Our Jack Man is five today. Five is a big one for me. It's when they really seem like a big kid (and it makes me kinda sad).
Seems like forever ago, he was this skinny little baby.
Truly, though, he is so fun right now. He is funny, quirky, stubborn, smart, artistic, and ridiculously cute.
For awhile there, we thought he might be a shorty. In the past year, though, he has really shot up. He is about the same height, if not a little taller, than the kids in his preschool class.
Jack goes to preschool three days a week for two and a half hours. It's been so nice because I can run errands or take care of some things while he's there, but then he and I still have a lot of time together. I am SOOOOO going to miss him when he goes to kindergarten next year. He has decided he is NOT going to kindergarten and that I am going to homeschool him so that he doesn't have to leave me. Haha!
He has learned so much in preschool! I was a little worried about him because he had no interest in learning how to write his name, scribbled like crazy when coloring, and even singing the alphabet was a little iffy at times. He has done so well, though! He is a pro at writing his name, all of his coloring is inside the lines now (his teacher said he will sit and finish coloring nicely even when the other kids go on to play), and he is working really hard on identifying all his letters and numbers. We're getting there! He didn't go to preschool when he was three (because I was selfish and wanted to keep him home with me), and his teacher said he just meshed so well with all the kids that had been there since they were three and that he has great behavior. I am sooooo proud of him!
I have absolutely loved my time home with him. He loves nothing more than to stay home in his jammies and play Legos all day. He is not a fan of putting on real clothes and actually leaving the house, but we do most days. :)
Jack has learned how to make us laugh, even more so than before, and sometimes at inopportune times (like at dinner when he stood up on his chair, pulled up his shirt and said "Want to see my armpit?" in a crazy voice).
He loves to sit and draw with Mark and Kate. He has become quite the artist. Just last night, he propped up one of his stuffed animals on the table and drew it perfectly.
Drawing while waiting at Kate's dance class
He is OBSESSED with Legos. That was pretty much his whole Christmas. He can sit and build Legos for hours. He follows the directions like a pro! If I'm building with him and I get stumped on where the directions are telling me to put one, he can figure it out in a second. He's the Lego expert in the family.
He is a total mama's boy. This conversation happens about ten times a day and it's precious.
Jack: Mommy, I love you so much.
Mommy: Aw, thanks, buddy, I love you so much, too.
Jack: No, like I love you more than anybody loves you.
Mommy: That's a lot. Thanks, Jack Man.
Jack: Like I love you way more than you love me. I love you 'finity.
Mommy: I love you infinity, too, buddy.
Jack: I love you PAST 'finity.
One day he told me, "I love you, Mommy. From my heart." He has said, "I love you like more than anybody loves they mom." He will tell me, "You're the best mommy ever."
The other day, I asked him a common question, "Do you know how much I love you, buddy?" He said, "You love me so much that you want to smash my face." Ummm, sure.
Back in the fall, we were on a hayride at a Halloween event. He was so scared and he told me, "Keep your arm around me really tight and don't yet (let) go. Don't even make it yoose (loose)." Later, he said, "Hold my hand. That makes me braver."
He has a hard time saying his L's so he says Yegos for Legos, Wandon for his buddy Landon at school, yuv for love, yittle for little. But. we've been working with him about where to put his tongue to say his "L" words. He gets so excited when it comes out the right way and says, "Mommy, I sound just like you!"
He still mixes up his pronouns. For instance, he'll say "Her said..." or "Him said". We are working on it and I hope kindergarten helps, as well.
He is generally just a happy kid. His smile melts hearts, and I think he knows it. ha!
I've been saving up a long lists of Jack sayings, so I could post them with his birthday post. Here goes!
- He overheard the preschool director tell me that "Jack is going to be a lady killer". He looked at me funny and said, "killer??".
- One day I told him, "Buddy, your nose is all red." He said, "That's because I have a lot of sneeze in it."
- For awhile there, he was on this kick of making up jokes. They never made any sense, but he would ask me afterwards, "Make sense?" One was, "Why did the football flatten the bee? Because he wanted eggs!" And of course, he said it like it should make perfect sense. When he asked if it made sense, I think I must have looked lost because he said, "Because bees poop eggs out like chickens!" Ok, whatever you say, buddy.
-He asks A LOT of questions (don't they all??) ALL day long, usually followed by "huh, Mommy?" Finally, one day I said, "I don't know, buddy, I don't have all the answers." And of course he showed me up by saying, "Yeah, only daddy does, because dads are really smart." Thanks, Jack. I answer your questions ALL. DAY. LONG. and Daddy gets all the credit.
- He asked me just the other day, "Mommy, who is your boss?"
-Some of his questions are so sweet like, "What will I look like when I Daddy's age?" After that he said, "When I Daddy's age, I will marry Kate." Kate, without missing a beat said, "Ummm, that's illegal."
- Kate asked me one day, "Do you know what God's phone number is?" Jack thought for a second and said, "Probably heaven...317 God."
- Out of the blue one day, he said, "If you need trouble, I will give you trouble." He's got that right.
- "Mommy, want to hear me say house in Spanish". "Sure, buddy" (thinking maybe he learned it on Sesame Street). He gets all serious, puts his hands in the air and says "hoosh". Later he asked if I wanted to hear him count backwards in Spanish. I kinda thought he had a shot at that one. Nope. He started... "singo, squancho, cha cha".
- He and Kate were playing princess and prince. I overheard Jack say, "I can turn a pumpkin into a trailer."
- I think I've mentioned it on here before, but he has this weird habit when he sucks his thumb. He put his hand in the back of his pants or sometimes on the side and rubs the tag in his pants. He calls it his "soft tag". One day in the car when he was getting tired he said, "I just really need a soft tag."
