Jack sings the Melting Snowman song

Jack's friend Wyatt taught him this song at school.
Sometimes Jack starts out with 10 Little Snowmen and then as he goes down in numbers (9-8-7-6) He looks at his fingers and says, "how many is this?" Then he keeps singing.
There's another song he learned at school about 5 Little Hotdogs frying in a pan, the pan got hot and one went BAM!
Last night in the car we started singing "Five Little Snowmen frying in a pan...." which of course totally cracked Jack up.

Lego Love

Jack has created a new kind of Star Wars character: "Mountain Troopers also known as Peak Troopers. They live on cliffs, mountains and peaks. They sleep in caves but they don't mind sleeping on beds of rock. They also do not like to be alone. Mountain Troopers also carry handcuffs on their backs to capture bad guys." (as dictated, word for word, swear to god) front and side view

The Longest Short Time

Mac has told me that I have to switch my somewhat useless mac online account to iCloud. I've never had much use for any of my mac stuff online except that I used to post Jack's videos there to save space on my computer. A couple months ago I decide to just quit the whole mac online thing. I had visions of using it for my website but always felt the link was kind of clunky and I never once got my mac mail account to work. I decided to pull all Jack's videos out of the virtual ether and save them all to disc. Maybe even share them with the grandmas and whatnot.
So come to find out that after June of this year I WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD THE VIDEOS OFF OF MY MAC ACCOUNT! That's right! The only way I would be able to watch them is if I continue to pay $100/year to have this somewhat useless mac account. So it's really crazy to be posting this photos tonight of recent events with Jack, because I'm simultaneously working on Sean's computer to download old videos of Jack from when he could only move his eyes and hands! So I switch between Jack and his friend Sophia (above) up at the Russian River and pictures of him crawling around in the leaves at Frog Valley, from his Dinosaur cage that he built tonight with Sean to him eating pureed sweet potatoes for the first time and from his FLASH superhero costume to his first Christmas, and I'm reminded of what my friend Molly calls "The longest short time". Jack is such a little boy now, it's amazing.

Fairyland

Met our dear friends David and Carrie, and their little boy Jasper over in East Bay while they were in town from Boston.

Fairyland was everything I've heard it was. Great for kids under 5. It's more low key than any other kid stuff in the Bay Area.

dirt in Jack's world

Shoes are not allowed in Jack's room, but Jack informed me that slippers are okay. According to Jack, shoes are dirty but "slippers are not dirty because if they get dirty, the dirt just goes down down into a place called (whispering) The Tummy of the Slipper"

Sunday January 15 birthday party

(the second picture down Jack is showing his pirate hooks.)

Many of Jack's good friends came out to shiver in the cold at Sunnyside playground. Of course the kids weren't cold because they were running around.

The birthday continues

Saturday we had Jack open his birthday presents. We had a "stay at home day" since Friday had been pretty intense and Sunday promised to be as well.

"three just EXPLODED into four!"

Jack's 4th Birthday

Friday we had a few presents on the table along with a pirate hat and four cupcakes when Jack got up in the morning. I made #4 cookies (and fruit salad) for Jack to bring to school for his friends. After school we picked up Grandma and Gramps (who are in town visiting) and we all went out to Pizza and Pasta in the Mission. Jack enjoyed his spaghetti as usual. When we got home it was too late to start digging into presents but not too late to bust into the pirate cake! Jack wanted to know where the crow's nest and rigging were. Glad I didn't set the bar too high by making a perfect cake!

Jack's pirate costume

Jack has a new method of carrying his arsenal of pirate weaponry (a piece of plastic tubing, a strip of carpet with duct tape, a stick of a former push toy and a piece of wooden railroad track) around in a bungee cord slung over his shoulder and fastened in front. He also likes to wear a piece of colored tape around his waist as a pirate belt. I am so glad I didn't weaken and buy him that pirate costume I saw at Christmastime.

watch me jump Nancy!

I never cease to marvel at the unadulturated joy kids find in moving their bodies.

Jack figures...

