mas y mas

since we reported on jack's words last week, he has gained a new one:

"more"

mooorrre???

>>insert bad cockney accent and oliver twist impressions here<<

we've been using it with him for months, particularly when it comes to food, and doing the asl sign for it. he adapted the sign (instead of fingers of both hands pointing toward each other, he just points at his open palm) but he hadn't figured out how to say it.

until this weekend.

and when he said it and mommy and daddy excitedly ran to get him more food, he realized, "hey, this is a pretty cool word." so he's kept using it.

i thought i had heard him previously say mas -- the spanish word for more. but he hadn't said it in a long time, so i chalked it up to a fluke or an overeager mommy.

but then, something pretty remarkable occurred monday morning. he asked for "more." mommy went to the kitchen to fetch a new bunch of grapes while roxana stayed with him at his high chair. while mommy was out of view, he started asking for "mas" from roxana. he continued switching off between the spanish with her and the english with mommy.

and he kept making his hand sign.

wow.

on other language fronts, his spanish counting continues to improve and he reliably responds "dos" when prompted with "uno."

¡que bueno!

whose shoes?

in addition to loving his new shoes (as opposed to nu shooz, which is only marginally tolerable, and then only if you have a serious affinity for bad '80s music) ... jack is very concerned, in general, about people's shoes.

whose shoes are these?

jack often likes to pick up shoes in mommy & daddy's room and then attempt to place them on your feet. he often does this while you're lying in bed, trying to ignore him, praying the other parent will just take him outside for a while ...

he's pretty successful with flip flops ... lace-up shoes are another story ...

just this morning, he found the shoes that mommy took off and left near the couch last night, and very helpfully brought them to mommy in the kitchen and forced her to wear them while she made breakfast. it was a sight to behold -- tan-trimmed black pumps and penguin pajamas. a true fashion statement.

he also likes to put mommy and daddy's shoes on his own feet. it is pretty comical to see him clomping around in daddy's wingtips or mommy's slingbacks! and his foot is still small enough (size 5XW we just found out) that he sometimes gets them on backward ... with the long part of the shoe coming out behind him. he doesn't stay upright in this arrangement for very long, but while he does it's hilarious!

and mommy thought we'd avoid the shoe obsession with a boy!

weekend update

a weekend so busy that it required a lot of planning. as daddy says, "when you receive an email with the weekend schedule broken down hour-by-hour, you know you're in trouble." but we had a lot to get to this weekend!

we headed back to the doctor on saturday to have jack's tuberculosis test read. the verdict: jack does not have tb. huzzah. neither a typhoid mary nor a tb terry! jack also got his flu shot. he recognized the alcohol prep pad and starting crying as soon as the nurse started rubbing his arm with it. but our tough guy was feeling good enough before we left that he flirted shamelessly with the receptionists in the front.

many errands later, and we headed out to buy jack his first *real* pair of shoes. maybe a little on the late side, considering he's been walking for 5 months ... but he was fine for the summer in his other shoes. and now with the colder weather coming, it was time for stride rites!

jack's nana came along to serve as the official photographer:

after a very successful shoe purchase, we headed to a wonderful old-time amusement park to ride the historic carousel for the last time of the season. jack had fun, and we ran into our friend alex from playgroup, people from our hospital birthing class, mommy's colleague who was moments from being married at the park, and a scary black fox (well, a man in a black fox costume, which jack's biologist aunt points out is not a real mammal and so jack is a genius to be wary of such a biological anomaly).

sunday provided more opportunities for fun -- the "beach friends" came over for a happy hour and jack enjoyed showing off his new shoes to the group by running all over the playground!

a busy weekend, but lots of fun. we'll rest up this week before next weekend's excursion to buckeye country!

music for a while

shall all your cares beguile ...

if purcell's right, jack should have no cares this friday, because he has begun music class!

where's your class jack? oh yeah ... over there.



you may notice a little "blemish" on jack's normally angelic visage. well, he had a bit of a fall yesterday evening. he (shockingly) refused any assistance while trying to step over the threshhold of the sliding glass door, and he (shockingly) tripped ... scraping his head.

