Giant Baby the Monkey

Jack has taken to calling his stuffed monkey "Giant Baby." Giant Baby the monkey. I like it.

He's getting kind of tired. He heard Nana (we're in Vermont) say she was going to give their dog Molly some water. He went over to her. "Are you going to give Wally Mawter?"

This afternoon he drew pictures with Robin. He drew a monkey. And another monkey. And a monkey with hair on its head. And more monkeys. Each one more beautiful than the last.

Last night at dinner Jack ate a plate of spaghetti, meatballs, two pieces of bread, a plate of tomatoes (we call it a Jack salad), and ice cream for dessert. Then went over to Nana and kissed her. Then went over to Baba and stood at his feet until Baba noticed him. "Baba, will you go play cars with me?" So they went into the living room and played cars.

These cars. Jack discovered my collection of matchbox cars from 30 years ago. He was fascinated. He went through all of them, picking out certain ones that had hooks to pull trailers, ones that the doors opened, ones that he liked the color, etc. Played with them for about an hour. Put them all back into their carrying case before dinner. Played with Baba with them. Played with me with them. Put them all away again. Went to bed.

We went sledding today. Jack whooped and laughed appropriately as we zipped down the back hill. Took plenty of joy in hitting Aunt Robin with a snowball -- not a bad shot, actually. Laughed it up as I dragged him around the yard, then gamely tried to pull me on the sled; I did most of the work. It was beautiful and sunny, and even though the snow didn't work for a snowman -- crust over powder -- it was great anyway.

My blog was interrupted by being pulled into a finding things game. We had to find beanbags he'd hidden all over the house. He's very helpful though. As we walk into the living room, he strides right over to the couch and says, "One's underneath this pillow!"

He presented me with a folded piece of paper as a gift. He said it was a computer. That was enough to tell me I work too much sometimes.

We also played a bear hunt game. This basically consists of walking around with Nana's flashlight and saying, "Is there a bear in there?" And then he flashes the light wildly. A good game, if a big one-dimensional. Jack's scream of delight when you say, "LOOK! a Bear!" is fun, though.

Jack did some puzzles on his own, mastered them, and then invited me to join him. As I struggled, he's both instructive ("Here, try that piece there") and encouraging. "I think you know where that one goes. Don't you? Here. See, you did know."

Aunt Robin is giving him a bath as I write this. I think he's teaching her how to play with the same shark toy I played with 30 years ago.

Robin is being silly, pretending to be the shark. Jack's laughter is sweet, little peals of joy. When he laugh like that, his face glows a little.

I should go get his pajamas ready.