Jack: 2 and 1/4 years old

Jack continues to light up our lives. You'll have to take my word for it though after you read this next little bit. Lately he's been exploring the emotion of RAGE. Jane accidentally knocked him over and he got hurt. Jane tried to help him up and he latched on to her leg with his teeth. Jane was shocked (and in pain). "He bit me! He bit me!" Another time Jane and Jack both bent over to get something and they bonked heads. Jack was immediately filled with toddler rage and football-style, plowed into Jane head first and pushed her into the wall.

But really, he is normally a happy and agreeable little fellow. I mean, if you were to come to our house you would usually see this image:



You see, Jack's favorite place to be is playing cars on the arm rest of our couch. Everyday he grabs two cars from his car basket. He walks to the living room and places both cars on the arm rest. Then he stands and watches as he slowly moves the cars back and forth. And as you can see, if he's feeling adventurous he'll make them fly. He doesn't play with cars anywhere else.

We have one little emergency vehicle that is shaped like a suburban. So he calls it "Candis" after our friend who drives a Suburban.

Did I ever tell you just how picky Jack is? Well, it used to be just Cheerios and peanut butter on toast and some fruits. I'm THRILLED that he has branched out to grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade pizza. And he's starting to at least TRY other things.

When Jack is being naughty and Matt or I start to tell him something like, "Jack, stop that or I'm going to take it." Or, "You're going to be on time-out if you don't stop." He just smiles his infectious smile the entire time up until the very moment that action is finally taken. It makes it so hard to stay serious.

He loves to play with Jane. "-mon Jane." (As in "Come on, Jane.")

He likes it when Jane brings out her dress up bin. When Jane or I wear a dress he'll say, "Pretty princess!" He says that about himself too, when he dresses like this:



Then one day his idea was, "Princess mow lawn!"



This little guy is one of our faves.

Jane Jane Jane

I refuse to begin this post like all my others--you know pointing out just how long it's been. (four months since I wrote about Jane-that sort of thing). So instead, let's dive right in!

Jane likes to dress and pose herself.




A friend of mine taught Jane that friends are more important than toys. You know, when two friends are fighting over a toy, she'll say "It's more important to have friends than toys." Jane talked about that concept quite a bit. One day she was playing with some toy dinosaurs and said to them, "You are nice, but not as good as friends." Another time she was leaving the day care center at the gym and she said, "There was a boy in there who didn't know that friends are better than toys." And yet another time she said, "You know what's even better than friends? Not dying. So your friends can always be with you."

I was eating salad for lunch. Jane said, "Mom, you're glorious. Unless you're eating salad with yucky stuff on it. Like poo, and it gets all over your mouth."

When I showed Jane this crazy picture of her she said, "My feet are literally not touching the ground."


Jane made up her own word one day. Inglamucha. She said it means you're super cool and share stuff. Then she asked me if I could teach it to my Korean students.

For awhile Jane said that she didn't want any more babies. Then she realized that if we had more babies maybe we would move. So she changed her mind and said that she wanted more babies so we could move. I said, "I thought you liked this house!" She said, "Well, I like it, but I can't run very far or often.

One house Jane loves is Sharon's house. Three floors of running space. After I took the kids to Thanksgiving Point Children's Gardens, a big outdoor children's play place with something new to do at every turn. We were there all day. When we were leaving she announced, "This place is even better than Sharon's house."

Poor Jane's back and stomach still bother her when she rides in the car. She doesn't mention it very often, but she'll still say stuff like, "I'm allergic to cars." Or one time she said, "You know what's freaky? When I sit in the car my stomach and back hurt. Isn't that freaky? No one else's does that."

For several weeks Jane went through a phase where she would gag at the sight of Jack with food on his face. One time she said, "Oh, clean his face. It's making me cough a little."

Jane knows that money is a little tight for us. One time we were standing in the customer service line at Walmart. Near the line was a machine where you can put in your coins and get bills in return. It was a big green machine that had big pictures of money all over it. Jane got excited and said, "I know where we can get more money!"

Jane's older friend was blowing bubbles. Jane said, "Let's pretend we're watching miracles happen."

