All About Jack

Jack is eight weeks old now. In two days he will be two months old! He is such a good baby! He is pretty close to sleeping through the night. He sleeps from about 9pm to 4am on average. The 4am is sometimes 3am, but a couple of times it has been 4:30 or 4:45. He also naps well during the day, usually 2 hours at a time. He loves his bouncy seat. Today he was just kicking away (it looked more like stomping), and making the seat just bounce and the toys swing. He also loves the swing. He watches the mobile quite intently while the swing swings and the music plays. It is a good place for him to sit in the filtered sun coming through the glass door in the living room. I try not to put him in these seats too often, but it is nice to know that he does enjoy being there when I need him to be there. And there are times when I do need him to be in one of those seats! However, they are not safe havens for him. Any time he is not in my arms or in his bed I must keep an eagle eye on him to protect him from the big brothers. They would quite smother him with kisses and hugs, and James would try to give him fives and head butt him. Lest I forget, here are his weights and lengths that I have recorded.



Two weeks: 9 lbs. 1/2 oz.

Four weeks: 10 lbs. 2 oz.

Six weeks: 11 lbs. 3 oz., 23 inches

Eight weeks: 11 lbs. 15 oz.

Mama Takes the Cheese

The other day at lunch, Daddy grated the precious last bit of our cheese onto my food while Joel and James gazed on longingly. While Daddy was doing this he was telling Joel and James about how wonderful Mama is, how we love her so much, and all of the things she does for us and how hard she works; how we must treat her so well and do special things for her. Just what a good Daddy should be telling his sons! After a few moments Joel said, "and we give her cheese, too."

Remember doing this?

It has begun. While driving down our street, I could just barely hear Joel saying to himself, "has leaves, doesn't have leaves, doesn't have leaves, has leaves, doesn't have leaves, has leaves, has leaves...."

The Season of Fall(ing)

James seems to just fall over himself continually. Tripping, slipping, not looking where he's going; these are defining parts of James' little home life. And people wonder how a 2-year-old could have subluxation in his spine.... Well, during the Thanksgiving holiday at Opa's & Oma's, he took his grandest fall yet. He fell backwards out of a barstool. It was sort of a complicated fall which I did not witness, but the details that mattered were that he fell from the barstool backwards while he was sitting, and on his way down hit another chair, and ended up on the floor with the barstool on top of him. His entire backside had bruises and bumps, from his bottom up to his head. The main injury, however, was his left shoulder which really hurt him. It was one of the situations that Jason has always told me to "get ready for" and "get used to". But I don't know if I'll ever be "prepared" to see my children in pain. Thankfully we had two doctors on hand: Daddy and Aunt Jeana. Their assesment of the "patient" put everyone's minds at ease, although it didn't make James feel much better. Poor James. He is doing much better now, thankfully, and I am perhaps a little more experienced at this thing called mothering boys.

Contradiction (Pooh speak for Introduction)

He has 10 toes . . .

. . . it's Jack!

Play Ball!

One positive attribute that comes along with James' affinity for the wilder side of life is his athletic ability in playing ball. The football, in particular, is one of his favorite things to play with; he says, "can ye pay catch??" He has no fear of the ball coming for him, and catches it amazingly well. He is catching it from 10-12 feet away now. The ball can hit him right in the face without the slightest wince from him. Only once or twice has he ever given a scowl or unpleasant look about the impact. His ability to throw is not as great as his ability to catch, but it has improved dramatically in the past month. I used to pretty much never be able to catch anything he threw to me, but now his aim is much better - you just need to be about 3-4 away from him. His advancement in this area has given he and Joel a real game to play. It isn't always a very long game of "catch", but as each of them improve their skills, I think it will just get better and better.

Just for You

This book came to mind a few weeks ago - cannot remember the circumstances which brought it to mind, but it had to do with the lawn mowing page in this book. I told Jason about it, and how much it reminded me of Joel; how he tries so hard to do special things for his mother, but they just don't always work out right. I couldn't remember the name of the book or the author, but while at the Library this week they actually had this book on display and the cover was something that I could never forget! Of course I snatched it right up! James and Joel both love it, although Joel is really into more advanced books. He understands the sentiment of it, though, and I like to think he appreciates it.

