't. Jack and Abbey found their way into my parents' room, and climbed up onto their bed. Standing on it, they could see my Mom's wall mirror across the room, and Abbey began running around and jumping up and down. (Mom and Dad, if your sheets were a bit rumpled one night last week, that's why.) Jack, watching her, did the same. And then they were both jumping up and down, watching each other, watching the mirror, and running in circles. And laughing and laughing. And I just sat there marveling, laughing, and sorry the camera was downstairs.

Moments like that are what vacations should be all about, and fortunately, sometimes they are.

Airplane!

Jack's summer vacation began on an airplane, ended on an airplane, and in between there were a lot of airplanes. Appropriately, all of us are kind of jet-lagged, so I'm going to have to write this blog tomorrow. G'night.

And then on other days....

Sometimes I suspect this blog comes off like everything is great. And for the most part, it is, because Jack just makes me happy, and makes me laugh, a lot of the time.

But not always. Sometimes, in fact, it's tough. For example....

- I don't always know what he's saying. After I wrote the blog entry below, for example, I learned that "Why Do" is actually him asking for WATER. Oops. So when we're eating dinner and he's gesturing at something on the table which I can't imagine what he possibly means, and he's saying "Bit tay!" or something similar, and getting frustrated and upset when I have no idea what he's talking about, but suspect it's something (a beer, the car keys, a metal candleholder) that I wouldn't want him to have anyway....well, that can be difficult. It usually ends in my giving him a selection of things I DO want him to have - his food, his milk, my food, the plastic ketchup bottle - which he shoves away with a "No...!" as if, good grief Daddy, why can't you figure out that I want you to give me the can opener? Yeah, that's not so much fun.

- He has been known to get cranky. This typically happens when he hasn't gotten enough sleep, or his food and/or drink isn't getting to him quickly enough, but whatever the cause, he sometimes gets upset. Maybe I don't want him playing with the house keys anymore right before bed, or I don't want him to go outside at 7 at night in his pajamas, or I want him to eat something besides fruit. Sometimes there doesn't even appear to be a reason. One second he wants cheese, I give him cheese, and he throws it on the floor in dismay. Then he wants it back. So...is he upset because he wanted cheese or because he didn't want cheese? Good question. Two minutes later he'll be happily munching on cheese, the moment forgotten.

- Sometimes the things he most wants to do aren't things we want him to do. (Shocking, I know.) Like playing outside when it's 98 degrees. Or watching "The Backyardigans" on Noggin for a third time. Or wash his hands for the umpteenth time. Or carry his step stool out back for who knows what reason. Or grab Charlie's tail. Minor stuff, for the most part, but when you manage to stop him from doing one thing he shouldn't be doing and he immediately starts doing the thing you stopped him from doing 5 minutes earlier....Sigh.

- Often when I'm changing his diaper, he acts like it's some tremendous affront to his person - and not something we've done every several hours every day of his life. Another good one is getting dressed in the morning; most of the time he's fine, but then there are days when he just wails, as if, again, it's not something we do every single morning, and have done every day of his life. Well Jack, I can't let you run outside naked except for the extremely full diaper you've been wearing since last night, can I? That question seldom resonates with him.

And that's about it. I can't think of anything else to complain about. I think that makes about 796 great things about Jack, 4 not so great. That's a ratio I can live with, so next time we'll go back to stories of him laughing in hysterics as I turn him upside down or toss him in the air, as happened just yesterday. It was a day like any other, and.....

Why Do?

Frequently when we put Jack down for bed at night, he knows it's time. He lies down flat on his stomach, or lifts his little butt up into the air, closes his eyes, and ultimately sleeps. Sure, there are the occasional delays - Jack babbling contentedly to himself, or liberating his stuffed animals from the crib - but gradually he's silent, asleep.

Then there are nights like tonight, when for whatever reason, he doesn't want to sleep. He runs out into the living room in the middle of story time, he heads for the back stairs or the front window....the other night he ran out to the kitchen and asked for "shirryal?" And on some of those nights when we do put him down in the crib, he cries. Usually this turns into sleep within a minute or two, because he's exhausted, but sometimes he wails loudly, as though betrayed, and we'll go in, and soothe him, and usually he'll see us, too tired to even sit up, and sleep.

Tonight I went in, shortly after Emily had put him down, and gone in herself, because he was still crying. And as I soothed him - he was too tired to even sit up - he said, "Why do? Why do?"

Now we know a lot of what Jack means when he says things, like "Peeez!" is "Please," and "Shirryal" is Cereal, and "Mawk-muh" is milk -- why he's turned a one-syllable word into a much more difficult two-syllable one is beyond us. But "Why do?", I have no idea.

