Don’t blink

Jack’s obsession with monsters has grown exponentially.  A few weeks ago I began using his stuffed monsters to talk to him when he was throwing fits.  He quickly decided to keep those monsters close.  “I have three monsters!” he would proudly proclaim as he walked around the apartment with his arms wrapped around the toys.  Then he would shove one in my direction with a “pleeeeease” and we would make them growl and talk at eachother.

I recently babysat my 7 month old niece Isha.  I had my niece and Jack to myself for about two hours and was quite proud that I came out of it unscathed (with two fed kids with dry butts, no less!).  The evening started off with Jack stealing toys from Isha and making her cry (in his defense, they were his toys) so I ended up distracting him with Monsters, Inc.  Jack is IN LOVE with that movie and, well, so am I (after all, I bought it before Jack was even in the picture).  We ended up watching it twice that night after Jack called for, “More Sully!  More Monsters!”

Most of the drawings on the magnadoodle are monsters now.  Naptime and trips to daycare require accompaniment of at least two monsters.  When denied nursing one day, Jack played out the scenario with his monster: “Want milk,” he growled, and then answered, “No more milk!”

After developing this interest in his stuffed monsters, he started noticing the other stuffed animals hanging around the place.  His elephant and dog beanie babies are now acceptable substitutes for monsters when napping.  He has also taken a liking to what he calls “big mouse” – a hand-stitched stuffed mouse with wool hat, sweater, scarf, shorties, and booties that he received on his first birthday.  He loves the clothes and makes me undress and redress the mouse over and over.  Saturday he even started drawing the mouse on the magnadoodle, so I knew it was real love.

Somehow among all of this he developed an interest in dragons, as well.  When he awoke yesterday morning he requested “Watch teebee, wanna watch dragons.”  I told him I couldn’t promise there were dragons on tv but we turned it on to see what we could see.  Lo and behold, Animalia (which is certainly *my* favorite show but Jack usually shuns it) featured a dragon!  Jack was ecstatic!

Watching Jack’s interests grow and change is exciting.  The simplest of things can propel his mind forward at full speed and the next thing I know, he is in a completely different place than where he started.  Last month he could care less about stuffed animals and now he lines them all up with care, practices conversations with them, and features them in his drawings.  Jack is the most action-packed movie I’ve ever watched and if I blink I will surely miss a miraculous new development!

Maryland Highlights

I’ll have to post some pictures when I am not bogged down with catch-up work and the intracacies of adjusting to the new daycare drop-off/pick-up routine (since Joe started his new job today), but here are some highlights of our trip to Maryland:

• The plane rides were decent (considering that we had a 2 year old on our laps) thanks to sitting by the same folks to and from DC.  After the mom who I sat next to loaned Jack her daughter’s Magnedoodle, I promptly bought one when we arrived at our destination.  Jack is obsessed with it and drew constantly on the way home (his drawings actually look like things!).
• He is now obsessed with airplanes, as well.
• Jack was sick with a nasty fever the first two days of the trip.  It was pretty sad to watch the little guy stare dull-eyed at animals in the aquarium in Baltimore.  I wish he could have enjoyed it more.  On the plus side, he is a total sweetheart while sick (no tantrums!).
• Jack learned how to say “Dad’s coffee” and “Jack’s milk” and “Aunt Holly’s computer” and “Cayenne’s toy” - he is quite impressed with pronouns.
• Every night at bed time, we were treated to several performances of what we think is the Portuguese version of “Ring around the roses” wherein he sang what sounded to me like “ba ti ba,” then switched the verse, then purposely fell on the bed.  (I must remember to ask about this when I pick him up from daycare today.)
• The boy decided to refer to his uncle as “Miken” – we can only guess that this is a clever contraction of Mike + Cayenne (the dog).
• We all ate more junk food and watched more tv than we would normally.  Vacation rules are different, though, right??
• Jack may have a little cousin arriving in 2009!
• We saw the Washington Monument & the Smithsonian Natural History Museum on Memorial Day.  It was disgustingly hot and Jack was a tyrant but we did manage to have fun.
• Jack rode his first carousel!  After shrieking with delight when the carousel started moving, he nervously rode the horse for about 5 minutes before deciding he felt safer in my arms.  I spent the rest of the ride precariously hanging on to him and the moving pole.  Upon exiting the carousel, Jack cried for more.  Of course.

