"I looking my mommy!"

This morning we went to our local coffee house for bagels and, well, coffee. It was a rainy day and I'm still on crutches, so we took the car. Jack was in the back and was using a collapsed umbrella as a telescope. He pointed it toward me, spied "through" one end, and said, "I looking my mommy."

I've broken down and started getting Jack his own bagel. I had been giving him bits and pieces of mine, but I found my breakfasts getting smaller and smaller and so I decided it was time to get him his own. You'd think that one big bagel with cream cheese would be too much for a toddler. Apparently not. Today he slowly but surely made it through about 3/4 of his. Chris expressed interest in the last quarter and I motioned that it was fine to eat it. "Out of sight, out of mind" I said to Chris. Five minutes later, Jack looked at his plate and asked "What happened my bagel?"

It is amazing to me how quickly language is acquired. In my last post Jack was blowing me away with two- and three-word phrases and now I am simply in awe of his ability to express himself in complete sentences. Don't get me wrong. Most of the expressions are incomplete, jumbled phrases. But he's getting his point across --- loud and clear. And every now and again he gets everything in the right order and includes a subject and a verb. I suppose this happens to parents every day in all corners of the world. But that doesn't make it any less amazing when your kid starts doing it.

As the floodgates of language open up, so do the "Guess what Jack said" stories. I apologize if any of this is boring or if I seem to go on and on. But honestly, the primary purpose of this blog is for me to write things down so that I don't forget them. And if my readers get any enjoyment, great!

A few weeks ago I was on the computer and Jack strolled by me and said, "I'll be right back." Now this may not seem all that exciting, but when your son who rarely puts a sentence together casually proclaims his plans, you are taken aback.

Another day not long ago, Jack was settling down for his nap. He was a little rambunctious and there was a bit of a crash. I was about to go in there when I heard "Mommy, Mommy. I'm okay." :-)

Jack has never been a fan of letting anyone near his nose, especially for the exciting task of removing snot. He recently had a specimen in one nostril and I coaxed him into letting me get it out by telling him that he had a "big booger" and I needed to get it out. I went on to promise that I'd let him look at it once it had been extracted. He let me get it out and was extremely interested to investigate what had come out of his nose. For several weeks following, he would occasionally stick his finger in his nose, pull it out (usually with nothing on it), and exclaim, "I got the booger."

Anyway, these are the stories that have made me chuckle these days.

For the record, Jack is now 22 months old, 33 pounds, and nearly 35 inches tall. He eats well, and does well with utensils and a cup. However, he occasionally will revert to eating with his hands (I recently observed him holding a spoon in his left hand and scooping yogurt out of a bowl with his right.) and will almost always dump his cup out make a lake in his highchair tray ("Mommy, I splashing!"). Two steps forward, one step back.

He's also expressed interest in using the potty, so we are moving ahead with toilet learning as best we know how. With that endeavor it seems to be one step forward and two steps back.

He's sleeping fairly well. He usually sleeps from 8pm to 6am and naps for about an hour and a half during the day. Boring details perhaps, but I think I'll like to remember this someday.

I'm loving motherhood much more than I ever thought I would. I get so much joy from watching him discover, enjoy, and learn from the world around him. He's developing a keen sense of humor and is always curious. "What this thing?" is a question I answer more than a few times a day. Of course he is stubborn and throws fits like any toddler, but overall I think he's a pretty good kid. But as much of me enjoys all of this growth and discovery, there is a tiny part of me that occasionally wants to put the hourglass on its side and slow things down. Our little boy is growing up so fast. Of course that's the one thing that everyone tells you. "They grow up so fast." But you don't know how true it is until you're in it. But I am learning to live in each moment and enjoy them all to the fullest.