Mama's Little Baby Loves Gluten-Free Bread

time flies

2009-10-18T10:42:00.003-04:00

It's been so long since I have visited this blog that I don't quite know where to begin.

Things have changed. Things are always changing -- more rapidly now, it seems.

Our garden, about which I posted last, flourished briefly with more zucchini and green beans than we knew what to do with and then ended in a tremendous disaster of rotten tomatoes, underdeveloped watermelon and non-existent pumpkins. I finally took the fence down last week and mowed around it. There is one very healthy basil plant still growing in the middle of the garden. It looks rather silly, honestly, but I can't bring myself to but it down.

Sixy and Mike, the two new cat-additions to the family, are mostly indifferent to us (except when they need food) but are otherwise happy and spent most of the summer outside. It is getting colder here now and they will have to start spending more time inside. I know that they will hate it at first, but they will have to get over it. Their presence here in the house is nice. Occasionally they will join us on the couch or come to visit us at night, but most of the time they keep to themselves. They make me think of Aggie and put into stark contrast their own attitudes with hers. She was lap cat and she loved us. She was a friend and she loved us in a way that these cats do not. I suppose it is possible that as these girls get older they will mellow out a bit and want to spend more time with us, but it is also possible that they will not. I miss Aggie. I try not to think about it too much. Putting her down was one of the hardest and most awful things I have ever had to do and thinking of her just makes me think of that. I know that I am ascribing human emotions to her in a way that is not entirely fair, but I cannot help it. Putting her down felt like a betrayal.

Growing the Family

2009-10-18T10:35:00.001-04:00

I think we might be getting a dog.
I hope we might be getting a dog.

starting this year's garden

2009-05-17T12:27:00.003-04:00

This year we are putting in a few crops that we haven't tried yet. We started with peas and onions a few weeks ago and now we have also added radishes, carrots, basil, zucchini and watermelon. We should be able to harvest the peas in about a month and after that we will put in a pumpkin or two as well as a few tomato plants. We also have two potato plants growing quite well. These weren't planned, but were rather added by Jill when she found them growing in the compost out back.

long overdue snow pics

2009-05-17T11:59:00.006-04:00

after running up and down the hallway

2009-03-08T19:22:00.000-04:00

Jill: Whew – I’m out of breath – and I need some water.
Jack [with hand on mouth. Fake breathing heavily]: Shew – I need some more breath.

Jack loves bowling

2009-01-08T15:24:00.004-05:00

He bowled a 73 and an 80. Very funny. He loves it. He says "it's kind of like exercising!"

playing the drums

2009-01-07T20:40:00.005-05:00

Jackson really wanted drums for Christmas. Of course, Santa brought them.

I know he is my kid and all, so naturally I think everything he does is brilliant, but this is a little different, I think . . .
I mean . . . he's FOUR . . .
and he has had these for two weeks . . .
it's pretty good. . .
right?

Disney Vacation

2008-10-09T20:33:00.013-04:00

The order of these pictures is currently under construction -- I'll get it together sooner or later . . .

day one at Epcot

Dinner at Cinderella's Castle . . .

Jackson meets the Fairy Godmother . . .

He got to meet Mater and Lightning!

Taking a tour of Minnie's house . . .

Going up into the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House . . .

Getting his facc painted for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween . . .

Perhaps the highlight of our trip -- getting to dance with Snow White at the Not-So-Scary Dance Party . . .

Our last day -- Storybook Princess Breakfast . . .

..

Goodbye, Amazing Grace

2008-09-28T15:01:00.003-04:00

We love you. And we will miss you terribly.
You can rest now, beautiful girl . . .
goodbye . . .

I love my kid

2008-09-18T19:22:00.003-04:00

I asked Jack if there is anybody he knows he wants to be like when he grows up.
He smiled shyly, looked at me, nodded his head, pointed and just said, "You, mommy, cause I like you."

the transformation

2008-08-13T09:12:00.004-04:00

We have been watching and waiting patiently for the butterflies to "hatch." Naturally it happened when we were away camping for the weekend. We suspected that it might happen that way, so we brought them over to Jill's folks' house to babysit for us. They witnessed all 5 of them coming out and gave them flowers for food. We picked them up on the way home and gave them some orange slices. We kept them for a few days and then Jackson let them go.

gone fishin'

2008-08-13T09:05:00.003-04:00

happy campers

2008-08-13T09:01:00.002-04:00

did somebody put up a sign?

2008-08-01T13:58:00.004-04:00

Seriously,WTF, I think someone put up a sign that says, "leave your unwanted kittens here!"

Another one showed up last night. She is super skinny, but also super sweet and was obviously someone's house cat. She is not afraid of people and wants desperately to be let in the house. We have fed her. I think I am going to put up a few signs with pictures, just in case she is just lost, and give it a few days before I take her in. I feel badly about it, but we cannot take another cat. It is clear from her size that she is not able to find food for herself, so even if they do have to put her down at a shelter, it is better than having her starve to death.

raising butterflies

2008-07-30T23:00:00.003-04:00

We bought a butterfly house a few weeks ago and sent off for the butterflies. They finally came and now we are waiting for the magic to happen!

opposites

2008-07-30T22:40:00.002-04:00

conversations between Jack and Jill in the car:

Jill -- Hey Jack, what's the opposite of go?
Jack (spelling it) -- "G" . . . "O". . .
Jill -- No, what's the opposite of go?
Jack --"O" . . . "G"

later, once they have established what Jill was going for:

Jill -- What's the opposite of up?
Jack -- Down!
Jill -- What's the opposite of fast?
Jack -- Slow!
Jill -- What's the opposite of quiet?
Jack (shouting) -- LOUD!
Jill -- What's the opposite of far?
Jack -- Not far!
Jill -- That's right, near!
. . .
Jill -- I don't know, Jack, I'm running out of things to think of opposites for. Can you think of anything?
Jack -- What's the opposite of tree?
Jill -- Um, I don't think there is an opposite of tree.
Jack -- . . . I'm thinking . . . tree . . . . no tree!

master manipulator

2008-07-30T22:34:00.002-04:00

It feels like Jack is becoming more and more clingy, and it is starting to drive me batshit. He won't leave the room to go get a car or toy, or whatever, without me coming with him. Yesterday he wanted a car from the living room and we were in the kitchen. I told him to go get it himself, but he wanted me to come with him. Now, I can actually see the entire living room from our kitchen. There is no wall separating the two. He could go into the living room and get his car and never be out of my sight, but he won't do it. I got angry and nearly screamed at him, "WHY??? Why do I have to go in there with you? You are a big boy, I don't need to go into the living room. Why don't you just go in there yourself?!?!?!?" and he looks up at me all serious with his big blue eyes and says, "Because I don't want to go in there by myself and I love you."

