Big Boy Bed, Pink Eye, and More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Good Day

Emily was putting Jack to bed; it's Friday night and I've just spent another day in charge of Jack. We went to the park (very cold, we didn't stay long), the library (very crowded, we stayed until it seemed likely things might end up in a fight over a book or puzzle), the grocery store, and home. Jack napped, we had macaroni and cheese, played a little, watched some TV, I kept him entertained.

I went up to bring Jack a glass of water and hug and kiss him good night. I sat down on the rug and held out my arms to him. He walked over, stood in front of me, and said, deliberately,

"I had a good day with you today."

And then he hugged me good night.

So, yeah, that's a good day.

Haircut

Jack's hair had gotten pretty long of late, but we had been meaning to get his 2-year-old picture taken, and didn't want to get it cut right before. Since he turned two three months ago, it had been a while since we'd taken him. I don't know if it had been three months, but if you're one of the ones who receives the pictures we had taken, you'll agree we probably should have gotten it cut a little sooner. Considering what a disaster going to get those pictures taken was -- he was tired and cranky and fussy and I don't think the woman much knew what she was doing -- the ideal would have been to simply leave a few minutes into the pictures and look around for a mall photo booth.

Anyway, yesterday I took him to get his haircut, and since he wasn't always happy during them, I talked it up a lot beforehand. And Jack remembered that this particular barber charmed him with lollipops during, or after, the cut. Me: "So tomorrow we'll get your haircut." Jack: "And he'll give me lollipops?" Me: "Yes, I believe he'll give you a lollipop." Jack: "He'll give me TWO lollipops?" Because that was the case at previous cuts. And I said, Yes, I'm sure you'll get two lollipops. And Jack said OK, and nodded a little.

I need to add here that Jack kind of rolls his "Ls" -- maybe I've mentioned this before. So when he says "lollipops," it comes out, "yoyyipops." Which of course is the cutest thing ever. "He gives me a yoyyipop?" Just classic. (I admit that when we're reading books together, I ask him to identify animals or various things that I know he knows what they are, just so I can hear him say them. "What's that?" I ask. "Yion," says Jack. And that? "Yeopard." And that? "A yemon." That's right, Jack. Really, I don't get tired of it.

To this point, no two haircuts have been the same for Jack. His first, in Denver when he was maybe a little over a year old (I'm sure we've got this written down somewhere), he sat very still in a little booster seat in the barber's chair -- petrified, I think -- while Mommy and Daddy shot video and took pictures and the barber clipped away. Since then he's sat on my lap each time, with hair falling all us while he either clutched tightly to me (once), was half asleep (once), cried and/or fidgeted (once or twice), and generally wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

His barber here in New York, Ruvo, this old guy who (judging from the pictures on the wall) has had a barber shop in the same place for probably 40-plus years, had clearly learned that the way to a young customer's heart is through lollipops, so at his last cut he said, if you sit still for Ruvo, I'm going to give you a lollipop. He held out the bowl of dum-dum lollipops to show him, and of course Jack wanted one right then, so Ruvo cut his hair while Jack ate a lollipop which gradually attracted pieces of Jack's cut hair, something even Jack didn't enjoy too much. So once he'd ruined that one with hair -- although he still wouldn't give it up -- Ruvo gave him a second one. So Jack sat on my lap with a lollipop clutched in each of his little hands, both becoming more and more ruined with stuck hair, and ate them while Ruvo cut his hair and it fell all over my shirt, my lap, Jack's shirt, etc. Great fun.

Yesterday's haircut was better. Ruvo promised him the lolllipops, and Jack seemed to understand that they would come ultimately, so he could wait. So he sat on my lap, with the cloth pulled tight around his shoulders, letting his hair be cut while he patiently waited for his lollipops. And every time Ruvo paused -- to change to the clippers, or get scissors, or whatever -- Jack said, "Lollipops now?" And Ruvo said, just another minute, and then I'll let you pick whatever color you want. Jack even had fun, and said so later, when the clippers tickled his neck. "That tickles," he laughed, and then said, "Again!"

