Jack

Jack is 14 months old. He's still a VERY quite little boy. He does say mama, so that's nice. But I think we'd all be a little happier if he could pick up on a little more communication. You can tell he's starting to get VERY frustrated that he can't communicate what he wants. I don't remember what signs he knew last month (and I don't feel like looking) but I don't think he learned any new ones. He did start to sign all done for a little while but picked up on a much more effective way to communicate that. He simply starts chucking food off his high chair. He throws it all over the kitchen. It kills me! I decided I wasn't going to just ignore it and started saying a pretty firm, "No, no, Jack. No throwing." So now when I say no throwing, even if he has no food left to throw he'll stare me defiantly in the face, and take his hand and act like he's throwing something. It's horrible! I thought Jack was going to be my mellow little guy, but I'm starting to see he's going to be just as defiant and strong-willed as his sister.

He's also trying to take the signs he does know and use them for more things, like baby has come to mean, baby dolls of course, but also all stuffed animals. His sign for more basically means, give me whatever I want, NOW. He waves bye bye when he wants go outside. And the milk sign is being replaced by shoving me in the legs and then going over to the fridge and putting both hands on it while making little noises that aren't quite a grunt, not quite a whine, but just a little Jack noise.

I do think he's starting to understand a bit more of what we say. Matt asked him, Are you hungry? He clapped twice (his sign for more) and started walking into the kitchen.

One quirky thing he does is tugs on his very thin hair on top of his head. He does it a lot when he's eating. So he'll end up with his own food mousse in his hair, making it stick straight up. He also tugs on his hair when he's tired and going to sleep. As soon as I start signing his goodnight song he puts his hand up and starts tugging.

Here's some pics of Jack that Matt got this month:

Jane

I also missed a Jane post on the 5th. I just haven't been into the blog world lately. But then Jane told me 3 times today to sit up straight. The third time I noticed her staring at my gut so I asked her why she wanted me to sit up straight. She said, "So you don't look funny." I asked, "What looks funny?" She pointed to my belly spilling out over my jeans (remember how I hate wearing jeans) and said, "that sticking out." So, there's nothing like a little slap in the face from my 3 year old to inspire me to write on the blog.

Other Janeisms lately include:

I walked into the room and Jane kind of jumped in surprise, she said, "You stobbered me!" I think she meant startled.

Jane found out that having red eyes could mean your tired. Now she tells me DAILY that I look tired. One day she went so far as to say, "You have creepy red eyes."

I told Jane that she would be turning four soon. Then she went on to say that after four she would be five. And then she said, "Then I'll be six. When I'm six I can go into the business room. That's where people doos (sic) business."

Jane likes to sleep with the door open about 2 inches. When I say likes to I mean she would die if the door was shut. Recently she requested that there be more light outside her door. So we've been leaving the bathroom light on at night. Sometimes we forget and turn it off. Sometimes we just close the door when you're using the bathroom. Either way, she notices in about one minute and will come out of her room and ask why we turned the light off. I don't know when she ever sleeps.

I had to take some papers to a doctor's office. Jane asked why we were going to the doctor and I said, "I need to turn in this paper." She was appalled, "You won't turn into paper!"

While putting Jane to bed she asked for food. I told her the kitchen was closed. She said, "No it's not because it doesn't have a door!"

One time Jane was getting decked out in her dress up gear and said ever-so-sweetly to Matt, "I'm the fairy beautiful princess, and you look dumb."

One day Matt walked in on a scene of Jane laying down on the floor with fake food strewn about. Jane said, "Cinderella died because she ate too much corn and chips and lemon juice. So kiss her, PLEASE!"

Jane told Matt that she was going to borrow Sleeping Beauty from Candis and asked him if he would like to watch it with her. She reassured him vehemently, "The scary parts are just for pretends, I promise they're not real. The scary parts are not real."

Out of the blue Jane said, "I like Jack but I hate what he does." That made me sad and I asked, "What does he do?" She said, "He pushes me when I push him." So I said, "Well, then, you should hate what you do." She said in all sincerity, "I do hate what I do."

So, I told Jane that when Jack gets bigger he will do all the things to her that she does to him because she's teaching him to do those things. It made a remarkable difference. She rarely pushes him anymore, and has been a lot more patient with him taking her stuff. But she's also pretty worried the damage is already done. One time she was worrying about it and said, "I don't want Jack to grow bigger and just hit me."

Here's some shots of Jane that Matt captured this month.