Speech

Jack learned the phrase "I want" yesterday, and at bedtime we were talking about all the things one can "want."  After a few minutes we settled down, and I thought he was falling asleep.  Then out of nowhere he said, "I want baby."

"You want a baby?"

"Ha Mama," ha means yes.

"Do you want Mommy to have a baby?"

"Ha."

"You want a brother?"

"Ha."

"What would we call him?" I laughed.

"Bobo."

Where on earth did he come up with that?

Choo Choos!!!

At the Whistle Stop museum and cafe for Jack's special birthday lunch. He is freaking out over all the choo choos! Cute!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jack!

Dear Jack,

You are getting so big!

We had your birthday party yesterday, and it was warm enough for all the kids to play outside.  That was so much fun.  We had a Thomas cake and Thomas balloons and you got a lot of Thomas presents, and it was a very Thomas birthday!

Your silly Mommy has lost her good camera, and the pictures on my phone didn't turn out very well (Mommy has too many chins) so you'll have to trust me when I say that they exist but I'm not putting them on the internet.  Sorry, buddy.

Your language is coming along nicely.  You're not as talkative as some of your girlfriends, but I understand that that's to be expected with boys.  You can say everything important, "Choo choo, apple, num!"  You manage to get your point across and we always know what you want!

You absolutely love trucks and trains and anything with wheels.  One of your favorite activities this summer was pushing your big dump truck up and down the street.  You also love your dog, and spend lots of time wrestling with her, Daddy, and your sisters.

Your smile lights up the world, and you have a wonderful laugh.  You love to read books.  You have several favorites that we rotate through.  One of those is Little Quack.  You like to do what he does - kick your feet to "paddle on the water," sniff the water, touch the water with your foot.  We also have a book about the moon and you like to find the things in it by pointing to them.  I'll say, "Find the bear," and you'll point to it, and so on.  Your sisters just love reading that one to you.  I love the way the three of you play together and encourage each other.

You have a really special relationship with Papa.  He says that it's because you two are the same age.  

Your favorite toy for playing is:  trains trains trains

Your favorite toy for snuggling is:  trains.  It doesn't matter that they're hard, you snuggle with them at night.  We got you a soft Thomas for your birthday - hopefully that will replace the others at night. 

Your favorite food is: apple

Your favorite book is: Little Quack

Your favorite activity is: playing trains

Your favorite place to go is: our PIT class on Fridays

Your best friend is: your "Rah Rahs" (sisters)

Something new that you're doing: talking, finally!

Something you've mastered: flirting

Something people say about you: you're handsome and well behaved

Something that you're saying is: hot dog, uh oh, mine, no

Something Dad and I are proud of you for: you are a good listener

Something surprising about you: you love babies, and especially love playing with Lexi when Erin brings her over

I am so proud of you!  You are so special, and your dad, your sisters, and I just think that you're the best boy in the whole world.  I am really lucky to be your mom.

Love,

Mommy

"Childproof"

The new washer and dryer are frontloaders, which means that all their controls are right above Jack's head, within easy reach.  Buttons!  All the bright, light up, candy-like buttons that make SONGS when you push them!!!

It took him less than 24 hours to figure out the childproof control lock and turn it off.  Less.  Than.  24.  Hours.  I don't know whether to sign him up for speech therapy or enroll him at Purdue.  Seriously.

I told BJ this morning, "He is your son, and anything short of 'up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-A-B-A-B-select-start' is just too easy for him."

Never Forget
(hackedgadgets.com)

So I'm back to putting a gate in the laundry room door to keep him away from the BUTTONS! which is troublesome.  There's no door there.  Happily, the downstairs bathroom is on the other side of the laundry room, so one gate keeps him out of both areas.

There is no way to keep him away from the dishwasher, though, and he knows how to turn it off (whether the childproof control is activated or not) by opening the door.  This stops the cycle.  We just run it at night or while he's napping, because otherwise we find a half-run dishwasher full of dishes sitting open and not running about 72 times per cycle.

The girls really lulled me into a false sense of parenting security.  They got into stuff occasionally, but Jack takes it to a new level.  Maybe I'm just older and more tired this time around.

A basement!  My kingdom for a basement!

New Trick

I can't tell you how delighted I am that Jack has discovered his ability to climb into the bathtub.  De-freaking-lighted.

This morning I got in the shower.  Of course he followed me into the bathroom.  Generally I can shower quickly enough and watch him through the sliding shower doors well enough that he doesn't have time to dump the entire contents of the cabinet below the sink into the toilet, poison himself, or otherwise cause disaster.

