18 months ...

A year and a half.

A YEAR AND A HALF!!!

How in the world is my itty bitty baby a year and a half? Not that my baby was ever so much itty OR bitty.

Here he is on his brand new "Go Diego! Go!" big wheel that Santa seems to have dropped off at Mima and PopPop's house a little early:

Doesn't he look tough on his bike? He's already been invited to join the Fairfax Station division of the Hells Angels.

Jack had his 18 month well baby doctors appointment recently and his stats are as follows:

**Length - 35 inches - upper 95th percentile (His doc actually said he was pretty much off the charts for height.)

**Weight - 28 and 1/2 lbs - 75th percentile (Do you know how pi$#@! oops I mean mad I'd be if my doc started giving me my weight down to the half pound AND Letting me know approximately what percentage of the population weighed less then me???)

**Head Circumference - 48 inches. Wait, no, centimeters. Yes must be centimeters. Either that or my child has a head that would rival some of the balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Things Jack is doing now:

***SAYING MAMA! All the time. Sometimes he even screams it when I walk in the door. I love it I love it I love it! Of course immediately after he started saying Mama he also promoted "Dada" to "Daddy".......

Me: You said Daddy! Good. Can you say Mommy? I'm Mommy can you say Mommy?

Jack: Daddy

Me: Right! That is Daddy and can you say Mommy? I'm Mommy, right? Can you say ..

Jack: Mama?

Me: Right, right, but see you called him Daddy instead of Dada and I was just thinking that....

Mike: Sorry Jack. You best get used to it.

Women!

***Mimicking everything we say. And he's very observant so we need to watch what we say around him big time. Not that we ever use foul language. Altho I will say that Jack's been known to exclaim "Ohhhhhhh sit!" on occasion. Must have picked that up from his biker friends.

***Starting to speak in sentences. For example, Mike will leave the room and Jack will say "See Mama? Dada ALL gone!". Brilliant. Just brilliant.

***Will throw a fit at the drop of a hat. Seriously. He is the sweetest child EVER but tell him "no no" at the wrong moment and it's over! Unfortunately for him his fits are freaking A-dorable. He actually throws himself backward head first onto the ground, rolls around on his back and KICKS his feet! Where in the world do they learn this stuff? I know what you're thinking and he did NOT learn it from me. I don't act like that. Anymore.

***Can sing along to the "ABCs". Can't do them by himself but if you sing them he can sing along with you. Over and over and over. And over. Soon as we finish I get "Mo mama, peeeeeeease? Okay? Okay!". Who can resist that? He has these little foam letters & numbers that are made for the bathtub that he LOVES playing with. He can tell you what every.single.letter is. Every one! He can also tell you what color something is as long as you only ask him about things that are "Lell-low" or "Puhhhhh-ple". He's a big fan of yellow and purple. Oh - and he knows some numbers and is particularly fond of the number "8". He'll carry the foam 8 around and just say "Eigh-TUH. Eigh-TUH. Eigh-TUH" (he puts major emphasis on the "T" at the end).

***Is insanely social and talks to every single person he sees when we are out. It's at the point where it takes us an hour just to run into the store for some milk and bread b/c Jack feels the need to say "Hiiiiiiii!" and wave to every person we pass - which in turn causes every person we pass to stop and talk to him - it's a vicious cycle! And yes I know where he gets this from. And so what!?

***Demands privacy whilst, uh, doing his business. Whenever he has to go he'll leave the room and go hide behind the island in the kitchen .. or if we're upstairs he'll go shut himself in our walk-in closet. If I try to come near him he puts his hand up in a "stop" motion and says "NO". I'd imagine potty training is only a breath away! Big boy pants and accidents galore, here we come. He does know what the "potty" is and whenever he sees someone go into the bathroom he'll ask me to confirm what that someone is doing in there. "See mama? Dada poo poo potty?". So much for privacy! Okay I SWORE I'd never use this blog to speak of things like "poo poo" and other bodily functions. I've sunk to an all time low.

***He's doing much much more but #1 - my hands hurt from typing so much and #2 - how can anything I say next possible top that last paragraph??

Coming soon -- a video post! Stay tuned.

*******Editors Note: This post was actually composed back on 11/17. I thought it was also posted on 11/17. I thought wrong. Sorry!**********

Dinner à Deux

A few weeks ago Dada was scheduled to work late. I had totally forgotten and had already taken some chicken out of the freezer to defrost which I intended to use to make a deeee-licious sounding new recipe - Chicken in Tomato Basil Cream Sauce. I had fresh basil and everything. I can't believe I even knew where to find fresh basil! So rather then wait and risk not-so-fresh basil I went ahead and made the deeee-licious sounding (notice the stress on "sounding") new recipe for dinner sans dada. Jack and I turned it in to a special candlelight dinner for two.

Here is how the dish turned out.

The meal wasn't so much deeeee-licious as it was grrrrrr-oss. The name of the dish would lead one to believe the sauce is supposed to be creamy in consistancy. Mine was more like "Chicken in Tomato Basil Water Sauce". I'm 99% sure the fault rests on the chef and not the recipe.

Here we are at the beginning of dinner. Look at Jack's face as he studies the meal I've made. His eyes just sceam "Hmmmm .. interesting!"


Okay so technically it was a candlelight dinner for THREE!

Jack did enjoy the garlic bread. It's actually all we ended up eating. Well, garlic bread and cookies.

(PS: My date isn't wearing pants!!)

"Next time stick to nuggets!" screams Jack!

Gimme Candy!

Here are some pics from Halloween night. This was Jack's first time going out trick or treating and he had a BLAST! His favorite part of the night was trying to run into the street and then throwing himself down onto the concrete sidewalk in a fit of rage when we wouldn't let him.

He wasn't a huge fan of ringing doorbells or getting candy. He wouldn't take candy from anyone, so I'd take it for him and hand it to him. He'd then turn around and put the candy back in the person's candy bowl. Silly baby. He LOVED looking at all the other costumed screaming children. Hundreds of costumed screming children. Thousands maybe. I had TEN bags of candy. All gone. Damn them.



Trying to coax him up the stairs at the first house. Also pictured is our next door neighbor, her husband (with the candy) and 2 of her beeeee-utiful little girls. Seriously those little girls are just gorgeous. Should be fun for their dad when they all enter their teen years (only about a year difference from girl to girl). :)

Knocking on the door at the next house ...

Annnnd running for his life when our neighbor Danielle comes to answer ...

He then decided she was cool and tried to go IN her house.

Jack and I in the middle of some serious Halloween conversation:

Checking out his loot upon our return home ...

And the aftermath ...

And the BEST part of Halloween ...

I dropped Jack off at Mima and PopPop's on Tuesday morning before work so we could do a quick early morning trick or treat and so they could see his costume. As I'm leaving I point to Bailey and say "who's that?" and he does his Bailey/dog noise. I point to Mima and say "who's that?" and he pokes her in the nose and yells "Ya ya!!" (that's how he says Mima). I point to myself and say "who's that?" expecting nothing and CLEAR AS DAY he says "Mama!" and smiles SO big. Melt my heart! I swear I screamed so loud I think I scared him. 10 minutes later ..

ME: Jack I'm really going now. Can you say Mama? Who's that? (pointing to myself again)

Jack: Dada! Dada dada dada.

He's still SO getting a special treat for saying it that one time.