We won't go so long without cutting his hair again, because not only was it fun, but even though we love Jack with long hair, Jack with short hair, and a haircut he doesn't protest all the way the through and let's the barber actually do his job, is worth it. Ruvo put gel in his hair and combed a smart little part, and all the rest of the day I couldn't stop looking at him, couldn't believe how heartbreakingly beautiful my son is.

Snapshots

At some point, I don't know when, I took Jack's hand and told him to be brave. Maybe we were entering his room in the dark, or walking across ice or something. Anyway, he has adopted that as a saying of his own, if we're going out in the yard or downstairs or sometimes even in the living room to play with his toys. He takes my hand and says "Try to be brave." OK, Jack, I will.

The other night Jack woke up wailing in the middle of the night. We have to gauge these things -- ignore it and let him go back to sleep, go in and give him a soothing pat, etc. In this instance I went in to check on him, and he asked for a story or a song or somesuch -- it's 3 a.m., or so. So I say, no, it's the middle of the night, everything is fine, go back to sleep. I left the room and his wails grew even louder. And now they were specific:

"I HAVE A BOOGERRRRRRR!!!!!"

I went in, wiped his nose, and he dropped back down on his stomach and went to sleep.

Not sure how much I've written about the potty thing, perhaps nothing. We've started with the potty training and having him sit on the potty each night. And he's gotten into it, and has gone potty several times, always to much praise, at which he beams with pride. It's great, really. Of course, frequently he'll spend 10 minutes sitting on it like it's all a big game, doing nothing, but saying "I need toilet paper," and "It's coming out!" (It's typically not.) "The poop is coming OUUUUTT!" (No, it's not. Still nothing in that area.) But I admit his little voice piping up, "It's coming ouuuutt!" is very entertaining.

He likes to sit Mr. Potato Head on his sink step stool when he's on the potty, so he can watch him, and then he likes to put him on the sink when he brushes his teeth. He likes Mr. Potato Head.

His favorite song these days is one his grandma sings, "California, Here I Come." Jack sings it too: "Open ... up that ... gol ... den GATE ....Cal if ornia here I come."

He has a dinosaur book which I go through with him naming the dinosaurs. One page had sea creatures. "Is that a whale?" He asked about one. "No," I said, "that's an icthysaur." It's now his FAVORITE animal. For a couple of days he'd say to me, "Do you want to see the ikkysaur? Let's go see him. Do you want to see the ikkysaur?" Sometimes he even says, "ikkythasaur," which is pretty close, all things considered.

He's really into his thick, colorful fleece blanket these days. He's had it since he was a baby, and never really cared that much about it -- until now. Now he frequently likes to have it downstairs with him, and when I go in at night, sometimes he's hugging it tightly to him. I think he has a song about it too. I'm not sure of the exact words, but it's something to the effect of, "My bankey....my bankey...."

He rode a horse outside a store today, one of those things where you put in 50 cents and it shakes a bit. He loved it; I of course didn't have any more quarters. Anyway, later we saw Aunt Cathy, who mentioned they went to the library -- where we'd gone after the horse. Things had evidently run together in Jack's mind. He asked her pointedly, "Did you ride the horsie? Did you go on the horsie?"

Kind of funny, at the end of the day I mentioned the horse to Emily, and she said to Jack, "You rode horsies today?"

Jack said, "No. Just one."

Random Thoughts

Jack has woken up at 4 a.m. the last couple of mornings, and what does he do? Cry? Call for Mommy and Daddy? Go back to sleep? No, lately, he's been SINGING. This morning it was pretty much steady for most of the next two hours: "Twinkle...twinkle....lit-TLE...STAR!!!! How...I...won-DERRR...WHAT...you....ARE!!!" and "Old MacDonald," and "A B C D E F G.... H I J...." and "ROW ROW ROW your BOAT!" Needless to say, I'm tired and this blog will be a short one.