Jack told me it's not fair that girls get to pee since they don't have penises.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a value scale that associates fairness and peeing.

Firetruck puzzle

Jack got this awesome firetruck puzzle from Nana a little while ago and loves it

He needed a little help to get started but could put it together by himself the first time!

School

On October 30th Jack's class was using the magnetic tiles to make rainbows. Previously they were using them to build bridges, towers, skyscrapers and pyramids.

Also they've been very interested in prisms

November 4th the class used yarn and tapestry needles

Jack loves Halloween!

The purple stuff on his face is from where he was drawing on his face at school today, completely unrelated to his Max costume, but he refused to wash it off before we put his costume on....

Jack had a total blast trick or treating this year. He still wasn't interested in eating the candy, but he got into going up to the door, and cautiously holding up his pumpkin bucket, sometimes he remembered to say "trick or treat" and he was pretty good about saying "thank you" too.

He elbowed his way in when the bigger kids were blocking the way. And when we met up with his great friend Lucas from school, Jack showed Lucas how it was done.

And just an added bonus, Jack finally agreed to wear his Max costume from Where The Wild Things Are, created by none other than the amazing artist Gail Dawson!

Wisconsin October 2011

We weren't planning to go back to Wisconsin this year, but my nephew Jake announced he was getting married, and since I adore him, we decide to partially represent Team Simon Arms Simon.

We stayed with my dear friends Delia and Mark, and their sons Enzo and Nico. Enzo is about 5 months younger than Jack and the two fell hard for each other, eventually fighting like brothers.

preschool as the best job training

I thought this was an interesting article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/12/139583385/preschool-the-best-job-training-program

all about how the basic skills kids get in preschool are actually the ones that will most determine if they will succeed later in life or not.

Presidio Habitats walk

Sunday we went on a walking tour of an outdoor exhibit in the Presidio with Quinton and Elana.

It was a beautiful awesome day.

what Jack wants and what he doesn't

this morning Jack woke up and the first thing he said was,

"Nancy, flies can't come in my room, but bees can come in the house because they make honey and they help the flowers grow big and strong."

Later he typed his name on the computer while I was in the other room.

Then he said he wanted to type EXIT. So he did.

I asked him if he thought he could type STOP and with a little assistance on the "P", he did it.

He was so proud, it was awesome.

slowly but surely

I know I haven't been keeping up with the blog lately, my photographs are in a mess and I need time to sort through them, order copies for people, post some to the blog, update the photo albums we keep for Jack, update our family photo albums, finish the "Family sheet" of photos for Jack's school, etc. etc. etc.
School is getting better. We talked a lot with Jack over the past couple weekends about his role in school, what he doesn't like and what solutions we could find to help him like it better.
Jack didn't want me to leave this morning but I think he just has a hard time finding something to engage in, so he wanted me to stay for entertainment. I went to the two way mirror to watch him for a little while after I left today and he kind of floated around without purpose for a while before half-heartedly playing with the magnets at the science table.
We were kind of late and most of the other kids were outside, which is nice because the room is quieter and he seems less freaked out.
We also took Jack to his first "soccer group" on Saturday which he did not want to participate in at all. He didn't even want to kick the ball around by himself.
I worry about his lethargy.

into the second week of preschool

Jack has had some ups and downs with full time preschool.

He's very hesitant when I drop him off and he doesn't openly engage with the other kids. By the time I pick him up in the afternoon, he seems to always be playing with other kids but is ready to run over to me and get going when he sees me walk in.

He says a lot that he doesn't like his school. Last week it was because somebody was hitting him, but Sean reminded him to use his strong words and say "NO! I don't like that! give me some space!" and it seemed to improve things.

Yesterday I was talking to him in the car about how things were going.

He told me in this "I've seen it all" kind of way that "things are working out on the playground, we're not having problems out there anymore. but today me and Isaiah were not communicating under the loft."

As good of a talker Jack is, lately he's been resorting to grunts and hitting to get what he wants. We're trying hard to impress on him how important it is to use words.