Stuffed Animals are People, too!

1. James went to a baby sitter today during a dept dinner on campus. It went well except when his little friend Josh ran a toy train into Mickey. That solicited about 5 minutes of tears. He can feel Mickey's pain.

2. When we sing songs at night, JJ doesn't do the motions much anymore. Instead, he uses Cuddle Monkey's hands to do the motions-Monkeys Swinging from a Tree, Do as I'm Doing, If You're Happy and You Know It, etc.

Weekly Pictures

The first sign of Spring has come in Rochester. Oh no, its not snow melting or even temperatures consistently above freezing...it's the return of Rochester's backup mascot: skunks. I woke up this morning and smelled them. When we arrived home from church there was a police officer arriving because a skunk was out in the lawn. I'm not sure if it was alive or dead or what exactly the officer planned to do about it...but it stunk. And so did our house.

Pictures

My cutie pie.


Ignore my grungy gross look in this picture. James has changed tack and instead of being a ham, he just wants to be behind the camera so he can see himself on the digital screen. Obviously there's a flaw in his logic. This photo shoot is me trying to encourage him to stay in front of the camera long enough to get a picture taken.


James' new bedtime buddy: Mickey Mouse. I have caught him avoiding sleep by doing things like laying Cuddle Monkey and Mickey down, covering them with a blanket, and making snoring sounds "shoooo". We may have to set down some bedtime ground rules, however, because I've also caught him making Monkey and Mickey kiss.


James' favorite toy at the museum. When I told him we were going to the museum, he said and signed "ball" and then traced where the track is on the ceiling.


This is a stage with costumes, stadium seating, video tape capabilities, curtain, keyboard, and lighting controls. James especially loves the light switches and watching the lights go on and off.


This is a floor-to-ceiling big kid climbing toy at the children's museum. James decided to try it this week. He made it up all the ramps all the way to the top. Then when I tried to coach him to go down the steps on his tummy instead of bottom, he got confused, then frustrated, and pretty soon he was saying "down" and sticking his leg through the side netting trying to get out. Some big kids tried to help. It almost work, but still led to tears. I ended up climbing the beanstalk and leading the way down. I guess the age 6 recommendation is not based on physical prowess, but on problem-solving, direction following, and bravery.


Dan is home! Hooray! I have to say I am a little bitter that he came back red while I wallow in my paleness. Here are the flowers he sent to keep me company while he was gone. Pretty!


Another cute anecdote:

While making copies before church started today, James got tired of waiting. I told him he could go find a seat and he quickly disappeared through the chapel doors. After awhile had passed and I was still fighting the copier, I ran to check on James in the chapel afraid he was playing in the cultural hall or running laps around the building. To the contrary, he was sitting on a chair in the back of the chapel quietly flipping through a hymn book. According the people around him, he did it all on his own. Why do I not bring my camera everywhere I go?

Words

JAMES' WORDS
So people keep asking me what JJ can say and I can never think of many words even though it seems like he's been learning a lot. So here is a list of what I could think of. Of course, I am probably the only one who can differentiate all these words from each other and even I still need context sometimes. He also repeats words fairly well, but these are pretty much words he says by himself (I'll try to avoid IPA):


THE LIST
mama, dada, JJ, Nana, grandma/grandpa/grammy/grampy (gaga), Elmo (em), banana (nana), ball (ba), hi, bye, blue (bu), moon (boo), balloon (boo), shirt (shut), shoes, socks, hat, cheerios (chiz), hot, hop, pop, boom, crash, beep, jump, honk, eye, arm, foot (foof), hand (hau), cd (ci), tv (tee), help (hep), up, down (nown), cheese, chicken (chichit), juice, cracker (kaka or chack), apple (app), star (kaw), heart (har), truck (chuk), trash (chach), stuck (kuk), flush (fush), ah man, doobie doobie doobie (while he's just hanging out), girl (gaw), boy, on (ah), off (ot), close (coe), hoop (boop), amen (a-e), one (na), two, uh-oh, poop, front (fonf), all (aw), yum yum, no, vest (det), tie, go.
(=67. Kids should have 50 by age 2. I didn't think he had 50 until I made this list! Plus, his 50 or so signs which are largely different words)

He also does at least 10-15 animal sounds like quack, neigh, tweet, etc.

PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SORTS
Allow me to point out that the things that affect his intelligibility the most are, first, that his inventory is still not fully developed. He still has trouble sometimes differentiating between stops and nasals (m v. b) or with other later developing sounds like /l/, /r/, and consonant clusters.

Second, that he is still in the kind of "partial word" stage where he leaves out some syllables and basically sticks to just the CV and CVC word shape (c=consonant, v=vowel). Most of his words are only 1 syllable, even if the original has 2 or 3.

Third, he heavily uses the phonological process called assimilation. Basically, the beginning and end sounds in his words are the same. In some words he uses the beginning sounds at the end too and in other words he uses the end sound for the beginning and the end (this is when he doesn't just omit the end consonant or syllable like I described above). Never fear, these are all completely normal for his age.

DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS THAT HAUNT ME
Another developmental side note: have you ever heard of PDD-NOS? It stands for Progressive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. PDDs that are otherwise specified include autism spectrum disorders, Rhett's syndrome, etc. I think about the PDD-NOS a lot when I am over analyzing James because it is like the diagnosis that excuses every parent to be paranoid. If I think he's acting funny (like when he started having his first temper tantrums), I feel justified in pulling out my text books just in case, even if I know full well by now that he does not fit on the Autism spectrum. Not to mention how many developmental disorders are disintegrative...never an end to the paranoia!

Dow Jones

I was mopping the bathroom and James was...well...sitting on the pot checking out the trash. Maybe we need a baby newspaper to keep him occupied.

SPEAKING of newspapers (beautiful segue), we were alluded to in a recent article in the Dow Jones Newswires. This is the excerpt, written by Jim Murphy, about an interaction with my father-in-law, Walt, about grandkids.

Welcome To The Club

Having just arrived there, it seems to me that grandparenthood is a more or less semi-secret society about which one knows little until one joins the club.

We received many emails this morning from grandparents once we informed readers that our first grandchild, Lila, was born over the weekend. Here's one from my Dow Jones colleague, Walt:

"Jim: Glad you're back and glad that things seemed to go well for you at the hospital.

"As for being a grandfather, I sure know what you're saying as I became a grandfather just a little over a year ago myself.

"For me, it was a wonderful (and somewhat unexpected life-changing) experience. I knew getting married was going to change my life. And I knew having children of my own was going to change my life.

"But I never realized the effect that having grandchildren would have on my life until they came.

"For example, now I'm using just about all of my vacation time to plan trips to visit one or the other of my children (both of whom have a son) so that I can spend as much time as possible with them.

"Looking forward to your upcoming columns (and hearing more about your grandchild)."

Walt, I can't wait until next week, when I'll finally get to hold Lila.

First off...

Only 2 people got the right answer this week and I have a sneaking suspicion they both changed their answers after talking to me on the phone. The correct answer was "dada" spoken at around 11 months. Although this word was later used to mean other things, he did use it to mean daddy then and always had a way of saying "dada" that was unique to Dan.

Not much after "dada" he said "doggie". "Mama" came much later after other important words like "chicken" and "ketchup," at least he cries hardest when I leave, I know he loves me. And the most popular word in the quiz, "ball"? He just started saying that verbally this month, although it was one of his first signs.

This Week's Quiz
Next week we will most likely be announcing whether we will be going to Rochester's Optics PhD program, Arizona's Optical Sciences PhD program, or Duke's Medical Physics MS program. So whip out your crystal or magic 8 balls. Where do you think we'll go? (We don't even know yet!)

A Rochester Easter

Easter Sunday



















(last year's Easter picture. He gets the biggest kick out of that stuffed duck still this year (it says "quack quack quack, happy Easter!). He also still loves the plastic eggs. I guess some things remain constant, even in the wake of all James' changes.


















We're having 2 sets of missionaries over for dinner. This trifle is the part I'm looking forward to the most. I was also really anticipating the deviled eggs, which turned out sadly mediocre. Oh well, it made it easier to bear when they all fell on the floor.The dinner menu includes: ham, "funeral" potatoes, salad, green beans, and store-bought rolls.

**Update** Here's a picture of the Elders after the egg hunt Dan did for them in our apartment. The dinner went great and the trifle was yummy.