When I picked him up at daycare today he was in this toy boat that rocked, wearing a large train engineer's cap. It was down over his eyes, so he couldn't see me. But he heard my voice and arched his neck so he could sort of see me underneath the brim. Then he smiles, gets up, and runs over to me, me worrying that he's going to trip and fall since he clearly can't see anything.

We head over to his play area, morning or evening, and he leads the way, and then stops and turns. Holds out a hand and tilts his head slightly. "Do you want to play with my cars?" Or: "Do you want to play with my trains?" I may have mentioned this before, but it's still a riot.

He's finally gotten into his Mr. Potato Head. For a while he only wanted him with a nose and feet. For some reason he didn't want him to have eyes, a mouth, or other features. Now he dresses him to the nines, with arms, a hat, eyes, a mouth, glasses, and even a flower on his wrist. And he wants him to hold a bat from another toy. This weekend, in fact, we played ball with Mr. Potato Head, with Jack standing at one end of the rug and Mr. Potato Head and me at the other. Jack would throw the ball, and I would then use Mr. Potato Head's arm to throw it back. This delights Jack. "He DID it!" The game continues for a while.

Speaking of throwing a ball, the kid's got an arm. We play with a little sticky ball about the size of a golfball and a mini nerf-type football. He can throw them. What's funny, though, is he has no grasp of how to catch them. He'll hold his hands out, like we tell him, but he has no real concept of what he's supposed to do. Raise them to catch the ball? Hold them out more? He's like a statue as I gently lob the ball in a perfect arc to where his hands are, and it bounces harmlessly off them to the floor. Again, this delights Jack no end, and he'll grab it and throw it back. We'll work on the catching thing, though.

Now that it's getting warmer, we're playing out in the backyard. Thus far (aside from a mini-meltdown today when he didn't want to come back after running into the neighbor's yard, partly a result of him waking up at 4 a.m. and being extra cranky I suspect) he's pretty easy to please in this form of entertainment. He just wants to run around. He doesn't care about having a ball, or a toy, or companionship really. It's enough to run up the slight hill at the back of the yard, stop, beam at me, and then run down to the bottom. And then go back up again. And hey, that's fine. Until he does a face plant in the wet grass, which seems inevitable, it's plenty of fun for me, too.

Sweetness Addendum

When I wrote the below blog, I actually FORGOT the main reason I wanted to write about "Sweetness" in the first place. If you lie down, or yawn, or drop down to an elbow on the floor while playing with Jack, he says, "Are you tired, Daddy?" Followed by, "Do you need a pillow?" (And he sometimes rolls his "lls," so it comes out "piyyow," which is even cuter.) And before you even respond, he runs over to the couch to get a pillow, which he bring out and puts down on the floor "for your head. You can lay down on this piyyow, Daddy." And then, "Do you need a blanket, Daddy?" And then he runs off and gets you a blanket, too. So you're laying there on the pillow, under the blanket, and he lays down next to you for a few seconds, before saying, "I'm awake," and getting up to do whatever. While you lie on your piyyow and watch him play.

Sweetness

You hear a lot about little kids before you have your own, and you form your own opinions based on the ones you see, in malls, restaurants, on airplanes, etc. Generally you think most frequently of adjectives like noisy, whiny, fussy, demanding. And other less than flattering terms which usually relate to how much of a pain they can be. What you don't hear as much, or at least I didn't, was how sweet they can be. Jack, at least, is showing us that on a regular basis.

- Before running off to play with something, he invites us to join him. "Do you want to play with my cars, Daddy?" "Do you want to play with me, Mommy?" "Do you want to play with my trains?"

- So we're playing with his farm or somesuch, and he says "Which horse will you play with?" Well, Jack, I'll play with the white one. "No, I want to play with the white one. You'll play with the brown one, okay, Daddy?" All righty then. "Which car will you play with?"

- His earnestness is similarly entertaining to us. If there's a story, or toy, or concept he hasn't encountered before, he'll say "I never never heard of that before." Or, "I never never saw that before." I'm not sure this is as funny in print; maybe his slightly wide eyes and sincere voice help make it.

