balls & the many faces of jack

There are two things that Jack loves most of all these days -- and believe it or not neither is cars and trucks, although those do still come in a close third. He loves balls and he loves music. (More about music later.) When I say he loves balls, I mean he loves basketball, football, soccer, tennis, baseball . . . he loves to watch them, "play" them -- he "plays" football, basketball and soccer with his papa amongst other people and tennis with his Aunt Sam. But he also just loves to play with his basket of balls at home. He will play for the longest time just taking the balls out of the basket and moving them around as a group -- corralling them, in a sense. Then he will study them for awhile and then move them somewhere else. Then he will start throwing, kicking, and shooting them into his little basketball goal in his room.

Papa caught him in the act the other day . . .

Papa also caught some of the many faces of Jack that we are seeing around here these days . . .

a tired jack talking & playing while mama knits

good

Today I came home from being away for a few hours and found Jack and papa playing on Jack's floor. When I walked in the door, Jack looked up, smiled, and said, "Hi, Mama!" I knelt down so that I was at eye level with him as he got up and walked straight over to me and calmly but very directly gave me a kiss on the lips. I said, "My goodness, thank you. How are you doing?"

And then it happened.

Jack stood there eye to eye with me and paused ever so slightly. Behind his eyes I could almost see the work going on -- the opening and closing of many little doors in that ever-expanding brain of his. But it was, as I said, ever-so-slight because before I had time to think all that I am writing here he replied, "Good." very matter-of-factly and then went on with his playing.

Now this may be hard to understand for many out there but first of all he has never really used the word "good". And more importantly he definitely has never used it in this way. I do not even know how to explain why this made me want to jump up and down giggling and why I did look at papa across the room and realized we were both beaming and smiling from ear to ear.

Jack is full of these surprises these days and is becoming quite the conversationalist.

Now when I tell him something like we will be leaving in five minutes or I ask him not to do something, I follow it up with, "Okay? Do you understand?" And he looks at me and very earnestly says, "otay." But his "otay" seems to be saying, "Don't worry mama. I understand. I hear you." He is such an earnest little man sometimes. That "otay" is another one of my current top picks.

And now, when he arrives home from an outing, he immediately tells me where he was and what he was doing and stories of all that happened while he was gone. I do not always understand 100 % of it, but I love that it is very clear that he is recounting his day and what really made an impression on him.

And last but not least, I also have a least favorite current pick and that is his amazing ability to use the word "mine" about fifty times per hour, whether anyone is challenging the notion or not. I have decided that perhaps "mine" was the original four-letter word. He has about 100 different ways of saying it -- sometimes sneering and mean, other times with such glee and exuberance as if he just realized these things are his and he must shout it to the world in celebration. There truly is no word that rivals this one in his vocabulary.

The good news is he is so darn cute at this stage that I generally just want to eat him up regardless.