Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve this year -- our first together as a family in Los Angeles.  We spent the evening at Jack's Tio Victor and Aunt Chloe's house, where there was good food, lots of little ones for Jack to play with and  . . . . a neighborhood Christmas parade!  The parade was really a treat and I think a new tradition for our family.  It had such a small-town, community feel to it as people were out in their yards and following it through the streets wishing one another happy holidays and such.  When we did finally head home around 10 pm we had to pry Jack out of his Grandpapa Julio's arms as he did not want to leave yet!

No, that is not a doll that papa is holding -- it is Jack's lovely little cousin Lindsey.

'twas the week before Christmas

And our little drummer boy has found some new sticks . . .

rumpa pum pum . . . 

It has actually been cold enough to bundle up here in LA this holiday season . . .

We were busy this week preparing our Christmas tree site . . .

and decorating . . .

playing with papa's ear muffs . . .

constantly pulling out the wallet for this or that . . . 

spending time with family and singing . . .

and dancing . . . 

(did I mention that Jack has started a serious love affair with Elmo . . . how did this happen?!)

Happy Holidays!!!

thank you

There is nothing that can melt my heart faster these days than the sound of Jack's little voice saying "thank you" --which sounds a little more like "tank coo".  

We had been saying it consistently for him and around him for awhile.  Then a couple of weeks ago he was playing with a little friend, Nova, who is about five months older than him.  She was using "thank you" a lot and they share so well together that she was saying it every few minutes while we were there.  A day or so later it popped out of Jack's mouth at an appropriate moment and he has not stopped using it since.

He can be having a meltdown to end all meltdowns  -- like today in his carseat when I pulled out some dried mango as he was screaming and kicking and just as I handed it to him, he stopped short and calmly said, "tank coo", the huge tears on his face the only remnant of the complete meltdown occurring seconds before.

Words are so interesting for him in that way.  They truly serve this amazing tranformative purpose -- I suppose it has to do greatly with his short attention span or ability to only really live in the present moment.  But the act of him simply saying a word can shift his energy so dramatically sometimes.  Sometimes I lead him in that direction but sometimes I have nothing to do with it at all.  It is very clear that the understanding that he has of those few words like "bye bye" and "thank you" really help him create some little bit of order in his world that is still so full of unknowns.

making his escape

Today Jack picked up his papa's keys, walked to the front door with a big smile on his face and started trying to put different keys into the door.  This is the first time he has done this.  He was saying his favorite words:  "bye bye" and "go go".  He smiled at me as if to say, "Aha!  now I am unstoppable!"  You can imagine his frustration when the door did not magically open.  

He is fascinated with keys right now as they have been added to the list of things that he associates with "going".  He is always eager to "Go!  go ! go!"

an artist is born

okay. . . so mostly he throws them around and/or tries to eat them while looking at me directly in the eye with this coy look as if to say "oh, do you have a problem with me eating this?" . . . . But Jack did get his first box of crayons this week and is quite fascinated with them -- and the box they reside in.  Occasionally he makes a light mark here or there.

As with everything these days, when he decides he is done he (attempts to) put one or two away in their box and then says "bye bye" and moves on to something else.  He also does this when he is ready to leave a particular place.  He just starts saying "bye bye" and as of lately he has added,"go! go!" to his repertoire as well.

my first earthquake

So, I experienced my first earthquake a few days ago.  I was here alone with Jack and he had just gone down for the night at 8pm.  I was sitting in the quiet apartment around 8:15 pm when everything, including the floor, started shaking . . . for about 10 seconds.  It was not a violent shaking.  It was actually a more subtle, gentle shaking that was incredibly surreal.  It was considered a moderate earthquake but was felt far away from its epicenter in the Mojave Desert.  There was no damage nor any injuries reported from it.  But I will say that one Carolina girl got her first taste of the feeling of the earth shaking under her feet and found it be very odd and quite humbling.  Jack slept through it of course.  

Jack at 16 months old

(originally started this one the day Jack did turn 16 months old --Dec. 1st-- and then life took over . . .)

Today Jack turns 16 months old!  

It never ceases to amaze me how time seems to move at a different speed once one has a child.  

Let's see . . . a list of big and little things that I am noticing these days . . . 

Jack loves to talk to people . . . he says "Hey!" and "ByeBye" to any person, animal -- and often inanimate objects -- that cross his path.  He is incredibly warm and social when he is comfortable in a situation.  

In fact, the word "ByeBye" is just the most magnificent word as far as Jack is concerned.  He has gotten to where he says it when he is playing and puts one toy down in order to pick up another.

Having said that, he is a cautious and careful little man who warms up slowly to new environments in most cases and who takes his time physically getting to know a space before starting to take risks.  But once he is comfortable, he knows no strangers and fears no physical challenge.

I think he might think he owns the tennis club where he often visits his Aunt Sam.  He walks all over the grounds, interacts with everyone, sits quietly and watches tennis, plays with balls and other things he finds laying around. . . . he loves that place.

He definitely loves to mimic behavior now  . . . and words.  Just in the last few days it as if someone turned on a talking faucet.  He is talking almost non-stop, singing, mimicking words and using more words correctly than ever before.  He has started to say "thank you" about half of the time.  His words now include( or at least the ones I can think of at the moment) :  hey, bye bye, go, no, mama (more), bird, maaa (that's me--his mother), papa,  book, ball, thank you, agua (water), jugo (juice), run, truck . . . .and then lots of words that we are still trying to figure out and lots more that he mimicks here and there but are not showing up consistently yet.

