Jack is 3 1/2 years old!

There he is.  That cute 3 1/2 year old above can send me over the edge in 2 seconds flat but can make me feel fantastic with one "I love you mommy".  The post is poorly timed only because he is in the middle of his "three-nager" stage.  In my child development and mommy and me classes I remember learning about these phases of dissonance and harmony that go in a cycle (about once a year).  And how he is acting now is exactly how he was acting last summer.  Which is to say, a bit hormonal and insane.  These past couple weeks he's had tantrums and emotional meltdowns complete with throwing and yelling.  Of course, Sam's presence isn't helping.  Poor kid's existence seems to set Jack off lately.  One minute he'll be hugging his baby brother and saying he loves him and the next he's pushing him down and throwing things at him.  Sigh.  No amount of talking, discipline, consequences, or whatever seem to permanently change his behavior.  But I know it's a phase and hopefully it'll get better soon.  

Of course, even when he's a maniac at home, he never dreams of misbehaving at preschool.  At pickup I hear the teacher tell the other moms about incidents at school with their kids and all I ever hear is "Jack had a great day!"  So he saves all his bad behavior for mom.  I guess that's something?  

But on to the good stuff.  Because he can be really awesome when he wants to be.  He has a hell of a sense of humor.  I see some sarcastic dry wit in his future.  And he is still my cuddly little boy.  Someday that's going to change but for right now it's pretty adorable.  Sam may be smiley but he hates cuddling.  So getting big ol' bear hugs from Jack and hearing him say when he's sick "I just want you to take care of me mommy" is pretty darn great.  

He currently is a fish in the water and can't get enough of it.  He loves swimming in our pool and is so excited about his new skill that he likes to push himself more and more with his jumps and diving for rings.  But his first love is, of course, FOUNTAINS.  Man oh man.  At the time of writing this I believe we have 168 fountains on our list.  You see, Jack likes to count every single fountain that we see around town and assign them a number (and take a picture with them).  You'll think I'm lying when I say this but he truly has all 168 memorized.  It's crazy.  That's all he talks about morning, noon, and night.  We look at pictures of them on my iPad, we make fountains out of play-doh, we watch fountain videos on YouTube, and he splashes around like a fountain in the shower and the pool.  He knows the names of the streets that the fountains are on and knows which way to go when we drive.  Just crazy.  I would have thought his obsession would be over by now but apparently not.  But hey, I don't mind it.  It's probably better than "Frozen" or "Cars" or whatever most normal kids are obsessed with.

So happy 3 1/2 years my crazy son #1! You drive me insane but I can't help but love you at the end of the day!