potty training baby steps

Wow....that was a surprise! Once or twice, maybe three times a day we will get Jack to sit on his potty for a little while....I've stopped keeping him on it for long periods of time, because I figure it anything DOES happen after sitting there for 30 minutes, it's not really "potty training" so much as a coincidence. I've not been terribly consistent keeping him in big boy undies, but after tonights success...I guess I need to!
Last week as we were getting ready for church, Jack was taking a bath....and..um....had a little surprise waiting for me when I got ready to wash him up! :oO YIKES! The next time he took a bath we talked about that he should tell me if he need to sit on the potty and I can get him out right away.....and as soon as he was done washing up he said "Mommie, POTTY!" So excitedly I grabbed him out of the tub, dried him off while sitting on the potty....and nothing happened. I was SO hopeful that he was learning what it felt like to need to go....but apparently not.
We have also had a little bit of success "catching him" when he is doing some business in his diaper and encouraging him to sit on the potty.....and he is SO excited to tell and show us his "hard work" (lovely...I know....but a little encouragement goes a LONG WAY!)
Anyway, the baby step happened tonight....as his pregnant mommie I need to use the restroom more than usual.....and I told him I was going to go potty and I would be right back....his eyes lit up and he said "Jack go sit on potty too!" So, we went in there together....he and I read 2 books while he sat....and lo and behold, when we were done with the books....there was something in the potty!!!!! The reason I am SO excited about this is that 1)he ASKED to go sit on the potty (maybe it was just from my suggestion, or MAYBE he is learning how to tell when he needs to go) and 2)it happened in a timely manner! yiPEEE! I know we still have a LOOOONG way to go, but I'll take any success we can get!

what are you?

He does this a lot now....he will start growling and I will ask him


"are you a lion?"


"NO!" he will reply....


"Are you a dog?"


"NO!"


"Well, What are you?"


can you tell what he says?







He's not really been around a whole lot of dinosaur toys....maybe a few books but any dinosaur sounds must have come from us....today at Walmart we saw a dinosaur toy that growled when a button was pushed. It definitely wasnt a the friendly dinosaurs that I have tried to limit him to....but it wasnt necessarily terrifying, or so I thought. Jack thought it was cool from a distance....but when I asked him if he wanted me to let him see it up close he FREAKED OUT! I guess he wants to be the most ferocious dinosaur around!

Time for a poll....

Our BIG ultrasound is now a week away...so it is time to guess....shall I dig out all the boxes up little boy clothes, or start combing the consignment sales for pink and purple? :) In other words, is Jack getting a baby BROTHER or baby SISTER? As I have stated before Josh and I are withholding any official prediction because 1)we were 100% WRONG last time and 2)it almost seems like making aa prediction can seem like that's the gender we would PREFER...and I don't feel that way at all.....I would be so happy for either gender....for so many reasons....we will honestly be ecstatic for a healthy baby to join our family. Jack has pretty consistently been predicting one way...and he ALMOST had me convinced...up until last night when I had a dream about the gender of baby #2. Now, our guess last time was based on a dream of Josh's....so now we have decided to just go with the opposite of whatever he dreams this time....so I guess we will see if my dreams are any more accurate. When Grandma Howell (she's the grandma who has the reputation for being RIGHT most of the time...and she was right about Jack!) called a few nights ago for Josh's birthday we asked her if she could make an guess over the phone or if she had to see me in person, and she said in person is better (although she did ask Josh if I am "big all over or just in front" because that helps her to tell....he wisely chose to NOT answer that! :)
So, make a guess in the poll over on the side....and if you are feeling brave, make your guess official in the comments for this post so we can all see who is right and who is wrong.

a few more pictures....

I know these arent the best quality since they were taken with my phone, but they still show how big he is and a little bit of the fun we have been having lately. The top picture shows him being a "big boy" at the library today. We ventured away from the childrens section into the grown-up section to wait for daddy and I offered to sit with Jack so we could read a book together quietly. He decided that he is big enough to sit in the grown up chair by himself and read to himself quietly....and he (mostly) did! The middle one shows him playing on our newest outdoor toy. A friend who was moving generously offered us the little outdoor slide and he LOVES IT! She cautioned me that he might outgrow it quickly, but for now it is definitely a favorite (when we get to play outside....this weather has been CRAZY!!!) The bottom picture shows him building with his blocks. I think he is finally getting the concept of gradation and that the bigger blocks need to go beneath the smaller blocks, and thankfully he is also allowing SOME blocks to actually stay on top of each other for a moment or two before knocking them over. This is PROGRESS!

our little maestro...again...

