Belt Update

The good news is, Jack made it through the night last night without removing his pajamas or belted diaper.

The bad news is, he just got up from his nap during which he removed his pants and diaper and got poop everywhere.

We have now installed video surveillance in his room so we can keep an eye on him.

Jack's New Belt

Lately Jack has been removing his pajamas and diaper at bedtime and then falling asleep and peeing all over the bed. Then, he wakes up cold and wet and unhappy and we have to go in late at night and change him, change the bed and put him back to sleep.

We tried putting Pull-ups on him at night, hoping that they would be harder to get off, but the weren't. He can get them off just as easily.

So tonight, we tried something new. Jack gets to wear a very fashionable bedtime belt. Made of duct tape. We wrapped his little waist in the hopes that he will not be able to pull the diaper down or open it in any way. Hopefully this will work until he learns to listen to us when we say, "Don't take your pajamas and diaper off!"

Waiting for Sarah

There are only about 5 weeks left until our baby girl is due. I am really getting anxious for her arrival, and especially anxious not to be pregnant anymore.

We've been talking to Jack about the baby and I'm not sure how much he really understands. I'm not too worried, though. He is very easy-going and I think with some adjustment he will do just fine with a little sister.

Since we are getting ready to move early this summer we haven't done a whole lot to prepare our house for the baby. She won't have her own room here; she will be staying in our room at first. We moved the cradle into our room this week and I put her Winnie the Pooh in it and some pink and yellow blankets. I should have known it was only a matter of time before Jack climbed in it himself.

Naked Baby

This is how we found Jack last night when we went to check on him:

Snow Day!

Today we are enjoying a nice, relaxing snow day. We woke up to about a foot of snow on the ground. Jack was very interested and pointed out the snow as he stood at the windows. Then, we all went outside to romp around, clear the sidewalks, and dig out the cars. Well, Jack and my husband did the romping, my husband did all the shoveling and car clearing and I did the picture taking and then lunch making.

Jack was not sure about the snow when we first went outside. I think it may have been too deep for him. He was very upset at first and cried into my shoulder while Dad shoveled a path down the sidewalk. Once he had a place where he could walk around he was fine.



He was very helpful in the snow; he helped shovel and clear the cars and build a snowman. Always Daddy's shadow, he followed his dad around all over. When Dad was packing snow onto the pile that would become our snowman, Jack was packing snow right behind him. And Jack insisted on helping to clear the cars, and that his dad not go out of sight around the cars.
My other kid also got into the spirit of the snow day by using the neighbors sled to make a mini luge track down the little hill in our front yard. The kids next door had fun with it, but Jack wanted nothing to do with sledding.
Jack named our snowman "Bob" after a book, "A Snowman Named Bob."

He's Growing Up So Fast

Jack went down the slide on Friday all by himself! He has gone down with his dad before, but never all alone. He discovered that he likes to slide down on his belly, feet first, of course. He's getting to be such a big kid!

I should also mention, as I continue to brag about my son's intelligence, that Jack can count. When he wants to. He can fill in the blanks when you are counting from 1 to 10. He can also tell you two or three numbers in succession, like 2, 3, 4. My husband has been working on this with him for a couple of days now. I think Jack is on to him that it's like homework or something, because he's being very particular about whether he will count or not.

This is one of those things where I think Jack has known some numbers for a long time, we just never bothered to ask him. He didn't ever mention that he could count; and we just hadn't asked the right questions!

Homonyms

Jack is very smart. And I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom. He used his first homonym last night. I had just changed into my pajamas and he pointed at me and said, "clothes." Then he put his hands together, palms up and said, "open" then "close" and folded his hands.

Jack is feeling much better today; he is almost himself. We are still taking it slow. We have watched a lot of TV, but he is playing with his trains and toys.

Sick Baby Boy

Our baby boy is sick :(

He has an upper respiratory virus, so he is coughing and sniffling and very very tired. So far, all we have done today is snuggle and go to the doctor's office. We've been watching a lot of TV and laying around the house. I don't really mind all the snuggling and laying around. I can use a relaxing day myself. Jack is really making me slow down and just sit and not do anything.

It is very comforting for Jack to hold a vacuum cleaner attachment while watching TV.

Shrash. Truck. Dada.