It is fun to see which books the boys tend towards. Right now James loves Eric Carle, and the two Golden Books he received for his birthday, "Scuffy the Tug Boat" and "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck". Those are basically the only books he requests to read, but happily sits down to any story. "Stone Soup" is a new one for him to enjoy. Also, he calls Jemima Puddle-Duck, "Jemima Puppy-Duck". One of the current favorites, for both boys, is "Jack the Giant Killer" which is way better than any Jack and the Beanstalk tale I've ever heard. James walks around saying, "Fe Fo Fum ... man ... bake my bread!" Joel is very much into Fairy Tales. He likes all of them; Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltskin, Hop O' My Thumb. He also loves anything Mother Goose. If you tell him it's Mother Goose or a Fairy Tale, he is sure to be excited about it.

Joel is doing well with his learning to read. He likes to try to sound things out more and more. He is really solid now on his short and long vowel sounds; a little bored with them, I think. About two weeks ago in the middle of playing, he sounded out the word "cans" on the toy he was playing with. He just decided to do it all by himself. I was so excited to see him do that! He is excited now about learning to read, and learning about the letters. The blending of the letter sounds together is something he understands now, which was a big step. He will also pick out letter sounds in the words that I am reading or saying to him, and try to figure out which letters are in a particular word because he recognizes the sound. I love seeing the desire to learn in his eyes.

I Winned!

For all of Joel's tenderheartedness and gentleness with his little brother, James is aggressive and conniving back. No thankfulness on his part yet for a nurturing elder sibling. This upsets Joel to no end, and he has no idea how to handle these "situations" or "rows" or ... fights. If James takes something away from him, Joel doesn't want to go get it back. James is more than half his size and strong. It's never easy to go up against him on anything. So one day when James had sent Joel into a crying fit, I explained to Joel how James doesn't care about this or that, he just wants to see what Joel will do about it. It's all about power and not about substance with him. So I told Joel if he wanted to win, he must be strong on the inside and not be a bad boy and throw a fit. If he throws a fit, then James has won, but if he doesn't throw a fit, then he has won. Later that afternoon I heard some growling cries coming from the playroom. It was Joel. A few minutes later I heard James crying. Upon investigation, Joel came running up to me saying, "Mama, James hit me with --- and took ---, and I hit him back and he gave me back my --- and I winned!"

And so it was Mama who learned a lesson that day, and not Joel. At least, he didn't understand the lesson that I tried to teach him. We had to talk about not hitting each other for quite a while after that. But this episode did teach Joel to stand up for himself a little better, and that's a good thing.

The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad

You learn something new every day, and this time the lesson came from a CD of Mother Goose songs. For those of you who have enjoyed or suffered through hearing Joel's and James' "Puff and Toot" CD and, along with Jason and me, were puzzled by the song "Where Do You Work, John?" you now know that John works on the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad.

Restaurant

Yesterday afternoon the boys took their hot pink frisbees, piled rocks in them, and called it "chicken" and "pie". Joel set up chairs for their "restaurant", which according to him was a no-shoes restaurant. They just sat there and pretended to eat for quite some time. One would think that they were really and truly hungry, but they were rather upset to have to come inside to eat their real supper. Apparently the way this food looked to them in their imaginations was much more exciting and appetising than what I had prepared for them....

Repertoire

I'd better make a list of all the songs that James can sing. Jason was also able to sing songs very well at an early age (18 months), and James certainly has that trait as well. There are songs that I am not even aware that he knows, and he will just be singing them away one day and I'll think to myself, "when did he learn that one??"



Hymns:

Standing on the Promises

I Love Jesus

Brethren We Have Met to Worship

Marching to Zion

Sweet Bye and Bye

Buy the Truth



Other songs:

All 8 songs on our Mother Goose CD, including:

I've Been Working on the Railroad

Down by the Station

Where Do You Work, John?

Happy are the People

Be Ye Kind (also his first Bible memory verse!)

