The Papa and Jack time

I wonder while I am at work, and Brian and Jack have their Wednesdays together, what do they do?
This is what.



I can't tell you how many photos there are of just the two of them hanging out. My goal for this year is to post more of those moments.
I am thankful that Brian is a dad that loves his little moments with his son as much as I do. I also love that days like this, I come home to a pretty fantastic dinner. Nothing much that I can complain about here.

The Bedroom

Jack may not like sleeping in his bed, and he may play in the living rooms most of the time, but I love the few moments that we have when we are in his room. The light comes in perfectly, and we just lay around and read a book.

The Third Year Checkup

The 3rd year checkup went well. Dr. Turk asked him what he liked to eat. Jack stayed silent. She asked him if he liked carrots and green beans. He said yes, an obvious lie since all he eats now is mac and cheese. What is with kids and mac and cheese?
Jack tips the scales at 34 lbs, 37 inches tall, and is now lies at the 75th percentile in head size. Good thing cause up until this point his head was checking in at the 80th - 90th percentile. Do you know what I mean by percentiles? You will as soon as you become a parent.

Jack was not caught up on his vaccinations, so he had to get two for that day. I didn't think that he was going to react differently, since he was alright when he got some on his 2nd year checkup. However, this was different, and out come a cry that I have not heard since he was about a year old. It was a special, wee-heee heee, which comes out as very high pitched and very sad sounding. His huge tear drops fell down his cheeks, and soon I was crying. Again. Brian had to hold both of us and console us. Why do the moms cry when their kids cry? Or should I say, why do I cry so much?

The Potty Training - SUCCESS!!!!!!

Brian and I are happy to report that Jack is 95% potty trained. This weekend was a huge success as Jack stayed in his underwear the whole weekend, and told me when he needed to go potty. He has a small potty that is in the shape of a train (of course) and on Saturday he just wanted to sit on there. He never cared for it before but all of a sudden, he wanted to sit on there.

When he did, he asked me to count with him? I said alright, and by the time we reach 10, there will be pee- pee in the potty. Once we reached 5, it just came out and he looked at me as if he was saying " Is this ok?" I wanted to scream out

"BRIIIIAAAAANNNNN!!!! LOOK WHATS HAPPENING!!"

I remained calm however, and gave him the biggest smile and told him of how proud I was. The best was the smile he gave back, as if he finally understood of how much it meant to us.

This road to the potty was long and tiring. There are a few people we have to thank as we would not have gotten here by ourselves.

1. Hanes - for making really adorable Thomas the Tank Engine underwear. Not only are the faces on the trains really cute and happy, but there are underwear where Jack can wear Thomas and Percy at the same time! Or just James the Red Engine if he is having a James day.
2. Sesame Street - I want to thank Elmo over and over again for saying this phrase -
"Dirty diapers are no fun."
I can't tell you how many times Brian and I said that to Jack over and over again. If Elmo thinks that dirty diapers are no fun, don't you think so too? Jack finally thinks so.
PS -Elmo says this in the Elmo goes to the Potty training video.
3. Patience - It's a wonderful thing to have. Not many people possess this trait, yet Brian and I were more than the most patient man every time Jack wet his pants, the floor, the bed. We never lost it, and we reminded Jack gently over and over again to just go to the potty next time.

With this ginormous milestone out of the way, now comes the next question - How do we introduce the nighttime potty trips? How do you explain to a child that while they sleep soundly, that if they have to go, they have to interrupt that beautiful sleep to go to the bathroom for just two minutes only to go back to sleep.
Jack is a sound sleeper. Can this work? Can he be a one in a million kid that will not go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? I was never that kid - and I hope that he has inherited that trait from me.

The Valentine Dilemma

Brian and I were never Valentine's Day people. We have never exchanged gifts, never said Happy Valentine's Day, never went out for a special dinner. I do remember that we happened to go out for dinner around VDay weekend and we realized that it was really crowded that night. We couldn't wrap our minds around it when it dawned on us that duh! people are out for Valentine's! Then we just went about dinner normally.