picking peas

2008-07-30T22:23:00.003-04:00

I hate peas. I kind of think that they shouldn't be considered a food. They should just be given to fish or something, but not people. They are gross. So I have no idea why I planted them except that they were cheap and next to the corn in the seed section at K-mart.
Luckily, Jackson loves peas. He eats them all the time. He chooses peas over apples or strawberries as his fruit or veggie for dinner. This blows my mind. Why would anyone choose to eat peas over strawberries? Seriously?
Anyway, the peas are ready to be picked and here are some pictures of the first harvest. They are pretty crappy because it was hard to hold down the fence (so that Jack could reach over) and take the picture at the same time, but you get the idea.

more cars

2008-07-30T16:58:00.002-04:00

Jill made Jackson a coloring book for him to put all of his car drawings in. We also made him a dream picture folder. In the mornings sometimes he draws pictures for us of the dreams that he had the night before. The dream drawings were his idea. I think it came from something he saw on TV -- Sprout or Noggin, I am sure. Most of his dreams seem to be about animals. He has had a few about cats, and one about a dog.

Jack discovers watercolors

2008-07-30T16:56:00.001-04:00

learning to draw

2008-07-30T16:54:00.001-04:00

We started a drawing book for Jackson. He likes to put things down in front of his paper and draw them. Of course, when I say "things" I mean cars. He's pretty good for the first half of it. Once he starts coloring it in he loses patience and often the final product looks nothing like the car, but the process is pretty interesting.

my little boy loves pink

2008-07-27T12:53:00.005-04:00

Jackson is three and a half years old -- and his favorite color is pink. He loves princesses, and he loves nail polish - pink nail polish, but he will settle for blue. He also loves cars and trucks and busses and playing in the yard and getting dirty, but those things don't cause a problem for people.
I have talked to him about the fact that in our culture, most people think that pink is a "girl" color and that only girls should wear it. He knows that boys don't usually wear nail polish (unless they are members of a band, or are in drag). I am pretty sure that he understands, but I know he doesn't care. He wants to wear it. He thinks it's pretty. He also wants to wear shirts with Hannah Montana, Cinderella, or Snow White on them. He has a pair of pink princess pajamas that he loves.
The problem with all of this, if you can call it that, is that I don't give a shit, and everyone else does. He is three and a half and he lives with two women who don't follow many gender rules. He sees us doing things that "men" do all the time. The gender boundaries in our house are a bit transparent, so it isn't surprising to me that he doesn't recognize "boy" and "girl" things in the same way that other kids do. We also haven't been the kind of parents who say, "no, honey, you can't have that because it is for girls." We bought him a princess vanity set for Christmas last year because he put it on his list for Santa. We haven't done those things because we believe that the "rules" about boy and girl things are arbitrary bullshit.

The problem, again, is that some people, some very close to us, seem to think that these rules mean something, like they are written somewhere in the universe and must not be changed, that I am doing something wrong and terrible by painting Jack's nails when he asks me to.

The thing that I wish that I could say to those "some people," the ones at the grocery store that look at us funny when he is wearing his Cinderella shirt, the ones who are close to us who say things like "that's not nice, what you are doing," as though I pull Jackson into a corner, tie him down and force him to stay still while I polish his fucking fingernails . . . what I really would like to say to them is this . . . . FUCK YOU.

First of all, he is three, and a lot of little boys like pink, and it doesn't mean anything. It's different. They don't make boy things in pink. Everything is blue or red or green. Nothing is pink, or glittery or shiny. It's a color for fuck's sake. And nail polish is paint. PAINT on FINGERNAILS. Fucking get over it.
Second of all, if it did mean something, like that he is (god forbid) GAY, so fucking what? I am not going to love him any less, or think any less of him, or the job that I did raising him, so fuck off.

----I should say here that there are a few rules that we have set up so as to avoid harassment or family fall-out. Those rules are that he cannot wear the nail polish or princess shirts to school or to an unnamed relative's house. The school thing is because he just isn't old enough or emotionally mature enough to know how to handle it when other boys make fun of him. He is still having a hard time making friends and talking to kids, and fun-making wouldn't help. The relative thing is out of respect for them. We know it bothers them and because we love and respect them we try not to upset them. We have also made it very clear that these issues are THEIR issues, not Jackson's. I am really conflicted about this, but I am basically just trying to avoid a stupid fight over nail-fucking-polish. If we are going any place else - the store, the bank, the park, he can wear whatever he wants.-----

My job is to love him and to help him be the very best Jackson that he can be. My job is to teach him self-acceptance, self-confidence, tolerance, and love. If he continues to love pink, then my job is to teach him how to be strong in that. If he continues to love princesses, then my job is to teach him how to stand in that and be who he wants to be. It is NOT my job to shame him, to guilt him, to embarrass him, to make him think that the things he likes are not good enough, are not the "right" things for him to like, that he should be somehow "other" or different from who he really is. It is not my job to beat the pink out of him. Unfortunately, society will do that soon enough. It is my job to teach him how to fight back.

Which one is the grown up?

2008-07-21T17:22:00.003-04:00

We were eating dinner last night and Jackson got upset because the cheese on his plate got mixed up with the water from his snow peas.
Jill asks, "what's wrong with it, it's just pea water?"
Jack says, "But I don't like pea water."
Jill gets the giggles. . .
then asks, "Do you like poo water?"

Wildlife Lessons

2008-07-19T08:43:00.002-04:00

We found a frog outside the other day. It looks to me like a frog, not a toad, so I don't know why it is this far away from water, but here it is.

So I caught it and Jackson and I built him a temporary home and kept in him the house for the day so that we could watch him and talk about frogs and where they come from. We looked up "frog life cycle" on google and talked about tadpoles. When Jill came home he was able to tell her all about it. I was really impressed at how much he remembered and how much he could repeat.

knock-knock jokes

2008-07-19T08:37:00.002-04:00

Jill has been trying to teach Jackson knock-knock jokes. So far her efforts have been a pretty dismal failure. They go a lot like this:

Jill: knock-knock
Jack: who's there?
Jill: lettuce
Jack: lettuce who?
Jill: let us in, it's cold out here!

so then Jack tries to make up his own joke and it usually goes something like this:

Jack: knock-knock
Jill: who's there?
Jack: tomato
Jill: tomato who?
Jack: tomato let us in it's cold out here!

. . . .

but recently he made up a new one of his own and it went like this:

Jack: knock-knock
Jill: who's there
Jack: Jack
Jill: Jack who?
Jack: Jack, don't do that!

...