Clap Your Hands

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

This Little Light of Mine

The Measure of Their Stature

Jason has a very nice posture grid at work; it's so easy to measure the boy's height on it!!! James is 2' 8", Joel is 3' 3-1/2".

We have joined the Summer Reading Club at the Library. If the boys each read 20 hours or more before the end of July, they each receive a free ticket to the Circus (yes, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus!). So we are reading away. Right now Joel and I are reading Winnie the Pooh, with others mixed in, of course. James loves our Raggedy Ann Book, and Goodnight Gorilla. These aren't very long, but we have been reading them almost daily along with others. He's doing pretty good, and this is a good opportunity for him to learn to sit and have story time. He'll sit down with a book on his own just fine, but when he has to sit and listen it's not as enjoyable for him at this point. His already (somewhat) impressive vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds now. Words like "soldier" and "Pollyanna" just pop out of his mouth and that's fun to hear!

James' favorite shoes, his crocs, are already too small for him. His feet are growing so quickly right now! It's a little sad too, because he is so proud of those little shoes. We bought him some flip flops and he does like them, too, or is adjusting pretty well. He didn't want to have anything to do with flip flops until Joel was wearing flip flops again this spring. Yet, the crocs were still his favorite, with boots a close second. Perhaps we'll get him some boots for his birthday since his favorite pair have been retired.

Weighing In

Today I finally got the scale out and weighed the boys. I have needed to do it for some time for record-keeping purposes, and I should be doing it more often to track their growing. Joel is 39 pounds, and James 27 pounds. If only measuring their height was so effortless....

Joel has named the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, "Janeandthomas". I have no idea how he came up with this, but apparently "Beast" just isn't a good enough name for the poor beast.

A sad occurance has happened to Joel: he cannot wrap his arms all the way around me anymore! I told him that it was only temporary, and soon enough he would be able to again.

James is a little vampire right now. He has four little points sticking out of his gums where his eye teeth have cut through. He should be finished getting teeth for a time; not that it's really been an issue. He toughs it out real well. The last of his molars are useable now, finally coming in at about 20 months. You can see them quite well, especially when he gives out a nice big belly laugh, which he loves to do.

We got the pool out for the first time this summer yesterday, and the boys had a blast! Since the yard is sloped, one side of the pool is always much fuller than the other. So I let them run the water until there was about 5 inches of water in one side, although empty in the other. This was convenient for their exiting the pool whenever they got the notion to bring rocks and pebbles into the pool to wash them. They entertained themselves with a couple of buckets, some rocks and plopping down into the water and splashing as much as they wanted. Joel finally decided that I should get into the pool. I told him that I wasn't going to get in that day, but I would put my feet in. He began (what looked like to me) washing my feet, similar to a communion service. But he said, "Mama, I'm baptizing your feet."

Ear Training

One of our favorite things to listen to, as I have said, is Handel's Messiah. It is a work which both of the boys are quite familiar with, and can recognize, even when hearing just a small part of it. (No, I haven't been testing them, they just perk up when they hear it; Joel says, "is this the Messiah?" or, "what is this?") Well, the other night on "Adventures in Music" the theme was "Spring is Here" and the first piece of music featured was Vivaldi's "Primavera" or "Spring" from his very familiar "The Four Seasons". Now, I am not a fan of "Spring". It is just so very violiny and ... baroque. So I took a deep breath and braced myself as the music started. The boys did no such thing. They started swinging back and forth in their chairs (we were eating dinner), and waving their arms! "Well," I thought, "this makes it more enjoyable!" Just a few bars into the piece, Joel said to me, "Mama, is this the Messiah?" At first I was a little puzzled by his question. THIS the Messiah? Ugh. But then I realized the similarity, and I think it's what made him put the two works together. They are both so baroque; I don't know another word for it. The baroque patterns are so easy to recognize, and I think that Joel is recognizing those baroque patterns!

Caught with his pants down

On this, the day James turns 20 months old, I'll write a few things about him.