I hope he's not saying "Why do you put me to bed now? I want to read and run and laugh and play more! Let's go run around the backyard with the basketball, or go see the Teddies down the street, or maybe catch a few minutes of The Backyardigans show we have on TiVo. Why do you put me to bed? Why do?" It's probably just me thinking that.

But just in case he is saying that, I'll try to make sure he gets his fill of all those activities -- all of which, I should add, we did repeatedly today -- tomorrow. And the next day, and....

Funny Jack

Just a few things that make me laugh...

Jack says "hot" a lot, either about his food, or the weather, or the patio stones out back on a warm day. He hasn't always known what it means, I think, since he says it when he gets cold things, too, like a cold glass of milk. He says, "hot," and holds a hand up and makes side to side motions with it, as you might if you think a film was so-so. "Hot," he says. "Hot."

He likes to say "sit," and this one he knows what it means. "Sit" when he wants to sit in a chair. Frequently "sit" when he wants to sit in YOUR chair, which sometimes means sit in your lap, and sometimes means, move. And when you move, and he sits there, he indicates another chair, where he wants you to sit. "Sit," he says. "Sit."

We don't watch a ton of TV with him, but we do watch a little Noggin, which includes Jack's Big Music Show (yes, it's actually called that) and the various songs by the "host," this yellow animated Moose who I believe is called Moose A. Moose. Anyway, at the end of the day they do a "Goodbye Song," and he loves it (I do too), and he waves goodbye and says goodbye, and then when it ends, he says "En!", which I take to mean "Again!" because we have TiVo and can rewind and play it again. Which we do, and then he say "En!" again, and we watch it again. And he waves goodbye, and if we're lucky he smiles and bounces and kind of dances in place. It's a fun tune.

He calls Charlie, our dog, "Teddy." He also calls other dogs "Teddies." Like, the Irish Setters down the street, that he starts walking over to see. "Teddy," he says. "Teddy." I don't know why.

But it's funny, every time, every day.

Anmals!

Jack talking never ceases to be enjoyable. He has this book called "Goodnight Gorilla," in which a zookeeper goes around saying good night to all the animals in the zoo, while the monkey (gorilla, I guess, but he's a little guy) steals his keys and goes around behind him letting out all the animals. He lets out the - if memory serves - elephant, lion, giraffe, hyena, and armadillo.

There aren't many words in the book, mostly pictures; the only words are the zookeeper saying good night to each animal. So I do most of the talking, keeping a running monologue as I read the book. "Oh, he's letting out the elephant. Jack, can you say elephant?"

Jack: "Effant!"

Me: "That's right, Elephant. Oh, he's letting out the lion. Jack, can you say lion?"

Jack: "Line!"

Me: "That's right, Lion. Now he's letting out the giraffe. Jack, can you say giraffe?"

Jack: "Raff!"

Me: "Hyena?"

Jack: "Hine!"

Me: "Armadillo?"

Jack: "Ah Dill!"

Me: "And what about monkey?"

Jack: "Muh!"

A lot of fun.

Hoop Dreams

Jack really likes playing outside, and because I was a little tired of seeing him battle Charlie for tennis balls and do little more than climb in and out of patio furniture, I decided it was time to get him another backyard toy. Granted he's been kind of enjoying the slide of late, which is fun, but I wanted him to have something new.

So it was that we zipped off to Toys'R'Us this morning to find him something to launch his career in sports. Since this isn't about me, I won't dwell on my own sports background, beyond saying that the one sport I never showed the slightest proficiency in -- or for that matter great interest in -- was basketball. Naturally, I got him a child's basketball hoop.

The reasoning was simple: getting a 17-month old a golf club or baseball bat and expecting him to hit a ball with it seemed overly optimistic. In the first place there are plenty of grown men and women who can't achieve such a thing even now, and in the second place, Jack loses patience with a spoon or other utensil just a few bites into his meal, casting it aside in order to work with his hands directly. I'm sure he'd do the same with a golf club, at least at this point.

(While at Toys'R'Us, of course, we also got a dinosaur puzzle, which he loved and instantly proved that he does in fact know the world puzzle, and a step stool so he could wash his hands at the sink. The stool he proceeded to carry around with him for the next hour or so until we managed to distract him and hide the thing back in the bathroom, where it lives until he finds it again.)

So during his nap I set up the hoop, and that afternoon we went outside. I showed him the hoop, gave him the mini basketball, and he immediately carried the ball over to the hoop and dunked the thing, proving he's either a basketball prodigy and we'll all be millionaires when he's the top pick in the NBA Draft at age 18, or else they have one of these things at day care.