Kitty

2008-07-19T08:30:00.003-04:00

Six Toes has asthma. She has to be an inside kitty for a while and it is driving her batshit crazy. She started coughing and sneezing about a week ago and I took her into the vet thinking she had a "cold," which is probably stupid because cats probably don't even get colds. The vet gave me a good scare at first because she said that Sixy probably either had heart disease, or swollen lymph glands (which would mean a host of other problems). It turns out that the x-ray just looked like an enlarged heart and swollen lymph glands because she is fat.

Backyard Camping

2008-07-19T08:23:00.003-04:00

Since there is a heat warning this weekend, we decided that it would be a great time to set up the tent in the backyard and do a backyard campout! If that sentence doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either. I have no idea why I suggested this weekend . . .

it turned out to not be so bad. It was about 70 overnight, so the heat was tolerable. Aside from Jackson's air mattress going flat and every bird in the state of NJ landing in our backyard and chirping at 6 o'fucking clock in the morning, everything was good. We toasted hot dogs and marshmallows . . . who doesn't love that?

ok - it's getting ridiculous

2008-07-19T08:17:00.003-04:00

This is what the pumpkins used to look like.

This is what they look like now.

Notice that all of that is OUTSIDE the garden area? I had to cut holes through the fencing so that they could grow. Why did I plant six of them?
The watermelons are doing the same thing on the other side.
This is our first pumpkin.

swimming in the big pool

2008-06-30T09:35:00.004-04:00

We went to a friend's house a few weeks ago and took Jack in a real pool for the first time. He did surprisingly well. We tried water wings at first, but the vest worked much better. He spent a good portion of his time just standing on the steps in the hot tub, but he didn't protest as much when I brought him in the pool with me. Once I got him in, I think he had a pretty good time. He looks forward to it when we say we are going back over there. Maybe it's time to think about swimming lessons . . .

sprinkler's rock

2008-06-30T09:29:00.003-04:00

It has taken a while, but Jack is finally getting over his discomfort with getting his face wet. He still freaks out a bit if it gets in his ears, but the eyes aren't as big of a deal. I can't water the lawn anymore without him wanting to run through the sprinkler.

the garden

2008-06-30T09:22:00.004-04:00

Here are some update pictures of the garden. The tomato plants got too big for the sticks I had holding them up, so I had to got get tomato supports. Apparently there are tomatoes that only grow to a certain height, and others that will grow until they touch the sky. I bought the latter. Jill's folks have three or four tomato plants that are small and cute -- about a foot and a half high and covered in tomatoes. Mine are almost taller than Jack and are just now sprouting tiny green tomatoes.
We have several watermelons and the pumpkin plants are starting to crawl. I am an ass and have no idea about planting anything, so it is becoming apparent to me that I planted way too much shit in this little tiny garden. I had to expand the fencing around the garden to allow the watermelon and pumpkin plants to vine out. I know they are going to go farther than this, but I want to keep them away from the rabbits as long as possible.

just because it's funny

2008-06-18T09:46:00.001-04:00

Gardening

2008-06-18T09:35:00.003-04:00

Last month Jack and I planted a garden in the backyard. I severely underestimated the work that we going to be involved in digging up the grass, but after about 4 hours, it was done. Jack and Jill helped move the sod while I dug it up. We planted corn, tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkins and peas. I cannot believe how big everything is now. We don't have any actual fruits or veggies yet, but the tomato, pumpkin and watermelon plants are huge. Hopefully I will get some updated pics up soon.

2008-06-18T09:28:00.002-04:00

We took Jackson to the Appel Farm arts and music festival earlier this month. It was hotter than the surface of the sun that weekend and we spent more time in the shade of the kid's tent than we did out in the field listening to the music, but we all had a good time anyway. Jack got to eat cherry water-ice, Jill go to eat kettle corn, and I got to have a few cocktails, so all were happy. For reasons that I still do not understand, we actually got there early (we are never early for ANYTHING) so the day was much longer than we had planned. We didn't make it for the show headliner, but we did get to see most of The Smithereens, which was probably what Jill cared about most.

I forgot to mention . . .

2008-04-05T00:12:00.004-04:00

It was really windy that day . . .

trip to DC

2008-04-04T23:43:00.003-04:00

Jill had a business trip to DC the day after we got back from Florida and Jack and I decided to go along for the ride. While she was in meetings all day, we went to the Smithsonian. He liked the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum was fun. There is a fantastic indoor butterfly exhibit running right now that we both enjoyed. His favorite part of the whole trip was riding the Metro. He was thrilled that he got to ride the underground train "like Caillou." Of course I forgot the camera for the first two trips we made. I did, however, manage to get a few shots in on our last day there when Jill came with us.

potty time

2008-04-04T23:17:00.005-04:00

Jack and I were in the bathroom the other day while I was fixing my hair and he was standing there asking when I was going to be done, and he said, "mommy, how do you spell potty?" I told him, "p . . . o . . . t. . . t. . . Y" He was silent for a few minutes and then said, "like this, mommy?" and I looked down and saw this:

hilarious. He used the bathtub crayons to do it. So I had to run downstairs and get the camera. I asked him if he would write "bathtub" for me and he that one too.

Florida Vacation

2008-03-10T16:20:00.006-04:00

We went to visit my family in Florida at the end of last month. It was a good trip. Jackson was happy that he got to spend so much time outside. We went to the zoo and he got to pet and feed the goats. He even got crazy and ran through the water at the zoo. He got to ride is bike at grandma and grandpa's house. It was good.

Jack has a superior vocabulary

2008-03-10T09:51:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, Jack and Jill and I were driving to the grocery store to fill our very empty refrigerator. We were at a stoplight when this conversation took place:

Jack - Mommy, what is that crack thing over there?
Me - Over where, honey?
Jack - Over there, where I am pointing.
Jill - You have to use some descriptive words, Jack, we can't tell what you are pointing at out the window.
Jack - That crack in the grass, in the yard over there.

I look out the window and guess that he is talking about a rock-lined drainage ditch near the sidewalk in the front of an office building.

Me - You mean that thing with the dark rocks in the bottom of it?
Jack - Yeah.
Me - That's a place for the water to run out of the yard when it rains.
Jack - Oh. . . .
Hey, Mommy. . .
Me - What?
Jack - I thought it was called a trench.

A "trench"? WTF? This kids is three, right? Where the hell did he learn that word, not the mention it's meaning? And if he knew what it was, why did he ask us? Sometimes I think he just likes to remind us that he is the smart one in the family.

brutal honesty

2008-02-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

The day before yesterday Jackson and I were getting our pajamas on and Jack said, "Mommy, my nipples are higher than yours! Mine are way up here, and yours are down there."