Today while I was rinsing off my face, he got really quiet.  I thought, "Uh oh," and opened my still-soapy eyes and the sliding door to look for him.

He wasn't in the bathroom.

"Oh great," I thought.  He'll probably be dangling out the upstairs window by the time I get out of here.

Then I felt a little SMACK on my behind.

Startled, I turned around, and found my son, fully clothed, standing in the back of the bathtub.

He was thrilled.  I did my best not to drench him while I rinsed out my hair and turned off the water.  I got dry and got out.  He refused so I let him splash around in what was left of the water while I put my face on and brushed my teeth and hair.  "Water!  WATER!" he yelled.  Add that to the list.  Thankfully he didn't turn the (hot) water on himself.

I finally got him out and left the bathroom, closing the door carefully behind me and thinking about how I might install a hook and eye that would prevent him from getting in there, but not interfere with the girls' ability to get into the bathroom.

I quickly got dressed and chose clothes for him.  "JACK!  Come get dressed," I called into the toy room.  "NO!"  Well, ok then.  Natural consequences.  His soggy little butt can just stay there and shiver while I finish posting this.

Great Moments In Parenting

The girls were just talking to Uncle Chuck on the phone, and I noticed that Jack and Penny were conspicuously absent from the vicinity.  I got suspicious, and walked toward the bathroom.

The first thing I noticed was that Penny was standing in the bathroom staring at the bathtub.  The second thing I noticed was that both the shower doors were shut.

I opened the shower doors to find Jack, sitting alone in the bathtub in the dark, holding the toy that we had just filled up with Beggin' Strips.  The baby was hiding out in the bathtub eating dog treats.  DOG TREATS.

We win at parenting!

The Voice

I've consulted one of our neighbors, who happens to be a speech therapist, about Jack's lack of talking.  His little girlfriends are speaking in full and complete understandable sentences...  Evana (2 weeks younger than Jack) says, "Amy loves you too!" and Meghan (4 months older than Jack) says things like, "Thank you for having us over, Mrs. Austin," (they're both so stinkin' cute I can't stand it!).  But Jack has been stuck on "na na" and "mama" and "dada" for what feels like forever.

I had hoped that when the girls were in school all day he would start speaking more out of necessity.  The process has still been a lot slower than I had hoped, but we're finally starting to see progress.

Our neighbor suggested that I talk to him all the time, so I've been making more of an effort to talk to him constantly the way I did with MG when she was a baby.  This morning we were getting ready to go, and I said, "Jack, where's your cup?"

"I don't know," he replied.

I looked at him, startled, and he had his hands his hands up, palms toward the ceiling, in that universal "Beats me" gesture.  I could have died laughing.  It was so cute.  I'll try to get it on video tomorrow.

This brings the Lexicon of Jack up to the following words and phrases:

Mama

Dada

Papa

Dog

Kitty

Tweet/Tree (these sound the same)

Moo

Woof

Oink (this one's actually a snort)

Up

Off

Go

No

That (which is more like "dat")

Cheese

Apple

Ice (which sounds like "ein")

Num

Nana

Choo choo

Vroom Vroom

Bad dog.

I don't know.

Today he actually said, "Choo choo.  Off," when he wanted me to uncouple his trains.  So he's starting to put phrases together into simple sentences.  I think the problem is that the words and phrases above really manage to convey everything he cares about right now.  He just isn't motivated to say much more.  I mean, all of the vowel sounds are represented up there...  Most of the consonants.  There's no reason why he can't put them together...  He just doesn't need to yet, I guess.

In other news, I broke the washing machine this afternoon.  It made a bad grinding noise, so I fast forwarded it to the end of a different cycle and walked away (mistake).  I walked past the laundry room on the hallway carpet and went SQUISH.  At first I thought the dog had an accident, and I was getting ready to beat her, when I noticed that the liquid was an inch deep and 10 feet across - much too big of a puddle for even the heartiest bladder.  I unplugged everything, covered the floor with every towel we have, and called BJ for help.

He came home and took it apart.  At first I thought that the seal had gone bad between the tub and the top, but when he took it apart we realized that there's no seal there.  We did some other stuff to try to figure out what was going on, and long story short the pump has gone bad.

Guess who got a new washer and dryer for Christmas?  Thanks again, Santa!

I think I'm going to put the old dryer, which still works even though it's really inefficient, on Craigslist for $100, or $75 if the same person takes the dryer too!

