Jack's swim lessons

Jack started an intensive 9 day swim class with a "swim whisperer" type of coach.  Day One consisted of him crying the whole time and wanting to leave.  (along with the other three kids in the class).  Day Two wasn't much better but on Day Three there was a slight turn around.  It was almost like he realized how cool it was that he was swimming a little.  And then this is video from Day 5.  Totally happy and totally proud that he has accomplished so much in five days.  I really can't believe it.  On the first day he wouldn't put his face in and couldn't swim a lick.  Now look at him!! Can't wait to see what he looks like on Day 9.

Jack + Sam

One of the coolest things about having Sam is watching him watching Jack.  It's amazing.  He is enthralled by his older brother.  If Jack is in the room, Sam's eyes are usually trained on him and watching his every move.  It's pretty cute.  And of course I hope they grow up to be great pals.  Sometimes I'm a little wary of Sam observing Jack and learning how to jump off couches and throw things but I suppose he would learn that on his own.

The other day they were being pretty cute and I caught it on tape.  (Tape?  Anyways...)  Before you watch the video, let me set the scene.  Jack had climbed into Sam's bassinet which is one of his favorite spots.  I was sitting in the rocking chair next to the bassinet with Sam on my lap and Sam was, of course, staring at Jack intently as he told a story.

The story won't make sense I'm sure but he's talking about all these characters from a comic book/graphic novel that John reads to him all the time.  Enjoy!

2 1/2 Years Old!

Look at that big boy!  Can't believe he's 2 1/2 years old.  Lately John and I are just constantly amazed at how old he looks and sounds.  His sentences are getting more complex and he's using the correct form of "I" and "you", etc.  

His strong suit continues to be letters and numbers.  He counts constantly up to 200 and plays with his number puzzles all day long.  His ability to read sight words is growing every day.  I would guess he's up to 50 plus words.  

Of course, the thing we need to work on most is his social skills.  He still doesn't love saying hello to people that come over or even playing with his friends.  He'd rather escape the chaos and read a book in his room.  But, at the same time, he is a joy around me and John and even a group of one or two other people that he feels comfortable with.  I mean, look at that face.

And here are a few more pics with a bonus video!

Jack hides his Stanley

John really thought this video was cute so I have to share it.

 

Jack reads his favorite book

The past few weeks I've noticed that Jack prefers grabbing some books from me and "reading" them to me himself.  Obviously he has just memorized them but it is so damn adorable.  He has this series of Mo Willems books that he absolutely adores and I finally caught him on video on day reading "I Broke My Trunk".

I assume this very long 2 1/2 minute video is solely entertaining to grandparents but I'll let you make the call.  :)

 

Bathtime Giggles

Just a little video of our latest bath. Someone got a case of the giggles. And decided that bath water tastes amazing.

For Zia Julie in Italy

We made this video for Aunt Julie ("Zia" Julie in Italian) since we miss her.  She's off having fun in Italy and, meanwhile, Jack is practicing his Italian numbers.  (I have an easier time helping him with Spanish...my Italian is pretty non-existent.)

"Are you in the jungle?!"

 

Lately Jack has been playing non-stop in our backyard. The weather has been gorgeous and, as usual, there's no where he'd rather be than outside. It's pretty cute because he loves sneaking back behind all of our trees and bushes and hiding behind everything. He loves to ask "Are you in the jungle?" (We are still working on pronouns). It's pretty adorable. I'm happy we have this space for his to run around.

He has also discovered the tiny side alley next to our house.  I'm not so excited about that, but, like I said, his joy and sheer delight makes it all worth it.

   

Jack's been really into the little lawnmower he got for his birthday too. He runs up and down the grass with it. In fact, one of his favorite things to do is make the lawnmower go up and down stairs and crash into things. Today he decided to try to sneak it into the house. But I just wasn't having it. :-)

 

A Medley of Songs

Here is Jack the other night at bedtime.  A little wired from his birthday cupcakes and ready to sing.  It's a medley of his music class songs followed by a muddled rendition of "happy birthday".