-This summer on 4th of July, we were doing some sparklers at Uncle Stuart's house. A cop drove by and Jack was joking about what we would say if the cop got us in trouble. "Ummmm, hi cops. We not doing anything wrong. You can go back to your station now."
-It's not too often that he's quiet. In fact, if he's not talking or asking questions, he's singing or making a weird noise. In a public bathroom, he was in a stall by himself singing (VERY loudly) a Jack original called "Juggling in my Soul". haha!
- We were listening to the Christian station and Jack asked, "This a God song?" I told him yes and he said, "You need to have good behavior when a God song is on."
-We were reading a story and it mentioned "God's children" and God as our "Heavenly Father". He asked, "Who's our God Mom, then?"
-He is ALL about the potty talk. The word "butt" sends him into a fit of laughter. Don't even get him started on poop.
- Kate was trying to teach him to spell our last name one day in the car. It went a little something like this:
Kate: Ok, Jack, try again.
Jack: R O S... wiener (he cracks up)
R-O-S-K-O-W-S-K-potty (more laughing)
R-O-S-K-O-butt (he's dying at this point)
R-O-S-K-O-W-6-0-5... awkward!
I was in the front seat trying to contain my laughter. Kate is furious at that point.
Kate: Mommy, STOP laughing! This is the generation of his last name!
Jack: R-O-S-Missouri-wiener
Kate: Ok, let's try your phone number.
Jack: 314-496-95booger
Kate: (yelling) JACK, what if your teacher asks you and you don't know. She'll think you're a lunatic!
Jack: I not even know what lunatic means!
Kate: Well, it means you're a goofball... and I can't even believe I have to explain that!!
-He's also really into burping lately. He burps and then laughs while saying "Excuse me". (We're working on it!). He ate a sample of a sandwich at Costco and then as we were shopping, he said, "I'm waiting on my bread burp to come. It's just not coming."
- And he's also really into "passing gas". We call it tooting, but he calls it
"fart-ting". He really enunciates it. We were doing Legos together and he "tooted" for like the third time, so I asked him, "Did you toot again?" He said, "Yep, I'm just a tooting machine."
-The kids were changing out of their swimsuits in the van one day and he said, "The people can't see us because our windows are tooted (tinted)".
- One day, we were just having one of "those" days. I muttered, "This is a total nightmare." Jack says, "This is not a nightmare. This is real life." Out of the mouths of babes.
-He calls ketchup "sketchup" and we are not fixing that one quite yet. In fact, we all call it "sketchup" now. One day, he told me he wanted a turkey sandwich with just turkey and no "hammaise" (mayonnaise). haha!
- He tried sweet and sour sauce for the first time awhile back (when his speech was a little worse). He said, "This is way more better than sketchup! Well, both of they are better." Poor little guy and his mixed up pronouns.
- I was giving Kate a mani/pedi. Jack felt left out, so he came and sat in the chair after she left and put his feet in the bowl of water. He said, "Just soak my feet and scratch my tummy."
- The kids were riding their bikes around the neighborhood and his wheel got kinda hung up on someone's newspaper. He yelled at us, "Help, I'm stuck on mail!" On that same bike ride, Kate was trying to go fast and Jack is SO slow. So, we kept having to tell her to slow down and him to hurry up. It was a tad frustrating and then Jack stops his bike and randomly says, "Hey, look how big I can open my mouth." After arriving home after pushing Jack along, he said "Whew, sweet home. I soooo sweaty."
-He is a HUGE fan of Papa's special ribs. I reminded him one day that we were going to have Papa's ribs for dinner and he said, "I can't wait for ribs in my tummy."
-He loves playing video games with Mark. That's like their new thing every now and then. I told him Daddy was on his way home and he said, "I can just smell those video games."
- For Kate's birthday, Gran made her a cake with a Barbie doll in the the middle and the cake part was her dress. To serve the cake, we pulled the doll out and Jack started licking the icing off of it and said, "Mmmm, tasty underpants!"
- He cracks me up DAILY. One of his favorite songs came on the radio in the car and he started dancing. Then, I look back and he's doing the robot. I'm cracking up and I said, "Oh, Jack, what would I ever do without you?" He said, "You'd probably kill yourself." Ummmm, what?? Where in the world did that come from??
- At Ruckus' birthday party, he was dressing up in a superhero costume. He knew it had a rip in it, so he wanted to keep his jeans on so no one could see his undies. I could tell it was tight and he started pulling at it. I said, "Does it feel too tight?" He says, "No, I just have a butt crack." I said, "A wedgie?" He says, "No, my butt just has a crack in it and my pants were going inside it." "Yeah, buddy, that's called a wedgie."
- Not too long ago while building Legos, he took off his shoes and socks. He later told me he took his shoes and socks off so he could pick up his dropped Legos with his toes. Ewwww!
- While he was doing Legos one afternoon, I was working on something on my laptop. He asked, "Can you help me find a piece?" I was being distracted and said, "Sure, hang on." He asked me again and I said, "Ok, I'm trying to stop." He said, "You know you can stop yourself, you know?"
- At Kohl's yesterday, he came across a Ninja turtle alarm clock. He said, Mommy, I NEED this alarm clock because I keep waking up SO EARLY!!"
- Just the other day:
Jack: I want to go to Eyeballs for my birthday.
Mommy: (looks very confused)
Jack: You know, where we got that pancake that looked like a face.
Mommy: Oh, you mean I-HOP?
Jack: Oh yeah, I-HOP.
Happy 5th birthday, little buddy. You fill us up with so much joy and make our every day worthwhile. Our world is better with you in it. Can't wait to see what five brings. We love you more than 'finity.