. . . sigh . . .

reading some more

2008-02-12T09:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we were in the car driving to Gramm and Gramps and Jackson told me that "S . . T . . . O . . . P . . spells stop!" I said, "Yes! Do you know what "G . . . O spells?" After a few seconds of silence he said "GO!"

doing math

2008-02-12T09:37:00.001-05:00

It's hard to tell sometimes when Jackson is getting the question right, and when he is guessing and just getting lucky. Yesterday Jill asked him, "If I had three cars, and mommy had two cars, how many cars would we have if we put them together?" and Jackson immediately spits out "five!" and keeps playing. But when we try to get him more focused and listening to what we are asking, he gets it wrong unless we help him by showing him fingers. He seems to be pretty good at "5." If it is four plus one, or two plus three, he knows the answer is five. Beyond that he is pretty lost.

It is different, however, if he is thinking about things on his own and we are not quizzing him. A few days ago he was following his Gramm into the kitchen to get his quarters that he had "earned" that day for helping them with chores. He was talking to his Gramm about how many quarters he had earned. He said, "I got two from helping Gramps, and one from helping you, so that makes three!" He talks to himself about small numbers like that pretty often. It is so cool to hear.

He is also able to visualize abstract things and count them -- which is awesome. Several weeks ago we were talking about shapes and Jill asked him how many sides a square has. He stopped and looked up into the air and said, "one, two, three, four . . .four!" He did the same thing for triangle.

taking a drive to the playground

2008-01-10T19:30:00.001-05:00

We spent about a hour and a half driving around the neighborhood today. We were hesitant at first to buy one of these cars -- for many reasons -- but it has been worth every penny. He loves it. And I get to get some exercise.

painting

2008-01-09T18:30:00.000-05:00

We get these little kits from the craft store for $1.00 that you can paint and then glue together. They have little cars and boats and tractors and planes. Jack loves them. He is so serious when he paints.

freezing on the swing

2008-01-09T17:37:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post these just because I think they are cute. We went out a few days ago when it was really cold, but we were suffering from some serious cabin fever. We bundled him up and played on the swing for a while.

fun in the snow

2008-01-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago it snowed and we got a few inches on the ground that stuck around for a day or two. Guess what Jack and his Gramps did that day . . .

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those last two pictures are of Jackson pushing around the LAWNMOWER. Even in the freeze of winter, my kid still wants to mow the lawn.

Jack's first painting

2008-01-08T22:48:00.000-05:00

It started when I showed him a small painting I had done years ago. It was a painting of the beach at sunset. I asked him if he wanted to paint something. I got out all of my paints and found a very small unused canvas and gave it to him.
He painted the blue first and told me it was the sky -- just like mine. Then he put in the sun. I helped him by moving the canvas around so that all the lines would go outward. Then he put in the grass. Then I asked him what he usually sees when he goes outside, and he put in the tree (that's the brown thing.) He asked me to give the tree a swing, so I did. You can't see it very well, but he also put in some small purple dots for flowers on the grass.

Christmas Morning

2008-01-07T12:49:00.000-05:00

Christmas comes at our house in several parts. On Christmas Eve, we go to the grandparents' house to open presents to and from them. Then we go back home and Jackson goes to sleep, and Jill and I open our presents to each other. Then on Christmas morning, Jackson opens all of his presents -- both from us, and from "Santa." I think Jack wasn't really sold on the idea of "Santa" until he started opening his "santa" presents and saw that he got all of the things that he asked for in the letter that we "sent." In case you are wondering, he asked for a "good-smelling red candle," a new car from the movie "Cars," a Disney Princess Vanity and the "big, driving, Lightning McQueen Car." The big car wasn't given to him until later in the day when we went back over to the grandparents' house, but when Jackson opened the vanity he said "Santa got me everything I asked for!" He was SO thrilled. When we got to the house later and we opened the garage and showed him the car, he didn't know what to do. He said later that he thought "Santa forgot. But he didn't!"

The bike was given to him by his grandparents on Christmas Eve. He has finally learned to pedal! He rode it all around the house that night.

Christmas

2008-01-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

A little pre-Christmas posing in front of the tree.
Go Bucs!

long overdue posts

2008-01-07T12:39:00.001-05:00

Our desktop computer is out of order right now and since that is where we usually put all of our pictures, I haven't been able to do much lately. I finally gave up on hoping that will ever be fixed and started putting pictures on the laptop.
Our camera also ate shit a few weeks ago and we have been taking pictures with Jill's folks' camera and then waiting for the opportunity to get onto their computer to get the pictures.
While I am at it talking about broken things, our refrigerator sounds like a locomotive and is about to give out any day now, and I had the septic tank cleaned last week and it turns out that it was WAY overfull. Luckily we have two drain fields, one of which hasn't been in use for three years, so we switched the lines and are just keeping our fingers crossed that this fixes the problem.
I think it's awesome when we spend all our money on non-essential Christmas items and then all of our very-essential home shit breaks.

pardon my language

2008-01-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

but all you assholes who keep sending comments with links to your "diet" websites -- fuck off. I am not going to post or publish or link to any of your porn or whatever-the-fuck-they-are site, so knock it off.
go to hell.

thanks

the best gift ever

2007-11-25T22:40:00.001-05:00

Jill and I decided to get a train to go around the bottom of the Christmas tree this year. Well -- that's not totally true. What actually happened is that we were clearing a space for the tree and Jackson was walking in circles around the tree skirt saying "and this is were the tree is going to go . . . and THIS is where the TRAIN is going to go around the tree." Apparently, he remembers that at some random time over the summer when we were at Boscov's in the toy section and he saw all the trains, I said that maybe we could get a train to go around the Christmas tree this year. Yeah -- that was 6 months ago and he is bringing it up now.
So we decided that we could probably find a Christmas train set for pretty cheap. We got one at Toys R Us and set it up tonight. I have to say that this thing made him happier than almost anything else that we have ever done or gotten. Here are a few shots of him setting up the train and then running the remote.

making birdfeeders

2007-11-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

Jack and his Gramps made a new birdfeeder for the backyard because our old one was becoming something green and terrible. Here are a few pictures of them putting it up and filling it.

more pictures just because

2007-11-24T13:43:00.001-05:00

Jackson helping on Thanksgiving morning. He liked making the pumpkin cheesecake the best.

new favorite game

2007-11-24T13:27:00.000-05:00

Jack's new favorite game is jumping on the bed. We have been trying for months to get him to jump with both feet, so now that he has figured it out it doesn't seem fair to make him stop. He is such a chicken that the only place he will really jump is on the bed (for fear of getting hurt). We do have a mini-trampoline, but he will only really jump on that if he is holding someone's hand. The best part about the jumping on the bed is the massive surface over which he has to jump. With a king and a double pulled together, it seems like he can jump forever.

