Jack's world

Yesterday Jack and Papa rolled down the hill together at the park.
Jack saw a kite up in the sky that looked like a squid and had to go over and look at it as the man who was flying it brought it down and rolled up the string. Jack had a lot to say about it, none of which I understood of course.

As the family made it's way back from the park, Jack held Mama and Papa's hands and every time he would say "wheeeee!", Mama and Papa would lift him off the ground and let him fly through the air a few feet.

When I got to daycare this morning, the teachers told me that they took the class for a walk last Friday (which actually means pushing them around on those wagons with the little chairs). Jack and Anna sat next to eachother and held hands the whole time. Jack would pull Anna's hand over to him and play with her fingers, and they pointed out things to each other. Of course 50% of adults are going to project adult emotions onto it: oh, it's young love, Anna is Jack's girlfriend and whatnot. But I really think it's just about two friends having physical contact out of care and kindness towards eachother. Anna was in Room 1 with Jack last year and the only other kid Jack knows from before is Soloman. I'm sure there is something reassuring for both of them to see eachother amidst all the new faces.

Update before going backwards

So I wanted to give a little update on Jack because it's so hard to keep up with all the stuff he does and says. Once I get more pictures from the funeral scanned I'll backtrack.

We returned to swimming on June 23rd and Jack really had a blast. He starts splashing from the minute he gets in the water and he's learning to follow along with the songs they sing. When they do "Humpty Dumpty" he can barely contain himself. He bounces up and down and can barely wait to jump into the water (into mama's arms). There's this amazing teacher named Greg who gets all the kids to dive under water and the kids come up again utterly unphased. It's awesome.

Jack now says "funny!" when he laughs and regularly communicates yes, no, and I don't want it-if not always accurately to what he's actually trying to say.

He loves watching videos on youtube, although he's moved beyond Mahna Mahna, and now his favorite seems to be Patty Labelle singing the ABC's. Jack dances and claps along with the muppets. He laughs at Joey and Kermit singing the ABC's, but I think it might be because Joey is laughing.

Jack is still a little unsure when we drop him off at daycare, but usually if Soloman is there, and everyone is eating oatmeal, he settles in okay. The other day I had to help him put on some pink plastic shoes with jewels on the toes and a fireman hat before he click-clacked over to the jumping area on his own. Sean encouraged me to let Jack know that we are leaving him in a good place, and that we feel confident about it. It definitely helps me, if not Jack. And he always had a great time once he's into the swing of things.

Daily intakes:

June 17, 2009

Today Jack painted his hands blue with water color. He then used his hands, and sometimes his paint brush to spread the watercolor around on the paper and the art table.

June 19, 2009

Jack enjoyed playing with the measuring cups in the water. He liked splashing them in the water. :)

June 22, 2009

Jack was so ready for waterplay this morning! He used his watering can to make lots of splashes and laughed everytime he did.

June 24, 2009

Jack and Cameron explored with flaxseed today. The wet flaxseed was a little weird to him but he liked playing with the bugs and cutting tools I gave him.

Whew!

I really wanted to write about the time after North Carolina and going to Wisconsin for the funeral, but I am sleepy. More soon.

North Carolina-Charlotte

Thursday afternoon we left for Charlotte where Jack and Sean met up with Nana, who had driven up to spend the night. (I met my friend Elizabeth in a town called Salisbury and learned a little about North Carolina wines, but that's another story). They had a great day together-they visited a science center (is that right? I can't remember) where Jack was  riveted to a puppet show.  It's fascinating to realize that Jack has crossed another milestone while we weren't looking-like being able to engage with a puppet show-I mean, I never would've guessed he had it in him to stay focused. I met them back at the hotel for dinner, then we left Saturday morning, but not before Jack got a ride on the baggage cart.

North Carolina-Marshall

A couple of times we went into the town of Marshall to go to the grocery store, cruise the main drag and to see the new artist studios in the old school building. Marshall has a great, spacious coffee shop with good coffee, friendly staff and a kids section complete with chalkboard. Jack was really into it and did not want to leave.

North Carolina-The river

We went down to the river one day and Jack had an excellent time playing  on the rocks and in the water of course.

North Carolina-Dry Pond Farm

Sunday through Thursday we spent doing out city farmer best to care for Dry Pond Farm and all the spinach and critters that dwell within it. I can't even tell you how we spent our time, the days blended quickly and I soon thought only about whether it was day or night and whether the dogs needed their second feeding or not. We made delicious food every day from the fresh eggs and spinach that the farm provided as well as the bevy of food that Delia and Mark had left in the refrigerator and sent us home with after the wedding. Mark had butchered and barbqued his own hogs for the wedding feast and although I don't normally eat pork, I think I ate three plates of that stuff. You could taste the love and care he put into every step of the process. 

Jack was a little wary of the four dogs at first, but eventually warmed up to them, although when they surrounded him he would usually panic and whine to be picked up. You gotta figure that all those open doggy mouths were right at his line of sight-it's got to be a little intimidating. But he liked holding his hand up while Gravy would wag his (her?) tail. 

North Carolina-The wedding

Saturday was Mark and Delia's wedding, but having all the time beforehand to hang out and get caught up with people, help out, and meet new people really affected the atmosphere on wedding day. Everyone was already in a great mood and feeling comfortable and relaxed. 

