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
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November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
2006-03-20 - 16:27
Happy Ostara!
The exact spring equinox was about 30 minutes ago, so ... Happy Ostara, everyone!
We celebrated a day early with our first flower of the season blooming right by the front door yesterday afternoon. A purple crocus! It bloomed just before our guests arrived for our big Ostara celebration -- it wasn't there when we took the laundry out to the clothes line and it was when we came back. Jack went back out every few minutes to look at it, exclaim, pat it, and exclaim some more!
Jack is so thrilled with our wonderful yard. Every day that it's not bitter cold out there, he begs to go out and he runs around singing and jumping like he's been "set free". Then, of course, he doesn't want to go back indoors. It's been wonderful to witness!
We explore the gardens together and we are constantly thrilled with lovely surprises! The previous owner was such a tidy homeowner that we hadn't realized that there was any landscaping -- but every day, new green pokes its head up. At this point, I'm sure it's largely spring bulbs, but I am planning to just watch and see what we have before I make firm plans for what we'll do. (Except for the roses...the front of the house needs roses! Well, everything but benefits from roses, right?)
Settling in
We've been in for just about three weeks, and Jack is settling in pretty well. He loves the new house. He loves having a room of his own, he loves the yard, he loves having space to play ... but change is change, and while he loves our new house, it's also taking some adjustment. That manifests mainly in his continuing to be high strung. He wakes up looking for me every morning and his day is utterly destroyed if he finds me gone.
Until we moved, he was pretty relaxed about my going to work. He was happy to see me if it was a weekend, but he was quite ok to find me gone to work, too.
Since the move, he has awakened before I could get out of the house every morning but one. When he wakes up before I leave, he invests a lot of energy in trying to get me to stay home -- and despite my best attempts to disentangle myself, I am invariably late for work. One morning, i got away before he woke up -- and that was far worse. Rod described him scrambling down the stairs to hunt for me, calling out "Mamma, where are you" over and over again and then climbing the stairs slowly, crying because I was gone. That was heartbreaking enough, but the rest of the day, Jack was very hard to get on with because he was "angry and sad" that I had left without giving him his goodbye kiss. And when jack is that unhappy, Dad's day doesn't go very well, either.
So, today, I waited for Jack to wake up, but other than putting on my coat, I was ready to walk out the door before he came down. I heard him before I saw him, whimpering as he scrambled down the stairs. Before he had the chance to call to me, he spotted me (our computers are visible from the top of the stairs) so he continued to whimper as he came down the stairs as fast as be safely could and scurried straight into my arms and cuddled in like I'd been away for weeks. I had some breakfast in front of me, so I immediately popped some into his mouth, and within a couple of bites he was a lot more cheerful.
By the time he'd eaten most of my breakfast, he was fine and giggly, so we chatted for a while, and then I gave him a few graham crackers and took him upstairs to get dressed. He was enchanting, and we had a great time. Then we went to wake Dad and found him awake so we went back downstairs to wait for him and I got ready to leave.
Jack wouldn't accept a "goodbye" kiss and insisted he wanted a "hello" kiss instead. And then he talked all morning about joining Mamma for lunch (as he does about once a week). So, they did come and join me for lunch.
Poor Rod. It must be kind of disheartening to spend so much energy and time tending the boy, only to have Jack obsessing over me. Especially as he's also trying to unpack the house office and get us better settled in -- and is so much pain besides. (He fell a couple of weeks ago, and re-sprained both of his ankles and one knee. Being the man he is, he insisted on just wrapping them up and carrying on as though they were fine. And so, of course, the injuries got worse. At this point, he's pretty severely hobbled and beginning to admit that he is going to have to pamper them if he wants them to get better.)
"Grace wants to be a child"
Grace is our younger (4 years, as opposed to Minerva's 13), smarter, more adventurous cat. She and Jack have had a pretty good relationship pretty much since Jack could pat her -- and as he has gotten older and better at playing cat games, they could even be described as "close".
Last week, Jack announced that "Grace wants to be a child".
Hmmm. Well, I suppose that could be true, but she seems pretty happy to be a cat, actually. I told Jack I thought he might be mistaken, because Grace seemed pretty happy about being a cat.
A few minutes later, he admitted that he wants Grace to be a child. I asked him why he wants Grace to be a child, and he said that it was because he wanted her to be able to talk to him. I explained that it's impossible to make Grace into a child because it's her job to be a cat. At least for this lifetime. And that even if we could make her into a child, it would be a bad thing to do that without her permission, and she's happy as she is and would probably not consent to the change.
Jack wasn't impressed with my reasoning, and kept explaining very carefully that it was important for me to change Grace into a child. I put him off and arranged several play dates...and the topic disappeared. At least for now.
It's interesting that at an age when many children announce their desire for a younger sibling, Jack has decided to find another way to have a small companion. I think he may well have heard us explain often enough that he is to be the only child to know that a baby sister isn't a possibility, so he looking for alternatives. Funny boy.
House musings...
It's funny.
In almost every way, our new home is far prettier than our old apartment. But oddly enough, it's not as photogenic as the apartment was.
Rod and I often marveled at how lovely the apartment looked in photos--even when it was cramped and driving us nuts, we would see it in the background of Jack's pictures and think "my goodness we live in a nice apartment." In the photos we've taken in the house, it just hasn't seemed to sparkle that way.
I am wondering if it's the dull white walls everywhere that are looking bland and washed out in photos or whether, like people, some homes are simply more photogenic than others. It doesn't really matter, of course; it's just puzzling.
"I made one helluva mess"
Another not-so-great day today.
Jack and Rod were here for lunch. Jack seemed to be in an extraordinarily good mood, and from what Rod described, he had been fine all morning. Charming even.
After lunch they went to the shops to pick up some things we are out of.
The first problem seems to have erupted when there wasn't a Jack-sized shopping cart available. That's often a problem for Jack (he has favorite types of carts at every store he goes to regularly).
Somehow or other, the ensuing naughty behavior resulted in a broken jar of peanut butter, which landed him in the child seat of the cart immediately. That is almost always a noisy affair, because unless Jack is completely exhausted he hates riding in the cart. He wants to walk and to help!
Anyway, as they went through the checkout, Jack announced to the young woman behind the cash register "I made one helluva mess" in that bright, chirpy way he has. She cracked up, which was perhaps not the very best possible reaction to such naughtiness...
Then, when Dad reminded him to hold on tight to his helium balloon as they left the store, jack let it go, watched it fly away, and then howled all the way home that he wanted his balloon back!
All this, while Rod's in great pain...I'll be glad when 6 o'clock comes and I can go home and rescue him...