"baking" a cake

2007-11-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Jack and I were sitting in the living room playing with an old baking set of Jill's. We were "making" cakes and cheesecakes. He said he wanted to make a Mater cake and a Lightening McQueen cake. As we were cracking our fake eggs and adding our fake sugar, we were discussing what colors of frosting and sprinkles Jack would need for his Mater cake. He said that he wanted a rust color for Mater and red for McQueen. He kept talking about the rust on Mater and because I like to talk to him about stuff I launched into an explaination of rust and why Mater is rusty and McQueen is not -- about mater sleeping outside, unprotected, and the effect that rain can have on cars with poor paint. I explained to him that if Lightening didn't take care of himself, his paint could end up like Mater's. Jackson listened to the whole explaination, looking at me intently. When I was finished, he allowed for a dramatic pause and then he just tilted his head a little and looked and me and said, "But they are CAKES, mommy. They won't be going outside."

good books

2007-11-15T11:53:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Without a Map, by Meredith Hall. I would highly recommend it. Good stuff. Also just finished Piece of Cake, by Cupcake Brown. VERY good book. Both are memoirs about terrible childhoods, abandonment, abuse, drug use . . . and the overcoming of all of it.
I am really drawn to memoir. I love that people who have been through such terrible shit can come out of is so much better. It forces me to recognize that those of us who are just regular-fucked-up should be able to overcome anything.

new jokes and dirty words

2007-11-14T12:43:00.000-05:00

Jill taught Jackson some new jokes yesterday. They were in the car driving home and Jill was trying to teach him about rhyming.

So this is the joke he (and Jill) tell me --

Jill -- "What do you call a happy gobbler?"
Me -- "What?"
Jack -- "A perky turkey!"

Jill -- "What do you call a mean gobbler?"
Me -- "What?"
Jack -- "A JERKY turkey!"

So now he knows about stapling animals and that mean people are also "jerky" -- awesome. On the other hand, he is getting the hand of the rhyming, which I think is really cool. But now we have to decide what to do about the random swear words and "dirty" words that keep coming out of his mouth. It seems like the easiest thing to do is ignore them, but he always seems to like the most inappropriate ones the best. "itty bitty" always turns to "shitty," or "sitty" (which sounds like "shitty"). Somehow, he often ends up at "damn." "Poopy" is always funny, and occasionally I will hear him say "dick" -- usually at the end of a string of "sick, flick, mick, pick, wick, stick."
We really don't swear around him much, so I am sure that he is unaware that any of these words are inappropriate for a three year old to be using -- so we try to ignore it (except when it is too funny to be ignored). He does have command of the word "damn" and will occasionally us it in context, but I blame that on his Gramm just as much as on us. Sometimes when he drops things or when he is angry he will say "damn!" really forcefully. We tell him that it isn't a nice word, but he is three, so that doesn't help much.

I think it might be over

2007-11-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't want to jinx anything here, but I think our problems with Jackson's bowel movement holding are finally over. It seems like all we needed to do was take him off the medicine that the doctors put him on and take away the pediasure that we were told to give him for weight gain.
We knew for a while that the Pediasure was making him constipated. It is really hight in iron and he was drinking three a day. But we were also told to put him on Mirolax (which he has been on for over a year) to prevent the constipation. A about two months ago I did a bit more research on Mirolax and found out that it has more nasty side-effects that we were previously told. It seems that the stuff makes you feel like you have to crap, but you cannot actually go. So that sounds a lot like what Jackson was experiencing. We took him off the Mirolax and stopped giving him the Pediasure. Once we took him off the Pediasure (as well as most dairy) we started a food journal to make sure that he was getting enough of everything that he needed. He stool turned from a black, hard, terrible smelling mess to normal, regular-stinky shit within a matter of days. Things went on like this for a few weeks with him still holding his BMs for 5 or 6 days at a time, but last week, something changed. He was holding and crying and laying down in terrible pain, but wouldn't go. I told him that if he didn't let it out, I was going to have to get the suppositories. As soon as I went upstairs to get them, he followed me upstairs, sat down on the pot and pooped! Two days later he was hurting again and I told him to let me know when he was ready to go on the potty. About 15 minutes later, he told me he was ready and we went upstairs and he sat down and went again! Last night he went for the third time this week. It was in his diaper, but as long as he isn't holding it, I don't care where it is.
I can't believe how relieved I feel about the whole thing. I also can't believe how much of my life has been consumed by the pooping habits of a two year old.

new jokes

2007-11-09T11:50:00.000-05:00

Jackson made up his first joke yesterday!
Jill has been working hard at teaching him lame Knock-Knock jokes and "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes. After six months of mind-numbingly stupid jokes, it seems that he might be catching on.

Yesterday, the conversation went something like this:

Jill: Hey, Jack, why did the chicken cross the road?

Jack: To get to the other side!

Jill: Why did the frog cross the road?

Jack: Cause he was stapled to the chicken!

Jackson (again): But, Mama, why did the staple cross the road?

Jill: Uhm . . . I don't know, Jack, why?

Jack: Cause it was stapled to the frog and the chicken!

I know, I know, we win the award for mothers of the year teaching our kid jokes about stapling animals to one another and then playing in the street. But hey, he made up a joke!

Halloween pics

2007-11-02T15:18:00.001-04:00

Jackson's first smiley face

2007-11-02T15:13:00.000-04:00

The one on the left is Jill's. The one on the right is Jackson's.

the Big Boy Bed

2007-11-02T12:45:00.000-04:00

We finally moved Jackson's bed into our room. It is now pushed right up against our bed. Our bedroom is pretty much just one giant sleeping surface now, but if it gets him out of our bed, I don't care.
I honestly really enjoy having him in our bed, but he kicks and kicks and kicks so much that it is hard to take.
Jill asked him a few weeks ago if he wanted to start sleeping in his own room and he said "no." When she asked him why not, he said, "Because then we would be all split up!" My sweet boy. He is still not happy about the idea of not sleeping right on top of me all night, but when we moved the bed into our room and talked about it, he seemed better. He likes that he can kick as much as he wants and it won't hurt us. He likes that if he doesn't want covers, he doesn't have to have them. He likes that if he wants to sleep sideways, he can do it. And he really likes that this way we are still "all together."

reading

2007-11-02T12:42:00.001-04:00

The first word that Jack can read -- like, really, really read, is the word "boo." Every time he sees it somewhere he has to spell it and then say it. It goes something like this, "Hey, look mommy, B O O, boo!"
Thank you, Halloween. He also now knows what an exclamation point is and what it is for, as well as a question mark.

changes

2007-11-02T12:35:00.000-04:00

Jack has started singing. He sings to himself all the time now. It's like his whole life is a Backyardigan's episode. It's cute, acutally. He only sings to himself and if I ask him what he is saying he says, "No, mommy, I was talking to myself."

