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)