The week in Jack-land

Man, what a long week! And I can't even tell you what we did. Jack has been really keeping us on our toes. He's just been a ball of energy lately, and his verbal skills are really exploding. He seems to learn a few words a day, and he's now stringing together two- and three-word sentences together. It's clear that he's really remembering things that have happened even a few weeks ago and that he's starting to understand more complex concepts. It's amazing watching all these pieces click into place in his little brain.

Here is a random sampling of things that Jack has been into and up to lately:

New words: Jack is beginning to refer to himself in the third person, which is really funny. He points things out like, "Mommy's shirt. Daddy's shirt. Jack's shirt." He's starting to understand the concept of "other." However, every "other" thing is called "other one" (pronounced "uhnuwan"), as in, "Cat. Other one cat."

Friends: Jack knows all his friends' names and is learning their mommies' and baby siblings' names as well. When we go somewhere where we're going to see his friends, Jack will say, "Friends. Nice. Push. Sad. Timeout." I'm trying to convince myself this is his way of trying to remember that we do NOT push our friends. He has a couple of pals whom he can't seem to resist shoving, much to my chagrin. Most of his favorite push-ees are little girls. I hope this is something akin to pulling the pigtails of the girls you like and not a sign that I have a future wife-beater on my hands. *sigh*

Walk button: All buttons really, though. In-house faves include the ones on the microwave, refrigerator, and Mommy's keyboard. Jack calls them "duttoons."

"Monkey duttoon": Auntie Renee gave Jack his own little laptop for his birthday. It has a noisy little monkey that makes this awful chirping noise when you press the right answer on its various games. Naturally, Jack loves it. He often demands that, "Mommy do it! Daddy do it!" And he does it: "Ruh-rack!" which I guess is the approximation that he and Daddy worked out for the sound. Most of the games on this laptop are too old for Jack, but he does really well with the simple number and letter recognition ones. The main problem with this laptop is that the monkey doesn't always make this noise when you get a right answer. He cycles through a couple of responses, but Jack only likes the "Ruh-rack!" and he gets really mad when the monkey doesn't perform accordingly.

Knife and fork: Jack got a TON of presents for his birthday. It looks like a toy store blew up in our living room. But, of course, at the moment his favorite toys are our knives and forks. He has always liked running around with spoons and cups and empty yogurt containers, but obviously we can't let him do that with a knife and fork. So we tell him he can only have them when he's eating in his high chair, which of course means he wants to be in his high chair constantly. He climbs into it himself and then demands that we pop the tray on and give him his flatware.

Sesame Street and Disney: I'm happy to report that Jack's is no longer exclusively obsessed with Elmo. While the little red guy remains the favorite, Jack has also developed an affection for many others of the Sesame Street gang. This is helpful to Mommy as she looks for other videos to help keep her little TV zombie entertained. He's not totally into Disney yet, but he has this book of Disney babies that he just loves. There's a part that says, "Donald has a cuddle duck that helps him get to sleep, It snuggles close at napping time and never makes a..." and Jack will chime in, "Peep!"

"O-cake" and "prayce": Jack still thinks it's his birthday. Almost every day for the past two weeks, he has asked for "o-cake" or "orange cake." He remembers, "Two candle! Owie! Hot! Touch it!"

The cake fixation is slowly giving way, however, to an obsession with the "yogurt place," or "dodurt prayce" as Jack calls it. There is a new frozen yogurt shop within walking distance of our house, and I think it's the closest thing to Jack's idea of heaven that we've yet encountered. In addition to the actual yogurt - which is delicious, especially when topped with Jack's favorite berries - it has several other Jack-specific attractions. His beloved walk button is on the way. At one end of the place, there is a very easily accessible bathroom door with a sign for him to yell at and point to, and he can actually open and close the door himself. He can run up and down the entire establishment, because it's pretty much one long corridor lined with yogurt machines on one side and brightly-colored tables and chairs (including a set in his current favorite color purple) on the other. He thinks it's particularly fun to do this while yelling as loud as he can; I'm not sure the employees or other patrons agree. And one time we went in there, the owner turned on the flat screen TV right as "Elmo's World" was starting. What more could a little boy ask for?

We went to the pediatrician for Jack's two-year appointment on Friday. The doctor said of Jack, "He looks like he's a lot of fun." He paused, saw the looks on our faces, and amended, "A lot of work. But a lot of fun."

That's about the size of it.