pediatric update

yes this is tardy ... and, yes, we've been elusive this week ... (we never call; we never write) ...

all we can say is sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

and we didn't.

but ... we do feel it's our duty to (eventually) bring you the facts of the latest pediatric update, so without further ado ...

we headed off to see doctor dana on thursday for jack's (almost) two-year appointment. the headline?

jack still doesn't much like going to the doctor ... but it is getting better ...

okay, yes, he did try to escape from the exam room, but that was a short-lived obsession once we brought in his other obsession ... trucks!

when she came in to see jack, the doctor was very pleased with his development ... and she particularly took note of the following:

• he's got about 300 words in his vocabulary, including using adjectives and simple sentences
• he's got good motor skills and hand-eye coordination, as evidenced by his soccer ball kicking, golf ball driving, and eating with fork
• he's developmentally on-track -- responding to discipline and attempting to do many things on his own, especially dressing himself

and ... although he did not really want to cooperate at first with standing on the scale to get his height and weight measured ... he eventually came around and we made a game of it. so by the numbers:

• height: 34.5" (or 2' 10-1/2")
• weight: about 27 pounds
• head: they no longer measure head circumfrence at age 2 -- how big we are indeed!

and yes, it was all fun and games ... until mommy got on the scale. that part was less fun.

but we reinstated games when jack used his doctor kit to examine doctor dana. he checked her eyes, then she checked his. he checked her ears, and she peered in his. he "listened" to her "heart" and then let her listen to his. it was very cute and jack was proud that he was pronounced a "very good doctor."

doogie howser eat your heart out.

we don't return until *december*! it will be the longest stretch between appointments that we've had since jack's birth. doctor dana told us that she'd miss us. jack told her, "bye, love you," as she left.

just imagine where we'll be in six months!!

weekend update - memorial day edition

memorial day weekend brought beautiful weather to dc and, accordingly, we spent much of it outdoors.

first, jack and mommy headed off for a walk along the trail. jack remembered the big tree that had fallen and blocked our way last week and was glad to see it was gone ... just a few chopped up logs remain (as seen on the left behind jack).



our destination: baby kay taylor's house. we then joined her for a walk around her neighborhood and some playtime at a local jungle gym. jack really enjoyed his time with his friend and has been talking about her non-stop.




he even wanted to push her in her stroller, which was cute ... until he nearly toppled her! and then that was the end of that.

after a nap, jack helped mommy and daddy with yard work. he is a great sweeper, raker, trash loader, and ivy puller and likes nothing better than to be "helper" to mommy and daddy. in fact, it's one of his favorite new words. that, combined with the 13 bags of yard waste he got to help daddy take to the curb, and jack was in hog heaven!

sunday morning brought more walking ... this time to the plaza for breakfast with kay taylor and her mommy. and once back at home, jack enjoyed lots of other diversions ...

sidewalk chalk:

his sand and water table:

hitting golf balls:

blowing bubbles

and generally playing silly games:

he had a great time and was a lot of fun to be with -- a treat for all involved.

and although mommy has spent this memorial day working, sources tell her that daddy and jack have been having a good time. a morning spent at the park (2 1/2 hours -- that boy is unstoppable!), followed by a two hour nap (bonus for daddy!) and a barbecue with our beach-going pals ... where jack was careful not to get too much sun!

a jam-packed weekend, for sure. but that's what holiday weekends are for!

bedtime for bonzo

bedtime for bonzo it ain't. all ronald reagan had to do was feed that chimp a bottle of milk. our little monkey has a slightly more elaborate routine.

first, we put on a "mickey dipe" -- which comes complete with singing the mickey mouse club theme song with some slightly altered lyrics. jack now knows the song, and will sing along ...

mommy: m-i-c ...
jack: sooooon!!!
mommy: "c" you real soon ... k-e-y-
jack: why!!! love you!!!
mommy: "y" because i love you
unison: d-i-p-(he)-e

once that's complete, we read three books, say a prayer, and sing one song. jack picks the books (with some clever "management" by mommy so she avoids having to read the bob the builder book every night!)

