Still Loves Jeopardy!

When Jack drinks his 3 glasses of milk each day, he likes to snuggle. We give him one in the morning when he first wakes up and we snuggle on the couch and watch some cartoons. In the afternoon and at night, we usually watch Jeopardy. Though he doesn't dance as much as he used to during the Final Jeopardy song, he still loves the show. Each time that a contestant lands on a Daily Double, he puts his milk down and claps for them. Then he watches to see if they get it right, if they do, he claps some more and then resumes drinking. When it comes time for Final Jeopardy, he looks at both of us, excitedly grinning when the clue is revealed. I keep taking the contestant tests and doing poorly. Maybe Jack is the Soto that will actually make it on the show!

16.5 months

Jack continues to amaze us all the time. He is pretty verbal, which we are getting a big kick out of. It's so cool to see all that he can do and all he has learned. He loves trying new things (not in the food department but in the activity one!) and he loves to learn.

Words he can say:

Mama, Da-da, Poppy (Pop), Nonny (na-na), banana (na-na), apple (ah-puh), purple (puh-pul), yellow (lell-oh), blue, red (weh), green (grrrr), please (peas), thank you (ank u), hi, bye-bye, Cherrios (chee-tos), gato, agua, ca-ca, poo-poo (and makes a stinky face and waves his hand in front of his face), night-night (nigh-n), no, oh no!, up, down, yay, balloon (boon), bubble (bah-boo), light (ight), out, ball, book, car (cah), cow, pig, hat, hot, cold, numbers 1 and 2 in English, 1-4 in Spanish (with varying degrees of clarity), Jo-Jo (his stuffed monkey), Bunky (other stuffed toy), toes, leg, baby, wow, on, cloud, I love you (I laaaa), egg, waffle (wah-woo), hug, go, moose, Dora, more (mo), mas (ma), plane (which sounds an awful lot like please but he pointed up to a plane and said it.), potato (Ta-to)


Cool Tricks:

--Knows his ABCs. We practice with flashcards and he LOVES it. He always wants to do them over and over and cries when we put them away. He knows them in and out of order but still struggles with C, F, J and S.

--he can catch a ball almost all the time. He's been doing this for a month or so and seems to be very coordinated

--if you hold up one finger he says "Wahn" and 2 fingers he says "two".

--can point to ear, nose, mouth, tummy, toes and leg but often prefers pointing to your nose, toes and leg. Ear, mouth and tummy he does on himself.

--We're getting better at colors but he usually calls everything yellow at first. With practice, he can usually get blue and green too but mostly everything is yellow at first.


--He is pretty good at puzzles


Likes/Favorites:

--books, books, books! Jack loves to flip through his own books and loves to be read to. We read every night and he is pointing out a lot of things in the books. He also has memorized certain things on certain pages. For example, in the book, Corneilius P. Mud, Are you Ready for Bed? he always says "No!" on the page with no and the following page has "Hmmm" which he also says.

--swimming and anything to do with water

--his stuffed monkey Jo-Jo

--Wonder Pets and Jeopardy (he claps whenever someone gets a Daily Double and gets so excited for Final Jeopardy)

--Running (he loves to run all the time and likes to jabber while he runs, which is pretty funny)

--ABC cards

--Anything with buttons to push. He is especially annoying if you are trying to work on the computer.

--hiding but he always picks the same places so he isn't that hard to find!

Dislikes:

--Anything that isn't his idea.

--Not much. He's really a happy kid who likes doing most things. We are beyond lucky!

And still more!

First boat ride

Pizza at Helen Back's

Hittin' the links

Mommy's boy

More Florida Fun

Wheee!


Jack and Daddy at the beach

"Waz up, ladies? How you doin'?"

We wanted to take Jack to the beach before the oil hit (it hasn't hit yet). We picked the perfect day since it wasn't too hot. Jack wasn't sure what he thought of the sand at first (he takes after Mommy--I HATE sand.) looking at it on his hands and not being able to get it off. He pointed out the "AGUA!" and was hesitant at first to go play in it. But that all changed when Daddy took him. He still didn't want to swim fully in it but he found the tide interesting and loved running up and down the coast.