The highlight of Jack's day has been watching the trash truck this morning with his dad. When he got out of bed, the truck came down our street and my boys watched closely from the window.

Now, it's all Jack can talk about. All morning he has told me about the "shrash" and "truck" and "Dada." He nods emphatically when I ask, "Did you watch the trash truck with Dada?" And then he continues with "shrash. Truck. Dada."

Later in the morning, Jack was playing with one of his trucks that has blocks that go into the back of it. As he played he said, "shrash. Truck." He would pick up the blocks and load them into the truck from the back, like the trash truck. Then he would dump them out and load them again, "shrash. Truck."

It is a very exciting day, if you are one.

Jack is humoring me and saying "cheese" as I take his picture.

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Bunny's note: Please bear with me as I try out new templates for my blog. I really really can't decide which to use.

Big Brother

There are only 2 months left, about 8 weeks, until our baby girl is due. We are getting very excited and ready for her arrival. Personally, I will be ready as soon as she wants to come! I don't remember how I did this while I was working. I am exhausted just from the things that have to be done every day: cooking, cleaning, and, oh yeah, chasing a 1-year-old.

Jack knows that there is a baby in my belly and is very cute with it. He gives my belly kisses and is generally pretty gentle with me. He still would like to climb and roughhouse over me, but I just can't take it like I used to! Jack knows that the baby has clothes already. He will pull her little pink sleepers out and say that they are for the baby. He even tried to put one on my belly. She got a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal for Christmas and he knows that is for her as well.

When we go for my checkups at the doctor's office, he listens to the baby's heartbeat and makes friends with the midwives. He likes to participate in everything we do.

I'm not sure that he really understands that this baby-in-Mommy's-belly will turn out to be a real, live person. One who cries and sleeps and eats and takes up a lot of Mom and Dad's attention. Since he has been my entire world for the last almost two years, I worry the most about what this new baby will do for him and his life. Being the oldest, I know how traumatic having a new sibling can be! (Just kidding, Aunt Gecky!)

We will probably really confuse him by having a new baby, packing up all our belongings and moving to a new house all in a matter of months. Oh, and he will turn 2. I'll blame any maladjustment on that!

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Two of our friends are expecting their first baby any day now! Baby Katie is on her way. She now has her own blog, http://babykatieblog.blogspot.com/ to keep people updated. Baby Katie's dad had also resurrected his blog now that there will be exciting baby news http://slmiles.blogspot.com/ .

The Many Faces of Jack

Most of you know Jack as the sweet, loving, adorable little boy that he is. But sometimes there is another side to him.

That side is turning two.

Tonight at dinnertime, one of Jack's favorite times of day, he had a little trouble settling down. We do the same thing every night and sit in the same chairs every night and follow the same routine every night. Well, tonight when we sat down at the table, he got very upset with his dad. Instead of sitting in his booster seat like always he wanted to sit in Dad's chair. He cried and fussed and pushed and pulled at his dad to remove him from the chair. He yelled "chair!" over and over and "Mama!" and "Dada!" to try and get us to listen to him.

He finally settled for sitting in his chair when his plate was filled with food.

Then he wanted cheese. We gave him cheese. He would eat a bite and demand more. DEMAND more cheese. Even though there was still a little pile on his plate. The act of receiving cheese was clearly more fun than actually eating it.

Then he wanted salad dressing. He doesn't eat salad. But we gave him some to dip his chicken (and fingers) in. And then we had to go round and round about wanting MORE. Not just wanting, but demanding more.

At one point he had settled for a bit to have a drink of water, leaning on the table, red faced and teary eyed. His dad asked him if he was done.

The answer was a very calm, "no." And then our dinner demands continued.

Daddy's Boy

As we all know, Jack is a funny and cute kid, and everyone just loves and adores him. But there is one person who has a very special relationship with him--his dad.

When my husband walks in the door from work each night, the first person to greet him is Jack. Jack is ready to help him off with his jacket and scarf, watch him hang up his keys and give him a big squeeze and some kisses. Tonight, like most nights, Jack followed his dad around like a little shadow. They played trains together and rolled around on the floor. One of Jack's specialties is helping my husband change his clothes after work. He is very good at putting clothes in the hamper and lugging size 13 shoes into the closet.

