Imagination

Jack is starting to do the CUTEST thing ever.
He pretends to draw actual things now.
He'll scribble on a piece of paper and then point to it and say "See! Mooooo!" or "See! Meow!" etc etc.
And he'll draw anything for you. You can say "Jack, can you draw me Daddy?" And he'll say "UH-HUH!" and scribble on the page and then when he's done point to it and shout "Dada!" Or you can ask him, "Jack, can you draw me an eye?" And he'll say "UH-HUH!" and scribble out an eye then point to it and say "Eye!" It's funny if you ask him something that he doesn't know. He'll just say "No." and then look at you like "Are you stupid?" and wait for you to ask him something that he DOES know, like Elmo, or Mickey Mouse.
It's seriously one of my favorite things that he does. I just think it's so cool how his imagination is starting to take shape right before our eyes.

Down by the meadow in an itty bitty pool, swam three little fishies and a... Jack!

On our last day of our Escanaba vacation we went to my dad's house so Jack could go swimming in the pond with their fishies. My dad and Roxanne have a beautiful Garden with a gorgeous pond in their yard. They bought him a cute little tube for him to float around in while the fish swam around and nibbled at his toes as he threw out Cheerios to them.

The big fish that is surfacing in the picture is Goldie. She is a koi and she is HUGE. She is just like a little puppy dog. She comes swimming over when she hears Roxanne's voice, and she eats out of your hand as she lets you pet her.

This picture makes me laugh because at first you don't even notice the fish right by Jack's foot with it's mouth wide open sticking out of the water.

And... an attempt at a family portrait. They never work. It looks like I have a bird growing out of my head.

My son, the ham

Not much to say aside from the fact that earlier this week Jack was sick and I stayed home from work with him on Tuesday and Wednesday. His baby-sitter's daughter had hand, foot, and mouth disease and I think he may have caught it. Tuesday night he was burning up with a very high fever and he refused to eat pretty much anything for 3 days aside from popsicles and jello. By today, however, he was back to his normal, smiling self.

Jack is definitely starting to grasp the concept of photos. He is beginning to put on little shows for me when I get the camera out. Here he was doing various poses such as waving, 

giving his version of a "thumbs up" (which is putting his index finger up),
 

and apparently calling me a loser.

But then he more than made up for it by blowing me kisses.

Disney Fun

My mother and sister will be happy to hear of this news. I forgot to mention in my previous post that Jack's new favorite movie to watch is the Disneyland Sing-Along DVD that we got for free from Disney Rewards. He wanted to watch it 3 times yesterday. He even turned down watching Toy Story!
His favorite songs to dance to are "Rumbly in my Tumbly" with Winnie the Pooh (our favorite, too!) and "Making Memories."
However, he does not like "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and makes me skip that song when it comes on. I find it fascinating that he understands it's supposed to be "scary" (even though it's really not) and doesn't like it. They show the ghosts that are inside the Haunted Mansion and the characters that dance in it are the Wicked Witches from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, along with Captain Hook and Donald wearing a sheet to look like a ghost. But Jack has never seen any of these movies nor does he understand what a ghost is, so it amazes me that in-spite of this, he knows that these things are scary. It's just cool how much of that kind of knowing we are just born with.

Jack's Words

Jack's vocabulary has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past week.
Words that he's known such as "off" and "eye" are becoming much clearer (he actually says the "ffff" of off now so "on" and "off" don't sound exactly the same haha)
Some of his latest additions are "mouth" and "hot dog." And no. Not as in the food. As in Mickey Mouse. When they sing "Hot Dog!" at the beginning of the Hot Dog song, Jack will repeat it.
And as of this morning I've learned  that he's added "Cookie" when Josh sent me the following message:
Josh: Jack said "cookie" this morning.

me:  no way

really?

like it was obviously cookie?

was he pointing to the cabinet?

Josh:  He was at the cabinet and it cleary sounded like cookie. I was proud, so we both had a cookie for breakfast.

Jack also surprised the hell out of us when we discovered that he knows his numbers and letters. We recite the alphabet and count with him at home, and Stephanie does when he's with her, but not really in a manner to encourage him to learn them, just more so he gets used to hearing/seeing them. Josh discovered on accident that Jack knew his numbers when Josh said the number "3" and Jack pointed to it. We then wrote out numbers on a dry erase board and asked him various ones and he knew every one! 

Yesterday we were doing it again as we were coloring so I decided to see if he knew the alphabet too. Sure enough, he knew several letters! I don't think he's confident with all of them, but he definitely has the first few down pat. We sure have a smarty on our hands!