but the books we pick do tend to be in a tight rotation, so that jack has learned to recite key parts of them. some of his favorites are:

sheep in a jeep (he does a hillarious faux-cry when it's "jeep in a heap ... sheep weep")

god loves you (mommy: "god made each part from your ..." jack: "head to toe!!")

goodnight america (he points to the capitol and says "daddy work cap'tal" and then "white house -- mommy work" while pointing at bush's domicile)

brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? (his favorite part is screaming "teacher" and then naming and making the sounds of each animal)

and, if mommy forgets, jack doesn't. he says "prayer" (which sometimes sounds like "pear") and we recite the prayer for a child.

mommy: bless the toys whose shapes i know, the ...
jack: shoes! boots!
mommy: the shoes and boots that take me to and fro and everywhere, bless my little ...
jack: rocking chair!

and of course we always end the prayer with "amen." or "amaim." again ... depends on your pronunciation.

finally, the song. jack usually requests "song moon." this becomes difficult when daddy puts jack to bed, because "song moon" comes from mommy's 4th grade musical -- an adaptation of james thurber's "many moons." daddy's right ... he can't possibly be expected to know that. so he sings "born to run," while i sing:

when i look into the sky i see you
your shining face is beaming as you smile down on me
you fill me life with happiness; oh why do i feel sad?
because i know that when i wake, you will be gone ...

at times it can be a lengthy routine. but at the end of the song, jack almost always says, "night night, mama." i lay him in his crib and he calls out "love you, bye, love you!" as i shut the door.

we'll call it bedtime for jackzo. and we look forward to it because despite the routine you never know what's going to happen next.

where is baby's bellybutton?

jack knows exactly where his belly button is, and he's a big fan of pulling up his shirt and showing it to you when he wants to be tickled.

he also has a knack for finding other people's belly buttons (read: mommy and daddy's), jamming his finger square in the center, and exclaiming "tick tick tick!" oh yeah that *really* tickles ... in a painful, cringe-inducing way ...

but a funny thing happened with some navel oranges recently. jack snagged one off the counter and pointed to the "navel" end and asked "what dis?" so mommy responded, "that's the orange's belly button."

so jack took his little finger, poked it into the navel's navel and said, "tick tick tick."

poor orange. maybe from here on out we buy valencias ...

weekend update

this weekend was another busy one. saturday was a beautiful day. jack and mommy did their morning walk but sprinted home to get ready to welcome our playgroup friends to chez jack. it was five kids in total, and they had a blast playing with jack's sand and water table, sidewalk chalk, and running around our playground.

jack was all played out! and after a longer-than-usual nap, jack awoke to find mommy had gotten a haircut. and so we decided that we should all be well-shorn and set off to the barber shop to get jack a much needed trim.

the before:

jack was raring to go to the plaza and even kept repeating "haircut" in an excited fashion. but that's where the excitement faded. despite the barber's great "chairside manner" which included giving jack not one, but *two* lollipops and showing him two caged parakeets while he snipped, jack was not amused. in fact, by the end, he was downright hysterical.

you'll remember from previous posts that this aversion to hair cuts is nothing new. we had hoped it would get better with time and age. that would be a no and a no. we may go back to miss courtney who comes to the house. same price and only half the trauma since we're not in public.

but, despite the tears shed, jack did look very cute, and grown up, with his new coif. we managed to salvage the remains of day with some good park time.

the after:

sunday was a special walk on the trail and up to the plaza for breakfast with mommy, followed by a birthday party for friends henry and grace who turned one year old! jack spent much of the morning practicing saying "happy birthday, grace!" and "happy birthday, henry!" as well as singing, "happy birthday to yooouu!" he was very excited.

a good time was had, but a combination of sugar, uncut apple juice, excitement, and tons of people left jack a tad overstimulated. but eventually he calmed down and became a sweet little boy again.

a good weekend. but, in case there were any doubts, jack thinks he is already two. he even told us, "happy birthday, jack!" not yet, little fella ... but the attitude could make you believe it ...