Last Thursday was a fun day! It was finally a pretty day on Daddy's Day off. Jack and Mommie didnt have CBS because apparently there was snow SOMEWHERE in our county...so we had all day to spend with Daddy. We went to get breakfast at IHOP and then took Daddy to get his picture made for his sams card. Later we went to PETCO to get Maggie some food and while we were there, we looked at animals and went next door to TJ Maxx. Daddy remembered that I have been on the look out for a set of instruments for Jack...and look what he found....a drum, maracas, harmonica and tambourine set! Jack LOVES them as you can tell, so much so that the harmonica has already bit the dust...since Jack couldnt stop himself from gnawing on it. Oh well, I also love that they are small enough to put up if needed...but we havent had to do that too much.

my apologies...

I had been waiting for this day.....the day when someone would comment that there is an obvious lack of pictures on this blog as of late....and a lot of long winded (my words, not theirs) word-only entries. I have been noticing myself that I have been taking a lot less pictures of him lately....makes me wonder if we will take ANY pictures AT ALL of #2! The conclusion I have come up with is this : 1) he is SO busy and active these days (and occasionally uncooperative) which makes posing for pictures or recreating kodak moments difficult. By the time I run to get the camera, he has moved on to other things and isnt always willing to revisit the moment....and 2) so many of his changes these days are much more verbal and much less physical, thus they are a bit harder to put on "film" or disk....or whatever. I figure that by writing out the stories of the cute things he is saying it will help me remember them more!

But all those reasons aside, I am ashamed to realize it has been nearly a MONTH since I have posted any pictures of Jack, and for that I apologize. I am also ashamed to say I dont really have many pictures to show to make up for my falling down on the job...but I do have a few:

I'll admit, this first one is not actually of Jack, but the aftermath of HURRICANE JACK! His newest form of entertainment is to take ALL of his books off the shelves, toys out of their boxes or baskets and undo all of his puzzles, and scatter them hither and yon.....not actually PLAYING with any of these things, mind you, just enjoying making the mess.....and then enjoying having Mommie or Daddy help clean up. At first it didnt really bother me too bad, mainly because while he was occupied with this destruction, I was able to get a few much needed chores done around the house in preparation for something....and figured one big mess in a contained space was better than many little messes all over the house....and it kept him distracted for a good amount of time. But after the 2nd or 3rd time of sweeping through a perfectly straight room, I realized that he wasnt making this mess as a result of playing with these toys....he was just making a mess....He and I had a little talk....becauase although thankfully he doesnt seem to mind cleaning up the mess (with Mommie and/or Daddy there to "help" and to keep him focused) cleaning up is NOT my idea of fun!

This next picture was from just this morning! A few months ago I decided to be brave and start Jack on eating cheerios.....in a bowl.....with a spoon....and MILK! Aside from a few messes, its gone very well....he even reminds us to pit on his bib and a towel in his lap to catch the extra messes. I was taught to not waste the milk after eating cereal, so I almost always will drink the milk, from the bowl, when I am done....Jack saw me doing this one day and decided to try it too...as you can imagine, that was a BIG mess. That is the reason for the straw he is holding, we give him a straw to sip the milk out of his bowl.I was checking my email while we were both eating and all of a sudden I hear him saying over and over again "knife, knife" and when I look up he had bent his straw up into what he thought was a knife shape (couldnt manage to catch that one on camera). A few minutes later he starts saying "Zeeee, Zeee, zzzzzzz,zzzzzz" and when I looked up again, he had bent his straw into a "Z" shape like you see in the picture (well, by the time I got the camera it had come out of the actual z shape, but you can see what it could have been a few seconds before) He was VERY proud of himself.

He cracked me up just now....I had to take a little break from writing this entry because we had a major potty training accident...I will spare you the details, but let's just suffice it to say we had to have a little talk about "poop".....then we I got back to blogging I made a little mistake with a picture and he heard me say "Oh poop!" .....he immediately came running over to see why I was talking about poop while on the computer. I assured him everything was fine, but a few minutes later he came over again to look at the computer while asking "poop?" You can tell what is a major topic of conversation with a potty training 2 year old in our house! :)

excited about PIZZA!

