Jack and the animals

I wanna go too

Jim is going to Baltimore for a week in mid-August for work training. And I wanna go too! It sounds like so much fun to veg out in the hotel, swimming and taking in the sights of Baltimore! Maybe catch a baseball game with Jack wearing his little All-star shirt of course. I would love to go, but I am not sure I can get away from work for a whole week. Also, my (gulp) 20th high school reunion is a couple weeks after that in Michigan and I would like to go back for that. It seems like a lot of traveling with a toddler. Also there's the whole finding somebody to take care of our 4 animals while we are gone. That is always a major pain. And boarding them is hard to do because they require current vaccinations which one of my dogs does not have because she is very very allergic to them and I quit giving them to her a long time ago. So we have to find a house-sitter and finding a good one is hard. The pets are sometimes (all the time?) a big pain.

So who knows. It would be fun to spend the time with Jim also. We don't get to spend a whole lot of time together because his schedule and my schedule just don't mesh a lot of times. I know he would be in class everyday, but we would have the lunch break and the night together. I wanna go! Waaa can I go please?

He must look like his father

That is the unsolicited comment that I received from some lady at Costco yesterday while she was comparing me to my son. And while, yes, Jack is the spitting image of Jim and has pretty much of nothing from me lookswise, I took offense at that comment. Am I just being being overly sensitive, or was that a rude comment? Don't get me wrong, I am very happy that he looks so much like his father and he received his father's good looks. But at the same time, I don't enjoy total strangers to point it out to me again and again. But as Pat, Jack's daycare lady, has said to me many times, Jack received my good-natured. Little does she know, that Jack actually received that from his father also. If she knew me as a child and saw my temper, she would not be saying that!

Trying this out

I see Blogger has new way of putting photos in the post. That's cool. So here I am trying it out by putting some pics from this morning of Jack. Notice the new jammie top from Costco. So cute. It has robot dinosaurs on it.

Errands and Errands

Errand day. That is today. Jack and I went to get my car an oil change and car wash. Big excitement there. But Jack really really liked watching the cars go by getting washed. He's been there a couple times before, but I think this was the first time that he really got into watching the cars. He started jabbering away when they got all soapy. Not sure what he was saying, but he sure thought it was neat.

I also made the mistake of getting him some yogurt covered pretzels. Big mistake. First of all he tried to put 2 of them in his mouth at once and when he realized that it was a bit much, he took them out and proceeded to hand the slimy, gooey mess to me. Thanks Jack. And at this point there was white yogurt all over him, the chair he was sitting on, and me. Yeah no more of those.

Then we went to Costco. I made the mistake of going to Costco when I am feeling rich because we didnt have to make a mortgage payment this month = extra cash. Yeeeaah Costco is not a safe place in that mind frame. I ended up only $264 poorer (only). And really the only thing I splurged on was a case of red bull for me (love that stuff, but it has to be sugar free) at the tune of $31. Also Jack got a couple of books and a pair of jammies. He also got the big jar of alphabet cookies which I had to open and give him some to sooth the monster. But the other stuff was just household necessities. $264 - Yikes!

I rushed home. I mean I broke all kinds of speed laws because Jack fell asleep in the backseat on the way home. Costco is about 20-30 minutes from home and in the past few times he has fallen asleep in the car for 20 minutes and that has been it for a nap for the day. I really tried to keep him awake until we got home because I need him to take that nap. Do you have any idea how incredibly hard it is to put away a Costco trip of stuff with a toddler around? Solving world peace might be easier. But at this moment he is babbling in his crib and that means the nap thing is a no-go. Oh Yay.

Jack's first Chuck E Cheese trip

Jack and big giant rat aka Chuck E Cheese

Jack and the Merry Go Round - boy did he love this over and over again

Jack and Barney (what is it about Barney that kids like? I don't get it)

Jack and Bob the Builder

First Trip to Chuck E Cheese's

We went to Chuck E Cheese's tonight with the kids. It was Jack's first trip where he could participate. I think we were there once when he was just a baby for a birthday party. But let me tell you, this kid loved the place. He went crazy for the rides, especially the toddler-sized merry-go-round and the car with Chuckie. But when Chuckie himself came out, Jack was not impressed with the giant rat to say the least. He started crying and reached for me. But he did think that the singing rats on the stage was really cool and kept pointing at them saying "wow".