The issue is now we have a son, and everyone says "You don't like Valentine's, but you have to do something special for your son." Really? Would I be such a bad mom that I wouldn't want to expose my son to this Hallmark holiday? I felt somewhat pressured this year that I am not loving enough, and therefore, since I don't celebrate Valentine's Day, this should be the year to do it!! Do something special for Brian! Give something extra cute for Jack!

I don't want Jack to think that this is a day that you have to buy someone a gift and in return, expect to get a gift on this day. If so, this will make month #3 that Jack will get a gift.
December -Christmas
January- his birthday
February - Valentine's day - AKA, get more stuff

This goes with the same realm of Three Kings Day. Everyone asked me what Jack got and my response was " We didn't do that this year." Then I get the raised eyebrow.
I want Jack to learn and know that he can feel love and be loved by words. That getting a gift does not mean you are loved more than the kid next to you.
I don't know if any of this makes sense, but I don't want my kid to expect anything from a corny holiday. Perhaps this is all coming out becuase for the last two weeks, I had to defend myself on why I am not a Valentine kind of gal.
If Jack does want to take part as he gets older, then I will do my best to make it not as corny and silly as possible.

The Bedtime Milk

Last night as I was putting Jack to bed, he asked for his nightly milk. I told him to stay in his bed while I heated up his milk. He usually likes to follow me out into the kitchen and watches me, so last night I told him to stay in bed.
When I came back to his room, he was fast asleep. He couldn’t wait for the 4 minutes of getting his milk ready.
He likes that I stay in bed with him til he falls asleep. I have been doing that for so long, that I cannot remember when I just walked away and he fell asleep. Last night was the first time that he fell asleep on his own.
It felt good, but when I went back to the living room, I asked Brian “ Now what? I have so much time now, what do I do tonight?”

The Buddies

I was looking at some photos that I may have missed and I have found a good one. This makes me a little sad cause it looked like this was in the midst of when Jack had his really bad cold. His little eyes looks droopy and sick. But what makes me laugh is that our friend Joel, is eating what I am guessing is goldfish crackers with Jack. Who knows what they are watching, but just look at the ease as they sit together.Just two buds, enjoying the afternoon.

The Cousins

Photos of small children giving kisses to each other is adorable, but when it is your son giving his little cousin a kiss,that is even better.



Then you see your niece give her little cousin Jack a kiss. Pretty fantastic.

The Snow Mountain and others

The Day After the Blizzard

Yes, there was a blizzard and it was insane. It has been a very long time since we had such a snowfall like this. And I stand corrected, we did get about 16" of snow, not the 6 that I thought we were going to get earlier.

When this is what you see on your dining room window, you know that it is not going to look good outside.

Jack loves the feeling of water on his face. The few times that it has snowed this year, he would just stand and watch as the million snowflakes would fall from the sky, and on his face. Which is why he kept looking out the window, hoping that perhaps one snowflake would go through the window and on his tongue.




Et Voila!! The pictures that I wanted! To show Jack just how much snow fell. and how little he looks compared to the giantness that lies on our sidewalks. He loved it. It was great just to take him down the streets, and hear him giggle on the sled. Then he kept climbing the snow hills and said, I'm climbing the mountain! I knew that it was time to go inside when I saw Jack face down in the snow and asked "What are you doing?"
Jack- "Eating the snow." Snow was hanging from his eyes, mouth, scarf, hat, everywhere. Yeah, time to go inside.

The Snowstorm of Our Lives!!!

Thunder Snow. Mega storm. Blizzard. Snowcapolyse.

These are terms that describe what we are about to get hit with in a couple of hours. Chicago is set to get hit with possibly close to two feet of snow.

Congrats Jack! Your first blizzard! My dream is to take a pic of Jack walking down the sidewalk (shoveled of course) and hopefully the snow will be taller than him. Then we can do fun height comparisons when he's older and actually say - "See! The snow was bigger than you! That is how much we got."
Currently, it is 3:08 , and the snow that is falling is not that much. I am calling this a big hype, however, someone said that they got a call from Villa Park and they cannot even see outside their window. That is how much snow is falling.
We will see if Mama gets a snow day tomorrow. Or I may have to trek it to work.
Stay tuned.
I also wonder if it will snow so much that I can just jump out of our first floor window and onto a snow pile?