The difference between 7 and 4

Noah: Jack, guess which superhero I am…

Jack: Uh, I don't know.

Noah: He's a DC Comics hero.

Jack: What's DC?

Noah: It's the people who make some of the characters. You know, like Spiderman is Marvel?

Jack: [blank stare]

Noah: Okay, here's another hint, he's the leader of Robin.

Jack: Robin!

Noah: No, he's the *leader* of Robin. Not the *answer* is Robin.

Jack: You mean Robin?

Noah: Uhhhhh! Okay, he has a foe named Joker.

Jack: What does "foe" mean?

Noah: "Foe" means someone who's bad and versus the good guy. {Can he verb the word "versus"?}

Jack: Oh, Joker!

Noah: No, his *foe* is Joker. Not the *answer* is Joker!

Jack: It's Joker!

Noah: Come on, Jack, he's the leader of Robin, he has a foe named Joker, and he's active at night.

Jack: You mean Robin's active at night? Or Joker's active at night.

Noah: Jack, his name starts with Bat and ends with Man.

Jack: Ummm….Joker!

Noah: No, it's Cat Woman, come on! {He's obviously inherited his daddy's sarcasm!}

Jack: Oh, Cat Woman! That's what I thought!

Noah: Uhhhhh! Jack, it's not Cat Woman. Is she the leader of Robin? No. He has pointy ears like this…boom!

Jack: Cat Woman!

Noah: HE, Jack, HE has pointy ears! Cat Woman is a SHE, not a HE! Here, I'll show you this action figure that looks like him…[holds up Batman figure] See?

Jack: OH, you mean Batman?!

Noah: Yes! You got it right, Jack! Great job!

Geometry Jack

"Mommy, do I look like an eyeball?"

"Mommy, can you even see me?"
"Mommy, I'm a triangle!"
"Mommy, I'm a line!"
Aren't you proud, Aunt Sarah??

**Do I even want to guess what the wet spots are? I've decided it's better not to ask.

Oh they crack me up

Noah: (arriving to visit at Memaw's house, very sweetly) Memaw, I'm not going to waste my time watching a movie while I'm here...I'm going to waste my time talking to you!

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Jack: ("reading" an instruction manual for the DVD player) So, first we have to compare and contrast...

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Jack: (inspecting the phone carefully) This phone says 2 + 2. How funny is that? (with perfect inflection!)

Me: What?

Jack: The phone. How funny is that?

**********************************************************************************

Jack: This map says we have to go 15 cybermeters. You're driving. Have a nice trip.

Aliens and Pirates

I got some 'splainin' to do

I was watching the evening news last night, which I rarely do because I can't handle the doom and gloom perspective. They were covering the inauguration plans, and Jack (he's 4) walked in the room. Thinking he probably wouldn't have a clue, I pointed to the screen showing the president-elect and said, "Do you know who that is?" Of course, the screen immediately flashed to Katie Couric, and he did NOT know who she was. :) Then the president-elect came up again and he said, "That's Rock Obama!" I was quite impressed, especially considering he called him "Da Pajama" during the election. My "maybe I'm not a failure as a mother" bubble was burst when he followed that quickly with, "He stole all our money!" Do what?! Before you think we have a little racist on our hands, I finally figured out that he had gleaned this nugget of misinformation from a conversation I had with the big kids in the car BEFORE the election in which I said in very general terms something along the lines of "Republicans think people are the best stewards of their own money and Democrats think the government is the best steward of people's money." Apparently in his mind that translated to "Barack Obama stole all our money". Oh my. I hope he's not right.

Jack's 4th Birthday

Birthday boy-Jack! Hard to believe he is FOUR! Although he is almost the size of...ahem...a 6 1/2 year old (Noah)...I believe this is our 7th superhero birthday party so far, and I'm sure it won't be our last!
Jack didn't really like cake at the time, so he asked for a big cookie instead. He wanted Spiderman's face on it, but the spider was the best I could do. Fortunately, he's pretty easy to please and was thrilled with this homemade version :)

I bought this cool thing on Craigslist for a great price, because I'd gotten rid of the exersaucer-type toy we had with the previous younguns. They don't make them any more, but if you can get your hands on one, they are GREAT! (And 3 months later, even now that he can crawl, it is still a huge hit.)
As we did for Noah's last birthday, instead of splurging for the $250 all out party at Pump It Up (we did that once and it was fun and all, but YALL! that would be A THOUSAND DOLLARS a year if we did that for all 4 kids), we allowed Jack to pick 2 friends to have over to our house for cake, and then took them to a new bouncy place, BounceU, which is closer to our house and has a "Family Night" where you get pizza and a drink with your 2 hours of bouncing!
I cannot believe I got a picture of all 5 kids together!! L-R: Jack, Noah, Nathan W, Nathan S, & Madeline


Jack thoroughly enjoyed the Galaga game...not that he ever realized you were supposed to put money in it to play :)
This was something new we hadn't seen before, a tower with levels of stretchy "webs" that you could climb up and then fall back through without risk of injury. The kids really enjoyed this, and I think Jared did too.