Oh yeah and another milestone reached tonight for the first time sorta. He has mastered drinking out of a straw now. I usually take sippy cups with us wherever we go, but tonight I forgot to bring one with us. So we tried the straw and sure enough, he sipped out of the straw just like an old pro. The last time we tried a straw, he ended up just chewing on the end and that was the end of that. So another milestone done. My oh my he's growing up so fast.

I did take a few pictures with my new picture cell phone. The pictures are not that good of quality, but I will post them tomorrow. At the moment, I am exhausted and bed is a calling. Yay no work tomorrow. Another day with my buddy Jack.

Happy 16 Months!

Today Jack turns 16 months! I am just floored how big he is getting now. Today was the first time that he took his backpack to daycare. And oh my gosh does he love that backpack. He insisted on wearing it out to get into the car. Then he had to hang on to it during the drive to daycare, he was not letting it out of his sight. And he insisted on wearing it from the car to the door at daycare. He was so cute walking up the driveway like one of the big kids with his backpack on and you could tell he was so proud of himself. Then he walked in the door, took the backpack off, handed it to Mam, and off he walked into the playroom. Not even so much as a goodbye or anything to me. Sigh, he is not a baby anymore! It made me think of when he goes off to school for the first time. I am going to be a basket case! I have to learn to appreciate every moment I have with him because it is only going to be a blink of an eye and he will be walking into school. Sigh.

So on this 16 month birthday, I thought I would go through some things that Jack has been doing lately.

He has been saying "Maaa" all the time. Anytime he wants anything, or wants to get my attention, he says "Maaa". If he doesn't get what he wants, he just says it over and over and over and louder and louder each time. Thousands of times a day now I hear "Maaa".

He loves to eat ice. If anybody has a glass of ice water, he will go straight over to them and beg for the ice out of the glass. So sure enough he has all of us trained to constantly fish out pieces of ice out of our glasses for him.

When he walks around the house now, he will many times hold his hands behind his back. It is so cute watching him just moseying around with his hands behind his back.

He is now tall enough to reach the top of the countertops in the kitchen. So that means we really have to watch what we put on the countertop near the edge because he will get it, especially if it is a dangerous object.

He loves phones. He will hold up pretty much any object to his ear, be it a phone or a spoon, and pretend to talk into it. It is so cute to hear him babble like he is on the phone. But the thing is when somebody like Grandma and Grandpa are on the end of a real phone saying "Hi Jack", all he does is look at the phone like he is thinking "what in the world is that noise".

He has an obsession about my makeup. He goes into the bathroom and opens the drawer that it is in and loves to play with it. The other morning, I caught him playing with a tube of lipstick and he had it all over him. I don't think I realized how hard lipstick was to get off legs, hands, neck until I tried to clean him up. It doesn't come out! He will also carry it off to other regions of the house. I found my blush case in his crib the other day. I guess he took it there for safekeeping? And just this morning, he had the blush brush in his hand and was actually brushing it on his cheek just like Mommy! I told Jim about this and he said "what are you doing to my son?".

He is so much fun these days. During those hard weeks in the newborn phase, I kept telling myself that it does get better. I think that time has come.

Happy July 4th Weekend

I hope that everybody is having a good holiday weekend. Well those in the US that is. And a good weekend to Liesl and any other good people from Canada who are reading this blog right now.

We are not doing anything special this weekend. Jim has to work all weekend, even on the 4th. Gotta love law enforcement, no weekends, no holidays. Between his schedule and my schedule, our next day off together is on the 22nd of this month! We should really be planning something big you would think.

So it is just me and Jack for most of this weekend. Laura is at her grandparent's house for the weekend. Yesterday, we went to Target mainly to get a new baby gift for our neighbor. Congratulations Joe and Lydia on the birth of their 3rd child - Joey Evan. The stats came from big sister Breanna who said he was "8lbs something" and didn't know the inches. She was less than thrilled about the diaper changes . And I guess her little brother Alex is not liking not being the baby anymore now that he's the middle child. But Jack has a future playmate in the neighborhood.

Anyway, back to Target. Like I said, main goal was to get the gift for little Joey. But of course as I usually do in Target, I got carried away. Jack got new bath toys, new sippy cups, new shirt that I couldn't resist. Oh yeah, he also got a new backpack so that he can be a cool kid at daycare and not have a big old ugly diaper bag anymore. It is so cute and he is so cute wearing it. But how is it that no matter how small the item you went into that store looking for, you end up spending $100? I just don't get it.