Excuses to Avoid Housework

A few weeks ago, Jack figured out how to open the dishwasher door.  Using the button lock doesn't stop his opening it from interrupting the cycle (which makes sense - you wouldn't want the dishwasher to keep running if someone opened the door under any circumstances).  We've had to get pretty creative to keep him out of it.  What works the best is to just run the dishwasher when he's in bed.

He just opened the dryer and stopped that cycle, too.  That's new.  But I don't think I can do laundry only when he's asleep.  It will never get done.

He has figured out how to open all of my "child proof" cabinet locks.  Did I tell you that he came out of the kitchen the other day while I was on the phone in the living room with the sprayer end of the Clorox Clean Up bottle in his mouth?  I didn't?  That's probably because I don't want to go to jail for child neglect and endangerment.

All your cabinets are belong to me!

There's a reason why 18 month old children are maximally cute.  It's because they are also extremely aggravating, and possibly suicidal.

Childproofing

My darling son has figured out how to open the "childproof" cabinet locks that we installed back when Mary Grace was a baby.  

Clearly he is gifted.

This morning I was on the phone in the living room, and he came in the room with a bottle of carpet cleaner in one hand, and a bottle of Clorox Clean Up in his mouth.

In.  His.  Mouth.

I've stuck wooden spoons in the handles, and that thwarted him for a little while, but he figured out how to remove those last night.  For now, this is my elegant solution:

When it's 99 degrees outside and you sit on your phone to keep your baby from throwing it,
sometimes you make steam between the case and the lens.

Zip ties.  We'll just have to cut them when we need to get into the cabinet.

I sure know how to fancy up the joint, don't I?  

It's a good thing kids are so stinkin' cute at this age (18 months), because you have to watch them like a hawk to keep them alive.  Other favorite activities include:

• Standing on the dining room table (maybe I could zip tie the chairs together?) 
• Throwing things behind the couch (at one point, before I discovered this, four of the five phones we have in the house were behind the couch)
• Jumping on the dog (maybe I could zip tie her mouth shut?)
• Trying to open the front door (locking the screen works.  For now)
• Bashing people over the head with toys (he has gotten both sisters in the past hour)
• Playing with the water in the toilet (keeping the bathroom door shut keeps him out of it, for now)  
• Putting tiny things in his mouth (I swear, if the girls' toys get any smaller we're going to need a microscope to play with them.  The people who invented Polly Pockets, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. obviously invented them for their youngest kids)
• Climbing up the couch to look out the front window, which would be fine except that sometimes he goes too far and falls behind the couch.  On his head.  And of course, of course, I can't reach him back there, so I have to coax his screaming head out.  Maybe we need to rearrange the furniture or put a trampoline behind there or something.

Rookie Mistake

I feel like the worst mother ever tonight.

Today was busy.  I have a lot going on, and a lot on my mind.  Jack, weirdly, took his nap from 11:30 until 1:15 rather than his usual after lunch 1ish to 3ish.  I was also babysitting a friend's kids this morning, and working with another friend on some logistical stuff for this weekend, and getting some stuff planned for the afternoon when the girls were at daycamp, and and and...

I fed the girls lunch at about 12:35.  I put away a plate for Jack.  Erin took the girls to camp for me when she picked up her kids, so Dad and I waited around for Jack to wake up before we left for an afternoon of errands.


We went to the kitchen store, to a friend's house for a quick errand, past the house that just came on the market that I am dying to see (tomorrow), around another neighborhood that I wanted to point out to my dad because I just found it and it's cool, through the car wash, through the drive-in root beer place, to the liquor store, the grocery store, and the discount store where I got wrapping paper, before I dropped Dad off, swung by to pick up the girls, and finally got him home at 4:15 for snack.  Which he inhaled.  Of course.

And that sweet boy didn't make a peep the entire time.  The root beer might have helped (he was very brave in the car wash), but I think I feel worst that I fed my kid root beer for lunch than I feel about missing lunch altogether!

I almost woke him up to feed him when I found his lunch, before I realized that we ate dinner and he had lots of fruit and he's fine, he's fine, kids miss meals all the time.  Plenty of kids in this world don't have enough to eat, and he gets three meals and two snacks almost every day.  He's fine, he's fine.

But the guilt, the guilt.

It will be a lot easier when he can say, "Hey, Ma, how about some lunch?"

Jack - 18 Months

At Mary Grace's school last month, being a big boy

Dear Jack,

I got distracted with father's day and I totally forgot to post your 18 months update.  Whoops, sorry!