Earlier this week we joined the CLUB.....you know, SAM'S CLUB. Is it sad that some of the main reasons we joined were to give us another indoor place to browse in our sadly mall-less town, and also because they have a cafe with inexpensive foods (which I guess we could go to even if we werent members..) but I also LOVE to stock up on staple items because it is DANGEROUS for me to make a trip to the store for just 1 or 2 things....it NEVER works. Anyway, what does this have to do with PIZZA? When Jack and I joined Sam's we celebrated by each eating a slice of their cheese pizza at their snack bar.
Last night I had a much needed Mom's Night out with my MOPS friends. It was bittersweet because it was also the last chance to hang out with one of our dear friends (and MOPS coordinator) before she moves far away. I've made lots of friends and acquaintances since moving here, but she was one that I would consider a pretty close friend, and I havent made a whole lot of CLOSE friends since moving here....so it's a big bummer. But, I am excited for her family and the opportunities that await them at their new home.
When I have a MNO I usually plan for something really easy for my boys, and the only easy thing we had in the house was PIZZA. I was a little worried that Jack wouldnt be too enthusiastic about pizza since he had just had it the day before....boy was I WRONG! SILLY ME! Jack had been extra clingy with me since he had awakened from his nap, and was not pleased when I told him I needed to get ready to GO. Josh quickly explained to him "Mommie is going to go see some friends and Jack and Daddy are going to stay here and play and eat PIZZA!" Well that immediately changed Jack's mind. His face lit up and he started talking...and talking...and talking...."Mommie go see friends....Daddy Jack eat PIZZA! Go eat PIZZA! Need PIZZA!" I am learning that I cant get him excited about something (namely food) before it is ready....he expects that when I mention it, he gets it RIGHT NOW! It was really exciting though to understand almost all of what he said in those few sentences, which is happening more and more lately, we are almost having almost complete conversations and not just random words and phrases. It's really fun! I'm also trying not to let it bother me too much that any sadness he was feeling about my leaving was so quickly and easily, nay, INSTANTLY healed with PIZZA!
On another talking/food-related note: The other night before we were all seated for dinner, Jack took it upon himself to go ahead and say the blessing, by himself. I was sitting next to him and we were waiting for Josh to fill his water glass. Jack folded his hands and started saying "Dear Jesus, asfhjsfhjksnfkdshfvuidhganresnrlsndfjklnjkbgjkadfbgtksnfsdnnfhgjdbanksnfnndjkgn (no idea what he said here....maybe he was speaking in tongues or something).....AMEN!" We praised him for saying such a nice blessing, and asked him to repeat it when Josh sat down so that we could all pray together.....and he did!!! (Not sure if it the second prayer was verbatim, but it was about the same length and inflections, so it's possible!) It was SO sweet! And to think....I was fearful that his speech might have been delayed due to teaching him sign language! HA!

say what???

a FEW random words and phrases that we are learning to decipher:
-bih-bih-ting-visiting
-boobah-tuba
-bar, bow, bat-car, cow, cat-we still dont know why he has been saying b for initial c but he is stubborn about it....we will encourage him to say "cuh,cuh,cuh, car" and he will say "cuh,cuh,cuh,bar" everytime! Another example is this week he has been sick with a nasty cough and has been saying "bye bye boff (cough)" after a bad coughing fit.
-monica-harmonica
-mihmih-mary (as is mother of baby jesus)
-just a few weeks ago he got much better at internal s sounds (as in paSSy, meSSy, sciSSors, etc), and ironically it came the week that we started to limit passy time....and it's sad, because when he is upset at naptime or bedtime and wanting PASSY (!), there is now NO denying what he is asking for...nice timing, kid!
-yesterday he ran up to me and Josh while we were sitting on the couch watching part of the Olympics. He reached up, gave us a big group hug and said "Love you guys!" That was a great Valentine's surprise on what was otherwise a very laid back, quiet Feb 14th.
-last week he got frustrated with Maggie when she was sniffing his snack and he exclaimed "Maggie no eat Jack snack!" I was very impressed....a 5 word almost gramatically correct sentence! Cool!
-he has also started helping us with saying the blessing at meal time and nighttime prayers before bed. At meal time we will start out the prayer "Dear Jesus" (hoping he will repeat us) but he will just continue the prayer with "anya (thank you) food, Amen" He has learned from Mzee that mealtime blessings should be short, sweet and to the point! When we say bedtime prayers we will start a phrase and stop short, and usually he will finish out the phrase with his version of the words. My favorite part is the end where we say "May Jesus watch me through the night and keep me in his......behbeh sigh (blessed sight)" WAIT...I heard a new favorite part tonight: "I pray the Lord.... my so to beep (my soul to keep)"
-Just this morning he was playing with his basketball goal. I can't remember if I have mentioned this before or not, but most of the time he is reluctant to play unless he can SLAM DUNK, but this morning he was shooting the ball and if he missed he would just say "ahhh, MISS!" and then go right back to playing!
-oh, and if you ever see him pointing at the tv exclaiming "wahwah peh" he is asking to watch his new favorite cartoon: "the Wonder Pets" I am starting to regret introducing him to this show....dont get me wrong, it's cute, and pretty educational, but each show consists of 2 mini episodes, each of which repeats the same 3 or 4 songs. hese catchy songs get cemented in my brain....apparently they get stuck in his brain too, because if he hears me humming of singing them, he can sing along with me: "Lenny, Tuck and.....Ming Ming too!" or "What's gonna work?... TEAMWORK!" Apparently I am not the only mother with this affliction because when I complained about it on facebook, lots of my other mommy friends say they have the same thing happening in their house too!
-I'm pretty sure that he has Josh's amazing memory because we can read him a library book a couple of times, and by the 3rd time or so he can "read" parts of it to us. Granted, I KNOW he is using his memory and picture and context clues, but it sure does amaze me. I know I am not paying that close attention to the book, and I am the one reading it!
-he has also learned how to manipulate bedtime by asking almost every night "Read Book or one more book" when it it time to get ready or bed "Sing Song" when we start to rock, "One More song" when we have sung our quota and "Need Passy, Need Passy!" when it is time to put him down. (more on passy in a later post)