he cried for a minute, but our tough guy recovered quickly. but between the shots and the header into the mudroom, jack had a rocky day yesterday.



but, like chumbawumba and weebles, he gets knocked down, but he gets up again. it's never gonna keep him down.

in fact, he was raring to go for music class this morning and was already making friends before things had even begun.

all that kibitzing made him thirsty



really thirsty! apple cider ... yummy!



a review of jack's music class -- plus much much more -- next monday in the weekend update.

pediatric update

jack is the picture of health and good development, according to his doctor!

jack now weighs 23.5 pounds
jack is 32.5 inches tall
jack's head is 47 cm around

when she plots him on the growth chart, he is on his same curve -- about 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight. he *must* get that from his lanky, svelte mother. oh ... wait ...

she was very pleased to see the list of his words, which, (we must update) also include "hot" and "nana." we forgot those yesterday. sorry, nana. sorry, hot. so we're up to 19 words. and she was very pleased that he has a couple of phrases -- "good dog" and "bye bye daddy."

she, like most who encounter him, remarked on how much energy jack has, but assures us this amount of "kinetic activity" is completely normal, especially in a little boy.

we are under orders to go buy some "real" shoes for fall/winter. i'm sure that will be its own blog entry.

and because of his walking/running status, jack got his vaccinations in the arm today for the first time. during his tb test he just looked quizically at the nurse until he finally broke out with some tears. we were up to full-on howling by the hib and mmr vaccines, but he recovered quickly and was busily and happily playing with toys before we even had our bill paid.

we go back saturday to check the tb test ... and ... get a flu shot.

don't tell jack.

use your words

jack heads to the doctor tomorrow for his 15 month check-up.

yes, i realize he is nearly 16 months. but mommy didn't get on the stick when their calendar first opened up for september (it's dog-eat-dog with back to school physicals and whatnot) and this was the first morning appointment with our preferred ped that we could get.

so, yes, mommy blew it. is that what you wanted to hear? ;-)

no matter. it will be fine to be seen at 15.75 months. and, lest you worry, after daily stalking by mommy until they opened their december calendar, we have secured his 18 month appointment for the actual week of his "half-birthday"

in preparing for his doctor's appointment, we're getting together a list of questions to ask and progress to report. questions like: "is it normal for a child to eat as much as jack does?" and progress to report like: "we've kept him from killing himself."

but another mark of progress that mommy plans to report, and which i will enumerate here for your reading pleasure, are jack's words:

• no
• mom/mama
• dad/daddy
• jack (sortof)
• dog (or "good dog")
• cat
• bird
• shoe
• bus
• car
• all done
• go
• shhh
• agua
• hi
• bye bye
• night night
• hot
• nana
• supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

okay ... one of those was not true.

school daze

so ... more was promised on jack's trip to daycare ... aka school ... aka university

here's more:

jack had a good day at the backup center that mommy's munificent employer provides so that she never misses work.

here's what his "teacher" had to say:

(remember, you can single click on the image to enlarge it)


the hilarious thing is that everywhere we go, everyone comments on how much jack loves to eat. this time was no exception ... one of his main comments was "he loved the lunch that was served to him from home." and you'll notice, gentle reader, that he was fed four -- count 'em -- four times! this does not include breakfast and dinner, which he ate (lustily) at home.

miss deone was his primary teacher for the day. she told daddy her co-teacher, miss whitney, was a jack favorite. any time miss whitney left, jack was looking for her ... following her ... crying for her ... just didn't want her leaving.

he certainly wasn't worried about mommy leaving. she was saying "buh-bye" and blowing kisses and jack was too busy sliding to even notice.



but jack made it up to mommy by making her a present ... his first bona fide art project! here it appears in two panels, but it's really all one thing (stupid small scanner!).



miss deone told daddy that jack got almost as much paint on the paper as he ate.

good to know.

guess that brings the count to five meals at daycare.