Luke was a little overwhelmed at all the noise and activity!

Happy Birthday, Jack!!

Oh Wacky Jack, it is hard to capture in a blog post, or really at all, how full of life you are and There are so many lately, I've got to start keeping track again! His vocabulary has hit another big surge...

1. "tuwarious"--hilarious


2. "buhwicious"--delicious


3. "bisgusting"--disgusting (he says it correctly now and it's still funny!)


4. "oh, he's so adorable"--he says this for Luke almost every time he sees him and also for any other baby he sees


5. "Look, Mommy, I found a woley-poley. He's in a ball...I think he's scared of me!"


6. "butt"--belly button (This causes lots of confusion when he talks about showing people his butt...most recently he had Memaw worried that he was showing his butt until I asked him to show her his butt and he raised up his shirt and pointed to his belly button! Trust me, I am blue in the face from explaining to him that it is a belly button or navel. He is a stubborn boy!)


7. "kitcha wite"--kitchen light, he HAS to have this on to sleep. It is just about the only "currency" I have with him lately...he'll do anything to keep from losing his kitchen light at nap/bedtime!


8. Monsty--his (originally Noah's) doodle-monster, He sleeps with this and chose it to take for teddy bear day at preschool. He's attached to it, but usually doesn't take it with us when we go out of town and doesn't have any problem sleeping without it. He still relies heavily on the "suckin' thumb" for sleeping, though.


9. thumbs up--this is his new favorite thing to do...anytime I check on him or ask how he's doing, he gives me the thumbs up. Especially when he thinks he's made a good choice. He responds really well to making a choice between doing the right thing or the wrong thing. If I just tell him not to do something, he's likely to do it anyway, but if I ask him if something is right or wrong, he knows and chooses (usually) right.


10. He was playing with Luke's purple monkey chewtoy. He asked, "Is he full of nerds?" I think because he's purple and rattles? Then he told the monkey not to "push the button" which apparently he did because then he threw him off the side of the chair, looked at me and said, "Monkey is punished". Well, there you have it.


11. He found my insurance card and said, "Oooh, credit card!" and started swiping it through his hand like a credit card. We do not HAVE credit cards!!! We have debit cards, but pay for almost everything with CASH! I don't know where he gets this stuff!


12. We limit Hannah Montana stuff even for Madeline, but somehow Jack knows her songs! He is frequently heard singing, "I said, I said, I can't be Superman" (not exactly the right lyrics) and "You get da best a bo' worlds"...of course, this is often mixed in with humming the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars (dum dum dum, dum da-dum, dum da-dum) and "Teenager the Minja Turtles, dut, dut, dut, dut" (another argument I can't win...IT'S TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES...he will have NONE of that, thanks--and the dut's are counting time, Noah does this too...apparently my boys got rhythm).


13. Jack can make the most realistic sounding "throwing a Batarang" and "shooting a Spiderweb" sounds I have ever heard. Sounds exactly like the cartoons. I have video evidence on this.


14. Jack was in Ms. Gloria's Pre-K class like Noah was. Jack remembers Noah being in there so he thinks it is really cool that he is now, too. His favorite things are the spiders (pretend) and the fish tank. He thinks it's pretty cool that he gets to play computer, too, but was disappointed that he can't go to "kidswb-dot-com", since it only has games and not internet access (thank goodness!).


15. We were waiting on mom to get here to go to the adventure science center. Jack was looking out the window watching for her and said, "Dani's not here yet...I hope she's not in jail!" Yes, that would be the obvious explanation...


16. A box of diapers "fell" on Jack (he dumped them on himself) and he wallowed in them yelling, "diaper attack!"


17. This is annoying, but a Jack-ism nonetheless. He has started pointing and laughing at people randomly wherever we go. He'll say, "You're funny!" and he really means it as a compliment. He loves to be laughed at and can't understand (even though I've been over and over and over and over it) why others don't feel the same!


18. He also tells adults who are shorter than me (which is most, since I'm about 6') that they are "wittle". Usually, he's being so silly that they can't make out what he's saying so I just sort of mumble something else and move on. Again, he doesn't mean it in an ugly way, just in a factual way. Still, I'm tired of having the same conversation with him over and over and over...