Using his toolbox

this morning Jack woke up a little early, probably because he has what we think is rsv and is coughing, sneezing and sniffling like crazy. I'm not sure how he was able to sleep at all last night! At least his fever is gone. Anyway, I shuffled into his room, hoping I could convince him to lay back down, but no, he was ready to get UP! I played with him for a moment and got covered in snot and spit and germs while trying to clean him up. Such is the life of a mommie of a sick toddler. He settled down to look at his Thomas Magnet Book while I went to brush my teeth. While I was in the bathroom Josh got up to check on Jack and heard him say "uh oh!" and walk towards the bonus room. Puzzled, Josh followed and saw Jack head to his toy tool bench. Jack reached down to examine his tools, and finally settled on his plastic wrench and headed back to his bedroom at the other end of the house. Josh was quite curious at this point, why did this 2 year old walk all the way across the house to get a plastic wrench? Following him back to his room, he finally figured out why....Jack wasnt able to open part of his Thomas the Train Magnet Book, and just KNEW that if he used one of his tools, it would help! He bent down and pried open the part of the book that was stuck. I guess he has seen Daddy using his tools quite a bit lately, and figured they would help him too.

Nice baby

this morning when I went to get him up Jack was being very sweet. He started patting my tummy saying "Nice Baby, nice Baby." The other day he insisted on giving the baby "kisses" by blowing raspberries on my tummy. He thought that was HYSTERICAL....and he's pretty good at those zerberts too! Whenever I ask him if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl his answer changes, but the other day he answered "girl!" so we asked him what her name would be....he replied "baby Jack!" Maybe Jacqueline? Something tells me that would be WAAAAY confusing!
People keep asking me if we have names picked out, but as of right now we dont feel the need to really even bring it up....we will let the negotiations start about a month from now when we find out the gender. We have been tossing around some ideas for a girl name, just leftover ideas really since Jack wasnt a girl, but havent even begun to formulate ideas for a boy name. I was looking at the bookstore the other day at baby name books....and got SERIOUSLY overwhelmed....they ranged from 500 baby names to 100,000 baby names! eek! that just sounds crazy to me! It was so easy to name Jack....Josh just came up with the idea to name him a "Jr." and then use his initials to form the name JAC(K) to avoid confusion. The second he said it I replied "I hope you like that....because its what I want to do!"
Oh, one more sweet big brother/baby related thing....normally we hang out with little boys Jacks age, and there arent many baby dolls hanging around at our playdates....but today we ended up at a friends house who had toys for both her son and daughter. Jack was really cute with one of the baby dolls...without any kind of prompting he (sorta) gently took it over to a small sled (it looked almost like a cradle...) and laid the baby down to go to sleep. I thought it was sweet, considering he's never handled a baby doll before! But when it came time to clean up and put back on the baby's shoes and such, he handed it back over to me....such a little man! ;)
And speaking of using the compliment "Nice" the other night we went to a birthday party for a 3 year old (which may be the topic of a different post, later). I had put my hair up in some clips, something I rarely do, and Jack noticed. He said "Mommie, hair? hair?" because he knew something was different. I replied "yes Jack, I have clippies in my hair, do they look pretty?" he said "Yes mommie, nice hair. look nice." hopefully that meant they looked pretty too!