Saturday Easter Egg Hunt aka "candy candy hunt" since whenever James hears the word "Easter" or "egg" the past few days, he signs "candy". Glad he knows what Easter is all about. He was the only one who wanted the eggs that had broken open on the ground. The candy was more easily accessible I guess.

It was a Whipple Park (our apt complex) activity. Parents whose kids were going to participate had to contribute eggs. This empty egg James is holding , while sadly signing "candy," was contributed by one of the non-American families who didn't completely understand the activity."Finally I can eat the candy." With his loot after the hunt.

Easter in March in Rochester just isn't the same. Parkas, muddy knees and shoes....





Saturday Night: dying eggs.
Can you tell which one is James'? Yup, the "bu" one in the back with the small crayon scribble and the ball stickers.

Video: first sentence (although coached before hand) and some other recently developed talents.

James: 1, Me: 0

I've never had a nosebleed, but James had his first today.

When I got him from his room after his nap I looked at his face and thought, "did I not wash the spaghetti off his face?...oh wait...we didn't have spaghetti...but it couldn't be...". But yes it was: blood. It was on his sheets too. Our best guess is he smacked his face on the bed railing.

Why do these things always happen when he's sleeping? His first real stomach sickness was while he was sleeping too and he didn't cry when that happened either. It just propagates my motherly paranoia about things happening to him while he's sleeping and I can't watch him every minute.

It's official, we're going to....

Hawaii! So to all of you who are anxiously awaiting the Rochester v. Tucson decision, I hope you got a little excited when you saw this. That means my trick worked! I also hope the initial amount of excitement you felt can sustain you for probably another 2 weeks. Until then...

My Uncle Steve is flying us out to visit him in Hawaii from May 30-June 9th. What a wonderful (and free) way to celebrate Dan getting his Master's! Linda is going to watch JJ so we will be free to enjoy the island to its fullest! (I'm trying not to freak out about leaving JJ). If you can't tell, my excitement from this announcement is definitely enough to sustain me through at least another couple days of waiting to plan the next 3-5 years!

Quiz Question

Only 46% got this week's right. We always teased ourselves for unintentionally being such a "BYU" couple. We met at the Fall Fling event on campus. I was there to see Dan's roommate, Kenny, perform with his comedy group and Dan was there to meet me per Kenny's recommendation. Our first date was General Conference, second date BYU Ice Cats Hockey, and third date hiking Y mountain. Ah BYU....

This week's quiz question is another about James to see how well you kept up with the weekly emails in our pre-blog days. What was James' first intentional word? See the side bar to vote.

As promised, pictures (and lots of them)

Monday at the Children's Museum in Philadelphia...Daddy got to come! The wheels on the bus go round and round...
Monday night, 76ers v. Celtics in our balcony level suite, compiments of Allison and Mike.

Dan insisted only a video would do it justice.
Tuesday night with Brooke at Blast! Performance/cadence in the lobby after the show.
Flyer's game. I love the lighting effects in the arena. Playing with his cousin Cole and Grammy in their fun playroom.
Thursday evening at Great Aunt Charlotte's house.Friday night at the Cherry Hill, NJ stake men's and young men's basketball championship.Sleeping away from home presents its challenges. I did not find him trying to get out through the closet door instead of the bedroom door this time. His knowledge of the way out of his room was confirmed by his early morning wanderings when we didn't close the door tight enough. It does seem, however, that the way out of bed is still a little confusing at Grammy and Grampy's house.
What do you think...dreaming about a touchdown catch?Another travel conundrum: sleep with my cuddle monkey from home or the stuffed football that has previously been my comfort object at Grammy and Grampy's house when cuddle monkey didn't come? Well that was easy enough: both! Every person in the room had to kiss the ball, cuddle monkey, and James goodnight.Not related to Spring Break...James loves "helping". His favorite chore is dishes. He put all those dishes on the drying rack! He comes running up signing "help", and is so insistent that at Grammy and Grampy's house he would try to climb into the dishwasher if I wouldn't let him help.Another funny story. Today James was running through the crowded hall after church. He looked back at his pursuer (Dan) and ran smack into table at about mid-face level. His feet came out from under him and he went down. If we'd had a camera he could have made it on America's Funniest Videos. Sad, but funny.