In any case, he spent the next hour or so dunking the ball, watching it bound away across the yard after bouncing off the base, chasing it down, bringing it back to the hoop, and dunking it again. I alternated beaming with joy and making sure my very interested dog didn't seize the ball and puncture it as it rolled across the back patio. (We got some good work in on "leave it!")

Jack and I are a long way from heading up to Washington Park and challenging a couple of toughs to a game of 2-on-2, but it was great to see him quickly adapting to the sport, and reassuring to think he'd have a new toy to be interested in for the next week and a half. At which point I'll go out and get him that child's golfing set, because you never know. Maybe he HADN'T ever seen a basketball hoop before, and just had some innate athletic ability that will carry him through his childhood and on to fame and fortune in the Olympics. And maybe, just maybe, the first time he sees a golf club and ball he'll be hitting them onto the highway a mile away. Look out, Tiger Woods: you may be chasing Jack (Nicklaus), but another Jack might one day be chasing you.

Puh bll

We recently gave Jack a puzzle he'd received for Christmas. It had a few smallish pieces and we weren't sure he was ready for it at the time he got it. Pretty sure it came from his aunt Robin, since there's a sticker on the back saying it was made in Ireland. It's a puzzle of polar bears, penguins, and seals frolicking on a patch of ice, while whales swim about in the water below.

So I opened the plastic on the puzzle and he instantly took out all the pieces, which made putting it together kind of difficult since there wasn't a picture guide and I didn't remember what it looked like. But after several hours of work I managed to assemble it again, just so Jack could again destroy it.

Early on it was clear he had a certain fondness for two pieces (one of which, I'm sad to say, has since disappeared to parts unknown.) One is a little baby polar bear, riding on its mommy's (or daddy's, who knows, they're polar bears) back. The second is the smiling HEAD of the adult polar bear, who shall remain gender unknown. I'd build the puzzle, he'd wreck the puzzle, and then he'd go running off through the house - he's basically started running, about three weeks after starting walking - with one of these pieces in each hand.

As you can imagine, Jack digging the puzzle out from where we kept it underneath his bookshelves, scattering its pieces across his room, and then running through the house with two of them, wasn't really conducive to putting him to sleep as part of his bedtime routine. So yesterday, we tried putting it away - I hid it in the back office while Emily gave Jack his bath.

Later, I'm working, and Emily is getting Jack into his pajamas and ready for bed, when I hear, faintly, him saying "puh bll.....puh bll....puh bll...." Emily informs me he's down on the floor, looking under his bookshelves for the puzzle. "puh bll....puh bll..." How could we resist that? We bring out the puzzle, he lights up, grabs his two favorite pieces, and he's happy.

The question (among others, like did we give in too easily to his plaintive cries) is, is he saying "Puzzle," or "Polar bear"? Because we've referred to it as a puzzle, and to the polar bears as polar bears. And even if he IS saying "Puzzle," does he think he's referring to the polar bears?

If you'll excuse me, I have to go try to find that other piece.

Scary phone calls

The phone rang around midday yesterday; it was Jack's daycare. "We've had a little crisis, not a big crisis," said Mary, the director. As I freaked out, she explained that Jack had fallen on the playground and hit the back of his head, and she described the wound as a "puncture." This of course did not have me freaking out any less, and she hadn't even gotten to the part about the blood.

"He didn't even cry, and was walking around afterward, but after we cleaned up the blood he seemed kind of sleepy. Now, it's near his naptime, so maybe he was just tired, but we want to make sure it's not a concussion." I said, we'd be right there, hung up, called the doctor, frantically told them the story, wanted to get him in for an appointment, and they said, well, what we have people do is go and get their child, and then call us from there, because sometimes what people hear from the daycare isn't 100 percent accurate. So go get him, and then call us."

I called Emily's office, because she's about 5 minutes away from Jack's daycare, and got voicemail. Called her cell, got her, and she said she was on a conference call and could she call me back? I said Jack fell at school and one of us had to go get him. She said Okay! Bye! and presumably got off the conference call in seconds flat. And then we talked again as she headed over. I left out the word "punctured." I asked her to call me with the details and said I'd meet her at the doctor.

The next 10 minutes really were the longest of my life. I paced, I fretted, I looked daggers at the phone, I lamented the fact that Jack cried when I dropped him off that morning, and hugged my legs - it happens sometimes after a long weekend, which he'd just had with us. I ran through scores of worst-case scenarios. I tried to will the phone to ring. I called Emily and left a message.

