splish splash

so, long-time readers may remember that jack took swimming lessons last may and we were awaiting his report card.

well, here, six months later, we finally have his report card. they had forgotten to send it/lost it/never done it. and they had avoided returning mommy's repeated phone calls. but when mommy showed up in person they could no longer hide. and, voila, we have received jack's report card. we also received a coupon for a free admission to the pool during open swim. daddy shook his head and muttered something about squeaky wheels ...

well, squeak squeak! now let's look at how jack "the fish" did ...

as we suspected ... blowing bubbles was one of jack's weaker areas. but what a difference six months makes ... he loves blowing bubbles in his bathwater.

it's a very solid first report card, and they recommend we repeat the class until we're ready to progress. hopefully we'll get a space for winter session.

if nothing else, it will be fodder for the weekend update!

jack and his daddy

jack and his daddy are the best of buddies. jack loves wrassling and playing with him. one of their most favorite games is tossing the ball, of which you've seen photos before. but here's the live-action version (from a poor quality camera phone)

but things aren't always so fun ... in fact a few hours before this video was taken this morning, jack and daddy had a standoff.

jack decided it was a good idea to hit the tv with the remote. daddy did not agree.

so daddy took away the remote.

this was infuriating to the always even-tempered jack, so he decided it was a good idea to seize a magazine from the table and hit daddy with it. daddy did not agree.

so daddy took away the magazine and emphasized that we do not hit people.

this was even more enraging to jack. so he decided it was a good idea to run up to daddy, and bite him on the leg! daddy did not agree.

oh, it was *on*, people ...

daddy grabbed jack and gave him a "time-out" in the corner ... emphasizing that we do not hit and we do not bite. jack, very rationally, screamed his head off during this disciplinary moment.

but as you see, later on, all was forgiven by daddy and they're the best of pals again.

ah ... 17 months ... what a tender age ...

trafficking jack

our area has tons of traffic ... including *inside* jack's house!

bespoke jack

okay ... maybe not bespoke tailoring ... but this outfit is certainly one of a kind ...

jack was very fortunate to have received many wonderful gifts when he was born. and many of those gifts were clothes -- everything from plain onesies, to khakis with a ribbon belt, to a puffy down vest, to a cashmere cardigan with matching booties, to hand-knit sweaters and hats.

and mommy was adamant that jack wear everything he was gifted with ... at least once. so, yesterday was the day that we completed that assignment and reached our goal.

normally roxana arrives just as we are finishing breakfast and she gets jack dressed for the day. as it turns out, she views this as a perk. she says the other nannies with whom she and jack hang out are not allowed to select the daily outfits for their charges -- instead their mothers lay out the clothes the children are to wear. so they all envy roxana and compliment her on the adorable combinations she comes up with. this is all according to roxana, of course. but, hey, if it makes her happy and it's seasonally appropriate, who is mommy to quarrel?

but ... roxana had to be a bit late monday morning, so mommy seized the opportunity to dress jack in the final untouched costume. jack wore:

the brazilian outfit!

this was a very sweet gift from a colleague and friend of jack's grandad, who was very excited about the arrival of our beautiful boy:

and though it looks like something from an alpine village of yesteryear crossed with a japanese flea market ... it also looks super-cute on our precious babe:

(look closely at the gathered waist)

jack took the outfit in stride, but he made it clear: "i'm not a barbie doll, mom!"

anyway, it's getting a little short, so it probably won't get too many more wearings. but we had fun on this day.

and roxana reports all the nannies crowed over how cute it was.

text-only weekend update

first of all ... there will be no pictures in this weekend update. so, if you're a picture-junkie, you'll have to go elsewhere.

now ... with that out of the way ... here's how we spent our weekend (along with accompanying rationalizations about why we couldn't/didn't take photos).

on saturday we headed to a nursery school open house. now is the time to begin applications for admission in september 2008, so we're shopping around for a place to send young jack. and the open house process is ... interesting. after mommy left the dear old theta house behind, she thought her experience with sorority rush was forever past. and it was. until the nursery school open house. it feels very much the same as sorority rush used to -- it's just that the letters of the alphabet pasted on the walls are in english, not greek.

mommy went to one last week before work, so she already knew a little bit of what to expect. and the place we went on saturday was great -- nice families, great facility, dedicated teachers, yummy pumpkin bread (that last one was a jack observation). we're not getting our heart set on anything, because like many things in our neck of the woods, admission is somewhat competitive. there are less than 10 slots for 2 year olds, and first dibs goes to siblings of kids already attending the school, residents of the neighborhood in which the nursery school is located (the one next door to ours, drat!) and then they award the rest of the slots to balance the class for gender and age.

so, we didn't take any pictures there -- we didn't want them to think we're weird. we'll wait until jack is accepted and then they'll find out eventually ...

on sunday, we "fell back," and jack celebrated by waking up at 5 a.m. i don't think he understands the concept of daylight saving time yet. but the early wake up made it no problem to get out of the house early in time for zoo class. mommy, daddy, and jack were all looking forward to it. unfortunately our teacher, miss lilly, also apparently failed to grasp the concept of daylight saving time and didn't show! so instead of class, we just walked around the zoo, visiting the sloth bears, the elephants, the pygmy hippos, tons of birds, and the small mammals. by that time, we were pooped out and ready to head home.

in this instance, there are no photos because mommy forgot the camera. i blame daylight saving time.

we'll try to make it up the rest of the week ...

your hair wants cutting ...

that's what the mad hatter said to alice at the wonderland tea party. and that's what mommy and daddy said to jack last weekend.

his hair may have wanted cutting, but his head just wanted to be left alone ...

but, that was not in the cards for our little garbo ... and we went off to the kiddie salon.

the results were hard to see in the weekend update ... and the duck hood didn't reveal much of the coif ... so here's a look:

the bangs:

the ears:

the back:

how cute!

the halloween spooktacular

it was all treats and no tricks for us this year! thanks to our fancy new sign (and the cutting down of a giant holly tree) we actually had trick-or-treaters this year.

we skipped seeing the great pumpkin because the line was very long, but jack had a blast trick or treating. he was energized at seeing all the people in the street and he was literally running from house to house.

he was more about the experience than the actual candy collection ... in fact, he kept trying to take candy out of his basket and put it into people's hand-out bowls ... and the houses that he deemed best were the ones with dogs. hmmm ... mommy always thought the best houses were the ones who handed out full-sized candy bars.

if you can't see the slide(.com) show, check out this link to an online album of all the photos!