James has suddenly grown a fondness for pulling off his pajama pants after we put him to bed. He will do it over and over again. One night when I checked on him before I went to bed, I discovered him, asleep, with his pants off, inside out, and somewhat covering his head as if he fell asleep while attempting to put them on his head. I wish that I could've taken a picture. I laughed pretty hard at that one. But now he has taken off his pants during the daytime as well. It's just the latest thing, I guess. One time he pulled his shorts down to his ankles and went walking around with his shorts around his ankles. Then the other day at the table during supper, I turned to talk to Joel for a minute and when I turned back to James he had taken off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. We made the mistake of laughing at him, and I think that this all might be just a big joke to him as he loves to make people laugh, and he is a goofy boy anyway.

Here are some more words and phrases that James is saying:
baby
It's a baby
Jesus
plane
stink pot (my nickname for him)
bite
alright
Adam
Audra
Amy
amen
yes ma'am
yes sir
Grandmommy
Greg
Meme
PawPaw (he's said that for a long time)
love you
(I want) up
(I want) down
There he is!
apple
banana
beans
bread
meat
juice
eggs
cheese
salsa
I want that
can / can't
pen
sit
seat
phone
bath
book
teeth
shoes
all words associated with going potty

I think we'll be potty training soon.

It was a Motorcycle Birthday

Happy 4th, Joel!

Manipulation or Manufacture?

Joel and James have developed quite a good relationship. It is fun to see them together; I know that any day could bring a division between them and that nurturing their relationship is one of the most important things that I can do. While sometimes I have absolutely no idea what to do and am frustrated beyond words, there are also great and grand times of rejoicing in watching them wrestle or just shriek at each other, giggling all the while.

One thing that Joel has always done with James is to ask him questions to find out what he's wanting or thinking. He'll ask him, "are you hungry? are you thirsty? do you want to get down? do you want your toy?", etc. Just this week he made the realization that James was not simply answering the questions, he was just always saying, "uh-huh" to whatever Joel made sound exciting or tempting. Now he has begun asking random questions for his own enjoyment. "James, do you want me to throw this at the ceiling fan?" "James, do you to look in the refrigerator?" "James, do you want me to climb on the containers in the closet?" This is not as simple as it used to be....

when the cows come home

Tonight James went around with his toy cell phone, encouraging Mama and Daddy in pretend telephone conversations. We were saying things such as, "hello, yes, yes, okay, bye-bye", etc. He then turned to Joel, and holding up the phone to his ear Joel said, "Hi, how are you? Have you fetched any corn for the cows??" Joel is definitely more interesting than we are.

Spoons

Around the end of December James became fascinated, perhaps obsessed, with spoons. It began one day while at Opa & Oma's house when I gave him a small, red baby spoon to play with. I knew he liked to take utensils and use them to pretend to eat out of bowls. This spoon occupied him for quite some time, and I believe he didn't let go of it all day. He took it outside to play in the dirt and the rocks and sticks. He took it with him to the bath. And he was quite miffed that I didn't let him take it to bed with him. The next day I thought I would try to keep him away from the spoon; best not to form an attachment and be taking this silly spoon everywhere. But no, the next morning James went looking for the spoon. He took it to church and played with it throughout the whole church service.... Anyhow, during an exploration through Oma's cabinets he found a small box of plastic spoons. A gold mine!!! We allowed him one spoon, and every morning, and after every nap, he went to that cabinet and got himself out a spoon to play with. He was quite inseparable from the spoons. That next Sunday when he, again, took a spoon to church and played with it throughout the whole service, people started asking me about this infatuation he had with spoons. It has been quite entertaining to watch, and although the infatuation is not quite so strong it is still there.

walking backwards and singing

James learned how to walk backwards about a month or so ago. He was quite proud of himself, giving the, "are you watching, huh? huh? huh?" look. For awhile he used it to mock and act out a sort of high-faluting behavior; you just knew he was thinking of how wonderfully hot he was with his new trick.

Another thing James loves is singing. He started singing in church at about 10 months old, and now can sing bits of songs (do, re, mis; pop goes the weasel; oompah-doompah song from Willie Wonka). His favorite thing is to wave his arms around to lead or conduct the song or music. Thankfully he has pretty good rhythm and enjoys leading the classical radio station as well as the song service at church. The funny thing is how Joel gets such a kick out of James' leading. He'll just laugh and say, "Mama, look at James! He's leading!"