Finally she called. Jack was fine, normal, happy. Just a cut on the back of his head, probably a rock. She'd called the doctor from there and they'd told her that we should keep an eye on him and let them know if any problems. Last night Emily brought Jack home, he was happy and smiling, I think he bonked me on the forehead at some point with one of his toys, and then he went to sleep, ultimately, and we all had a good night.

And I vowed to go out with him Thursday to get him a new pair of sneakers, ones that he maybe won't be as apt to fall in.

I don't get scared a lot. I usually just figure things will be okay and work themselves out, or at least I try to believe that stuff. But I guess there's not much scarier than a scary phone call from somebody watching your child.

I'm going to go listen to him sleeping.

Funniest. Kid. Ever.

I think of all the things we were told and not told about having a baby, the one thing we were never told is just how much he would make us laugh. For example....

1. We frequently toast each other at meals with a clink of glasses, and it wasn't long before Jack wanted to join. Now when we raise our glasses, Jack lunges for his cup of milk and breaks out into a huge smile. And we toast each other and drink.

2. Tonight I taught Jack this thing one of Emily's co-workers was doing at a Happy Hour last week, knocking fists and "blowing it up" - pulling his hand away afterwards with his fingers splayed out wildly. I did this with Jack, and he cracked up. Repeatedly. Causing us to crack up, repeatedly.

3. In the evenings, as Jack runs around burning off his evening energy, he farts a lot. There's nothing quite as amusing as Jack bending down to lift a heavy object and ripping a little toddler fart. Which he is indifferent to, of course, which makes it all the funnier.

4. We expect children to get attached to certain toys, or stuffed animals, which is why the things that Jack has so far been attached to -- his shoes, and a box of magic markers -- are pretty entertaining. He'll walk around the house holding his shoes, or our shoes -- once he was wearing a pair of my shoes on each arm. And he of course accompanies his journeys with dialogue, which goes something like this: "Shoe............................Shoe...........
........Shoes.................Shoe....." As for the magic markers, I don't really understand that one, but he likes to carry this box of 8 thick magic markers around the house, and occasionally they fall out, and he'll stop, stoop, sometimes fart, and methodically place them back in the box, then continue on his way. The height of amusement was when we had taken the box away at some point, when he was distracted, and he couldn't find them but DID find the strip of cardboard that used to be on top of the box, before it had torn off in his hands. So he walked around with the strip of cardboard for a little while.

5. He tends to like to treat me as a horsie, whether I'm ready for it or not. So I can be sitting or lying on the floor, say, and he'll climb on top of me, get into a sitting position, and then start bouncing up and down on my stomach. And he's beaming and going "AAAA! AAAA! AAAA! AAAA!" in time with his horseback riding, and I'm going "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" as my midriff gets worked over painfully. And I'm laughing, which makes me even less braced for the bouncing. He's not light anymore.

I guess I just didn't realize I'd laugh so much, even though I feel like I'm incredibly busy, not getting enough sleep, and have way too much on my mind. So thanks, Jack, for the laughs. Keep 'em coming.

Belly of the Baby

One of the standard games we've played for a while with Jack is getting him to indentify body parts. "Where are Jack's eyes?" "Where is Daddy's nose?" "Where are Mommy's ears?" and so on and so forth. One that fascinates him of late is The Belly.

"Where is Jack's belly?" He'll drop whatever he's doing or holding and lift up his shirt so he can gaze down at his belly button. It's almost like he's surprised to see it there - raising his shirt and HEY! Look at that. It's Jack's belly!

The game has evolved to the point where Jack is amused, or intrigued, or otherwise insistent upon seeing OUR bellies, too. He'll walk purposefully up to me and grab at my shirt, so I'll raise it and say, "Yup, there's Daddy's belly." Jack accepts this information with great satisfaction, then will typically show his, and look for Mommy....This continues for a little while.

It is my fervent hope that he does not go to day care and walk around getting all of his little friends and adult teachers to show him their bellies, as well.

Five Things My Son Did This Week

1. Yesterday afternoon I was having kind of a rough day. Charlie's been kind of a challenge lately, and I had a lot of work I was trying to get done, and I was beat. Emily was a little sick and came home early, so she was watching Jack for a bit while I worked; I think she was reading him a story in his room.

Suddenly I heard Jack thumping out of his room. I looked around the corner and there he was, walking along, holding up the book "Pat the Bunny" in one hand, and pointing at me. He had come to the page where "Now YOU feel Daddy's scratchy face," and the book just wasn't going to cut it - he had to feel his actual Daddy's scratchy face. And so he did. And my day was instantly better.

