Jack's Patience

Jack has the patience of a saint. He has an ever-present shadow that follows him around, copies whatever he does, wrestles him to gain attention, and wants to play with the exact toy he is playing with all of the time. And yet he never loses his patience. 

This characteristic cannot be attributed to me in any way. It isn't in my Thorn dna. It is John in a small boy, and it is a lovely thing to see. 

Too Cold, Mommy!

It's become apparent that of the four of us, Luke has the most common sense. The rest of us thought it might be okay to go play on the beach for 30 minutes in 35 degree, windy weather. Before I even got Luke out of his car seat, he was yelling, "Too cold, Mommy!" He lasted less than 2 minutes before he turned around and ran back to the car. Jack lasted 10 minutes or so before he could be convinced that it really was just too cold. Nonetheless, it was fun to see the ocean today. 

Passing the Torch

Do you remember how Jack used to love to do activities like sorting buttons by color? 9/2011- Jack 2 years, 8 months.

Well, he has passed the torch to his kid brother who seems so grown up all of the sudden. Luke- 2 years, 3 months.

Jack still likes the same kinds of activities except most of them have to do with letters or building things like the Blue Angel model he built with his dad today. 

How Do I Spell?

Jack and I are in the phase of Mom, how do I spell ____? It's fun to see how he moves closer and closer to reading all of the time, and how it is such a natural, curiosity-driven progression. Sometimes it is also born of necessity. When Jack introduces himself, people often mistake his name for Zach. He none-too-gently corrects, "No, Jack. J-A-C-K!"

We are in the process of finding a pre-k for next year. If you can imagine, many of them (including the one I liked the curriculum of the best) are already filled for next fall. It's February! The boys and I visited one yesterday that both Jack and I liked a lot. We are going to go see if there are any spots available when open registration begins on Monday. Keep your fingers crossed for us. 

New House = New Park

We took the kids to check out the new neighborhood's park last weekend. It's a challenging park, for ages 5-12. Jack was in his element. Luke was a bit more cautious, but he found some things he liked to play on too. 

Jack was crazy about this obstacle. The platforms swing quite a bit as the child makes his way across. When John showed Jack how to do it, Jack claimed he didn't want to do it because it was too scary. Before we left, he had crossed it a dozen times. John tried to interest Luke in this activity too. Luke stepped out onto the first platform, felt it swing beneath his feet, and hightailed it back to safety with a what in the world look back at the swinging platform that clearly didn't fit into his playground schema. 

The I did it! look

John and I are asking a lot of the boys with all the moving we are doing during this phase of John's career. Thankfully, children are resilient. Ours seem to feel as I do that as long as we are together, we can live anywhere (As long as there is a park!).

You Can Never Have Too Many...

... Sleeping Child Pictures.

Fun Building Together

The majority of my childhood was spent helping my dad build or fix stuff around the farm. I was always the tool chaser, which I didn't always love, but the time I got to spend with Dad (cursing, if I am being completely honest) was priceless. I've always looked forward to spending time with the boys doing something similar. 

Jack got some money for his birthday that he has been eager to spend. Today we found something really great to spend some of it on. We bought one of those Build and Grow kits from Lowe's and a Jack-sized hammer. We worked together, with Jack honestly doing the majority of the labor and me just supervising, for about thirty minutes and built an awesome pirate ship. 

I made Jack choose one kit since the age was 5+. That way we could try it and see if it was too difficult. Now that I know that he is capable of doing it and that he enjoyed it, I think we may go back and get one more kit. I think a kid-sized hammer and one of these little kits, sold at Lowe's, The Home Depot, and Toys R Us, may become my go to gift for Jack's preschool friends. It was that much fun. 

(We did all the work on the workbench that Grandpa made for Jack and Luke for Christmas.)