Florida Fun! Part 1

Jack can't get enough of the water!


Didn't take long for him to want to jump off the stairs!

The boys

Jack and Daddy

Paul, Jack and I arrived in Florida about a week ago after a long car ride. Jack handled the ride fairly well but did get whiny off and on. But we all felt that way. Since our arrival, it's been non-stop fun and new things! Yes, we've been to Florida before with him. However, he is now at the age where he can do so many things and enjoy them. His favorite of all is swimming. There really must be something to those astrological charts. Jack is an Aquarius. In German, Aquarius translates to "Wassermann" (water man). And ain't THAT the truth.

From day one, he took to the water with no fear whatsoever. He loved splashing and it didn't take long for him to really want to do everything himself. He doesn't want you to help him swim but he can't do it himself yet. By day 2, he was jumping off of the stairs into the water. By day 4, he was jumping off the side of the pool and blowing bubbles in the water and practicing holding his breath On day 5, he tried to jump into the water whenever he could catch you looking away for a second. Paul turned to throw the toy for the dog and Jack plunged in off of the steps. He went down into the water about a foot before Paul could grab him. When he came up, we realized he had held his breath the whole time and had a huge grin on his face. He's simply fearless. But the more fearless he becomes, the more annoyed he gets when you try to help him. And whenever he sees a pool, pond or lake, he points and screams, "AGUA!!" We were thinking that with his build, he'd probably be a football player. But after this past week, we may have a little swimmer on our hands. We're definitely going to look into lessons when we get home!

First Cannonball?

Tonight was Jack's bath night. He loves his bath and likes to play with toys, splash and get squirted by his squirty toys. But tonight, he figured out something new. He kept standing up and then plopping down (which is not so worrysome since we have an inflatable toddler tub) to see how much he could splash. At first I thought it was an accident but when he kept doing it, I realized that this must be what a baby cannonball looks like.

Creating a Diversion

Jack doesn't really like brushing his teeth. He'll do it. But he doesn't think it's that much fun. Each night we read three stories and after the last one, it's tooth brushing time. Once I grab the brush, he tries to distract me by throwing his stuffed animal that he has been carrying throughout story time onto the floor. It's like he's saying, "Oh no, I just dropped my monkey and I can't possibly brush my teeth without my monkey with me." He knows I'll bend down to get it, thus delaying the inevitable tooth brushing. He always loses. But I do appreciate the effort.

OH NO!! SHEEP!!

Jack's new favorite phrase is "Oh no!!!" He says it when he falls (or pretends to fall), he says it when he drops something, he says it when he goes to make a basket on his mini hoop and misses, and he says it whenever he thinks he'll get a good laugh which is frequently.

His words, in general are getting more clear and it's getting more and more fun! He's also getting better and better at physical skills. He can put his puzzle together quickly and manipulate the pieces really well. He is a pro at his shape sorter and catches a ball 9 out of 10 times. We have perfected the Pippen to Jordan assist to score on his basketball hoop. The other day, he was walking and tried to walk over a ball. He misjudged and fell forward. I was terrified that he was going to ram head first into the wall but he put his hands up perfectly and protected himself. It's amazing. He's turning more and more into a little boy each day.

However, there still are times where he can be a big old baby. I took him to the Barnyard Zoo on Sunday, thinking he'd love to see the animals. He liked the peacocks and then we moved over to the deer, which he was fine with until I fed it. He started to whimper and refused to look at the deer. I pulled him out of his stroller and decided to carry him. Good thing I did. As we passed the sheep pen, the sheep stuck his head out and made as loud of a noise as he could. The kid shook in my arms, threw his arms around my neck and started bawling. After that, the Barnyard Zoo pretty much sucked in his eyes. He didn't even want to look at the cow, which is one of his favorites. Here I was worried about scaring him by doing a monster theme in what will be his new, big boy room. Now I think that the monsters will be fine. It's the sheep I'll have to avoid!!