19. "Ee-mazing"--amazing, he says this for many things, with great emphasis on the first (incorrect) syllable, funny!


20. He's all about cicadas.


21. "high five, bro!" He may have gotten this from watching Ninja Turtles.


22. rescape (escape) as in "You'll never-escape!" He tells me this when I tuck him in and he gives me a hug. For a long time he would say, "I neva let you go" and suddenly it changed to "You'll never rescape!" I love it. Also, the only way I can usually get a kiss from him when tucking him in is to kiss his forehead and tell him I took all his kisses and he'll have to kiss me to get them back. Sometimes he does it to me, although all it takes is one look at those poochy little lips to get a kiss out of me!


23. almost always puts his shoes on the wrong feet (I remember the other kids doing this), and almost always has either pants or shirt backwards. I suspect he does it on purpose sometimes. Maybe even all the time. He has control issues. As in, he wants to be in control of everything all the time. I have no idea where he might get that from.

A Jack-sighting

OH. MY. GOODNESS. While I was feeding Luke this morning, I looked over and Jack was thoroughly engrossed in reading Consumer Reports. And singing Blue Skies and Rainbows. I couldn't believe that my camera was actually within arms' reach to capture this scene. He never even noticed I was there. Precious-ness.

Jack the Science Kid

Before her return to Honduras, Dani treated Jack, Luke and Mommy to a trip to the Adventure Science Center. There was a demonstration starting just as we got there, so Jack got to see his Spiderman tshirt up close and personal under a microscope shown on the tv screen. It was a little over his head, but he did enjoy the gack she showed us how to make.

I love the Sit-N-Stand stroller I bought off craigslist! It is the easiest stroller to push that I've ever had (and this is the 4th, not counting umbrella strollers!). Jack loves being able to sit but not be in a "baby seat", plus there is plenty of room for his big long legs. Luke has since graduated to sitting in the regular stroller seat without his carrier. Speaking of which, if I can get the carseat cleaned up, I'm moving him into the regular rear-facing seat because I hate the carrier, especially when your baby weighs 20ish pounds! Luke was very interested in the sights and sounds. The video is him talking to the dinosaurs. Everytime they would start roaring, he would do this. I kept thinking he was upset (and by this time he was starting to get tired, but he was doing the same thing even earlier), but he was only doing this when he heard the dinos! He does love to communicate.

One of Jack's favorite parts was an area where he got to put on a labcoat and pretend to be Dr. Jack. He is a fan of playing doctor/dentist/vet, so this was right up his alley. Here he is taking his temp... ...and checking out his ears...
...and giving him a shot with an abnormally large syringe...
Luke was plumb tuckered out
This was Jack's absolute favorite part of the visit. There was a giant mouth with teeth that moved up and down. The goal was to throw the food (balls) into the mouth. It was pretty far away and he made about 472 attempts before he finally made a shot! Some big kids showed up on a field trip and he stayed right in there with them. Sometimes it pays to be the 3rd in a family of rowdy kids :-) I think Santa may be bringing him a basketball goal of some kind this year...he may not be the best, but he had LOTS of fun!!
This was in the preschool playroom. He walked over to the board and instead of using the shapes to create something, he started organizing them by shape and color. The ADD got the better of the OCD and he didn't finish his task. He does like order and organization. The Magic School Bus is one of our favorite book/video series. The boys especially LOVE it.

Jack was "not" scared of the dinosaurs. He is only posing for this picture because it is in front of the baby Triceratops. He tried to be brave about the T-Rex that was there, but it was obvious that he did not 100% believe that he was not real. There was just that little bit of doubt that meant he could not take his eyes off him for long. As Jared says, When there is doubt, there is no doubt. No doubt, tough little Jack was nervous!

Thanks, Dani, for a fun day!!

Some Random Cuteness

Wonder what Jack is up to?

You can find out here and here!

And now for a little change of pace...

Keep in mind that he did this to himself, and take a moment to laugh with Jack...

Pictorial update

I don't have a lot of pictures from recent weeks, but here are a few, mostly of Jack because he requests I take pictures of most everything he ever does.

Here's Noah expressing how he feels about being a FIRST GRADER now:

Noah with his classmates, lining up for their next-to-last-day as Kindergarteners:

That's his teacher, Mrs. Tucker, on the right, who has been wonderful this year! Madeline had her for kindergarten, too, and we are so thankful for all she's taught our kids in so many ways!!

I'm not sure why I would be compelled to share this un-made-up, deer-in-headlights self-portrait, except to share that Jack now refers to me, and baby Luke, interchangeably as "Big Bewwy" (belly). That's pretty much all I feel like lately. One big belly. With some swollen limbs tacked on for good measure. Really, I don't mean to complain...I've had a fairly easy pregnancy. And needless to say, I'm thankful it's lasted this long. I guess it would be strange if I was NOT ready to be done with pregnancy!