Counting Sheep

Jack has gotten quite good at bedtime...in that he goes down without protest after his bath and bottle.  Sometimes he falls right asleep and sometimes he just hangs out until he gets tired.  Last night he decided to count sheep I guess.  First he counted to 50 and then he decided to start over....in Spanish.  Pretty awesome.  We've been practicing but I didn't know he could count all the way to 23 or so.  Good job Jack!

Counting to 50

Here are a few videos that John took.  In the first, Jack shows you what he does most of the day...counts numbers.  It's fun times.

In the second video, Jack enjoys one of the few videos we let him watch on YouTube.  He sounds almost as good as India Arie.

54 be next!

Jack is obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with the digital clock in his room. He'll be napping in my arms in his room and he'll wake up, sit up, silently slide down onto the floor and sprint to the clock and start telling me the time. He loves to change the time and scrolls through all the numbers again and again. I'll hear him from another room, shouting out numbers as he goes through them.

 I tried to get a little video of it for all of you. (Note the second alarm clock next to the one he's playing with. He broke the first one because he was playing so rough with it. Sadly, at the time of posting, he's now broken the second one as well. Time for a new one!)

 

"Dog Pile!"

Over Thanksgiving, Jack loved spending time with his Aunt Leslie and Pepe. Jack likes to rough house and one day when they were wrestling on the floor, Leslie taught him the meaning of "dog pile". Jack thought it was hysterical and kept saying it all day. And all week. He's so darn cute.

(Sorry my camera recorded it the wrong way...)

 

Spelling Bee Champion?

 

So, before I present the video below, in all it's glory, I just have to say how inherently ridiculous baby blogs are. (or is this now a kid blog? whatever.) I mean, even if you try to avoid bragging about your kid, you end up doing it anyways. That's because you tend to post cute pictures of your kid as opposed to ugly ones. And you're also blinded and constantly amazed at their development because it's the first time you've ever seen something go from zero to 100. I mean, seriously, to watch something go from a blob who doesn't know it has hands to a little kid who can count to 20 is amazing.

 Anyways, this is all because I have this video below of Jack spelling some words which I think is awesome. He is so good at letters and spelling and it just seems to come easy to him. Which, as I'm typing it sounds like such a jerky thing to say. But it's just his strength. In the interest of fairness and to temper the bragging, Jack's got plenty of weaknesses. Mainly anything social. He is so quiet around strangers and in big groups. And when we go to new places he usually spends the first hour clinging to mommy. Ahh, he's just like his mom in so many ways.

 Okay, enough talk. Here's my super brilliant adorable genius future spelling champ:

 

Sickness Interruption

Sorry for the utter lack of posting. We were busy and then Jack got sick (still is) and then he made his parents sick. I haven't been this sick since before Jack's pregnancy. Though now I can kind of understand why he's so cranky and yucky. So am I! Here we are laying on the couch because that's all I can muster. Enjoy until we are healthy enough to resume normal posting!

 

A Tsunami of Development

Well, I've certainly been neglecting this blog.  I have about 2000 (no exaggeration) photos to go through from our travels back east and it's just too daunting to sit down and do at 9pm.  So I thought I'd just do a little post about what Jack's up to.

I swear, in the past 6 weeks he's aged light years in terms of development.  He hadn't really been saying much before that but now he says a lot!  Since I can't seem to write coherently right now, I'll just make a list of all the cool things he's doing:

1.  Saying about 15 of 26 letters of the alphabet.  And he can recognize all of them and pick them out.  Loves his fridge magnets!  And loves to yell out "O!" and "S!" and "D!" etc when he sees letters on signs, posters, and papers.

2.  Can say about four numbers (#8 is his favorite) and loves counting everything.

3.  Pretty much insists on feeding himself with a spoon rather than taking mommy's help

4.  Says new words every day much to his mother's shock.  We'll be reading a book and suddenly he'll yell out "tree!" or "cat!" or something he's never said before.  And I feel like he's understanding the books more.