I said to Jane, "Okay, Sir." She said, "You called me sir!" I told her I was sorry. But she said, "It's ok, you can call me sir, because I just have mi-ules. (Jane's name for nipples, you know, because boys just have nipples).

Jack used to pronounce truck like fruck. Jane started saying it that way. I explained to her that I didn't want her to say that. She kept wondering why and I finally told her it's because it sounds like a bad word. So she had a new idea. "Ok, mom, I won't say FR, FR, FRUCK. I'll say, FU, FU, F***!"

One night I told Jane, "Jesus loved us so much, he gave his own life to save us." Jane said, "His own life!? That's nice. But does he have a life? He made a life for hisself?"

We went to visit a friend at their new house. Jane asked, "Did they buy that house?" We explained that they did. She asked incredulously, "How did they buy it? It's so big. Did they put it in a cart and push it?"

I got really sick a few months ago with some sort of stomach bug. A neighbor friend asked Jane how I got sick. Jane said, "She has barf allergies."

Jane put the letters, GVCSE, on the couch and asked Matt what is spelled. He said, "That's not a word, buddy." She said, "Well, it could be Juhvacussy.


Jane surprised us by already having a loose tooth. She said excitedly, "If I lose a tooth, I'll look like a monster!"

One nugget of wisdom Jane shared with us: "Even princesses take off their clothes and take a shower."

Jane said to Matt, "Hey, dad, when I tried to say party, I said farty. That's a good joke. Hey, I should say that to other kids to see if they would like it."

Jane said dad was being mean when he was telling HER not to be mean. Matt said, "Sometimes I have to say things to you so you won't be mean to people. She said, "yeah but it doesn't work". Matt said, "Well what can I do that would work?" She said, "um, eating a piece of poo would work."

I asked Jane how she is so good at art. She said, "I think of something beautiful and do it back."

Jane fell down and Jack helped her up by taking her hand. Jane said, "He's becoming my little prince!"

Jane was very excited when I told her that Jack's birthday was tomorrow. She said, "After I go to sleep and then wake up he'll be 2 and he'll talk regularly?"

Jane told Matt that Jack's diaper was poopy. Matt went to change it and when Jane saw that it wasn't poopy she was very sad and disappointed and said, "Dad, I wanted to be right, but I wasn't."

Jane is ALWAYS singing a made up song. Matt makes up songs too. Jane asked him about his song and Matt said, "I just made it up. You know how sometimes you make up songs?" Jane said, "I never make up songs. I just sing songs nobody knowed."

Lately Jane is obsessed with having the most food. She doesn't mind at all to get the same amount as someone else, but her tactic is to make sure she eats slower than everyone so that she'll end up with the most. I'll notice her just sitting there not eating while Jack eats. She is so patient about it. One time she told me that she pretends to eat so Jack will eat, then she can have the most. Sometimes it's crazy. One time we were eating the same thing and before she finished she asked me, "Let me see inside your mouth. Are you done chewing?" Another time all the kids at church were given a cookie. Jane still had her cookie at the end of church. When we got home she was ready to eat it and said, "We could eat it at church but I didn't want to so I could have the most. I don't know if every one else has eaten it yet but that's ok."

Poor, poor Jane has been making realizations about growing up. And she's so smart about it. She knows what's going to happen and there's nothing I can say to change her mind because she's totally right. For example, Jane has noticed that big people don't have stuffed animals. So there have been a couple nights of intense emotion about how she's so afraid she won't want ducky when she grows up. I would tell her that she could keep ducky as long as she wants. But she would explain that she won't love ducky as much when she's bigger, and she'll start to forget how much she loved all her stuffed animals and she'll decide to get rid of them. And she's just distraught about it! And what made it so sad for me is that that is EXACTLY what is going to happen!

Another time she shared that she's scared for Jack to grow up because she's afraid he'll forget that they liked to play together and won't want to play with her anymore. We talked about how I'll remind him he liked to play with her, and how he'll still want to play with her, etc. She would say something like, "What if when you remind him he still doesn't want to play with me?" I couldn't alleviate her fear. Eventually she came up with a solution that made her feel a little better. "Maybe you could take a video so that he'll see that we had fun together."

Poor thing. Jane and I both have mixed emotions about her growing up!