Jack mostly wanted to go swimming during the wedding, but Papa managed to distract him while Mama took her place next to Delia. The dinner was amazing although I'm not sure how much Jack ate, I ate enough for the both of us and then some. Afterwards was a dance in the camp sunken basketball court which was very exciting to Jack. You could tell he hardly knew which way to run first. Mama kicked up her heels with him on the first dance and then he pretty much ran wild until we brought him back to the cabin to go to sleep.

Check out the gorgeous dress my mom made for me! The fabric was perfect for Delia's woodland-themed wedding.

Sunday was a mother's day brunch and the day we left to go stay at Mark and Delia's farm.

North Carolina

I would've liked to have given a much more thorough play by play of our time spent in N.C., as it was wonderful and relaxing-a combination of serenity, good food, old friends, new friends, swimming, dancing, and lounging. 

We had some serious problems with out flight into Charlotte and thanks to Sean, we did not end up spending the night in the Chicago airport, but instead flew into Raleigh, which offered us the chance to connect with my dear friends Elizabeth and Cricket for tacos and a loaner carseat.

We got to the campground where the wedding was held early Thursday evening. Delia's Aunt Suzy invited us and whoever else was in town (mostly Delia and Mark's family) to a delicious buffet get-together at her cabin Thursday night. This is where I first understood the deep roots that tie Mark to North Carolina and his family. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

Jack had a great time playing in the water and benefitted from all the toys that Mark and Delia's son Enzo had. Above are pictures of the lake view from our cabin, Jack playing in the water and Jack and Enzo.

Friday there were lots of activities and the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner. Jack and Papa took a hike in the morning and then played in the water while Mama did printing lessons (one student and I didn't get to go on the zipline-dang!)

Bringing y'all up to speed

It's been almost a month since I posted anything to Jack's blog and I do apologize. Things are really busy with my thesis work and I was away about half of the month.

The really exciting news is that since I was never very successful publishing Jack's videos on his blog, I have posted all Jack's videos to my mac account online. If the link doesn't work the site address is

http://gallery.me.com/nancyarmssimon#gallery

So basically May happened like this: I left off when we were just about to go to North Carolina for my friend Delia's wedding. Which we did and it was awesome. Then we came back, Jack was back in daycare for less than a week before school let out and he had two weeks off from daycare. But during that time my dad died and we went to Wisconsin for the funeral. We've been back just under a week now and I'm feeling desperately behind on everything, especially my thesis, so I'm trying really hard to make the most of every minute. Doesn't allow a lot of time for fun things like writing Jack's blog.

So I'll back track in the next few posts and bring everyone up to this past week in the life of Jack. While this week is fresh in my mind let me say that Jack is talking all the time now, although we don't understand most of what he says and what we do understand is usually contradictory to what he means, like "I don't want it" can mean almost anything and the ASL gesture for "to eat" has come to replace "more" and "full" and "please". So there is a lot of pointing and sometimes a lot of frustration, but I feel like my years abroad really prepared me for this kind of communication (pointing, translations from intonation, laughing at our mistakes).

Jack had swimming on Tuesday which was a blast. He splashed and got so excited during humpty dumpty that he jumped up and down. There's one teacher I like a lot and he's really good at getting Jack to go under water where Jack dove for a ball this time!

Jack went back to daycare on Wednesday and was a little reluctant to let mom go at first. There was only one person from his class there, and all new teachers. But he had some oatmeal, and found some of the toys he likes (he's in room 2 now, and you may recall he visited room 2 frequently last semester). And he beloved teacher Nnenna is the head teacher this summer in room 2 so she comes in at 9:00, which helps a lot.

from the Daily Intake:

Jack was so talkative today! He loved playing outside with a few of his new friends. Later today he requested that I play some music by pointing to the CD player and dancing. He's learning a lot of the hand movements and gestures for the different songs.

Thursday we worked in the garden together, Jack left my keys inside the dryer while I was doing laundry and Jack worked hard to put rocks in the recycling containers. He also likes his new little watering can and mostly waters his shoes, but sometimes remembers to put it over the plants before he dumps the water out.

Friday Papa took Jack to daycare so Mama could get a little extra work done around the house before going to the library to study, Jack had a hard time letting go again, but eventually was fine.

Daily intake:

Jack enjoyed playing in the gazebo with the curtains. He liked running through the curtains and back through them. He also thought it was hilarious when his friends would stomp their feet on the wooden steps.

Jack is not interested in sitting in his high chair at all anymore, so we're bidding on a really great booster that Delia turned me on to on ebay. Wish me luck. Jack also doesn't like Mahna mahna anymore, but he loves the 11 gumballs piece, Number 10 song, Ray Charles singing the ABC's and Paul Simon singing "Me and Julio down by the schoolyard" on Sesame Street. (I'm madly in love with the little girl doing impromptu backup on that last one). He insists on watching these every day, but he's still averaging only about 9 minutes of television per day, so I feel like we're alright.

May 18, 2009

Jack was happy to be back and we are all happy to see him!

May 20, 2009

We were reading "colors" book and Jack began to say "cheese" and "bull"

May 22, 2009

We will miss you Jack S.!! (We had to go back to Wisconsin unexpectedly for my dad's funeral and Jack missed the last day of the semester celebrations)