You're growing and changing so fast, that I want to capture a bit of who you are before you get any bigger.  Your language is just starting to emerge.  You say "Mama," and "Dada," and "Papa."  "RaRa" still means "sister" although I would swear I heard you say "Mary Grace," clear as a bell, the other day.  Your babbling is starting to sound a lot like sentences.  The word "Go!" is one of your favorites, and sometimes it sounds like you're saying, "When are we going to go?" which is a mouthful for someone so little.

You're such a little snuggle bug.  You like to have your back and head rubbed, just like your dad.  You like to give kisses and hugs.  Sometimes when Dad and I sit on the floor, you'll come up behind one of us and hug us.  It's very sweet.

You weaned last month - the earliest of all three of you.  It was bittersweet for me.  It's exciting that you're growing up, getting bigger and less dependent on me, but it's hard that you're not a baby anymore.  You're so big!

You absolutely LOVE playing outside.  And when your sisters go out but I can't take you out with them, you get really, really mad!

Speaking of outside....

Your favorite toy for playing is:  Your big truck - you just love to motor up and down the street pushing that thing! 

Your favorite toy for snuggling is: your "nah nahs" - cars

Your favorite food is: grapes and blueberries

Your favorite book is: Good Dog Carl or Five Little Sleepyheads

Your favorite activity is: playing with cars

Your favorite place to go is: outside!!!!!

Your best friend is: your "Rah Rahs" (sisters)

Something new that you're doing: babbling in what sounds like sentences

Something you've mastered: walking, running

Something people say about you: "He's so talkative!"

Something that you're saying is: We suspect that you might be fluent in a language that we just don't speak.

Something Dad and I are proud of you for: you play so well with other kids, especially your sisters, and we rarely have any problems with sharing toys or other issues that are common with toddlers (so far!)

Something surprising about you: you LOVE Penny so much.  She puts up with a lot of eye poking, tail pulling, and back riding (or trying to, anyway) from you.

Love you so much, Jack Rabbit!

Mommy

New shoes

He's even faster in these!

Soooo Big!

Normal's Just a Town in Illinois

Bloodwork = normal.

He FINALLY did the reflux cough in front of the doctor, and the doctor was unimpressed.  "He could just be clearing his throat.  My youngest does something like that, too."

There were no indications that he has any kind of food allergy, either, so there's no point in further testing down that direction.  He said it wouldn't hurt him if we wanted to try him on an elimination diet, but we're going to try to stick with one thing at a time.

We're going to try Prevacid, once he gets over this cold.  If it helps, then he's probably got reflux or gastritis or something acid going on, and the Prevacid should work better than the Zantac did.  If it doesn't work, we'll just ... I don't know.

Maybe I've got Munchhausen's by proxy or something.  I feel like I've flogged the baby for nothing.  I feel like a crazy person.  How can something sound so painful to me, and not sound painful to the doctor?  How can my perception of his sleep situation be so different from BJ's?

I am so grateful that he's healthy and that his bloodwork was normal and that he's growing.  Don't get me wrong - I've never wanted him to be sick.  But I've wanted answers.  WHY does he cough like that?  We may just not know until he's old enough to tell us.  Does it hurt?  We may not know that, either.  It sounds like it hurts, but what do I know?  If there is something wrong, it's well hidden.

I need to make supper.

Circles

Dear Jack,

Your namesake, John Paul, loved music, and he loved to dance.  Swing dancing was his thing.  And whenever the band U2 came on the radio, he would crank it up and sing like no one was listening.

Last night we went out for dinner, and when a U2 song came on you danced in your high chair.

I hope you always remember that you learned to dance before you could walk.

Love,
Mommy

Reflux Redux

Barium.  This would constipate you, too.  (Wikimedia Commons)

Well I've kept this resolution for three days, so that's a new record!  Most of my resolutions have lasted about 20 minutes.  Go me!

I need to call the doctor's office and schedule a barium esophagram for Jack.  He's too old to still have reflux, and the Zantac is no longer therapeutic (he has outgrown the maximum dose) so the doctor wants to verify that it's reflux (it's so obviously reflux) and see if he needs surgery (!!!!!).  So step one is this esophagram, where they'll probably have to put a tube into his stomach to get him to drink the barium, then they'll x-ray him to see how high it goes up his esophagus, then he'll be constipated for several days as it works its way out of his system!  Fun!!  They originally scheduled it for December 22, but when I found out that he'd feel poorly for a couple of days afterwards, I postponed it.  No sense in making him sick over Christmas.