checking it twice

so ... we're up to a *few* more words than 6 months ago ... 259 words, to be exact. and of course there are some that aren't even in the inventory that are perennial jack faves ... such as "almost," "waffle," "siren," "squeeze," "pet," "flip flop," "shave" and (a new one learned on our walk yesterday *before* the tree incident) "peace."

here's a look:

i only wish i'd thought of keeping track of this sooner, at shorter intervals ... what a fun way to mark development.

plus now i have something to tell the doctor when she asks how jack is doing at his upcoming 2 year check-up!

whew... pressure's off ...

climb every tree trunk??

we've heard of "climb every mountain" but this is ridiculous!

jack and mommy went out for a nice long walk today. and since we've resumed walking, we've mostly been sticking to the neighborhood. but today mommy decided that she needed to push herself a little more and so we headed down to the trail (which is 1.5 miles just to reach it!) and cruised along, detouring onto a secondary trail, before heading home.

and that's when we encountered this. just before the second trail met back up with the main road back home, there was a ginormous tree blocking the entire path.

no doubt a casualty of the deluging rain we've had over the last week. a man passing by said the tree has been down since sunday.

sunday??

it's thursday, people! apparently the county has better things to do ...

so, as jack and mommy wheeled up, we pondered what to do. go over? no. that wouldn't work. it was way too high. under? maybe ... around? let's try that!

well, we did, but the hill up to get around the giant, upended root ball was a little too treacherous ... covered in still-wet leaves and thick with volunteer saplings and whatnot.

so, a woman walking her dog suggests that mommy goes in two phases. once with jack, while she folds down the stroller and passes it under to us. of course jack is not wearing any shoes so he has to be carried.

it was a little unwieldy, but eventually, thanks to our dependence on the kindness of strangers, we traversed the giant tree and carried on our merry way ... up that 1.5 mile stretch that i'm now calling "heartbreak hill" and back home.

did i mention previously that jack is *much* heavier than he used to be?

um, yeah.

maybe we need to drive to the trail!

making our list

as part of the studies mommy has done with jack at umd, a macarthur-bates communication inventory (for ages 16-30 months) was filled out for jack at age 17 months.

it's so much fun now to look back at what he could say then ... and what his burgeoning communication ability has led to half-a-year hence.

we'll post the results of a new one filled out this month ... to see the progress he's made in 6 months time ... but in the meantime, check out where we were last november:

(and remember, you can single-click on the image to enlarge it)

31 words at 17 months

• moo
• uh oh
• vroom
• bird
• cat
• kitty
• squirrel
• dog
• bus
• truck
• ball
• cheerios
• egg
• milk
• shoe
• sock
• nose
• boo boo
• daddy
• nana
• mommy
• jack
• bye
• hi
• hello
• night night
• no
• help
• all gone
• hot
• more

check back tomorrow to see how we've grown!

getting better all the time

well, our little croupier (as mommy is fond of calling him post-diagnosis) is seeming yet a little better today. he was still not well enough to go to spanish class (low-grade fever persists), but he has perked up considerably since the weekend and his nighttime coughing fits, though still present, at least are no longer waking him (and thereby waking mommy and daddy) ...

after our doctor's appointment yesterday he was mixed ... he fell asleep on the return trip:



but perked up for a stop at starbucks and a special treat of hot chocolate (which was not hot, but was, in fact, chocolate, as evidenced by the stains on his shirt):

let's hope this trend continues and he's back to tip-top shape in no time.

HomeSick

Jack and Lici are at home today. Our poor little guy was sick over the week-end, with a barky cough, low-grade fever, hoarse voice and a general feeling of lousiness. Lici took him to the doctor's office this morning, where our normally chipper Bear was diagnosed with the croup. I would have sworn that "croup" was one of those fake 19th Century illnesses like "the vapors" or "poor waters," but apparently it's' a real thing. And it's no fun. The only positive thing to come out of this is that the one thing Jack wanted to do yesterday (Mother's Day) was snuggle on the couch under a blanket with his mommy. Which actually made for an o.k. Mother's Day present.