- The other day I was holding Jack as Aunt Taffy, Uncle Ekan, and the girls were leaving, and Jack wanted to hug Ekan goodbye. It became a big 3-man hug, which I dubbed the Man Hug. Well, Jack committed that one to memory, with the result being that on occasion he'll just throw out his arms toward me and say, "Man Huggggg!" It was particularly amusing when we were eating a pasta meal, which invariably results in him having pasta sauce all over his hands, face, and shirt. He threw his arms out to me, droplets of tomato sauce spraying everywhere. Through a red-cheeked smile, he said, "Man HuGGGGGGGGGGGG!!" Um, I said, trying not to laugh too hard. How about after dinner, huh?

That's YOU, Daddy

I think I understand how games like Concentration, or Old Maid, or any number of games where you have to match things up and make pairs, became popular with kids. Because Jack loves to see matches, and pairs, and things that are like each other. I probably first noticed it when he had one of the Sandra Boynton books out, and on its back cover it had the covers of other Boynton books, and he wanted to match them up with each other. "We have that one....and that one...and not that one..."

So when he notices a picture of me, or the picture in his room of Emily, Jack, and me just a few minutes after he was born, he sometimes recognizes the pairs. "That's YOU, Daddy," he says. And, "That's YOU, Mommy." "And that's you, Jack," I say.

It gets funnier when it's not a photo. Like when Emily draws a sketch of the three of us on his Magna Doodle pad, where we're basically like Peanuts characters or something, and Jack points at one: "That's YOU, Daddy." I drew one recently that was a silly caricature with a square jaw, big grinning teeth, full head of wavy hair. Jack looks at me and points at it: "That's YOU, Daddy." Well, okay, sort of, I say.

Jack doesn't stop with pictures and people. My sister brought him gifts -- a superhero backpack, with the Hulk, Spider-man, and Mr. Fantastic on it, and a set of superhero refrigerator magnets. He brought the backpack over to the fridge where the magnets were, and held the image of the Hulk up to his magnet. "That's YOU, Hulk." And, "That's YOU, Spider-man."

As for Mr. Fantastic, well, he didn't know who that was initially. He was just "that guy." I told him who it was, and he repeated it and was as proud as if he'd made a new friend. "Want to see Mr. Fantastic, Mommy?" Okay, Jack, Emily said. "Want to see Mr. Fantastic, Daddy?" Okay, Jack, sure.

The best thing is that I found this old card game from the 70s, which I bought on ebay a few years ago -- nostalgia, really, since I had the game as a kid. It's a Marvel superheroes game, and it's basically Old Maid, but with Dr. Doom as the Old Maid. And you make pairs of the superheroes, including the Hulk...Spider-man...and even Mr. Fantastic.

Think I'll bring that game out tomorrow.

Snippets of time

- I was washing dishes this evening when Jack shambled out into the kitchen, an armful of big legos clutched to his chest. "Can you make Cowboy Bob, Daddy?" (I make the cowboy on the side of the lego box, who I called Cowboy Bob.) "Can you make Cowboy Bob?"

- In the living room, in the midst of all his blocks: "Can you make a train, Daddy?"

- At the park the other day, a sunny and relatively mild day where I took Jack to get some fresh air and exercise -- and there wasn't another soul there. I called Emily to share that fact, and afterward Jack was repeating what I said. "There is nobody HERE. Nobody HERE."

- Sledding in Vermont, in 2-foot drifts of soft, powdery snow that Jack couldn't stand up or move in, and Jack not having much enthusiasm for it -- tough to blame him, he was kind of helpless. But he LOVED seeing Daddy go down the hill in the sled, and Daddy fall over backwards in a pratfall (intentional....really), and Daddy set him down on the porch, out of the snow at last.

- Emily tells me that she and Jack have a game at night, when she puts him in the crib. He leans forward in slow motion, puts his face against the bars, and kisses her. And as he moves forward, he gets this little excited, mischievous look on his face.

- When I put Jack down for a nap, or for bed, and he's in a good mood, he says (as I leave) "Good night, Daddy!" Halfway down the hall: "Good night, Daddy!"

Good night.

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?"