Jackson Boy

I have failed lately when it comes to recording the happenings of our lives and the growing upings of our children. So I guess I'll try to do a little catching up here.

Jackson...what to say? He is one funny little boy.

-He's a pretty happy little guy overall. We did have about a week and a half where I was just about ready to sell him to the gypsies. Or maybe even pay them to take him. It started over Thanksgiving break--he'd just throw a fit and have a meltdown about everything. He'd wake up crying in the morning, so I go in to get him. He'd reach for me to get him out of his crib, I try to get him, he pushes me away and tells me to leave, so I leave, he cries for me to come back in, and reaches for me again. Repeat over and over till I pull my hair out. It was a fight to get him dressed, a fight to get him to eat, a fight to do almost everything. I really thought I might go crazy. I really will not even tell you the things that crossed my mind, for fear I'd be locked up. Fortunately for all of us, he seems to be doing a lot better now. I'm just doing my best to make sure he gets to bed on time, gets a good nap, and has some one-on-one mommy time every day, and it really seems to be making a big difference. Even though it is tempting to let him stay up a little later at night when we're having fun playing and he's still happy, I just have to remind myself of the consequences the next day. So sleep = happy Jackson = happy Mom.

-He talks like a real person. He has some funny little things he says still, but for the most part, he speaks correctly. He gets a preposition of the day and uses it for everything. "With" has been a favorite lately.

-He frequently asks, "Whatcha doing, mommy?" I'll answer him and tell him what I'm doing, then ask what he's doing. He always says, "Just (fill in the blank)" Just eating lunch, just playing trains, just in the kitchen, just on my chair...whatever he's doing, but it always starts with "just". Cute.

-Another favorite thing he says lately is "Oh." I don't know why it is so funny to me, but he'll just respond "Oh." so matter-of-factly when I tell him something. Kills me every time!

-He loves to "bointz" on daddy. He'll tell daddy to lay down on the floor (or take advantage of the situation if he's already down) and then will sit on daddy's tummy and "bointz" as he says (bounce up & down). I've had to stop him from bointzing on baby Clayton a time or two.

-Looking at the lines on his palms, "I have lots of roads!"

-Looking at a picture of Dorthy's red shoes, "I think we need a race helmet!" ...what?! No idea where that came from.

-Out of nowhere: "My soother is from China!"

-He was rubbing noses with Jack one night and said, "Let's do yeah noses." Jack didn't know what he meant (would you?) so he demonstrated. Instead of going back and forth (like shaking your head "no") he went up and down. Of course, yeah noses.

-He's starting to get a little imagination and it's fun to watch him play. Today he was pretending like he was making dinner using some cars. He set the table with them and brought them to me to eat my dinner.

-Still loves his trains and plays with them almost daily. He's had fun playing with the nativity lately too.

-He always has to bring something with him where ever he goes. Whenever we move from playing to doing something else (eating lunch, taking a nap, getting in the car, taking a bath), he has to take at least one thing with him, usually more. It makes for scattered toys all over the house, but at least he moves on to the next thing we need to do. He had a little pumpkin bucket he'd use to carry his collections, but I decided the season had passed so I replaced it with a snowman bucket.

-He looks out for his little brother and lets me know what he needs. If Clayton is crying, Jackson will tell me that he's hungry, or needs to burp, or needs his soother, or needs a new diaper. He'll try to give Clayton his soother back if he loses it, though sometimes it is a little too forceful.

-Jackson knows all his upper-case letters and the sounds they make.

-He counts 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-17-16-17-16-17 (for an indefinite amount of time), then sometimes ending with 20.

-He doesn't really get counting things even though he knows how to count the numbers. He gets one, two, and three things, but beyond that he doesn't really associate the number with the number of items.

-He has just discovered that he can reach things from the kitchen counter and in the top drawers. In the past hour he has brought me an empty bag of m&m's (it wasn't empty when it was on the counter), a glass cup full of water, a half full (or was it half empty?) bowl of modge podge & paint brush, a piece of bread, bag clips, crayons, sand paper, and other random things. Looks like I need to be careful about what I leave out!

-He has started to act embarrassed when he does something cute or funny and we comment or laugh. He makes a cute little I'm-trying-not-to-smile face.

-Size 4 diapers, size 2 T shirts, 2 T with adjustable waist band pants, size 6 or 7 shoe