Day 3

James' morning exploits
As usual, James still gets up at 7:45ish. As usual, we still leave his door cracked when he goes to sleep. Not as usual, we have been getting home/going to bed really late. Not as usual, we haven't always been closing his door before we go to bed because it sticks and can be quite loud. This means that James has been waking up and leaving his room just to be found by Dan's dad while getting ready for work. Yesterday James was hanging out outside Walt and Andrea's door talking to himself. This morning? Wandering around downstairs by himself. He was anxious to show Walt some stickers when he was found. I closed the door tonight.

Flyer's Game
Dan and I are a curse on the Philadelphia sports teams. We saw a professional hockey game tonight and they lost. Oh well, it was really fun to attend. The tickets were my Christmas gift to Dan, but through an ordering error we ended up going tonight instead of over the Christmas break.

My favorite part of the game was the atmosphere. I'll post pics later but the lighting effect is awesome and the fans are a totally different phenomenon at hockey games. The guy sitting a couple seats down from us was a true Philadelphia fan. Yelling and trash talking the players, but really only our own players. If he was there that infamous night, I think he would've been the one to start throwing snowballs at Santa during the Eagle's game.

I have much to learn about Philly sports, but I am making progress. For example, I heard someone cheering the Eagles in the parking lot. I assumed they were drunk. Dan informed me that when the Flyers or 76ers get bad, the fans start cheering in anticipation of the Eagles season. "What happens when the Eagles inevitably disappoint?" "Oh, well then they just start throwing things." Much to learn, grasshopper.

Quiz

Congratulations to the 67% of you who correctly voted for "James Jordan". Jordan is also Dan's middle name. It was our first choice for JJ's first name, but it is becoming a girl's name so we chickened out. Jeppson was a logical choice since its my maiden name. Joseph, many of you may know, is a family name. My brother is Joseph Jeppson VI and we really like the name, but decided that we couldn't infringe on future Joseph VII's heritage. We liked the name Joshua, but thats its only significance.

Day 2

The Day
Most of the day was spent hanging out at the house with Dan's mom; his sister, Nicole; and her son, Cole. Nicole and Cole are visiting from DC and it is really fun to have the group together during the break. James and I went for a walk to a nearby park in the morning. He went on the big slide and little slide by himself, spent awhile on the swing, and pointed out every bird, dog, basketball hoop, and truck he saw.

Canceled Plans
We were going to visit Dan's great aunt (92 years old) in the late afternoon, but it turned out she had a doctor's appointment the next morning and, well, I guess that's how the world works for old people: each event needs a 12-24 hour buffer on either side. It all comes down to us getting the shaft from our 92 year-old great aunt :) haha.

Blast! Show
Despite our scheduling difficulties with Auntie, Dan and I still went up near her stomping grounds to New Brunswick to see Blast! My friend and former roommate, Brooke is the Assistant Company Manager and Physical Therapist for the group. She hooked us up with free tickets and a back stage tour. It was an awesome show. It was like a DCI drum and bugle corps on steroids. Every member of the group danced, while maintaining excellent horn carriage I might add. I have never seen a bugle line do a chair dance while playing. The colorguard was amazing and the band seemed to hide their fear of sharing a small stage with so many high and fast moving pieces of equipment pretty well. And of course, the drummers were awesome, and of course they knew it.

Dan says he must have felt how I do at sporting events I attend with him. He enjoyed it, but definitely didn't appreciate all the details and background the way that I did (I was a band nerd/colorguard girl in high school and through my first year in college). He did have some interesting input on the optical effects, though!

Spring Break Extravaganza: Day 1

Pictures to follow in a later post.

Children's Musuem
Dan and I took James to the children's museum in Philadelphia. We had a fun time and it was great to finally have an excursion just for James that the whole family was able to attend. Our museum passes we use in Rochester got us in free in Philadelphia and we found free parking!

Cheesesteaks
Pat's or Geno's? Any true Philadelphia resident stands on one side of the line--or you could say of the street--on this issue. Literally located kitty-corner from each other at Passyunk and 9th, these two establishments battle for the title of best cheesesteaks. I made Christensen history today by being the first to try Geno's. We did a side beside comparison and the conclusion is Pat's is the best based on the way its meat is cut and the ambiance. The people at Geno's were too polite, it didn't feel like Philly. At Geno's, I was called "Sweetheart". At Pat's, Dan was called "Yo, baby holder!"