He can throw a good tantrum.  We are definitely at that phase.

He is finally starting to come and actually sit in our laps and hand us a book to read to him . . . and sometimes we even get all the way through the book before he has moved on to something else.  He has always loved books but, until now, has not brought a book to us and sat still long enough for us to read it to him.

He understands so much.  He understands when we ask him to put something away now and is especially good at helping us put away his books at night before he goes to bed.

He has always had some great dance moves but he just started doing this really cute thing where he moves his feet really fast . . . his own little tribute to James Brown.

He sat across from me today at his kid-sized table for the first time and ate a snack with me.  He says "Mmmm" after a bite he likes, he says "Aaahh" after taking a sip of water . . . . when we were done I was wiping the table with a cloth and he took it from me and started mimicking me and then proceeded to clean me and everything else in the room with it.

When he says "bye" now, he often leans forward to give a kiss.  This is not exactly new, but the consistency of it is.  I love it cause I can never get enough Jack kisses.  Every once and awhile, when I least expect it, he will stop what he is doing, come over to me, lean in slowly and give me a kiss.  This is rare but delicious.

two hands

Lately, Jack likes to have something in both hands as he moves around the world.  

Ideally it is two of the same thing . . . a cracker in each hand, a ball in each hand . . . or his three favorites lately:  a water cup in each hand, a little car or truck in each hand, and/or a bag in each hand ( as you see, he too supports local, organic farming and an end to wasting plastic bags) . . .

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day celebration with friends and family.  We gathered at Jack's Tio Victor and Aunt Chloe's house along with his Tio Angel and his two cousins, Andre and Lindsey; his grandmother, Mama Hilda, and her husband, Julio; and some wonderful friends, Phillip, Wendy, and Kelly. 

We had a beautiful day and evening and were able to spend  a good bit of time outside.  Jack had a great time . . . flirting with the ladies, playing with his cousins and the dogs, eating at the big table with everyone.

These pictures are a little bit limited but hopefully, as promised, some of the other folks present will send me some of theirs.

Jack and his cousin, Andre, . . . who believe it or not is only 2 1/2 years old . . .

Cousin Andre, Papa & Jack . . .

Mama Hilda, Cousin Andre & Jack . . .

Playing with bubbles & Tio Angel . . .

Playing ball with Tio Victor . . . 

Getting a camera tutorial from Kelly . . .

new glasses

Jack got his new glasses yesterday.  His second pair so far.  They are a two-size increase from his original pair that he has been wearing since he was about four months old.  I am not sure why, but the glasses read in pictures as being much larger in proportion to his face than they look in person.  

our sleepy, sick little man

Jack had his first real fight with a nasty bug this last Sunday.  He was either throwing up or sleeping the entire day.  Here he had just woken up and was cuddling up beside me on the couch and fell right back off to sleep.  He was so wonderfully cuddly that day but for such a horrible reason.  It took him several days to recover from this one and to get his appetite back . . . but he was back to himself for Thanksgiving Day -- which is something we are very thankful for indeed.

girls

"uh, papa, could you please get me out of here before she . . ."

"seriously, papa, get me out of here"

"oh, great . . . there she goes.  thanks a lot, papa"

Now, usually Jack loves the ladies.  But this past Sunday when he went to the Long Beach Aquarium with his papa, uncle Carlos (that's him in the pictures) and cousin Ali; he was having a sort of rough day.  I love these shots, as his face is so expressive. 

grapes and fried plantains . . .

 . . . are two of Jack's favorite foods.  He loves to pluck the grapes right off himself and if you're not careful he will cram about twenty grapes into his mouth at once.

Now, I am with him on the fried plantain favorite . . . I ingested as many fried plantains as possible wherever I travelled that they were common . . Honduras . . . West Africa . . . and now -- lucky me -- I have a man who cooks them up for us on Sunday mornings . . . 

jack sleeps . . .

 . . . in the strangest positions.  

And in case you are wondering what is sticking out of his mouth . . . well, that is his monkey lovey that he sucks on as he is falling asleep.  He calls it "uh-KEE" and you mostly just hear the "kee".  One of these days I am going to record all of these adorable sounds and words before they disappear.  He gets excited to get in the crib and hang out with his monkey and in the morning when his papa gets him out of his crib, Jack drops the monkey into the crib then waves and says, "buhbuh uh-KEE . . .  buhbuh . . . . . " and then continues to say "bye bye" to the monkey until he finds something else to say "bye bye" to.  

He is pretty obsessed with "bye bye" -- which has proven useful in helping him through little moments of transition during the day. . .  he doesn't want to stop reading and go to bed? -- then we say "bye bye" to the books and he is so excited to say "bye bye" to them that he forgets that he ever had a problem with it.  I use it a lot right now with just about everything.  And having written this tonight, I am sure I will wake up tomorrow to find that this little trick no longer works.

I remember when Jack first started turning over throughout the night in his sleep.  I guess it has been quite a while since then but seeing him lying on his back all strewn out like this always makes him seem like such a big guy.  He sleeps just like his papa . . . eternally restless and with his arms and legs thrown all over the place.  One night when we were still all sharing a room, I walked in to find them lying in the exact same position -- arms thrown overhead and legs crossed at the ankles.

We find Jack in seemingly precarious positions just about every night, with this or that limb hanging out of the crib.  But he seems to like it that way and miraculously does not wake himself up when he adjusts to a totally different position on the other end of the crib during the night.