Jack update

Whew! What a crazy couple of months this has been.  But I'm happy to say that I think our May curse is finally broken.  May is six months after Jack's birthday, and it has historically been a challenging month for him.  Last year was the first year since he was born that I didn't notice any unusually difficult behavior from him in May, and he was absolutely fine this year.

It feels like Jack adopts new hobbies at an awfully rapid clip these days.  Since his birthday, he has gone through a king phase, a lion phase, a cheetah phase, and a Lego phase.  His current obsession is with Star Wars.  It's funny, because several of Jack's friends have been interested in Star Wars for a very long time, and Jack had been mostly oblivious to it.  But a friend of his has a Lego Star Wars Wii game.  At the time, Jack was in his Lego phase, so I think the fact that the game was Lego Star Wars, instead of just regular Star Wars, is what initially piqued his interest.

I will admit, the Star Wars phase is not my favorite.  I really liked it when he liked the wild animals and the non-Star Wars Legos.  The movies are violent and have some pretty dark themes.  I'm a little annoyed at the Lego marketing machine for making such a mature movie franchise so attractive to such small children.  But, as a parent, I am learning that moderation is key, and his enthusiasms are very good motivators.  We bought him a Lego Star Wars book about the Phantom Menace movie, and it's helping him practice his reading.  He earned a Lego Darth Vader key chain for not crying for a week, and he is on his way to earning a Darth Sidious one for making his bed in the morning for a whole week without me having to tell him to do it.

Of course, Jack being Jack, he dives in whole-heartedly when he is interested in something.  A friend of mine commented that Jack has only been into Star Wars for a couple of weeks and already he knows more about the Star Wars universe and all its characters than her kids, who have been playing Star Wars for over a year.  I'm actually really excited, though, because I just found an awesome sounding summer camp that I think he's going to love.  It's called "Jedi Engineering," and it will teach kids the fundamentals of engineering by letting them design Star Wars-themed projects using Legos.  Does that sound perfect for Jack, or what?  I would love to be able to channel all his enthusiasm into something constructive and educational.

Jack also adopts new nicknames for me and his sister all the time.  I have been "Moomy" for quite a while, but he recently started adding "ji-ji" in front of it.  As in: "I love you, ji-ji-Moomy!"  He also calls Violet "ji-ji-Baby Violet."  I really have no idea what it means or how it started, but I often respond to his spontaneous expressions of affection with, "I love you, too, ji-ji-Jack-Jack!"  He thinks that's pretty funny.

In other news, we are officially on summer break. Preschool, T-ball, and golf all ended within the last week.  It's strange that, after having so much to do for so many weeks, almost all of our activities have come to an end all at once.  We had a great season of T-ball and met some really fun families.  It was a pretty rigorous schedule, so I'm a little hesitant to say with absolute certainty that we will do it again next year.  But if we do, we will probably do another year of T-ball so that Jack can hone his skills and so that we can stay with the same coach and most of the team for another year.

I'm a little more wistful about the end of preschool and golf.  Jack had a really nice golf instructor who, in all likelihood, will not be teaching next fall.  They only offer golf camps over the summer, which are both expensive and very time-consuming, so we will be taking a break from golf.  Jack says that he would like to continue with his lessons, though, so we will see what our schedule will allow once he's in school full-time.  The fact that I didn't absolutely love Jack's preschool teacher this year sort of tempers my sadness about his moving on, but it does bring home to me how fast my little boy is growing up,

As a preschool graduation present, we bought Jack a bigger bike.  The one that he learned to ride on was a 12-inch bike.  Watching him pedal on that one reminded me of watching those old-fashioned manual egg beaters.  It was time for an upgrade, but he didn't have any gift-giving occasions coming up, so we told him it was for graduating preschool.  Jack specifically requested an orange (his current favorite color) bike, and I wanted one with both hand and foot brakes to get him used to hand brakes.  I could find exactly one bike that fit both those criteria, so that is the one we got.  It's a little heavy for him, but he's doing great after riding it just a few times.  I think it should last him for years, and the good thing about orange is that it's gender-neutral enough that hopefully Violet will be able to ride it as well when she's big enough.

We do still have piano lessons, and I want to get Jack into swim lessons over the summer.  I think piano, swimming, vacation bible school, engineering camp, one or two trips, and lots and lots of playdates with friends will keep us happily occupied until kindergarten starts.