Growing Up

Playing games, and wearing his gorgeous sweater from Gigi

The weeks continue to fly by and we're less than six weeks away from my due date.  I have lots to write about; Jack's expanding vocabulary and his swim lessons; Lilly and the amazing things she's doing at school and her ridiculously cute ballet class; and then there are the baby preparations.  I have to start somewhere so I thought I'd write about Jack today.  We have just phased out Jack's morning nap, so he and I have been spending lots of time together.  Whereas before, he used to sleep almost all morning until we picked Lilly up from school, these days, the world is our oyster.  Sometimes we play at home or at a friend's house.  We've met up with friends at Starbucks and as you can imagine, Jack is such a help with errands.  He loves Trader Joe's and even knows where the food samples are.  We can't pass by without trying something every time!

Jack is chatting more and more these days, saying hi and bye to everyone when we go out; cheese when he's playing with Lilly's toy camera; shoes, as he carries his shoes around and asks you to put them on his feet; there it is, although it comes out as "thereitis," when he finds something that we've been looking for.  Jack calls Lilly, Lala and when he can't find her, he stands at the bottom of the stairs yelling, "Lala...Lala..." over and over again at the top of his lungs.  He gets so excited when we pull up at school to pick Lilly up.  Today, when we drove up, he said, "thereitis" and waved at the school.  When Lilly's teacher put her in the car, Jack started babbling away and waving to her, and then chatted away to Lilly for the drive home.  He just loves her.  No one can make him smile or laugh like Lilly does.

He says clean up, "eeenup" when we're cleaning up toys or after he pulls everything out of a drawer.  He spends about half his days saying up, holding his hands up in the air just in case there's any confusion.  Jack knows a dog says, woof and a snake says ssssss and he opens and closes his mouth when you ask him what a fish does.  He thinks that all other animals, however, say woof, so when we read one of his favorite books about cats, I say meow at the end of every page and Jack laughs and says, woof.  Jack loves his little books, especially peek-a-boo ones.  He'll sit and look at them for ages, and they're great entertainment in the car.  Every time he opens a flap, he says, a-boof, with a big smile.  He's learning not to throw his food when he's finished eating, but instead, puts it up on the counter.  He goes over to the cabinets that he knows he's not supposed to go into and says, "uh, uh, uh" and shakes his head as he opens it and (usually) closes it again.  He's learned how to turn around and come down the stairs backwards, although sometimes he thinks of the stairs as a ride and just slides down them, three or four at a time.  I don't quite trust his going down abilities just yet.  I've been doing swim lessons with him once a week for the last five weeks, and they're adorable.  I have yet to get a picture of him in the pool because, as I'm sure you can imagine, getting both of us ready for swimming, into the pool, out of the pool and dressed again is quite the ordeal.  But I will get some in the upcoming weeks.  It's too cute to miss.

"Blowing" his own nose, which really entails making blowing noises with his mouth and then racing to the trash to throw his tissue out.

Jack will still eat or drink anything; Lilly and I often make smoothies in the afternoon and I gave Jack one the other day and he sucked it down.  This morning, he drank my green juice, full of kale, cucumbers and celery.  He loves it all; hence the reason most of his clothes even though he's 15 months old, are now 2T.  Lilly can fit into some of his clothes!  

It's funny to think that in about six weeks, Jack will be a 'big' brother, because I still think of him as so little.  One of the first times I cried after Jack was born was when Lilly came to visit us in the hospital.  Seeing her next to Jack, I realized how big she was.  It was like she grew up overnight.  I feel more prepared for that this time, but I don't think there's any way to be fully prepared for the emotions surrounding your little ones growing up.  

Lilly continues to come up with names for the baby, although she pragmatically tells us that she can't come up with too many names because we don't know whether it's a girl baby or a boy baby.  Lilly would like a little sister, because she already has a little brother.  Jack has no clue what is going on, except that my expanding stomach continues to get in the way of him sitting on my lap.  He'll throw his head back to lie on it, and then try and scoot himself back so that he fits on my lap.  When that doesn't work, Jack turns around and tries to push my stomach out of the way, until he realizes that it doesn't go anywhere, at which point he starts yelling at it.

Jack is a real little person, with his own (strong) personality.  Even though he loves running and playing and chatting non-stop, he's also snuggly and sweet.  His cuddles make me melt.  When he puts his head on my shoulder before bed or when he's just woken up, it brings me back to his newborn days.  I hope those hugs never stop.  Whenever I look at him, I can't believe how quickly our little Jack is growing up.  But for the next six weeks, he's still the baby of the family.

Two of Jack's favorite "toys"--the television remote and the telephone