5.  Loves the color blue (it's the one he can say) and only wants to wear blue shirts in the morning.

6.  Appropriately says "hi" and "bye" when people come and go.

7.  Since he rests his head on daddy's shoulder and daddy pats his back, he has started to do the same to daddy...pats his back to reassure him it's okay.  Pretty cute.  Combine that with his now perfect pronunciation of "dah-DEE" and it's just too much.

That's all I can think of now but I know there's a billion more things.  Oh well.

And, as a bonus, just because I think it's cute, he makes the funniest sound for his "where?" when we're reading a book. It's kind of fake because he usually knows where the animal or picture is, but he makes the noise anyways. So cute.

 

Videos for the grandmas

Honestly, who is interested in these videos?  I know Grandma and Grammy are and I definitely like catering to my most loyal readers so....  Here are a couple of very short videos of Jack saying a letter.  He can say probably about 1/3 of the letters but of course I never ever have my camera out when I'm doing it with him.  So you're stuck with the letter K basically.  And the word "blue".  Enjoy.

Week in Review - 6/9/12

Busy week for the little guy!  This past weekend his grandparents were still in town so lots of fun was had.  There was a beach trip to Malibu.

 

And there was a dinner outing to Islands which is one of the few restaurants nearby that is Jack-appropriate. (i.e. I am not embarrassed that he's throwing every single food and utensil on the ground.)

 

In other news, Jack started doing a bunch of new things this week! As I've mentioned, he's a late bloomer. We know he understands what we're saying and is capable of doing things, he just doesn't feel like it. And we've tried and tried to have him mimic us and do things, but he could not care less. Apparently he is going to do things when he damn well feels like it. For instance, we've been trying to get him to clap for literally 6 months. Everyone else can do it but he has refused. Then all of a sudden one day this week, clapping. And the little bugger knew he had done something special because every time he did it he looked at me and was like "where's my damn applause?"

 

 We've also been playing this game with him for about six months where we say "how big is Jack?" and then put our arms up in the air and say "soooo big!" Grammy and Pop-pop have worked hard every visit to try to get him to raise his arms when we say "so big". They left town again with zero success and then the next day?

   

Sooo big!! And he did it again and again. Damn that kid. His other favorite things this week include sitting on everything (plants, bushes, patio steps, flower beds, etc.), eating mac n' cheese, and RUNNING. Everywhere. No more walking. And now, more pics from the week!

 

running through the sprinklers again

play time with Grammy

beach with daddy

inside the farmer's market petting zoo.  he was more interested in the 

miniature kid chairs than the baby pigs

cooling down in the pool

flashing gang signs on the swing

peek-a-boo with his new slide

sleeping on our morning walk...

because it's hard to make it through the morning when you get up at 5:30

A Video Break

Jack is testing his vocal chords and making different sounds every day.  The other day he was running through our sprinkler and started squealing and it was just too cute.  I particularly enjoy the part where he falls in the bushes and we all just laugh at him and offer no help.  Yay for good parenting!

Sea World Trip

Last week we went to Sea World in San Diego with Grandma and Aunt Julie.  He had been before but this time he was into different things.  In the pic above he's watching me pet the manatee rays.  Last visit he was really into the tide pools and touching the star fish.  This time?  Not so much.

He liked the aquariums and looking at all the pretty fish.

And he also definitely liked spending time with his Grandma and Aunt Julie.

But, by far, his favorite part of Sea World (and really the reason I wanted to go) was the Sesame Street toddler land.  Man, oh man.  He was a super fan.  First he played on the sunken bouncy floor with all the oversized blocks.

 

 He was so cute watching all the other kids and safeguarding his green block. But I was so proud of him. When he saw the other kids stacking up the blocks in the corner, he took his and marched across the whole floor and put his block on top of the stack. Way to go Jack! But of course the highlight was the water area. Oh my son. He loves to get wet. He ran through the flying arching water fountains with joy.

   

 And he stood and played with the water as it shot out of the ground.

 

 

 In the end he was soaking wet but a very very happy boy.

   

 Here are a few more pics and a little video.