Putting Jack to Bed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big Monkey

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

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

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

According to Jack

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

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

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

Daddy's Magazine

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

Random funny Jack stuff:

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

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

Thursday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm going to miss it.

Been a Busy Week, so...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that's pretty much Jack.

Mr. Inquisitive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vacation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is why vacation was great, and always is.

Going on Ay-caytion

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

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

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

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

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

Our suitcases, Jack, that's right.

Kind to others

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

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

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

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

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

And so we did.

Random

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny.

Jamberry

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack: "Where are the strawberries?"

The Beach

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

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

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

We'll see them again next week.

Are you sick?

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

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

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

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

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

Good stuff.

Big Kids

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


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

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

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

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

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

More sleep

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

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

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

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

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

Sleep and Potatoes

1. Sleep.

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

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

So yeah, sleep, very important for everyone.

2. Potatoes.

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

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

Railroad

I just put Jack to bed.

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

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

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

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

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

As just happened again.

Good night, Jack.

Daffy Duck

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

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

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

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

Talking to, and about, everything

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, he's fun.