Speaking of Jack and big bellies...

This strange child fell asleep a few nights ago with his covers tucked up under his shirt. Only Jack knows why. We found him like this when we checked on him before going to bed ourselves. He does have a self-soothing habit of tucking covers [or whatever else he finds, including, but not limited to, tissues (used or new, he's not partial), washcloths, towels, random articles of clothing (clean or dirty, he's not partial)] under his arm while sucking his thumb. I probably have a picture somewhere but I'm too tired to look (honesty here). He looks like he's smiling in this picture, but I assure you he was 100% zonked out.

Jack's last day of mother's day out. Not too sentimental, since he'll have 2 more years of preschool before kindergarten...but still cute.

And now for the JackE show...he saw me putting pictures on the computer and asked if I would take some silly pictures of him. So, of course, I did. But before I do that, I just remembered that yesterday when Mom was visiting, Noah said, very seriously, "My mom works sooooo hard." I thought, Yes, I do and I'm thankful someone finally noticed! This was immediately followed up with, "Yeah, she's always working on the computer. I mean all the time. She just works and works and works. Sometimes she can't even play because she's so busy working!" Ouch. So my computer time will be limited to naptimes and their tv time. Don't want to miss any more opportunities to play superheroes and dinosaurs than what I've apparently already missed...

(We had just been outside and this showcases both how badly he needs a haircut and how sweaty he gets after just a few minutes.)

"Busted"

Jack took a pretty hard fall in the driveway this afternoon. He didn't cry, but I could tell it hurt. I asked him if he was okay, and he said, "Yeah, but I am BUSTED!" As we cleaned, medicated and bandaided his wounds, he kept saying, "Whoa, those knees are BUSTED!" or "Whoa, those hands are BUSTED!" I'm pretty sure he knows how funny he is.

Yep, he's "interesting" alright...

For even more evidence of just how strange my children (named Jack) are, go here.

And now, for my 12th post today...

Just couldn't shut down the computer without sharing Jack's nightly bedtime ramblings:

Jack: "You know what I gon' be when I grow up?"

Me: "No, what?"

Jack: "A do'tor."

Me: "Oh really? That's good."

Jack: "You know what I gon' do when I a do'tor?"

Me: "No, what?"

Jack: "I gon' check things. And you know what I gon' do after I check them?"

Me: "No, what?"

Jack: "I gon' fix them."

Me: "That's a very good thing for doctors to do. Doctors help people."

Jack: "No, I not gon' fix people, I gon' fix tha spaceships."

Me: "What?"

Jack: "And you know what I gon' do after I fix the spaceships?"

Me: "I can't imagine."

Jack: "I gon' put on my helmet."

Me: "Of course you are, because that's what doctors do after they fix spaceships."

Jack: "Because you have to wear your helmet. You know why you have to wear your helmet?"

Me: "Why?"

Jack: "Because you will crash into a wall. And then you will need some sticky tape [Dora, anyone?] to fix it. Then you will have to ask Poppi for his tools so you can fix the wall. Because that's what you do with your spaceship."

Me: "Clearly, my work here is done."

Jack "plays soccer"

Jack was pumped about his first soccer game this weekend. Unfortunately, he got to sit through Noah's soccer pictures, Noah's game, his own team's soccer pictures...

...and then, no game. His team, "The Dolphins", played but poor Jack got a trip to the pediatrician's office instead. Of course he told everyone there that he won his soccer game, so missing it wasn't too devastating for him. And also he had found his beloved Batarang (a bat-shaped boomerang used by Batman) that morning--middle photo--so really, nothing could bring him down. He'd coughed some during the night before, and then sitting in the cold wind at Noah's game didn't help, but he was wheezing pretty badly by the time he got through his soccer pictures. His game was supposed to start at 10:30 but the doctor's office drop-in hours end at 11, so we hustled ourselves on out there while Daddy went back to work. Sure enough, he needed an albuterol breathing treatment (aka "elephant nose") at the office and we went home with some allergy/decongestant Rx samples and a script for more albuterol. His doctor thinks the breathing problems are allergy-induced, since last time he had it was in the fall when his allergies got bad. And he'd had an allergy attack (itchy, watery eyes and nose after playing outside) at school on Thursday before the breathing trouble on Saturday. So far the treatments have worked and we haven't had to move up to steroids, so I'm praying that continues to work. Because, frankly, I don't think I can handle Jack...on steroids. That just sounds like a nervous breakdown waiting to happen.