For dinner we had Chinese carryout and Jack and his dad shared a bowl of soup ("boop" according to Jack). They dropped crispy noodles into the soup and fished them out with their spoons. Jack claimed that many of the noodles looked like bears (followed by a growl).

These two boys adore each other. Jack looks up to his Dad and wants to follow everything he does. My husband dotes on his son and wants to do everything he can for him.

I am more in love with the two of them every day.

It's Funny to be One

Jack is such a funny kid. Today he picked up the phone and pretended to talk. I asked who was on the phone, and he said " 'eff" (our friend who works with my husband). I asked what they were talking about. He said "da-dogs" (hot dogs).

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Currently he is standing on our ottoman and dropping toys as he says "nine, nine." To Jack, "nine" is counting.

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The other day Jack was running around in a T-shirt and a diaper; we hadn't gotten pants back on him since his nap that day. I was making dinner and he came into the kitchen and put something in the trash can and said "trash." I turned and asked what he had just thrown away. He lifted his shirt to show me that he wasn't wearing a diaper anymore. He had taken it upon himself to remove his diaper and throw it away. Now if we could just get him to put a new one on...

Oh Christmas Tree!

Jack loves having a tree in our house. He points it out every day, "Tree! Tree!" which sounds a lot more like "Chee! Chee!"

Going to get the tree was not very eventful in the photographic family sense. There will not be a scrapbook page about it. We went to our local Home Depot, picked out a modestly sized tree and took it home all in under an hour. Jack was not enamored with the tree selecting process since there are tractors sitting outside Home Depot. Tractors! You would have thought Christmas that day came in the form of big green and yellow John Deers and not the pine-smelling, beautifully shaped tree we had just picked out. The whole time we looked at trees, which was really only about 5 minutes, Jack kept pointing and yelling, "trac-tors! trac-tors!" Like, "how can you people look at these silly trees when there are TRACTORS here?"

So while my dear husband loaded the tree onto the car, Jack and I went and looked at the tractors. He sat on them and turned the steering wheel and pushed all the buttons and tried to move all the gears. He loved it. Until it was time to go. Jack kicked and screamed and cried "TRAC-TOOOOR!" all the way home. While he cried the saddest cry in the backseat, my husband and I laughed while singing Christmas carols very loudly.

As a side note, Jack and I returned to Home Depot later this week. There was a big truck parked in front of the row of tractors so you couldn't see them. But Jack knew they were there. As soon as we pulled up he started saying "trac-tor." He continued to say it all through our shopping until we were done. He got to play on the tractors as long as he wanted and didn't fuss when we left.

Happy, Hungry Boy

For the last two nights, Jack has been eating A LOT for dinner. He has always been a good eater, but tonight and last night, my husband and I have both finished eating and sat and waited for Jack to finish. Usually, Jack eats for 5 or 10 minutes, then declares he is done and he gets down out of his seat and goes and plays.

Jack really seems to enjoy food. He LOVES apples. Every day for a snack he's been eating the better part of an apple. He LOVES applesauce. He LOVES using a spoon to eat applesauce and to sauce his belly and lap in the process. He really seemed to enjoy the baked corn we had for dinner. He savored each green bean he ate. And he was delighted to roll chicken nuggets around in ketchup and take large, big-boy bites. He ate smiley-faced potatoes first by licking off the ketchup and then biting through them in two mouthfuls.

We just sat back and watched our happy, fat boy eat and eat until he had had enough.

Tonight's meal was especially messy with the applesauce and baked corn and ketchup, so I undressed him at the table. Once running around in his diaper, he wanted to wear his new hat. He and his dad danced around the living room, marching and playing pretend fifes. Then up the stairs he went, hat on head for his bath.

Colonial Jack

My parents just got back from Colonial Williamsburg and brought back a very cute three-pointed hat for Jack. He wasn't sure about it at first, but now I think he really likes it. I had it hanging on a coat hook this morning when he kept pointing at it and saying something that sounded nothing like hat. When I figured out that's what he wanted he had fun putting the hat on so I could take his picture.

Oh/No ?

I think Jack is making up new words.

He has been communicating with us his whole life, through cries and coos, hand gestures and signs, and now words and sounds. For a long time Jack has been telling us no. It started with "unh-unh" and has now progressed to a very clear "no-no."

