Jack's Life These Days

Life in Jack's world is quite exciting these days. He is growing up right before our eyes. There are days that he pushes me to my breaking point with whining and tantrums and his wild crazy ways, but there are also so many moments of sweetness from him. And the things that come out of his mouth are constantly cracking me up. Sometimes when I ask him a question he puts one arm across his chest and puts his index finger form his other hand up to his lips. Then he taps his lips, rolls his eyes up high and says "thhiinking". Makes me giggle every time. Other times when he's working to accomplish a task and it doesn't go as he planned he'll say "That's not quite right". And he's so very serious and matter of fact about it. He's also started giving impromptu kisses to me (which I love). One of Jack's latest interests is Paul's iPod touch. He's been playing with it for about 2 weeks and we are amazed at how good he is at not only navigating around but playing a variety of different games. We've put a lot of learning games on there for him and he's actually been learning letters pretty well. He's not too bad at Angry Birds either.

Jack has also been working really hard at potty training. Some days he has no accidents, other days he has 5 or 6. Along with the potty training he's been practicing a lot at dressing himself. In the past week he has become pretty good at this and can do undies, pants, shirt, coat and boots himself. Can't guarantee things aren't backwards, upside down or crooked, but they're on. I've been trying really hard to let go of some of my perfectionist ways and not stress over his clothes being on correctly or his waist band being situated just right.  We've gone several places with his coat on upside down, the hood flapping around his butt with each step. I just mentally tell people as we walk by that I didn't put the coat on, Jack did! :-) He loves to do all of these things by himself, without help. He also loves to put things in his pockets. He keeps all sorts of things in his pockets like his hands, rocks, phones, iPods and especially money.

Another thing that has struck me about Jack recently is his imagination. It is really starting to take hold and I love it. The other day we hid under the covers in the bed so the sweepers wouldn't get us. And often he puts on his gloves and boots so he can go to work. Then he walks down the hall to my parents room where one of those spring loaded bouncy horses lives. Apparently, Jack's job is to take care of the horse. He feeds it, rides it and pets it and if he forgets to put his gloves on and picks up the "food" for the horse he has to make sure to brush his hands off because they get dirty.

So while Jack is indeed a handful of an energetic, rambunctious, loud and not so gentle almost 3 year old he is also incredibly sweet, funny, smart and loving. Above all these things I've mentioned the thing he spends the most time doing is loving on and playing with his brothers. I know he will be thrilled when they can finally play with him how he wants to play, but for now I just pray that they survive babyhood without any major mishaps thanks to their big brother.