Language Explosion

Jack has been a doll since Saturday.  It feels like I have my sweet little boy back!  There are still tantrums, of course, but they have been less frequent and shorter.  Phew!

The video I posted yesterday was one example of Jack’s recent language explosion.  I noticed some big changes this weekend in the way he was communicating and it dawned on me that the recent craziness has a lot to do with new developments.  As we were making our way home from a housewarming party on Saturday, Jack quizzed us as we were driving:

“Do you like daddy?”
“Do you like mama?”
“Do you like stars?”
“Do you like ears?”
“Do you like purple?”

When we said yes, or “I like ears” he would giggle and reply, “Me, too!”  He can also tell us what he doesn’t like, doesn’t want, etc.  He knows how to dialogue!  He repeats everything we say in an attempt to master it.

Joe taught him how to get my attention using different words.  If mama doesn’t get an immediate response, he goes to Crystal (thanks, Joe!) and then mom.  He thinks it’s great fun to call out my various names over and over so I turn to look at him.  I never would have guessed that my toddler would channel his future teenager with the “MoooooOOM!”  He sounds exactly like I did…

Jack has been obsessed with practicing his colors for some time and now has them pretty much mastered.  As we were reading a book about animals last night that asks “which animal makes this sound?” and we looked under the flap for the name, he started naming the color of the printed words.  Silly guy.  Purple (or “peeple”) is his favorite color, but orange is pretty cool, too.

You guys, my kid is awesome!

Emo Jack

Please tell me that my son is acting like a lunatic because he has two molars coming in and not because of his age.  ‘Cause seriously, this needs to end soon.  He is like velcro at the moment – abusive, dramatic, cranky velcro.  Everything is such a big deal!

It MUST be teeth because he doesn’t want to eat much of anything, he only wants to drink copious amounts of milk.  He wanted to nurse earlier in the evening yesterday, then decided to shun my breasts for his straw cup of “chocolate” milk (which in our house is code for regular whole cow’s milk).

He didn’t want to build, or color, or play guitar, or read.  He just wanted me to hold him (and ONLY me) and carry him around.  Which would have been okay if he didn’t start hitting me over the head or smacking me in the face.  Also, it was hot yesterday and he weighs a ton, but I would have held him anyway if he would snuggle with me instead of beating me.

He refused to go to bed until after 10pm, and at that point would not even nurse down.  He instead chose to drink more “chocolate” milk, then flopped around the bed for a good 30-45 minutes before falling asleep.  He was up for the day at 6am.  Oy.

This is just a short phase.  This cannot be the terrible twos.  I mean, the part where he flipped out a few nights ago because Joe insisted that he take his socks and diaper off to get into the bath – that was most definitely a symptom of terrible twos.  But this nutty toddler who has been with us for almost a week now is so unlike my smiley Jack and OMG, the thought of a year of Emo Jack is enough to send me into a fit!

A Mother’s Day Revelation

Yesterday was one of those not-so-fun type of parenting days.  Jack was in the midst of Terrible Twodom (and yeah, he’s not 2 yet!).  Fits galore, making it difficult to even get out of the house for my brunch (damn it, I was having my brunch even if I had to go by myself!!!).  Jack is too strong for me to handle when he is in a fit, so Joe had to take over trying to get him in the carseat.  There was no way to entice him to sit down (usually a bribe works, or a forbidden object such as a cell phone) so Joe had to pin him down while I helped buckle the straps.  All because Jack wanted to stand in the carseat and yell at the back of the car. 

Brunch was great.  I got a free mimosa and delicious gingersnap pancakes.  Jack was entertained by his crayons and coloring book, ate well (including eggs, which he usually disses) and I felt so happy.  This is the part of the day I will try to keep foremost in my memory!

