Growth Chart Moments

My little Jack is growing up.  I haven’t done one of these posts in a long time.  Way too long.  Jack is just growing way too fast, and saying and doing things new every day that I can’t keep up! 

At 25 months, he has the vocabulary of a 5 year old.  Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’ve met 3 year olds who don’t speak as clearly and with as many words as Jack does.  He really is ahead of his age on language.  When his doctor asked if he's saying small sentences now that he’s 2, I said, “He’s talking in paragraphs!”

Here are a few things that have come out of my adorable, yet very ornery son lately.

Actually- He uses this correctly!  “Actually, this is blue, not green." I think I say this a lot, but I never thought he’d pick up on it and use it correctly like he does.

Not quite- He get’s a cute little thinker’s face going when he’s trying to get something to line up or to complete a task.  His head is cocked to one side, his eyebrows are frowning, and he says “Not quite…..There!  I did it!!”

Nice to see you today, Heather – When Heather, who had come over to work on a project the other day, was getting ready to leave, he said (with no prompting whatsoever), “Nice to see you today, Heather!”  Really!  It floored us.  Heather especially.  She also commented that day about how well he said her name.  Most kids say “Header” but Jack actually gets the ‘th’ blend in there.

They’re very similar- Daddy was working with him one night a while ago on using the word similar.  He just happened to have two red trucks out and Rick pointed out how they were very similar, but not exactly alike.  They pointed out what was similar and what was different.  Now, Jack will take two of his toys, look at them, and say ‘they’re verwee simiwar.’  Also with the same thinker’s face he has when he says “not quite.”

Counts objects up to 3- One day a while go, he dropped 3 paper bowls on the floor.  I just left them there (like I do with most things dropped on my floor), and just a few minutes later he counted them correctly.  That was awesome!

counts to 10, kind of- Every once in a while, while we’re driving in the van, he’ll count.  He usually says “one, two, sthree, five, four, five, FOUR!!!”  But every once in a while, when you can get him to say ‘six”, he will continue all the way to ten.  The last time he counted to thirteen, but he skipped twelve.

Mom and Dad –This one makes me sad.  He went straight from calling me Mama, to MOM.  Right around the same time he switched to mom, he switched to Dad.  No Daddy anymore.  I’m not sure where he picked this up, since we refer to each other as Mommy and Daddy.  The funniest though, is when he calls me Mother.  “Can you pick me up, Muzzer?”   That one came out of the blue too.

Oh my goshess! – This last one make me laugh every time.  I often say “Oh my gosh!” and “oh my goodness!”   He has taken the two and mixed them up to form “Oh my GOSHESS!” 

Oh, and he also likes to eat lemons.  Just like his mommy mom Mother.

Growth Chart Moments

It’s time for me to stop and look at how my son is growing and developing now-a-days.  I love these posts.  I’m always amazed at how much he’s learning and how quickly he’s growing. Here are a few things we’ve noticed in the last couple of months.

He is understanding simple commands.  When we say “Jack, pick that up” or “Jack, can you find the so-and-so?” he does the command or finds the object without any hesitation.  Okay, so he doesn’t always follow the command, but he knows what we’re asking him to do.  What amazes us is that it’s not just the repetitive things he’s able to follow – things we do all the time.  It’s the things we come up with that he either hasn’t done or hasn’t heard before that make us aware of how smart he is.  I love when you say “let’s go change your diaper,” and he goes straight to the stairs.  

I mentioned that he’s learning sign language now.  What I didn’t realize is that he’s using these new signs in ways we didn’t expect.  He is signing “all done” when he wants us to pick him up or get him down from somewhere.  After wondering about it for a while, we figured out that we always take him down from the high chair when he signs ‘all done’, so it makes sense that he uses that sign when he wants us to get him up higher (like onto the back of the couch so he can look out the windows), or when he wants to get down from somewhere (like from the back of the couch when he’s done looking out the window). 

He’s a good eater.  He eats *almost* everything we put on his tray.  The only things he won’t eat are eggs and cottage cheese. Other than that, he’ll eat most everything else we offer him.  And he can eat normal bite sizes for the mot part too.  We don’t have to make sure everything is super tiny when he eats.  He likes big mouthfuls, and he does a good job of chewing most things.  Though, he does swallow things whole more often than we first assumed.   His diapers prove that.  Oh, and he LOVES vegetables.  He loves all vegetables, but his favorite is broccoli.  Isn’t that weird??  We love it, but we’re surprised by it.