It's been a little harder to understand when he means to say, "yes." We taught him to nod his head for yes and that has worked pretty well. But now when he answers a yes or no question, the answer may be "oh." Now, I know, you are thinking that this sounds a lot like no. I thought this too. But when he seems to mean yes, he is saying, "oh." I'm not sure where this came from. Maybe it's his version of "ok" or the sound he thinks is "yeah."

So, I think Jack has figured out something else to say since the word yes may be too difficult to say. It has just taken his father and I a few days to realize it.

A note on Choo-choos:
As I sit here typing, Jack is emptying my basket of his clean laundry of anything that has trains on it. He has taken out the Thomas T-shirt and the two pairs of Thomas pajamas. He has also pulled each of them over his head and face, I think, in an attempt to put them on.

Jack Changes Overnight, Literally

Every night when we go to bed, we check on Jack. Well, my husband checks on Jack because I inevitably wake him up. I will swish my pants too loudly or creak the floor the wrong way or breathe heavily and then I have to deal with a grumpy, tired little man. So, last night after his nightly check, my husband came to report to me that Jack was not wearing any clothes. We went back into his room and there he was curled up in a cold, diapered ball with his cozy blanket sleeper next to him. Until now, Jack has never undressed himself in any way except to remove his socks. So we giggled at him and said how cute he is and left his pajamas on the changing table to be put on if he woke up in the night. Don't worry about him being cold, we have a space heater in his room that we turned up so he wouldn't freeze.

Since we are dealing with some painful teeth, Jack did wake up in the night and I put his pajamas back on him. In the morning we asked Jack to show us how he took his pajamas off. He got his sleeper unzipped all by himself and could get one leg out. He didn't go any further than that. I think he was distracted by the TV or just plain didn't want to show us. So he ran around our bedroom with one leg out and his bare chest and belly exposed. Befuddled, my husband and I dozed off, trying to get another 20 minutes or so of sleep while Jack played and watched Higglytown Heroes.

When we awoke, at the change of shows on the Disney Channel, there was Jack, in his diaper and no pajamas. Clearly he doesn't want us to see how he undresses himself. I am very glad that both times he undressed himself, he left his diaper on. Diapers are a lot easier to remove than a blanket sleeper. I am worried that the diaper won't be far behind. I think we may have to put a belt of duct tape around him. I do not want to clean up a crib after Jack has slept in it all night without a diaper.

Jack keeps us on our toes!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I would like to share with you pictures and stories of my growing family. Jack is our 18 month old son who is the light of my day and my life. We are expecting our second baby in March and we think we are having a girl. I am a stay-at-home mom and so my days are filled with raisins, Sesame Street, "choo-choos" and other things that are important to my toddler.

Jack is learning new words all the time now and is figuring out how to speak his mind. He has been able to shake his head and grunt, "unh-unh" to say no for a while now. This week he has started to say, "no no." It is very cute, but it's not always what I want to hear, like when it's time to put on dinosaur pajamas instead of train or "choo-choo" pajamas. For the most part he is a very easy going kid. He loves to give kisses and to snuggle and to read books.

Our latest adventure was trick-or-treating with Jack for the first time. He dressed up as Tigger and was the cutest thing I've ever seen, if I do say so myself. We walked around our neighborhood with a couple of Jack's friends that we play with at the playground. He very quickly learned to go up to someone's door and ask for candy. He thought this was a lot of fun. He would take candy from their baskets and put it into his own bucket and into his friends buckets. If allowed, he would also help himself to seconds, and even thirds. Being so cute, I don't think anybody hesitated to let him have as much as he wanted.

In general, Jack doesn't eat much candy. (I put that in so you would think I am a good mom who abides by all the rules) But he has developed a taste for chocolate. After trick-or-treating he and his dad shared a candy bar. When Jack would finish chewing and be ready for another bite he would stand on the chair and yell "choc-at! choc-at!" stomping and demanding the next bite. I guess chocolate can do funny things to people.

All in all our first trick-or-treating was a lot of fun. I think Jack really enjoyed himself and LOVED getting and eating chocolate. (For the record, he has only had 1 piece of chocolate since Halloween. I, however, make no such claims about myself. I am 5 months pregnant and a bucket of candy in the house doesn't stand a chance of surviving.)