2. It's not enough that Jack has started walking, now he has to carry things while he walks. His heavy, musical ball. His little musical school bus. Heavy things, in other words, that he really shouldn't be walking around with, and he typically drops, nearly on his foot. (Not yet, but tomorrow is another day.)

The other day I heard him walking in the next room, saying "AHHRRR.....AHHHRRR...." I looked out, and there he is, walking, carrying his Fun Fair, which is about half his size. He then dropped it. Not on his foot. He paused. Sighed. Then stooped over to pick it up again.

3. Sometimes he likes to stand in the front door. I lock the storm door, but he can still stand there and look out the window at the cars, trucks, people and dogs. So on Tuesday he was standing there, looking out the window, saying "HI!" as people walked along the sidewalk approaching the house, and "BUH BYE," as people walked along the sidewalk away from the house. "HI! HI! HI! ...... BUH BYE....BUH BYE....BUH BYE...."

4. I'm not going to push him toward sports any more than is a father's primal instinct and, yay, solemn duty to do so, but I'm happy to report that he's developed a certain fondness for the object known as Ball, or as Jack says, "Bawwwh." Pictures in a book: "Bawwwh!" His plush, soft soccer ball, which he walks around carrying. "Bawwwh." And of course the little plastic balls from the Fun Fair, which roll underneath every piece of furniture as if sucked in by a magnet. So frequently I'll walk into the room and he'll be half underneath his crib, or the dining room table, or some other piece of furniture, stretching forward, his little butt sticking out, and from under the piece of furniture, his little muffled voice, saying "Bawwwh.....Bawwwh...."

5. As I was writing this, I heard the thump thump thump thump of little feet. My son came bursting into the computer room, clad only in a new diaper, hair dripping from the bath his Mom had just given him. He stood solidly, facing me, glowing with happiness and pride, either because he'd walked so far on his own or looked so cute, it's hard to say which.

His Mom arrived behind him. "Jack, we need to get your pajamas on."

Jack: "BUH bye! BUH BYE....!" And then, as she walked him off to his room, hand-in-hand: "Nigh-Nigh....Nigh-Nigh...Nigh-Nigh..."

Nigh-Nigh.

Walking and Talking

Ode to Jack Walking (sung to the tune of "But Not the Hippopotamus"):

Jack and his snack are walking forth and back
But not his hippopotamus.

A boy and his toys are making some noise
With his walker, a hippopotamus.

Now Jack and his snack are walking out back
With his toys making noise like he's more than one boy.

With yes, his hippopotamus.

I think some small part of us - Emily, anyway - was a little concerned when Jack, more than 15 months old, showed little inclination to walk. We kind of figured he'd be a little slow since I, allegedly, didn't walk until I was 18 months, which strikes me as untrue, but I was too young to be certain.

People told us to enjoy his pre-walking days while we could, because once he could walk, our lives would be a lot more difficult. That hasn't really been the case yet, but he's certainly walking, and there's no stopping him now.

Now that he CAN walk, I don't think he spent as much as two seconds crawling today. Put him down on the floor, and he immediately stands. If he wants out, he walks away. Even though he's not going very quickly yet, he's clearly very proud of his new-found ability, striding along, lifting his little feet up and down, slightly bow-legged, with his elbows kind of sticking out and his hands reaching forward like he's the Frankenstein monster, a little smile cracking his features.

His walking is augmented by talking, as he's frequently walking toward something of interest. Like a ball, even when that ball belongs to another child, like the one we saw at the park today. Every time we put him down and tried to steer him in another direction, he'd pivot and head right back toward that ball. "Bawh! Bawh! Bawh? Bawh."

Then he'll stand in the doorway and wave at people in the street as they walk by. "Hi! Hi!" And then, as they disappear: "Buh bye! Buh bye!" Really, it's classic.

He says Mommy and Dada so often while walking we're convinced these words have multiple meanings in his mind. He'll walk across the house, walking right by his Mommy, saying "Mommy? Mommy. Mommy?" At the park he'll point toward random strangers. "Dada. Dada." Which as you can imagine is something I'd sort of like to discourage in the future.

Seeing him walk is filling me with weepy nostalgia about the early days, when he couldn't even lift his head, followed by him being unable to roll over, followed by him being unable to sit up, and then unable to crawl, and now...well, again: car keys. It's only a matter of time.

But if there's half as much fun in everything else as seeing the little grin on his face as he bobs and bounces on his little bare feet across the living room floor, well, I guess I can handle it.