He has the cutest babble recently.  He says “bee-da bee-da bee-da bee-da.”  That doesn’t come through as cute as it sounds.  Say it really fast, hardly moving your mouth, just your lips, and you have a hint of how cute it is.  It makes us laugh each time. 

His one year molars are coming in now.  He has 2 molars that have finally cut through.  It took them around a month, but it wasn’t too traumatic for us.  He didn’t loose a ton of sleep, but he did chew on everything that he could get his hands on.  I’m glad to see them coming through.  Now he’ll have a bit of relief before the bottom two come through.

Another cute thing he does is that when he finds something he wants to play with (usually my cell phone, keys or sunglasses) he says, “Oooohhhh!”  His inflections with his oooohs and awwwws, are just so adorable.

The biggest news is something that just happened last night.  He slept through the night!!!  This is the first. time. EVER!  I hope this lasts for a while, but my hopes aren’t too high yet.  His night was different last night.  Because of our Valentine Date, Aunt Beth got to put him to bed last night.  That may have been what made the difference.  I’m pretty sure she won’t want to drive down to my place every night to put my son to sleep, so this may have been a one-night occurrence for him.

Our little guy is growing up so fast.  We love seeing him change and develop as he grows, and I love sharing what he’s doing.  He’s a special little guy, and we’re blessed to have him in our lives!

(His mom was a math teacher and his Daddy a CPA.  His love for that calculator comes honestly!)

Some Small Growth Chart Moments

Here are just a few things Jack is doing at 9 1/2 months.

• He has learned how to point.  He points at something specific that he may want or just think is neat, but he also points just to see his fingers point.  He'll study his fingers, marveling at the new contortions they're doing. 
• Jack is standing by himself now.  At first, he didn't realize he was doing it. He would switch a toy from one hand to the other, while standing, and not fall on his rump.  I even 'fought' him over putting on a jacket one time, the whole time he was standing without holding on to anything.  Now, I think he tests it out every so often to see how long he can keep his balance.  He does a great job!  My prediction was that he will be walking at the end of his 9th month.  We'll see!
•  His crawling is getting better and better because of his new sense of balance and strength.  He can crawl right over me (I call it climbing over Mt. Mommy) and through the bottom rungs of the kitchen chairs.  He also loves to crawl in and out of his big Fisher Price toy.  I think he'll be the boy who builds forts to climb into.  
• He loves to play the throwing game.  He will throw a toy off of his highchair endlessly!  When Daddy is holding him, he'll throw the toy (or spoon, vitamin bottle, or shoe...) down, and Daddy will lower him to the toy to grab it.  This game goes on until Daddy can no longer bend over.  Jack LOVES it.
• And as I mentioned in my last post, he's becoming quite the talker.  It's so adorable to hear him talk to his toys, mimic sounds from a toy, and talk to us as if asking us in depth questions.  Or maybe he's telling us something important at the time.  We just don't know . 

I am really looking forward to the holidays when we'll get to see all of our family.  My prediction will be that he'll be running around, trying to keep up with his many cousins come Christmastime.  We'll see!

"Ooidy!"

Jack has begun speaking a lot recently.  He's been a babbler for a long time, but something has changed recently.  His babbling has taken on a more conversation-like rhythm.  Sometimes it even sounds like I should be able to understand it.  I have to say that it is the cutest thing! 

Our conversations go like this:

Jack : Ooo ta da!!

Mommy: What's that, Jack?

Jack: Oooidy Oooidy da!

Mommy: Oh, I see.  Good idea, Jack!

Jack: Faa dadada ooi.

I could go on.  It cracks us up every time.  Even funnier may be his parents repeating everything back to him in his baby-language.  We're really enjoying this age!

My Ears are Ringing

Jack has realized a new talent. Screaming.

We went to a Pampered Chef party and visited a friend and her new baby today. During both outings, he 'talked' the whole time. He is exercising his voice, and boy is it fit! I was having trouble hearing conversations going on right beside me.

Tonight when we were nursing, he was VERY vocal. He didn't actualy nurse a lot. He 'talked' to me. The thing is, he can be heard down the hall, plain as day. Which means he's LOUD. My ears were ringing after I put him down to sleep.

Know what this means? Tomorrow morning will be his first day in the nursery in church. He can 'talk' all he want's in there!