toddlers keep you on your toes.

it's been a while since i've done a run-down of all the new jackisms. and there are many! mr. miebs has always held his own on personality, but even more so these days. #1 in jack's life are his blankies. he has three blue blankies that are all the same texture and from early on, he would ever so gently rub the material against his lips. initially moving his lips against them to now moving the blanket itself. he NEEDS only this one specific blankie but preferably all three to go to bed, or rather, in his sight. i likely pick up blankies a hundred times a day. moving them to the sofa, to his bedroom, off the floor, out of the kitchen, just out of my way really and yet, they always seem to make their way back into the traffic pattern. he likes to run and fall onto them, roll around the floor, drape over his shoulders like a cape (calling it "tape"), he even likes to drag them all behind him like linus or ball them all up in his arms with his face smashed into their familiar, fragrant smell. you could say he's smitten. and forget about washing them. i usually have to sneak one away at a time. or grab them all while he's distracted with ben, away from the house 'cause if he sees them in the wash, oh goodness, he freaks out.

speaking of freak out... jack is a bit of a perfectionist. and i do take all the blame. i don't feel like i'm that bad, but maybe it gets worse by each generation. jack REALLY does not like things out of place. if there is trash sticking out of the garbage, it's "uh oh, uh oh..." and on and on until it can be tucked back down in there. toys on his shelf, maybe a truck is facing the wrong way, same thing. the dining rug is bunched up from one of the chairs; a child lock not latched tightly; the vacuum cord wrapped loosely around the handle; the list just goes on and on. and these are all things he has gotten worked up about until they are fixed. the latest one grandma diane got to experience was outside. she put him on his swing, facing the woods and "uh oh, uh oh..." until she realized he wanted to be facing the other way. i guess it's not a bad thing to have order and be organized, i personally LOVE organization but sometimes it's just plain silly what gets a reaction out of him.

food. i like to think it's a toddler thing. this finicky stage. one week he's all about yogurt and the next week he has a meltdown when he sees it. today at preschool, miss holly said she spied him reach into his lunch bag, pull out his mini carrots and run to the garbage to throw them away. she said it happened so fast she didn't have time to react. what a screwball. the biggest oddity is bananas. he likes them, used to spy them on the counter and practically scale the cupboards to get at them. now? he only eats one if he's in the bathtub. this started long ago when he had a stomach bug. i think he was on his 3rd or 4th bath of the day because he was so sore on his bottom. the doctor suggested i give him a banana to firm up his #2s. i gave it to him while he was soaking so now it's like bath equals banana in jack's strange little world.

tonight, i was searching the cupboards for dinner ideas and had a hankering for baked potatoes. i opened the pantry to find that i had used them all up. i said out loud, "uh oh, we're out of potatoes!" jack quickly darted from my side, only to return with his bucket of mr. potato head parts. tell me you didn't just spit out what you were drinking! how funny is that?

jack is either going to grow up to be one of those strongest man competitors or move furniture. this kid is unbelievable. we can't stop him from rearranging the furniture in his room. changing table, bed, toy box... we think he likes to move them to create small, cubbyhole areas, but damn, his bed is not light! he does his rearranging before bedtime and while it used to drive both of us mad, now it's quite funny to watch him do it. (we have one of those fancy-shmancy cameras in there.) initially, we had moved his bed over a floor vent because he kept taking the cover off and stuffing his assortment of balls down the vent. hazard much?! but damn, wouldn't you know, he started to move his bed back into place! he's so strong. today, he was laying on the floor, pushing his legs up against the coffee table and actually picked the table up. seriously, my guess is that the table weighs at least 70 pounds. just. plain. ridiculous.

the kid LOVES bugs; spiders, daddy long legs, lady bugs, bumblebees, caterpillars. i've yet to find a bug that he hasn't tried to pick up and hold. that's also his thing lately, he has to hold everything. and if he can hold it, he wants it in a bowl. but back to the bug fascination... it started with "the very hungry caterpillar." he absolutely loves that book. he can't quite say caterpillar, so instead he says pa. and it just so happened that at the very height of his love affair with pa's, we had to visit the doctor, where the dr. always gives out insects, and this time, you guessed it, the dr. gave jackie a pa. i wish i would have had a camera for the look on his face was of pure elation. the caterpillar was about two inches long, and mr. jack carried this everywhere. and when he wasn't carrying it, he was putting it into his pocket, which is another favorite thing these days. loves having pockets and finding pockets on us. the other night before crawling into bed, i found a juice lid in my back pocket that i had been looking for since dinner time. i ended up just finishing off the juice because what the heck, where did i put that lid?!

jackie's vocab is growing by the day. he still doesn't quite speak in sentences but man he has a lot of words. his newest one tonight was aluminum except it came out like eme-num-num. and then we couldn't get him to stop saying it. i often catch him at nap time, talking to himself in his room, sometimes sounding like a song. he has a leap frog toy that plays songs, letters to mimic back, counting and another seek and find-type game. this week, he's really started to repeat the letters. he likes the "y" letter because the y is for yawn and he thinks the yawn sound is quite hysterical. jack can count to ten but still thinks the zero is an "o." he finds numbers everywhere; grocery store, the clocks around the house, the radio in the truck, packages of food (like the barcodes), it's just insane. he's insane. he loves all shapes, especially triangles, hearts and moons. he can tell you any animal, as obscure as martens and wolverines to jellyfish and ostriches. he gets a monthly magazine called wild animal baby and he gets giddy by his own mail each month.

we've really struggled for months now (who am i kidding, going on a year, practically!) with jackie's terrible two's, but ben and i seem to think he may be coming out of it. he's been getting to preschool two days a week, and i think it's benefitting all of us. i get some me time, and he gets some much needed interaction with others. today, i received a red, white and blue star necklace that he made. i almost burst into tears. "mama? heeewer" as he hands me the necklace. sweet boy. he still has his meltdowns for no reason and isn't always that nice to his sister, but just having a few hours to myself during the week makes it all much easier to handle. and of course, the cuteness factor. he's so hard to stay mad at when he flashes you that squinty-eyed grin. love it. love him.



and yes, that is a sandwich in his hand.

pattern

it's starting to be the thing where if one of us is holding dylan, jack needs to get right in the mix. it's hard to get pictures of dylan alone or with one of us. most of the pictures i snap of dylan are at night, after rascal #1 is in bed. poor dylan. it really is true what they say about the second; they don't get near the attention that the first one did. but in these instances, the more the merrier. especially when it's dada and the kiddos. melts me heart.

reindeer farm

we drove out to the reindeer farm and while the weather was crummy, it was pretty fun to mingle with a good three dozen beasts. jack liked them from afar, even liked them up close but when their antlers brushed against him, he got a little freaked out. we got to feed the reindeer some pellet-type food, and the bison and moose willow branches. jackie got a kick out of this trip. (literally, he kicked a reindeer in the leg!) naughty (but cute) little boy!

a visit from the flanagan's

papa frank and nana sue came for a quick visit a few weeks back. the weather was gorgeous while they were here so we spent a lot of time playing outside...












also, we went into palmer for colony days. again, gorgeous weather and fun times had by all.
















we ran into beautiful sarah while we were in palmer. and we're not quite sure what happened, but this made all of us laugh...