He has also started pretending to be things. He has a few friends who have done this and I have always thought it was weird -- and now that he is doing it, I still think it is weird. I am sure it is totally normal, but having him chase me around the house pretending to be a lion and growling and scratching me with his "claws" is just . . . weird. Of course, I know it is healthy and I am doing everything I can to encourage the imagination, but it's still weird.

Jack turns 3

2007-11-02T12:33:00.000-04:00

We had a small birthday party for Jackson at our house. He turned three on the 27th. I feel like I should say something profound and retrospective about the last three years, but I have nothing to say except the cliche that I cannot believe how fast it has gone by.

telling time

2007-10-19T20:52:00.000-04:00

Jack and I were in the car today driving to pick up Jill and he said, "Mommy, I think maybe we should go buy me a new watch."
"a watch? . . . you want a watch?"
"yeah."
"Why do you want a watch?"
"So that I can know what time it is!"

My kid isn't even three and he wants a watch so that he can know what time it is. I am pretty sure he doesn't even know what that means, but he wants one.

He also said that he thinks his watch should be pink because pink is his "favorite color."

So we went to the store tonight and got him a digital watch. There were plenty of pink watches there, and we were totally OK with him getting one. We encouraged the Hello Kitty watch, in fact. But, in the end, he picked out the Lightning McQueen watch.
Now we have to teach him how to read it.

new site

2007-10-18T07:31:00.001-04:00

just added a new site to my blogroll. check it out

http://kateharding.net/

Pumpkin Carving

2007-10-16T17:21:00.000-04:00

Jack has been on four hayrides and has picked three pumpkins so far this season. We carved on the other night with my mom. I have been talking to him for a while about how we were going to carve pumpkins and he was excited about it -- but I hadn't planned on doing it this early. Shortly after we got home with our third one, however, he kept asking when we could cut the top off and put and candle in. I talked him out of it the first two nights, but the third night I gave in. Honestly, the only reason it happened was because I thought that as soon as Jackson reached his hand inside that pumpkin, he would be too grossed out to finish it and we would be done with the whole deal. Wow, was I wrong. He LOVED it. He kept saying, "This is CRAZY how this pumpkin is on the inside!" I am sure that this one will be rotten before Halloween and we will have to carve another one. I have made a note to myself, however, that the next one will simply have a very basic jack-o-lantern face -- not the super intricate and ridiculous spider that I allowed Jackson to choose for this one.

Halloween

2007-10-16T17:18:00.000-04:00

Jackson is going to be Diego for Halloween. He loves Diego. Actually, he loves Dora more, but we just couldn't let him be Dora for Halloween. Even our anti-gender-stereotyping-minds couldn't allow him to run around the neighborhood in a Dora costume. He honestly didn't ask for it -- I think he understands that Dora is a girl and he is a boy -- but I think if we had offered, "Hey, Jack, do you want to be Dora for Halloween?" he would have taken us up on it.

new kittens

2007-10-16T17:11:00.000-04:00

We have added two new cats to our family. About a two weeks ago Jack and Jill discovered two black and white kittens living under our porch. They look to be about 4 or 5 months old. I would guess that someone just dropped them off because they are both really healthy and pretty clean. They were skittish at first, but they are not wild cats -- we never would have gotten as close to them as quickly as we did. All we had to do was feed them and we were able to pet them. We haven't let them into the house yet. We need to take them to the vet and make sure they are healthy. Plus, we don't know what we are going to do about Aggie. She knows they are out there -- and she isn't happy about it. It has been pretty cold for the last few nights and we made a bed in the garage for them and we just bring them in at night. They have collars and names and Jackson loves them. We let him name them. "Six Toes" and "White Tail." You'll never guess how he came up with those names -- oh, wait, yes you will . . . one of them has six toes on each foot, and the other one has a white tip on the end of it's tail.

learning to write

2007-09-21T20:12:00.001-04:00

The first word that Jackson has learned to write is the word "No."

A new game

2007-09-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

I picked Jackson up from Jill's folk's house a few days ago and on the way home he said, "Hey, Mommy!" So I said, "What?" There was a few seconds of silence and then he said, "Nothing."
About 30 seconds later he said, "Hey, Mommy!" and I again said, "What?" and he said, "nothing," and then burst into hysterical laughter. He did it the whole way home. Now, the trip is only about 8 miles, but it was a very LONG 8 miles. I got the giggles at first because, you know, it was funny. But after about 3 minutes of it I finally said we couldn't play that game anymore because it was making me crazy. So he would wait just long enough and then say, "Hey, mommy!" and because I am in idiot, I would fall for it again and say "What?" which, of course, was followed by a "nothing" and fits of giggles.
I found out today that Jill's father taught him that game. I owe him one.

bathtub fun

2007-09-21T20:00:00.001-04:00

Last night Jackson was taking a bath and he passed gas in the bathwater. He has never done this before and he was a little taken aback by it. When he sayw the bubbles, he stopped and looked at Jill and said, "momma, what was that?" She laughed and said, "I don't know, Jack, what do you think it was?" It took him a few seconds, but he finally laughed and said "I tooted!!"

Later on when I was hosing him off with the shower head (I have to use the shower head to do his hair -- he won't let me wash it in the tub) the water got a little too warm for him and he shouted, "Mommmy! The water's too warm! I have to go pee pee! . . . .Mommy! Hot water makes me go pee!!!!" and then he peed.

Wouldn't it be funny . . .

2007-09-06T12:00:00.001-04:00

About three days ago, Jack and I were at home hanging out and he looked at me and started laughing and said "Hey, mommy, wouldn't it be funny if there was a dog driving a truck?"

more spontaneity

2007-09-06T11:57:00.000-04:00

In addition to telling me that he is happy about things, Jack has also started telling me when he is unhappy about things.
Yesterday we were in the living room and he said, "Sometimes I am so sad when we don't go to the candy store."

Bowling

2007-09-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

We took Jackson bowling for the first time. He loved it. We thought he would be strong enought to roll the ball down the lane, but we were wrong. Thankfully, one of the men who works there saw us struggling with getting Jack to roll the ball and he brought out a ramp for Jack to put the ball on. I think it is something like what they give to handicapped people. Whatever -- it worked for us. On the way home Jackson said, for the first time ever "I had fun!" without any prompting or prodding. We were all silently riding in the car and Jack piped up, "I had FUN bowling, mommy!" It was cool.

