things that are blowing my mind

jack answers questions now.

when I ask him where something is, he actually looks for it.

he says words and identifies things like ball, bird, dog, more, diaper, 

poop . . .

he points to things endlessly and says "da" and then looks at me because he wants me to tell him what that thing is called.  and quite often he will try to say the word right after I say it -- it rarely comes out sounding anything like the word but he mumbles something.

he says hi and hello and smiles so beautifully and persistently that people -- even people in LA -- cannot help but stop and say something to him.  sometimes I watch him working so hard to get someone's attention and I watch that person try just as hard to pretend they do not see him. but nine times out of ten, he wears them down.

he sings to himself and to me.

he dances at even the hint of music.

he laughs when we laugh and he laughs at himself.

he "speaks" in this booming voice sometimes, as if delivering an oratory to a crowd of people and has begun to put one arm out as he speaks to one side of the crowd and then a moment later lifts the other arm out as if to draw in the other side of the crowd.  he is my little preacher-- or politician.

he looks at me sometimes, like when he says "bye bye" and waves as we are leaving the store . . . . and I cannot quite put it into words but it is as if he is saying to me, "look, Mama, I know what to do right here".  there is a sort of beautiful, quiet confidence that I am starting to see in him in these moments of communicating and being understood or validated. 

he has all of these "jack-isms"  . . . sounds that mean something and, even better, movements, signs or gestures that mean something . . . some are subtle and only I catch  . . . some are much bigger -- and only I catch.  i know one day they will all disappear and give way to words and gestures understood by the rest of the world, but for now we have our own little language and I have never felt so special as when I figure out another jack-ism and he smiles as if to sigh and say " finally!".

he has achieved unprecedented speeds with his "gorilla crawl".  we were at the zoo today and i was amazed at how much jack moves like the little baby gorilla.  i keep trying to capture it on video.  as he has become more mobile, the "crawl" has taken on so much energy--picking up so much speed and catching so much air-- that at times it looks like it may just shift directly into a full-out, upright run . . . much the way that the gorillas start in this slightly hunched over four-legged gait/swing but then suddenly take off upright. 

every once and awhile I turn around and he is walking.  and then I don't see it again for a week or so.  i mean, he walks with help and along the furniture all of the time.  but as far as just standing up and walking across the room . . . oh, he can do it.  i have seen it with my own eyes now.  once or twice. 

he hands his glasses to me now because he wants me to put them on him.  he hands them to me with a smile and then presses his little head forward -- leaning in as I place them carefully on his face and hook them around his little ears.

and, yes, that last one makes me cry--or want to--more times than 

not . . .