cool school

today jack had his first "playdate" at his new nursery school. while he doesn't start until september, they wanted to get all the first-time parents together with some of the "old-timers" to meet and chat and get to know each other a bit while the kids played.

when we left home, jack was excited that we were going to go to "school." in fact, he kept saying, "school bus" -- his favorite mode of transportation. and while disappointed that, no, in fact, there is no school bus ... just mommy driving two minutes into the next neighborhood over ... he was still psyched to go check it out:




jack bounded in from the parking lot, but when we arrived in the classroom, jack was pretty unsure about the situation and got a little clingy ... his poor little lip and chin quivering with tears. but, after a few minutes of hugs from mommy, he bucked right up, found a toy school bus, and the rest ... as they say ... is history.

playing with the sand table

play dough!!

trucks and trains and buses, oh my!

and on our way out, jack ... despite the rain ... wanted to play on the school's playground. but we've got all school year for that!

is it september yet??

weekend update - home edition

we had a nice weekend, spent mostly around the house. after many weekends of planned activities, it was nice to sort of have a clear schedule.

so saturday morning, after a nice pancake breakfast, we loaded up and headed to the nursery. no ... not for jack! the plant nursery!

we got some herbs for mommy, mulch for daddy, and sand for jack. it was shaping up to be a banner weekend.

when we got home, we spent some time working to clear the yard. jack helped daddy sweep the porch and put the debris in yard bags. he helped mommy rake under the azaleas. he pulled ivy and would have helped daddy prune the tree, if only he'd been allowed ("stick!" was his constant refrain).

after lunch and a nice nap, nana showed up. she had been downtown all week for a conference of sorts and came bearing an air and space museum t-shirt.

she convinced mommy and jack to go out shopping and while mommy browsed around the home store, she rode jack around in the cart. they said "hi" to everyone in the store, bought water at the in-store starbucks, watched a horse race on the big screen tvs, watched the ceiling fans go around and around, and met a bunch of other kids at the store. let's just say jack was well on his way to being elected mayor of the great indoors by the time we left.

on sunday, as mommy headed out for some solo-errand time, jack played with daddy at the park.

after lunch and nap, daddy got in a little more productive yard time ... sans his able assistant ... and mommy and jack took a walk around the neighborhood and spent more time at the park. while there, jack -- slightly ahead of mother's day -- presented mommy with a bouquet of picked buttercups for the first time. it was very sweet. he also learned to blow the heads off dandelions and watch them float away.

he was only convinced to return home with the promise that he could play with his newly cleaned and refilled sand and water table. he had a ball floating boats, splashing, and scooping sand.

you know, sometimes it's nice to have a "do nothing" kind of weekend ... if you can believe all of that was "doing nothing!"

oh, and yes, part of the doing nothing was doing no picture taking. sorry. we'll try to do better.

weekend update for real

well, it took a few days, but here's a recap of our weekend ... and just in the nick of time, with another weekend looming!!

jack's grandad came over friday night so that we could let roxana go home on time, mommy could work late, and daddy could go to the ball game. the two had a great time running around inside and out. grandad's comment was, "he sometimes wanted to do things i didn't want to do, but we worked it out."

saturday came and we bid daddy adieu as he headed off to golf and mommy and jack joined friends jen and kay taylor for the family festival at glen echo park. however muggy, buggy conditions soon forced us to retreat to the coolness of jack's house, where kay taylor showed off how big she's getting and jack showed off for kay taylor. he was very helpful with "baby taylor" as he called her ... wanting to make her bottle, bring her toys, and even giving her a kiss. and they called it puppy love ...

the big excitement of the weekend turned out to be a trip to the dairy farm that brings us our milk every week. we've already told you that jack was a very muddy young boy. see for yourself:

and our afternoon featured a visit from nana ... just back from the beach and bearing a mountain of new clothes, straight from the outlets! we had a great time looking at all the new duds and then stripping them all off for a fun-filled ... and water-logged ... tubby time.

so much weekend that it took us four days to even recap it for you. this weekend promises to be a little more tame ... so maybe we'll *actually* have an update for you by monday.