Happy 26 months

I haven't done one of these monthly update postings for a while, so here goes.
Jack, you are 26 months old. You are in 3T clothes up top and growing out of 3T pants, although they are still quite loose on you. You are about 35 inches tall and around 31 or 32 pounds last time I weighed you. You are becoming more and more independent all the time, and its exciting to see you getting closer and closer to being ready to be a big brother, although I still think that none of us have any idea of the surprises coming in 6 months! You are growing into size 6 diapers and wear size 7 shoe. You can recognize your abcs, numbers, colors, shapes, and your vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds everyday! You suprise me all the time with new words you have learned that we only talked about once or twice. You love coloring and stickers, your choochoo trains and your current favorite tv show is Wonder Pets! You are learning the theme songs to some of your favorite shows, but we are choosing to believe that its because you have an amazing memory like your daddy, and not that you watch too much tv...we really do try to limit you as much as possible.
We are transitioning you away from your passy. We tried a naptime without it, cold turkey and it proved to be hard on all of us, so after asking for some advice and some research we decided to take a different approach. We are snipping off the end of the passy (shhh, we are telling you it is "broken") and making it less appealing so that hopefully it will be your idea to let it go, and we think it is working. You no longer ask for it while we are getting you ready for bed, but you still want to hold them at night. I havent seen you with it in your mouth any of the times I have gotten you up after naptime. We just really want it to be gone in time to transition to big boy bed and before new baby comes so that we dont have any passy confusion or competition. We are waiting a little while longer to break out the big boy bed, at least until after we find out if new baby will be a brother or a sister. Bedtime and naptime still seem to be holding steady, but you still have trouble sleeping through the night most nights. We are still trying to figure that one out, but lately you are calming yourself down and putting yourself back to sleep quicker.
We are making small progress in potty training. We have gotten you to peepee in the potty a few times, but that was only after sitting on the potty for a LOOOOOONG time....not sure how effective that is in training, but at least it gives us a chance to make a big deal and praise you and put a sticker up on your potty chart. We had poop success one time and it was very exciting! I am in the process of getting a potty training book to give me more insights. I have heard that 2 1/2 is a GREAT time to start potty training little boys, but since we are having a new baby when you are 2 1/2, I dont think that will be a good time. I am coming to terms with the fact that we will probably just have to change 2 sets of diapers for a while, and if I am nursing one baby while potty training another, that's just how its going to be. I still dont think you are ready for full fledged training yet.
We are following the advice of some family and friends and putting you in onesies at bedtime and some naptimes in order to discourage too many nasty diaper explorations. It was really wearing on us and none of the discouraging tactics we tried seemed to be working. We KNOW you realize it was a bad choice because whenever we would come upon you in mid-exploration you would start crying and tell us to go away, one time you even closed mommie out of your room because you knew that you were about to get in trouble. Now we are trying a more positive approach where we give you a treat when you tell us if you have a dirty diaper, another treat if none of the evidence ends up on your hands and another one if you tell us in time to sit on the potty. Ironic isnt it that the treats are mini chocolate chips! It's just what I happened to have in the pantry at the time, and they are small enough not to make you hyper, but still be tasty. Hopefully the combination of the positive reinforcement and the onesies preventing any incidents will help....hopefully!
You have started playing more pretend, and your latest is pretending to be a dog and barking and crawling around on the floor. My favorite one is when you go around growling. Without fail, if I ask you if you are a dog or a lion or a tiger you will answer "No Mommie, dinosaur! ROAR!" It's really cute, as long as we can keep you being a nice dinosaur who gives kisses and no bites. ;)
We went to the library the other day and got LOTS of "big brother/new baby" books and "how to use the potty" books. I broke down and got a Barney and the New Baby book....and amazingly enough it is your favorite, along with the Little Critter book. Hate to break it to you, but Mommie and Daddy have promised each other that the one Barney book is about all the exposure you will get to the big purple dinosaur....its about all we can handle!
You have also gotten much more consistent saying "Please, Thank You, and Yes" although you still need prompting fairly regularly...but you pick up on our hints a lot quicker! I've also noticed that for the most part you are getting less and less frustrated with us if we dont understand what you are asking for or if we offer you something you dont want. Previously you would freak out if we couldnt figure it out pretty quickly, but now you are staying calmer and persisting until we can figure it out....that is until we have to tell you NO for what you are asking for....still not too fond of that word! :)
You are an amazing little guy and we love you so much! You are such a blessing in our lives and we enjoy each day that God has blessed us with your joy.