We spent the day at BIL & SIL’s so that Joe could help Justin put together a gazebo.  Jack was running around everywhere and getting into everything so he went from banging on the window to playing with the wine rack to giving himself power bombs on the bed to snatching his uncle’s cell phone to stealing his cousin’s toys…worn out, I fell asleep putting him down for a nap in the afternoon.

Dinner was fabulous, as was dessert (I had two helpings, yum!).  SIL is an awesome cook!  Afterward, Jack started to completely melt  down.  We got out of there when he started chanting “I want I want I want I want” over and over, wrestled him into the carseat again, and headed home.  Jack flipped out some more there, and started hitting me with fists and books.  When I told him not to hit me, that it hurt, to give hugs instead, he laughed in my face.  Joe had no more luck.  So infuriating!  I don’t know if this is just a toddler thing, or something he learned at daycare, but my kid hitting me makes me want to cry!  He also kept biting me during nursing and continued to hit when I was trying to put him to sleep.  So my mother’s day gift from my son?  Abuse.

I was amazed when Jack was a baby that he was such a sweet little guy, so unlike me and apparently a little clone of Joe.  I was sure I’d get a sassy, stubborn child that was just like I was as a kid (okay, I’m still like that…).  Alas, it seems that he was just biding his time before showing all his cards.  What scares me most is that no adult was ever able to sway me as a child…so I am facing a littler version of myself and I have no idea what to do.

Toddler Antics

I don’t have much to say this week except OMG the tantrums kids throw over the stupidest things!  Nothing seems to calm Jack down, so I just sit next to him and let him go until he wears himself out (partly because I simply am not strong enough to pick him up to take him to a quiet room or something).  A few weeks ago he threw a tantrum in the elevator as we were making our way to our apartment.  My hands were too full to pick him up, so I just let him do his thing there on the elevator floor.  A neighbor heard the racket and peeked through the window at us.  I opened the door to let him know what was going on and thank him for his concern.  He helped me!  He stood there looking at Jack for a good five minutes until Jack calmed from embarrassment and quietly came with me into the building as the neighbor held the door for us.  Thank goodness for the kindness of neighbors!  (And, oy, I’m sure this isn’t the last of my public humiliation by my son.)

Does anyone have any tips for deflecting kicks and hits from toddlers?  Ya know, other than physically restraining them?  Also, Jack will NOT stop wrestling with our poor cat Wicket.  It’s partly Wicket’s fault because he won’t run away from Jack, either, but goodness!  One of these days Jack is seriously going to hurt the cat.

I updated Jack’s shutterfly albums this week (for March and April).  They are still almost a month behind but my internet at home weeps when I upload hundreds of pictures so that’s all for now!

Jackisms

“I like blue and green and yellow and orange and purple!”  (Purple is actually his favorite, and he points it out at every opportunity.  He can’t identify many colors, but he sure knows purple.)

“I like tea!” and “I like guitars!” and “I like cookies!”

“I want I want I want I want I want”

Arms stretched out behind him, he runs around the living room.  Our best guess is that he is flying.

Spatulas make great guitars.

Boats=pirates.  Water=pirates.  Skulls=pirates.  Sabrina=pirates.  ”See pirates?  Yarrr!”

Overheard on the baby monitor when he woke up from his nap yesterday, “Oh, man!”

All milk except for mama’s is “chocolate milk.”

He snubbed cupcakes (twice!) yesterday in favor of cucumbers, carrots, and grapes.

On the road to weaning

We are somewhat working on weaning.  Well, some say that weaning begins when solids are introduced, but that is not how I think of weaning.  Up until very recently, I have always let Jack call the shots on nursing.  Nursing is an important part of his nutrition as well as his emotional development, and I don’t want to take it away before he is ready.  With that said, I have found breastfeeding to be emotionally difficult for me throughout the duration, and I feel that I am reaching my limit.  I am trying to strike a balance that will work for both Jack and me.

As Jack has shown less interest in nursing and more interest in the world around him, I have begun to test the waters a bit.  I have really made an effort to get on top of solids to ensure that meals are prepared quickly when he gets hungry so that he is less likely to get impatient and decide to nurse instead of eat solids.  Consistency and proactivity about meal and snack times have been key.  Additionally, when he does ask to nurse I try to see if I can offer cow’s milk or water instead, or a hug if it seems that he wants attention.  This has been working really well, with only minimal balking from Jack.