But Christmas, and my excuses, are over now.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?  I'm thinking that maybe we should skip the barium thing and go straight to a scope to visualize the damage, especially since I'm so absolutely positive that he (still) has reflux.  Thoughts?

Happy 1st Birthday Jack

Dear Jack,


How is it possible that you're a year old already?  It's so hard to believe that a whole year has gone by.  But then I look at pictures of you when you were new, all covered with bruises and teeny tiny, and I look at pictures of you now, and I think, "How did he grow so much in one short year?"

December 18, 2010

December 15, 2011

You are such a sweet little boy, and everyone loves you.  We have a record number of people coming to your birthday party tomorrow.  I'm honestly not sure where we're going to put everyone.  It's going to be so much fun!

You love to smile and wave at people when we go out.  You flirt - it's the cutest thing - you go all eyelashes and dimples and grin and look down with this, "Aw, shucks," expression that melts hearts.  You don't "make strange" as one little old lady put it when I let her hold you.  You go to everyone, whether you know them or not, with a big smile and an open heart.  I think that says a lot about your personality, and the way you're going to be as you grow up.

Birthday Boy!

We gave you your presents just a little while ago.  A dump truck with blocks that's bigger than you are, a shape sorting bucket, and a Glow Worm.  We went easy, because Christmas is right around the corner, and because you're just as happy playing bowls on the kitchen floor as you are with toys.  We're (finally) decorating your room for Christmas, too.  We decided to go with an airplane theme.  I'm pretty sure you're going to love it.  You love to travel (lots of new people to flirt with in airports!).  We've gone on three plane trips this year (two to Florida and one to Louisiana) and you were awesome on all the flights.  

Rah Rahs!

You love your sisters so much.  No one can make you laugh they way they do.  When we went on trips without them (twice), you really missed them.  Whenever you heard kids, you'd smile and try to find them.  I could tell you were looking for your "Rah rahs."


It seems like no matter how bad you feel, you always have a smile to share.  We got your one-year shots yesterday, and you slept for a record number of hours last night (you went to bed at 8 pm, then woke up at 9 something, and then slept until 6 am!), and even though you must have felt poorly, to do that, you were still cheerful yesterday for the whole day.  You're a tough little guy!  When your reflux is bothering you or you get plowed over by a sister or the puppy, you might fuss about it for a minute but you go right back to your usual sunny self really quickly.


Your favorite toy for playing is:  Mommy's rainbow mixing bowls - you push them around the kitchen and make a lot of wonderful noise

Your favorite toy for snuggling is: the puppy crib toy who sings and whose nose lights up 

Your favorite food is: banana

Your favorite book is: SMILE!  A book we got for keeping your sister's well-baby appointments.  It's just a bunch of baby faces smiling, but you smile right back at them.

Your favorite activity is: crawling

Your favorite place to go is: anywhere with lots of people

Your best friend is: your "Rah Rahs" (sisters)

Something new that you're doing: standing up on your own

Something you've mastered: flirting

Something people say about you: "Look at that curly hair!"

Something that you're saying is: shaking your head "no no no," the sign for "more," waving hello and goodbye, "Mama," "Dada," "Rah rah."

Something Dad and I are proud of you for: you are working really hard at being a better sleeper

Something surprising about you: you LOVE music, especially your magic song, "Magic," by Ben Folds


We love you so much, Jack!  It's hard to believe that my baby, my last baby, is already a whole year old.  Please don't grow up too fast.  But you can keep sleeping all night, if you want to, that was pretty nice.


Love,
Mommy

Winning!

I just posted this picture on Easy Canvas Prints's Facebook page to enter a contest.  If you deem it worthy, click over and hit "like" for me, would you?  (I think you have to "like" their page before you can "like" my picture.)

Do you ever want to share something awful - something that's sad news, but important - but you just can't bring yourself to click "like" on it? 

Email

"Jack just sent his first email to the Air Force."

Rapid Growth

The weirdest thing happened today.

Our dear friends welcomed their fourth child, a baby girl, into their family on Saturday.  Jack and I went over to visit when they got home from the hospital.  As I was walking in, Jack was my little baby.  The moment I saw Laney, though, Jack became huge.  All of a sudden I could see more boy in him than baby.  It's a good thing I was distracted by the gorgeous new baby girl, or I might have cried.

There's nothing quite like holding a brand new baby, is there?  Will I ever be able to without wanting another one of my own?