A fun Day in Nashville

Yesterday marked week 16 of this pregnancy and it was time for a road trip into Nashville to visit with my doctor. Granny Ruthie has been EXTREMELY accommodating and has agreed to watch Jack for all of my visits thus far, but this time she was visiting with her OTHER sweet grandbaby in the great white north. Thankfully most of my visits have been on Thursdays which is Daddy's day off, so he was able to come with us, and wrangle a certain future big brother during the visit....and well....basically all day. We were a few minutes late for the appt....but I guess that meant we didnt have to wait too long, so it turned out ok. We were prepared with books and snacks and given that he had just spent over an hour in the car and was being kept still in the dr office, he did quite well! He got to hear his baby siblings heartbeat and see Mommie experience a dr. visit. He got to see the nurse take my blood pressure (which is still thankfully low, as usual!) and use the stethoscope on me. He thought I had a boo-boo when she took the cuff off me, but we assured him I am ok. (BTW-My doctor is proud of me, and I'm pretty proud so far....I've only gained 5 pounds so far! YIPEE! I'm not counting on my weight gain staying that low all along, given how much problem I had with swelling while pregnant with Jack....but I'll take the success while I can get it!) When the Nurse came back into the room with the Doppler jack got a little scared, and we had to reassure him that Mommie was the one seeing the doctor, NOT him! He thought that hearing the heartbeat was cool and imitated it for a little while. After the visit we had lunch at a restaurant that ISNT in Cookeville (that is often my request when we go into Nashville) and then he took a GOOD nap back at Granny Ruthie's house(without Granny Ruthie or Mzee. I warned him ahead of time that they wouldnt be there....so he understood that they were "byebye" but as soon as we walked in he started asking for Daniel....I forgot to mention that he wouldnt be there either!).
After his nap we met up with Papa John and Mimi at a new Korean Restaurant and enjoyed some bulgogi and mondu. YUM!!!! While at the restaurant Jack got to try eatingwith chopsticks and thought he was pretty cool! We also enjoyed teaching him Korean words, and amazingly enough he could pronounce new Korean words even better than he can pronounce new English words. It was pretty funny! Later in the evening we stopped by their apt for a few minutes and got to meet their new dog Gucci.....who is SO adorable! She really DOES look like an ewok and Jack did SUCH a good job with her. Up til now small dogs kinda freak him out, but I guess this time he was big enough and sturdy enough that her jumping didnt bother him, and he REALLY enjoyed playing with her and pulling out all of her toys. He even got to help dress her up in some of her clothes....yes....the dog has clothes....they were from her previous owner....but she sure was CUTE! It was a fun, exhausting day, and I thanked Daddy over and over again for taking such good care of us on such a nasty rainy day with so much driving, especially at night. YUCK!

sing....sing a song...

he is starting to get into singing songs....right now if a song is playing he will sing a few key words or phrases such as "how much... doggy.... window arf arf" and "itty bitty pider" and he's able to get most of the first half of the abc song and the also knows the "mountain.... see what.... see" part of the bear went over the mountain. There are a few others I cant think of right now. I have also noticed that lately at night when we are singing him a song before bed he will try to hum along with the song. He is also fascinated with any books, puzzles or games that involve musical instruments. He likes to pretend he is playing them based on his version of how we demonstrated how they are played. It makes me feel guilty that we dont have any child sized instruments for him...you know, ones that can be brought out, and then put up again when the rest of us have had enough. I wish I felt creative enough to figure out how to make him some instruments since actual ones seem kinda expensive. We may have a little maestro on our hands!
oh, and speaking of singing, he surprised me yesterday with a library book. he LOVES the Little Critter books. In the "Just me and my Grandpa" book there is a picture where little critter is singing a song with Grandpa. It shows them with their mouths wide open and with music notes drawn all around them. Jack brought that page up to me and started singing "lalalalalalalalala!" I was fairly impressed and asked Josh if he had read the book to Jack yet...turns out neither one of us had read the book to him yet....apparently he recognized the picture of the music notes and knew the characters were singing. Then I was REALLY impressed!