Jack fell today

2007-08-27T20:16:00.000-04:00

while he was outside with Jill. He was "racing" Jill back to the house -- but he was running in the street and he was wearing crocks. Crocks are not good running-through-the-rocky-street shoes. Jill came into the house carrying a hysterical boy. He scraped open a scab that was already on his knee from a fall last week and he has a lump on his knee the size of a large grape. That doesn't sound very big, but when you see how small his little knees are, a grape-sized lump is a pretty big one. I think he must have landed on a rock. Jill said it was a hell of a fall. Of course, he is fine now -- sitting on the couch watching Dora. I think Jill might take a bit longer to recover.

How to Create Angry American: a Bush 'N' Friends Lie montage

2007-08-13T22:36:00.001-04:00

so far behind

2007-08-11T07:35:00.001-04:00

I am so far behind in posting, I don't think I can even try to catch up. I have started a ton of posts over the last few weeks, but I cannot bring myself to finish them.

School has started for me, and I am having a great time. Jack isn't bothered in the least about being with his Gramm and Gramps during the week. He stays with them Mon-Thurs from 8:30 to 3:00. I think Jill's folks are certainly ready for the weekend once Thursday rolls around, (and they are really happy that classes are only 4 days a week) but they are happy to have him. He has been eating a lot better since he has been with them, too. He has gained almost 2 pounds in the last month! He eats a full breakfast and lunch with them, which is something he would never do with us. I am sure it is something like the stories that are told about kids who will nap like champs at daycare, but won't go to sleep at home to save their lives.

We have been camping three times in the last few months. Jack loves it and Jill has grown to enjoy it as well. We went to Dutch Wonderland once. That trip was a disaster. Maybe one day I will get the post about it finished. Once we stayed at the Jellystone Yogi Bear campground in Mays Landing. We had a pretty good time there, but the campground was gross. We happened to be there on the weekend they were having a Christmas in July celebration, so Jackson got to see Santa Clause and get a gift from him. Last weekend we went and stayed a few nights at Parvin State Park. It is right around the corner from our house, which is a really good thing because it was so hot the first night that none of us could sleep so we piled into the car and came home. We went back in the morning for a campfire breakfast. We managed to stay at camp the second night -- after we took the tent fly off the top and let more air into the tent.

There is a Volunteer Fire Department right around the corner from our house and all of the trucks were out the other day, so we stopped and let Jack take a look at all the trucks. There was only one guy there, and he was too busy with his work to really talk to us or let Jack inside any of the trucks, but he did let us walk around the firehouse garage a bit. I was cool. I wish we had had the camera with us.

"I love you more"

2007-07-13T15:20:00.000-04:00

Jack and Jill were talking at the dinner table last night and Jill said "I missed you this week." (she was out of town for three days). Then Jack said, "I missed you."
And Jill said, "I missed you more."
Then Jill said, "I love you."
Jack replied, "I love you."
Jill said, "I love you more."
Jack said, "I love you more."
Jill said, again, "I love you more."
Jack said, "I love you three times."
Jill said nothing, stunned at Jack's conceptual understanding of "more" and "three."
Then Jack said, "I love you FIVE times."

cool.

undeveloped film

2007-07-12T21:11:00.001-04:00

I found 8 rolls of it in a drawer today. My best guess is that it is from a trip that Jill and I took to Las Vegas in either 2000 or 2001.
hhhhmmmmmm. . . .
Are there any places that still develop this stuff?
I think I will take them in tomorrow. Could be interesting.

Jack's first camping trip

2007-07-09T15:40:00.000-04:00

We went camping with some friends a few weeks ago. Jack had a great time. Jill did better than expected, considering the caterpillars that kept falling on her. I have an old friend from high school who has an overwhelming and totally irrational fear of caterpillars. Until this week, I didn't know that Jill suffers from close to the same thing.

Boobs

2007-06-21T15:01:00.001-04:00

Jack is obsessed with boobs. I guess I should expect it from a kid who was breast-fed until he was 2 1/2, but it's annoying. Jill says he is like a dirty little kid in a SNL sketch. It would be funny, except that it is so very true. He asks me all the time, "are you wearing a bra, mommy?" He has even started asking Jill the same thing. Sometimes he comes up to me with both hands outstretched like he is going to go "honk honk!"
I have no idea what to do about it. I tell him all the time that he cannot touch them, that they are not his, that it is not appropriate, that I don't like it, that it's not nice. Of course none of that means anything to him and he just says, "but WHY can't I touch your boobies, mommy?" Sometimes he says, "But I was just checking your boobies to see if they are good." That sounds weirder than it is -- he checks everything to "see if it is good" -- the lawnmower, the vacuum, the fridge . . . I know it is totally innocent, but it still annoying.
The other day he did a boob grab and told me that my "boobies are big and round and soft." Last week he was just hanging around and he turned to me and said, "Mommy, your boobies are shaped like circles." Nice. Thanks Jack. I guess it could have been worse -- he could have said they are big and saggy, or shaped like ovals.

bye-bye band-aid

2007-06-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

We finally got the band-aids off his knee. It was Jill's idea -- all very sneaky. The three of us were having pillow/tickle fights on the bed and Jill quietly suggested I rip them off while we were tickling him. I didn't think it would work. It did -- like a charm. He didn't even notice. He only noticed they were gone when he saw the sticky outline of where the band-aid used to be. And even then he didn't ask where the band-aids went. He just asked what "these things are" - meaning the grayish sticky outline. He only noticed that the band-aids were gone when he saw them later in the garbage can.

dominoes and eyebrows

2007-06-15T09:04:00.000-04:00

Jackson is learning dominoes,
and he is trying REALLY HARD to learn how to raise one eyebrow like his mama.

because it's silly

2007-06-15T08:41:00.000-04:00

funny guy

2007-06-15T08:32:00.000-04:00

Jack is developing a sense of humor. He has discovered that it is hilariously funny to act very casual while standing next to me watering the plants, and then turn very quickly and soak me with the hose.

learning to ride

2007-06-15T08:22:00.001-04:00

hairy legs

2007-06-15T08:11:00.000-04:00

We were in the car yesterday and Jack was talking to me about his legs. It went something like this:

"Mommy, I have hair on my legs."

"You do?"

"Yeah, look."
I turn around to glance and he holds up his leg and points to the tiny wispy hair on his shin.

"Yes, you sure do. I see it!"

"You know how mama sometimes has hairy legs?"

I giggle.
"yes"

"Yeah, that how I have."

"Oh, ok."