I’ve stepped things up as of late.  Many a morning I have had to leave for work before Jack is up, so we skip our morning nursing session.  Some mornings we run late and although he asks to nurse, I offer him food or water or cow’s milk and he is perfectly content with that (although it surprises me every time!).  I have been attending group therapy directly after work on Thursdays and so we have delayed that post-work nursing session or skipped it in favor of a longer nursing-to-sleep session after I get home.  He has been sleeping so well lately that some days we are down to only one nursing session!

I’m going out of town tonight and I have thought a lot about what will happen while I’m away and when I return.  I know that some kids Jack’s age wean themselves when their mamas travel away for a few days, and I’m prepared for that possibility.  Still, I can’t really see that happening.  It would sure shock the hell out of me.  More likely, the remaining nursing sessions will continue to dwindle away until we cease for good some time in the fall.  That would be just about perfect, in my opinion.

While I’m looking forward to moving on from this stage of our relationship, I know it also signifies that Jack is truly starting to grow up.  That, of course, sends a little pang to my heart.  Nursing or not, Jack will always be my sweet son, my special little guy, my babyman.

More than Words

Jack has been speaking in sentences for months but for the most part they were either two word sentences or copied from Joe or me (“Ca’have please?”).  Recently he has started to use pronouns, adjectives, and he has been changing words out of his standard vocabulary to suit different situations.  “I like it” became “I want it” and then evolved to “I want other side please.”  This weekend as we were driving around Humboldt, he pointed out the window and said “Trees!  Tall trees!  I like trees!”  He has also figured out that the opposite of more is “no more.”  Witnessing his growing understanding of language is fascinating.  We are there to supply the tools but his mind is doing all the work of figuring out how to use them.  We are constantly being surprised by his language skills.

I believe I have mentioned that Jack’s daycare providers are Brazilian and speak both English and Portuguese to the kids.  Jack is quickly learning all kinds of words that Joe and I are clueless about (since we know only limited amounts of Spanish and French, and no Portuguese!).  Luckily Jack is starting to ask for things in multiple languages to make sure he gets his point across.  It totally cracked me up the first time I heard him ask for “mais” when I didn’t provide the response he was looking for to “more.”

Tantrum Inducers

• Waking up in the morning
• Taking off his shirt
• Trying to put on his shoes
• Not giving him the crayon you are holding when he says “ca’have please” and shoves his crayon in your face
• Denying him his “right” to twiddle one breast while nursing the other

and questions he’ll always answer no to (even if he means yes):

• Do you want some dinner?
• Is your diaper wet?
• Do you want to sit on the potty?
• Do you want to take a bath?
• Can you pick a different book?
• Which shirt do you want to wear?

Closer to Two

Jack is 20 months old today.  As I mentioned to Joe last weekend, he is closer to 2 than to 1.  Where has the time gone?  How did our baby get to be so big?  Will I be sending him off to college tomorrow?

Two weeks to the day after starting daycare, Jack has adapted.  Joe dropped him off with no crying yesterday!  Yay!

Last night as I was attempting to nurse him to sleep, he unlatched and laid his head on my chest, whispering “green yellow green yellow” before latching on again.  It was so cute and endearing.  His brain is obviously hard at work trying to figure out colors.  It’s so interesting to witness this stage of development, when he is caught between babyhood and childhood.  And I feel caught, too; I want him to learn new things and grow but I still sometimes wish we could stay in these moments longer.

We all were in bed by 9 last night.  Jack awoke once and we fell back asleep while nursing.  I woke up not too long after and laid him down before looking at the clock to see how much more sleep I could get before the alarm was set to go off.  It was 7am!  I certainly wasn’t expecting that Jack had slept through the night but apparently he did.  I’ve never had such mixed feelings about getting a full night’s rest.  I really needed more sleep!  In any case, I am happy that he seems to be going back to his pre-sleep regression habits and that we weathered the time change without too much fuss.

What’s your favorite baby stage?

