Monday, October 18, 2010

Playing Catch-Up


















































We are the worst bloggers ever. Between two full jobs, a house, a toddler, a dog, a cat, and too many volunteering commitments, by the time we fall on the couch at night for a few minutes of relaxation before bed, the last thing we can contemplate is updating the blog. I've been working on transferring to a Shutterfly site because it is a lot quicker and easier to upload photos there. But, then the task of bringing all the pictures up to date just overwhelms me. Since our last post on July 26, we have been really busy. Jackson is now 19 months and this is really the best age yet. He's definitely exhausting in that he tests limits, throws tantrums, and is always on the verge of some death-defying feet that just makes my heart skip a beat. But, he's also hilarious and cuddly and funny and just the most fun. Here's a quick run down of our activities since our last update:
(1) We took a fabulous 10 day family vacation to Washington State where we spent time with my brother, his wife, and their 3 kids and then with Robert's family at his aunt and uncle's beautiful river house. Jackson was in awe of his older cousins and spent his time chasing after Ian and Nicholas and learning lacrosse and soccer from them. In Spokane, he was absolutely mesmerized by the tractor, big trucks, and diggers at work at the river house. He would wake in the night crying and calling out "digger! digger! no, no, no..." I suspect dreaming of me having to drag him away from the diggers so we could eat, rest, do something else.
(2) Jackson started a mother's day out program at a church pre-school. He goes just two days a week, from 9 - 12. It's the pre-school my brother and I went to and that my mom taught at for over 20 years. It is a wonderful program - so loving and nurturing. I have re-connected with friends I grew up with whose children now go there. A good friend's little boy is in Jackson's class too, so that has been really fun. We organized a play date at the school playground for the kids in the class in advance of the first day of school so they kids could meet each other and be familiar with the school. Jackson is learning so much at school. The first weeks were a tough transition - he's always had a hard time separating from Mama, Mimi, and Blanca. He cried and cried at drop off. But by the 2nd or 3rd week, he started to get tearful at drop off and asked for his dog lovie and his "be be" (pacifier). I gave them to him and said, "Jackson, have a great day!" He looked at me, took out the bebe, gulped a deep breath, and said, through tears, " Grrreeeaaaat Daaaaay" as he walked in crying. It was adorable and heartbreaking. But, he is so happy now. He runs into the room without a glance back. He talks about his teachers and calls them just by their last names ("Baker" and "Wong") and he says his friends' names. The other night during dinner I asked Jackson about his friend Hunter at school and his eyes lit up and he said "Hunter! Dino shirt!" It turns out that Hunter did wear a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it that day. He says "School! Friends. Nice. Teachers." (We talk about being "nice" a lot as he has a tendency to be rough). He comes home singing "Twinkle, twinkle star, wonder, are" doing little star burst hand signals and has also started singing "Row, row, row boat. Stream. " It's adorable and amazing to see his language develop so quickly. They do art projects and play outside and last week the fire truck paid a visit to the school. It's been really good for him. I, being the joiner who can't say no, have ended up as Jackson's "room mother," co-chair of entertainment for the upcoming book far, and in charge of decorations/centerpieces for parents' night dinner. All this translates to me doing things like spending non-billable time at the office calling magicians and puppeteers to nail down an act for the Book Fair. I had to break the news to my mom that she'd be "helping" me make centerpieces come January.
(3) We moved Jackson's room from the small middle bedroom to the much larger front room that had been our guestroom. It's been so nice to have more space - we were able to bring over Ian and Nicholas's old toys that had been stored in Mimi's house. Jackson is now obsessed with Thomas the Train, and we have the boys' old train table and lots of trains. It amazes me that Jackson knows them all by name - even some I had no idea of. he points and says "Thomas, " "James," "Cranky Crane," "Percy," "Mavis," "Harvey...." Robert also ripped out the old back deck with the help of some very kind friends and has been building a beautiful new deck. Next up is putting together the huge play structure passed down from Ian and Nicholas! It's in a million pieces in the yard with bags of bolts in the garage. Robert says it is the largest Tetris game ever played. He needs to create a deep fall space for it to be built on, so this project will take some time. But, I know Jackson will really love it - it has a slide, rock climbing wall, fort, sandbox, swings, monkey bars. Jackson loves all this construction - he insists on watching them work and yells out "Saw! Hammer! Guys working! Help Daddy, help Daddy!" We spend a lot of time on weekends looking for construction sites, diggers, garbage trucks, cranes, and the like.

Other than the above, life continues as usual. Jackson is still in music class, which he absolutely loves. Sometimes Robert and I both take him, and other times we take turns taking him so the other one of us can relax or get something done. Sometimes Robert takes him to a class and a half when I accidentally tell him class starts at 10:00 instead of 10:30 ;-) Oops. We generally make a morning of it, doing music class and then lunch out. Jackson's preference is "Chick A Lay". I realized I might have taken him there a few too many times when I pulled up at the drive through Starbuck's and he called out from the backseat, "Nuggets, please!!" He loves all the instruments in music class and just dances like a crazy man. His favorite song is a jazzed up version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," where they shake little colorful eggs that have some kind of beads in them. We play the song in the car and he starts doing the hand gestures in his car seat. It's a riot.
Jackson's main obsession is sports. He is obsessed with balls - soccer, football, tennis, bouncy balls, basketball, whatever. He watches football on TV very intensely shouting "BAM! Hit! Guy, run, fast, fast, ball! Ball! Ball!" He carries his toddler football everywhere, insisting on holding it through dinner (which has led to some battles, I have to admit. I should have just let him do it, but once I said "no" I had to hold my ground in the face of a total and complete meltdown... so not fun). He also loves to run around with his lacrosse stick, holding and flinging the ball around. In the house, if Daddy or Mimi are left in charge... He's pretty good, actually. He was so enthralled with people playing tennis at the park - he stood stock still watching for a good 15 minutes, after which they gave him their tennis ball - that we got him a small racket. he carries it and a tennis ball around a lot, swatting at the ball and trying to bounce the ball on the racket.

He also loves to read and the minute we sit down to read bedtime books he says "One More!" He loves different books at different times and is quick to dismiss a book - I hold it up and he says "Nope!" until I get one he wants, in which case he nods and says "Okay." He loves his children's Bible and somehow knows all the names - he calls out Noah, and Joseph, and David and Goliath. One night while we were reading about baby Moses being found by Pharaoh's wife in the bulrushes, he looked at Pharaoh's wife with her dark page boy hair cut and exclaimed, "Dora!" Finally, he insists on kisses and hugs before anyone can leave him. He shouts after Blanca, "Wait! Blanca! Kiss! Kiss!" when she leaves. He demands kisses for himself and all his stuffed animals at bedtime (this includes a large bear, a small bear, a giraffe, a big dog lovie, one or two small dog lovies, and a duck) and then, just when you're closing the door, a round of hugs for everyone too.

So, I am going to start posting some pictures in the hopes of slowly getting caught up. They may be out of order and incomplete, but it's a start.

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