Of course I had to call Jill immediately and tell her about the conversation. She didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did.

more peeps and band-aids

2007-06-15T07:59:00.000-04:00

Jack told me yesterday that he still didn't want to use the peep in the bathtub because he didn't want the lights to go out. That was EASTER and he is still thinking about it. I tried to tell him (again) that it was the storm and not the peep that made the lights go out. I quickly realized that that was a mistake because his eyes got wide and he seemed on the verge of panic. It has been thundering a lot here lately. No big scary storms, just the threat of them, but enough for Jack to notice the thunder. So now he is afraid that all storms are going to make the lights go out.

Jackson fell on the sidewalk on his way out of the dentists office the other day and got his first real scrape and scab on his knee. It bled and everything. We stopped at the store and got some band-aids and medicine. The problem arose about four hours later when he wanted to take the band-aid off because he said it was hurting his leg. I don't know what kind of cement-like adhesive is on this band-aid, but it does NOT want to come off. Jill and I both tried pulling it off and it sent Jack into screaming fits. We tried soaking it and nothing happened, so I had to just cut the middle part of the band-aid off and now we are just waiting for the rest to come off on it's own. Even his baths and showers haven't helped. That was Tuesday. Today is Friday. I figure we will have it off by the end of July.

1st dentist visit

2007-06-14T08:08:00.000-04:00

Jack had his first dentist appointment this week. Thankfully everything went well. Jack let them clean his teeth -- no crying. They said his teeth look great. No cavities! I was worried about a few spots on some of his lower teeth, but apparently they are just iron deposits. They will see us back in six months. Yipee!

Ocean City vacation

2007-06-13T09:01:00.003-04:00

We spent a week in Ocean City at the beginning of the month. We had a great time. I think Jack had the best time of all. He loved that we were in the same building as his gramm and gramps. He loved being able to get up in the morning and just go downstairs and see them. The boardwalk was a great time for him too. He loved the rides. It took us a little while to get him to actually ride on anything, but once he started he didn't want to stop. I thought he wasn't going to be ready for the bigger amusement parks, like Dutch Wonderland, but after this experience I think maybe he can handle it.
Here are a few pics of Jackson just hanging out in the room the first day we got there.

We went to the Cape May zoo. Jack's favorite part was seeing the "tractors" that the zookeepers ride around on.

Here is Jack shaking hands with Mr. Taffy. This guys stands outside the big saltwater taffy shop on the Boardwalk. Jack watched him for a long time before he was brave enough to go up to him.

And, of course, Jack loved the rides. Here he is with Jill on the big Thomas the Train ride.

and then there were the cars and boats fire engines. . .

Memorial Day Weekend

2007-06-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

We stayed with some friends for Memorial Day weekend. I didn't get enough pictures becuase I brought along a camera with a dead battery, but here are the few that I did get. The tractor that he is riding is his friend Ben's. Jack didn't really get the whole push-the-pedal-and-it-moves part of the riding experience, but he sure loved just sitting on it. He did try to get it to go, but every time he pushed the pedal to make it go, he would lift up his foot. He jerked around the yard for about ten minutes and then quit. Jill and I were afraid we were going to have to take him to the hospital for whiplash. Mostly he just loved watching Ben zip around the yard.

Jack and Tobi

2007-06-13T08:59:00.000-04:00

Here is Jack and his best cat friend in the whole world. (next to Aggie, of course)

making connections

2007-05-17T20:15:00.000-04:00

Jill's dad has been spending a lot of time at the VFW in Glassboro over the last two weeks. He found a group of guys there that are doing some renovations on the building and they need volunteers. He loves it. But Jack hasn't been able to spend as much time with him and he asks about him every day. I keep telling him that "Gramps made some new friends and he is helping out his buddies at the VFW."
Today while we were eating dinner, Jack looked at Jill and said, "Your dad had to go work with his buddies today." It stopped us both just for a second. I don't know why it suprised me, but it did. We have explained to him before that "Gramm is Mama's mom and Gramps is Mama's dad," but apparently neither one of us thought he really got what we were saying. We were wrong.

learning to read

2007-05-17T08:25:00.000-04:00

We discovered the other day that Jack thinks "reading" means turning the pages in a book. I suppose it makes sense that he doesn't understand that there is anything going on internally when we read. He sees Jill and I read all the time. It never occurred to me that he really thinks all we are doing is turning the pages. I think even when I saw him "reading" with his own books, I assumed that he had some kind of internal dialogue going on with the book he was looking through. But the other day he brought a book up to me and told me that he wanted to read it to me. I got excited because I thought he was going to tell me a story about what he thought was going on. He climbed up into my lap and opened the book and I waited patiently for him to start "reading." Then he said, "Ok, you say the words and I will read it." He doesn't say a word while he "reads," but he insists on turning the pages.
So that's how we do every night now -- he reads, and I say the words.

new vacuum

2007-05-17T08:17:00.000-04:00

I bought Jack his own vacuum cleaner yesterday. It's one of the cleaners that is basically a hand-vac on a stick. He spends so much time pushing around his little vacuum that doesn't actually do anything, I figured I might as well put him to work.
I wish there were words to truly explain the pure and overwhelming joy that Jack is experiencing now that he has his own real vacuum that actually picks stuff up. I am glad the thing came with a back-up battery that we can charge while he is using the other one. Although I don't think even the two of them are going to last long enough. We have emptied the "bag" three times this morning and I have to say I am pretty grossed out at how dirty our carpets are (despite the fact that we vacuum with the big one about every other day).
So, all in all, this is a win-win. Jack is just as happy inside vacuuming as he would be outside mowing, and we get a cleaner house.
Speaking of mowing -- now he is asking when we can get a "Jack-sized mower that really works," just like the vacuum.
This kid doesn't miss a beat.

internship

2007-05-08T09:26:00.000-04:00

My pottery instructor invited me to come and work with him! I told him that I am starting school in July and that I won't really be able to do much until next year. Even then I would only be able to do two days. The position would be unpaid, so it would be hard to do it full time. He said that he really needs someone who is going to be more dependable than the college kids that he has been working with. He wants someone who can demo for people who come to the village and who can also be nice and talk to people at the same time. It is a little funny to me that he thinks that I am socially adept enough to talk to strangers -- and that I am good enough at throwing pots to be able to demonstrate for people -- but it is flattering at the same time. I hope he still feels the same way next year. He said that we should keep talking about it and see where things are next year and see what kind of time I can give him. The really great part about it would be that I would get the experience of wood and salt firings and I would get a more personal training experience with Terry. I know that his interns occasionally do art sales with him as well and make a bit of money -- so it isn't completely without monetary benefit.

Little Einsteins

2007-05-08T09:24:00.000-04:00

Jackson discovered Little Einsteins the other day. He likes it. I like it too. He hasn't attached so much that he asks me to see if it is on, but he will tell me to leave it on if we pass it while flipping channels. He chooses it over Dora -- which means it is pretty high up there on his list of favorite things in the world.