We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
12/21/2004 - (Dad and Mamma )
Winding Down
As I suspected, time to blog has been limited to the point of not existing for the last couple of weeks!
I bow to the stay at home Moms who can find time to blog regularly. They are truly amazing!! I can't even manage time to check my mail every day.
Of course, part of that is the season. We have been on a truly frantic schedule for several weeks now. Amazingly, through it all, Jack has been quite a trooper.
Much of it has been a mix of events one expects at this time of year with a few un-expected ones to really keep us on our toes.
When we looked a week out at our calendar for the weekend of the 11th/12th, we had a Hannukah party on Saturday. We found out on the Wednesday before that a dear friend (who lives in Maine) was signing books 50 miles away on the Sunday evening. On Thursday we got word that the mother of another close friend had died, with a request that Misti perform the funeral ceremony on the Saturday morning.
As you can see, what started out as a cruisy beginning to Misti's vacation quickly became a very busy weekend. Jack was, of course, amazingly well behaved and succesfully charmed everyone. Our hosts at the Hannukah party had a toy Rabbi who would dance the Hora if you tipped his hat. Jack found this most amusing and spent most of his evening dancing around the room with the Rabbi.
Jack again stole the show a the book signing as he and Miss Dorothy share both birthday and Rising sign. We also caught up with several friends there, many of whom adore Jack.
We had a wonderful, but very full, weekend. We had hoped for a slower start to Misti's vacation because we knew we had a heavy weekend coming up.
We decided a while back that we would make Yule into a celebration of childhood in our home. With this in mind, we planned a feast and a bonfire and invited several families to celebrate with us on the Sunday of the 19th. We had also planned to host a children's Yule celebration on the Friday evening and attend another celebration on the Saturday night with another group of good friends.
Yep, it was going to be a busy weekend alright. 3 events in 3 days, 2 of which required a lot of preparation.
Then it happened again.
At the Hannukah party, a friend told us about a 14 year old boy with leukemia who is obsessed with all things Australian. She asked Rod whether he would be willing to visit with him at a surprise party with an Australian theme. Without hesitation Rod said that he would love to. You might guess, the best day for them was Monday evening, the 20th. Rod offered to cook the meat pies because there is no way of getting the seasoning right unless you have tasted one. Our friend did the Anzac biscuits and Pavlova (She did a wonderful job.) She even sauteed some Kangaroo meat. We also managed to get Vegemite and Australian Licorice.
That's now four events in as many days over the weekend from the 18th to 20th inclusive, 3 of which were going to require extensive preparation.
Jack was amazing. We were both busy, often for full days at a time. Jack would bring a book up for one of us to read, realize that we were busy, and proceed to read it for himself. Part of our parenthood philosophy is to make our child as much a part of our adult world as we can. Where he can help, he is encouraged to do so, even if it takes twice as long, however when he can't, he is expected to amuse himself, which he mostly does.
I've got to say that this philosophy works wonders with our little boy.
We got through it all and had a wonderful time. Rod learned a lot about lighting and maintaining fires at temperatures below zero farenheit (-17C for the farenheit challenged).
So, today is veg out day for us. We have a friend visiting from Denmark this evening (which we found out about two days ago) which is a relaxing way to finish a harrowing week. We have a small celebration with another close friend tomorrow and that ends our busy schedule. We will deliver cookies to the elderly on Christmas day, which is another very relaxing thing to do.
Finally, Jack's world will return to something approaching "normal" - -through truly normal will wait for Misti's return to work on January 3. That may be a little *too* normal for Jack's taste, though.
Books and reading
Jack has been spening quite a bit of his time reading these last weeks. So far, Dr. Suess has the edge, with The Lorax and The Sneetches coming in tied for first place. Also extremely popular is his First Words alphabet book. He can point to just about anyhting on a page that we're reading and has begun to take an interest in the letters of the alphabet. It's actually been amusing to find out just how much he understands because he still sticks to the "safe and sure" words for the most part.
Snow and Cold
...and, of course, while we were running around so frantically, winter decided to arrive several weeks ahead of schedule.
We got our first real snow -- which fascinated Jack. He was sure it was somethign that needed to be "cleaned up" and kept pointing to it and saying "uh oh" in the tone of voice he reserves for messes he has inadvertently made. (He's pretty silent about his intentional messes -- like the porridge 'art' on the carpet this morning -- not a peep about that one.) And the weather turned really cold, as Rod mentioned earlier, which Jack took quite in stride. (Though he does stop as we go down the stairs and ask whether he needs a hat and mittens this time these days.)
We discovered that Jack is finally about to outgrown his size '12 month' snow suit. He copes quite well with temperatures down to just below freezing in just a doubled fleece coat -- but once it reaches the 20s and the teens (and lower) he did need the extra warmth of the snowsuit. So now we have to find one in his size, just as the shops switch over to spring and summer merchandise.
Which brings us to the four growth spurts in quick succession that Jack has had! He goes for a couple of weeks getting very, very hungry, and then he gets positively pudgy. Then he goes to sleep for a couple of days (well, he takes mnay long naps, actually) and then one day, he wakes up notiocably taller. He's done that four times in the last couple of months! His next appointment is right after we return from Sweden, and I expect to hear that he's no longer at the 10th percentile for height and weight!
Jack's an Uncle!
I know, I announced that six weeks ago -- but we finally got photos! This is Jack's brother TJ with TJ's two children, Bella (age 2) and Leo (six weeks).