76ers vs. Celtics
Another debut today: I attended my first professional level basketball game and did it in style. I viewed the 76ers vs. the Celtics from a balcony suite in the Wachovia Center courtesy of a friend of a friend. We went with one of Dan's best friends and his girl. Free popcorn, soft pretzels, and hot dogs for $1. I never thought I would enjoy an NBA basketball game so much, and it wasn't because of the food. Although I proudly wore my new "76ers" shirt, I must admit that the Celtics are AMAZING to watch. I believe I saw more 3-point shots tonight than in all my life previous to this.

More excitement (and pictures) to come so stay tuned!

blog changes

1. I add the annoying word verification thing to the comments page, but only because I got spammed. I hate those things, sorry.
2. We are going to start a new interactive feature. On the right side you will see a weekly-ish trivia question for you to see how well you know our family.

update: no cheating and looking at the scores before you vote either.

AFV: American's Funniest Videos

This is James' favorite show. It is on ALL THE TIME on Superstation. He usually ends up getting to watch some of it while he drinks his milk before bed.

He sits on the couch narrating the videos of klutzy people and silly animals with commentary such as, "uh-oh," "boom," various animal noises used to identify those he sees, etc. He even occasionally climbs off the couch to mimic what is happening on the video. Yesterday he recreated a cat jumping up and flipping in the air. You had to see it, pretty funny (James, not the cat). Side note: if this kid really wants to pursue his basketball passion, he's gonna have to improve his vertical distance!

Anyway, if the next time you're around James he hands you the remote and meows, you know what he wants.

Spring Break Extravaganza Prep

Spring Break starts Saturday and we are making up for more than 5 years of not having Spring Break at BYU (they skip it and shorten other breaks so there is essentially time for 3 full semesters in a year). I'm not going to tell you all the plans we have, because that would ruin the post-break blog. We are going to be based in New Jersey for the week and doing a lot of driving.

So here is how the prep is going:

I have been preparing by getting the car ready to go: lube, oil, filter; tire rotation, etc. At the beginning of the winter we realized our tread was down to 5/32. We decided to ride the tires as long as we could, but when I went in to get them aligned and rotated yesterday they were down to 3/32, the legal limit. SO, we got new tires! It actually ended up being way better timing financially even if we spent most of the winter with less traction. It makes such a big difference having new tires! Now I just need to pack, clean out the fridge, and try to get the rest of the house all clean at one time.

Dan has been preparing by doing his best to get sick, which is how many of Dan's vacations go for him. How is he carrying out this preparation? Well, lots of homework, not much sleep. Last night he went to bed at 6:40am and got up at 8:30am. Yikes.

The weather has also been preparing by trying to keep us guessing what we will be driving through. Last weekend: lots of snow. Monday: In the 50s and sunny, lots of puddles. Tuesday: cold. Early Wednesday morning: freezing rain and snow. The one redeeming part of winter's inevitable comeback since Monday is that I get to drive in the snow with my excellent new tires!

Here are some pictures of James playing in the puddles in Monday's warm weather.

James mostly likes to stand at the edge of the puddle and splash.

It was warm enough that he probably didn't need that hat, but you try telling him that :)





So what would motivate him to go all the way out into the deepest part of the puddle where the water could easily flow over the top of his boots?
There was a ball there, of course! And here is the view from our back door. If you could see a slightly wider view, you'd see a basketball hoop to the right and some play equipment to the left, so it really is the perfect view for the whole family. We love the snowy trees, you should click on the pic to see it bigger.

Sleep is Good (weekly pics)

For the first time today, JJ told me he wanted to go to sleep, climbed up in his bed, and laid down, all by himself. This is the second Sunday we have tried a morning nap since church is at 1. After an early wake-up (7am, probably due to a full and leaky diaper), he decided to go to sleep at 9:15am! Wow! Then he slept for 2 hours.

This picture isn't from that, but its kind of cute. He plays in his bed before he falls asleep and more often than not, his jammies end up unzipped.


This time he was avoiding going to sleep by donning Dan's winter gear left out from our snow hike yesterday with the boy scouts. We had fun on the hike and we learned a lot about the incapabilities of jogging strollers in the snow.



This is his outfit sans the sweater vest. Its like a cross between Larry King, an Amish man, and a Mormon missionary. Sounds like a good joke.