I was going to go to the Sprint store to look at a new cell phone yesterday since my 3-year-old cell phone can't keep a charge for a day anymore. But Mr. Grouchy Pants nixed that whole idea. He ended up falling asleep in the 15-minute drive home and then when we got home, thought that was enough nap for the entire day. That is not fair! I was so looking forward to him taking a 2-hour nap so that I could get stuff done. But nope, we ended up playing with the blocks, the book that goes buzz buzz, and every other conceivable toy he has in this house. It was a lonnnnngggg time until Daddy came home, which was made even longer by the phone call at 3:30, the time he should be home, saying that he was just now leaving work.

Oh yeah, I have a question of my readers? What is a really good male cat name? We are trying to come up with a new name for our kitten who turned out to be a boy. According to Jim, Sassy just doesn't work. I think it describes him to a T, but I guess it is too female sounding. I am coming up with a blank. Any ideas?

The official 15-month appt at almost 16 months

I took Jack in for the second try at the well-baby checkup. He was definitely feeling better than last time we were there. When we were in the waiting room, he could not be bothered to sit and watch the movie like the other kids. Oh no, not Jack. Jack had to redecorate the entire waiting room. He had to pull all the little chairs in one corner over to the other corner. It didn't matter if there was a kid sitting in a chair or not, he still tried to pull the chair across the room. I was constantly chasing after him to not do the redecorating and at the same time, I really think I provided good humor to the rest of the parents. Yeah sure, laugh all you want with your kids who sit still in the chair and watch the movie, while my little terror is trying to reorganize the whole room. Hah, laugh it up while you are able to sit there and actually carry on conversations with other parents, while I run around the room like a mad woman. Yeah just so funny wasn't it.

So after the waiting room fiasco, we finally get called back to the room. I found out that he gain 6 ozs from 2 weeks ago. He is now 26lbs even. They didn't bother with height again, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he had gained a half inch in that time period. He was 33 inches last time. The doctor checked him all over and thank goodness we have a very healthy toddler, who at the moment has no strep throat, ear infections, or any other type of ailment. Yay! He got two shots. One was the MMR and um something else that I can't remember. He only cried for about 10 seconds after the shots.

Now hopefully we can make it the two months until his next well-baby checkup at 18months without any other doctor visits.

She's a He!

We took the kitten to the vet today for a check up. And lo and behold The Sassy Female Cat that we thought we had is a He! Of course, Laura is all upset because she really wanted a female. But I figure, after the neutering is done, does it really matter?

In the Jackaroo News department - He gets to go for his Well Baby Checkup Take Two tomorrow. Two weeks ago, we tried to do the checkup only to find out he had strep throat, which led to two weeks of misery in the Jackaroo household. Laura and I got the dreaded stuff (and let me tell you it is dreaded!), but somehow Daddy just did not get sick. He is made of metal or something I think. But it was a good thing, because somebody had to be well in this house to take care of the now-healthy and always-on-the-move Jackaroo. Jim even took Sunday and half of Monday off from work just to take care all of us! He is just the BEST!

So hopefully all will go well tomorrow at the checkup. Afterwards, he gets to go to Aunt Janet's house so Mommy can go to work because Mommy had to miss 3 days this week of work because a certain toddler gave her strep throat.

Do you laugh or do you cry?

The kitten walks up to me and phew does she stink! I look at her butt and she has poop stuck all over in her long fur. Oh joy. I tell Jim, we need to clean her. Jim had just sat down with a well-deserved ice-cold beer. He walks over to the sink and we proceed to clean a very dirty kitten butt. I get scratched all over. Oh joy. We get done with the butt cleaning and Jim notices a huge wet spot on the carpet in the family room. What the? I look at Jack and he is holding a very empty beer bottle and laughing. Yeah Oh Joy!

And the reason why Jim deserved the beer? Well he spent a good portion of today cleaning the carpets after the above-mentioned kitten spent the day throwing up and having diarhea all over the carpet. Oh Joy!

And that was the last beer in the house! Oh Damn!

One Very Happy Little Boy

Don't I look good?

Playing in Little Jack's Corner

"Yo Dude. I am looking good with my Winnie the Pooh hat backwards and my Buzz Lightyear shirt."

Wearing Tupperware is the latest fashion