Yesterday Jack woke up and the only word he would say for hours was “no.”  He said no to things he didn’t want, and said no to things he did want.  He threw a fit when we put him in the stroller for a walk in the beautiful summer-like weather outdoors (he came around).  My dear husband looked at me at that point and said, “See, this is why this stage sucks!”

Even if there are more outbursts than ever, I still love toddlerhood.  I love the fact that Jack has feelings and desires and communicates them (even if the communication is not always clear or positive).  I love that a hug now means embracing rather than the kid just standing there passively while I clutch at him (oh, the feeling of chubby toddler arms squeezing me!), and it’s wonderful to see him running toward me when I get home from work.  I love that he has an imagination and shows it by wrestling with his giant stuffed crab while making funny noises or throwing it up in the air over and over – stuff that he came up purely on his own.  I love feeling his little hand tugging at my sleeve when he wants me to color with him.  I love feeling like I’m my kid’s best friend.

Sure, there are down sides to this stage.  Tantrums aren’t fun.  I can do without the acrobatics during breastfeeding, and the daycare separation anxiety is worse than ever.  Overall, though, the difficulties are just demonstrative of all of the things he can do now and the depth of his emotions.  He is flexing his toddler brain and he is a force in our lives, his own individual.  This is the stuff I’ve been looking forward to – the unabashed demonstration of his thoughts and feelings.  It is just now that I feel like I’m getting to know my kid and seeing a little of what he will grow up to be.  It’s like reading a book that is so intensely interesting that I don’t want to put it down.  And as much as I want to know how the story turns out, I also don’t want it to end!

I’m sure this is some kind of milestone

Last night, for the first time ever, Jack favored solid food over nursing!  He had only been nursing for about 5 minutes after I got home from work when Joe pulled out the Pirate’s Booty…Jack yanked my shirt down, said bye-bye, and ran to beg for some snacks.  I was shocked!  Cheese puffs favored over breastmilk?  He got a few while I prepared a more wholesome dinner.

Then, this morning, I was running late to catch my bus and Jack woke up before I got out the door.  He decided he wanted to take his sweet time at my breast (even taking the second side!).  “Joe, get the yogurt raisins,” I requested.  As soon as Jack saw the package, he flew off my lap, nursing forgotten.

Not only that, but he drank a significant amount of cow’s milk at daycare yesterday.  This is the first time he has taken milk of any type while away from me in months.  Could an end to breastfeeding be in sight?

A few of my favorites

I didn’t get a chance to upload our photos to Shutterfly or Flickr last night, so here are just a few of my favorites from our trip.

Sleeping with mama on the plane

Crazy Cousin Cole

Bathtime with Emily & Jack (who knew baths could be this fun?)

Super excited (at the children’s play place)

Friday tidbits

Jack is so cute.  Last night he got the biggest kick out of helping me do laundry.  He loves to push my rolling laundry cart and throw wet clothes into the dryer.  I’m amazed at how much easier it is to get toddlers to do things when you ask for their help.  He’ll even throw things in the trash for me!

Pretend playing continues to be a hit.  Last night he was pouring from a cup and bowl (both were empty) and pretending to drink from the cup.  I just watched him with amusement.  He still loves talking on the phone, and he has taken to carrying around an old purse of mine.

Jack’s quickly learning how to speak in sentences and it’s kind of unnerving.  “Hi mama” and “it’s cute!” and “I’m tired!”  He also repeats EVERYTHING so I was cracking up last night when he copied me and Joe with awesome, cool, and sure.  Unfortunately he knows how to say shit now, too (that’s one of Joe’s).  I’m surprised it took him 18+ months for that, honestly, because we have terribly dirty mouths.

Music is also big right now.  Recently while riding in the car and listening to the radio, Natasha Bedingfeld came on the station.  Not being a big fan, I turned the station immediately and Jack started FREAKING OUT. At first it didn’t click and we tried to calm him down to no avail…so I changed the station back and he promptly quieted. I was in shock because usually he is a rocker (he is the little king of the Meloik and headbanging) but then he fell asleep and the world made sense again – he wanted something dull on so he could nap!  But he actually does like Britney Spears…