Home Sweet Home

We finally have furniture!  And internet.  Disgustingly enough, it only took about a week longer for our entire household of goods to travel across the Atlantic and halfway across the continent than it took for AT&T to set up our internet service.  Ugh.

Likewise, the closing was slow to happen--it was supposed to be on the 16th but was moved back to the 18th because of our mortgage guy's mistake.  The 16th would have been a beautiful day to move in.  The 18th was a constant downpour.  Still, we made the best of it, with Nonna and Pops's much-appreciated help.

About two weeks ago Jack started going through an amazing burst of language development.  It started with a sign language breakthrough.  I had been doing baby signs off and on since about Christmas, but I was sure it was going nowhere.  Then out of the blue, Jack started making the sign for milk.  I have been trying to work on making sure he really knows what he's "saying," so I haven't introduced a ton of new signs since then, but Jack knows how to say food/hungry (although he seems to think it means "put the thing I want in my mouth"), more, all done, and bath.  He's working on "I need a diaper change."  And he's made up his own sign that seems to mean "I like this music," which is distinctly different from his dance moves.  Yes, he has dance moves.  I'll try to get it on video. 

Just after his sign language skills skyrocketed, Jack's vocal language development sped up a lot.  He now says dada, yum, bubble, ba (for his pacifier), and ball consistently, is starting to say doggie (it sounds more like "ge," rhymes with "key"), and says mama when I bribe him.  (I'm getting kind of shameless about it now--I'm almost to the point of letting him having one of his trinity (cell phone, keys, and wallet) if he says mama.  Almost.)  He even said "light" perfectly once, while pointing to the bathroom light.  That one was truly impressive.  He pointed directly at the light and said "light" in a very non-baby voice, shocking both Ben and me.  Jack's never come close to replicating that one, but we both heard it clearly that one time.

During Ben's time off, Jack learned a plethora of cool party tricks.  He will now put his hands on his head when you tell him to, will clap on demand, gives high-fives, kicks and tosses his tie-dyed beach ball (Jack picked it out, not me), and will occasionally give kisses when I pucker up for him.  Ben's trying to get Jack to do a fist bump to signal that they're Rams fans, but I'm trying my best to undermine that effort because Jack will remain a Chiefs fan if I have anything to say about it.

So I'm going to be better about blogging from now on.  I kept putting off posting this because I wanted to get pictures of Jack in front of the house.  And I kept putting that off because I wanted Jack not to have a massive bump/bruise on his head.  But Jack seems to have a constant bump somewhere now that he's decided he can run.  Every time one injury is almost completely healed, he gets a new one.  Fortunately he doesn't seem to slowed at all by it--he's still our sweet, active little boy.