What Jack's up to

So there's been a whole lot of talk about Max and how he's changing but Jack has made some huge leaps and bounds in the past few months as well.  He's really turned into a such a big kid in so many ways, on top of turning into a fantastic big brother.  He hates the camera (or perhaps stopping what he's doing to smile at the camera), so it's hard to get good pictures of him, which is part of the reason for fewer posts about him.  Max can't protest just yet, so I get a lot more good pictures of him.

His speech has gotten so much clearer and he almost always speaks in complete sentences now.  They aren't perfect, but they are really cute.  My favorite is "What you sayed Momma?"  He has also started to ask "why?" about a lot of things.  I also love that he calls football helmets football hats!  Makes perfect sense to me.

He loves to draw and his pictures are starting to look like something! His coloring has much improved too.  He doesn't stay completely in the lines, but he does very well and will spend a long time with a coloring book and box of crayons.

He's much more comfortable around new people and doesn't cling to our legs quite so long now.  He loves meeting new people and seeing new places much more than ever before. 

He comes home singing a new song every day and after hearing Momma's new favorite song (Dynamite) in the car a few times, he can now sing along to it too, which really makes my day!

He can definitely be reasoned with and is learning to make his own decisions.  At dinner we are learning to try new things and he can have a treat if he tries enough of the new thing, or not.  It's up to him.  He fusses for a bit usually, about how he just wants the treat, but in the end, will decide what's more important to him and go on his way.  It's a nice change to the tantrums over things that were completely within his control but he felt the need to scream about anyway.

He usually wants to try to do things "ALL BY MY SELF" before he'll accept help.

He gets really upset if he thinks he's hurt us or Max and says he's sorry all on his own.  He also almost always says please and thank you without prompting now, at least to us.  We still have to remind him to do it to others many times.

He's perfected the bigger puzzles he got for Christmas. Already.

He can build all sorts of different train tracks now.  When he first got the train tracks we always had to build the track for him and then he'd play.  Now he's always trying to find a new way to put it together and is always telling us that he needs new pieces to build with.

 

He's getting really big and is often so busy playing that he doesn't always have time to grant my requests for a hug or a kiss, but he still always asks for a kiss on his boo boos!

He's finally in need of 2T clothes but only for the length.  His waist is still way too small for them.  

He's still not potty trained but did confess to being scared of the big potty, so he and Daddy went on a trip to Babies R Us and picked out the coolest little potty they had.  It's a Cars potty and it's even got a little lever that makes a vroom sound when you "flush."  That's definitely his favorite part.  He's been a little more interested since this purchase was made, but still seems happy in his diaper.  It'll come, I'm sure.

He can identify about 15 different dinosaurs and is often correcting me when I misname them.  In fact, after a recent boys trip to the Children's Museum, Kenny told me that they found a fossil footprint with 3 toes.  Jack said it was a T-Rex and Kenny said it was too small to be a T-Rex, perhaps it was a Velociraptor.  Jack said "yeah, maybe" and they went on their way.  When they got home, Jack found his Velociraptor toy, studied it a bit and brought it to Kenny and told him that the footprint couldn't have belonged to a Velociraptor because they really only have 2 "toes" that make their footprint as the 3rd one is raised and doesn't hit the ground. Pretty perceptive I thought.
 

He's also into pretending and is really developing quite an imagination. He'll often offer you an imaginary cupcake or bring me his baby monkey (interestingly named Max Oliver) and ask me to help the monkey feel better because he's crying.  He and Kenny have even constructed a few baby cribs from Legos and such lately for baby monkey. And just this morning, as I was changing Max and has my back to Jack, I heard him tell me he was being a turtle.  When I turned around, he had Max's Bumbo on his back and was crawling around!

He had his second checkup at the dentist this week and it went really well. He even let them clean his teeth! Much better than the first time. Some of that's age and some of that is that Jack handles things much better when he knows what to expect.  

At night, when Kenny is leaving his room after reading books and snuggling with him for a few minutes, I often overhear Jack say "Daddy?"  "I love you and Momma and Max."  It makes me tear up every time as I am sitting in the next room nursing Max to sleep.  I'm one lucky Momma and very proud of the person Jack is turning into.

I love you Doodlebug.