The Congressman

Our Jack was born a people-person. For instance, the other day, Jack and I were walking Anna to her classroom at school. Anna ran ahead of us, eager to get to her classroom. Jack, however, hung back and insisted that we stop off at every classroom along to way to say hello. First, he stopped at the infant class, smushing his nose against the window and peering inside until he spotted the teachers in that classroom. Then he said, "Hi! Hi!" while waving enthusiastically. Then, he stopped at the next classroom and did the same thing. Up next was the classroom that he is in on days when he goes to school. He waved and blew kisses to his teachers and then proceeded to have a full conversation with his friends who were attending school that day, through the window. It took us an extra 10 minutes just to get to Anna's classroom, due to her brother's social ways.



At our YMCA, there's an active AOA (Active Older Adult, also affectionately called the "Silver Sneakers") group. Often, when Jack and I are at the Y in the mid-mornings, we visit with the AOA's as they drink coffee in the lobby, awaiting their exercise classes or field trips. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, Jack and I made a whole morning of watching the AOA's load up onto a county bus (I always saw those around town and assumed they were full of prisoners or something) to go on a field trip. We sat outside on the picnic table, while Jack had his snack and ogled the big, loud bus--especially exciting was when the lift came down to help a lady in a wheelchair get on-- and then waved and flirted with each AOA as they boarded the bus.

This morning, as we arrived at the Y, the lobby was full of familiar AOA faces. One gentleman said hello to Jack. Jack was apparently feeling a little (uncharacteristically) shy this morning, so he buried his face in my yoga-panted leg. I said, "Jack, can you say 'Good Morning'?" and he shook his head "no" while keeping it firmly planted on my thigh. After just a few seconds, he raised his head, took a deep breath, flashed his charming smile and walked toward the man with his arm outstretched and vigorously shook the man's hand. It was impossibly adorable. I'm pretty sure that it made that man's morning and that, in turn, made mine.

Some days are beautiful

Kevin had just left for work this morning when Anna got out of bed. She was very disappointed that she missed seeing him. I suggested that she take a picture of herself on Photobooth and I could send it to him at work. She liked that idea and added the sweet note (it photographed backwards in Photobooth). If this doesn't get Daddy to come home early tonight, I don't know what will.

About a boy

It turns out, our Jack seems to be a boy after all. I never anticipated just how different he would be from Anna. Sure, some of it is a difference in personalities, but a lot of it could only be explained with that silly Y chromosome. For instance...

I'm not sure where he learned this, but every right-angled toy (the other night it was some tinker toy-type toy fashioned into an L shape) becomes a gun, complete with mouth-produced, gun sound effects. The thing is, we're not a gun family. We don't own them, we don't use them, we don't talk about them and, unless Kevin is up really late at night, we don't watch shows that feature them on tv. So, the other night, Jack had his tinkertoy "gun" and was making violent bomb-going-off-type of sounds, whilst shooting Anna's Zhu Zhu pet in our living room. It was equal-parts troubling and amusing.

He also loves all things truck, tractor or train. Getting stuck by a train these days isn't a bad thing, when Jack's with me--it's an exciting diversion. Tuesdays are his favorite day of the week now. It's like Christmas morning every Tuesday because that's garbage day in our neighborhood. This week, as a special treat, I let Jack sit on our front room window seat and eat his breakfast there so that he could watch the garbage trucks go by. It was the best day ever.

Trying to splash in the sad little puddle on the patio (we're in a drought right now. And, no, we weren't having a garage sale on our back patio that day. That's what our patio looks like on any given day--replete with plastic crap everywhere. I swore that I would never be that person. Harrumph!)

He loves to be outside. He takes great pride in helping me feed the birds every day (he also likes to sample the bird seed himself. I walked outside to catch him with millet seeds all over his saliva-coated chin one day). He loves to dig in the dirt and help in the yard.

He also loves to push his sister's buttons. He knows exactly what to do to get a response from her. He also thinks that she's the funniest, coolest person on the planet. They very seldom show affection toward one another though, so I was lucky to catch this rare display of affection yesterday afternoon.



He's such a boy and he's just so darn cute. Between the curly hair, the blue eyes and the mile-long eyelashes, he charms the pants off most of the people he meets. He's such a joy, this boy.