Things That Made Jack Happy This Weekend

1. Playing outside.  Saturday was beautiful, and we had playdates at the park on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons.

2. When I burped and had to say, "Excuse me."  Luckily Jack was so shocked that I beat him to saying it so that it wasn't a reprimand from my sub-2 year old.  He broke out into a huge Momma's-doesn't-do-that! smile and said, "Momma, 'scuse me!" then burst out laughing.  His smile is all Ben and I love, love, love it.

3. Singing the "Me" song.  The lyrics to this one aren't hard--"me" is the sole word in the first verse, followed by the "you" verse and "we" verse, which ends with "you and me make we"--but he's actually starting to get the tune a little.  We've been taking a weekly music class together for about two months, and Jack has now started singing some of the songs.  Normally I don't buy into all the Gymboree-type development stuff, but this program was started at the Princeton Center for Music and Young Children and is taught by real musicians who have backgrounds in early childhood education, too.  It's lots of active fun for both of us, without being the hyperactive, overstimulative edutainment that classes like that can easily turn into.

I have to confess, though, that Jack is probably behind most of the other children in class in recognizing and singing the songs because I don't play the class CD as much as parents are supposed to.  Really not much at all.  Okay I've played it like twice total, and I don't think we made it all the way through either time.  Which is why we're probably not going to take the next 10-week session of classes.  The classes are a blast when all of the music is made in person, but the CD has the unmistakeable tinny sound of most children's music.  Therein lies the problem--I absolutely refuse to listen to those types of kids' CDs.  I find it pure sound junk food.  I freely admit that I have some horrendous musical preferences, but at least they're diverse and musically complex.  Raffi is my nemesis.  Even the supposedly cool line of CDs that has musak versions of classic rock songs is a no-go with me.

Not all nursery songs are subject to the ban; Nonna got Jack a great folk-music-inspired CD that makes me more than happy to indulge his requests for "My YunYine" (You are My Sunshine), and Miss Kelly got him a high-quality, artsy production that's fun to listen to, too.  But Jack has a much higher intake of Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Ben Folds, and even Cake, than your average 15 year old, much less 2 year old.  "Short Skirt, Long Jacket," is high on Jack's top 10 list, possibly bumped up based on the hideous lack of self-consciousness with which I dance in front of only him.  It's just my keep-Momma-sane guilty secret.  So maybe we'll take music class again later, but for now we're exploring Ella Fitzgerald and Avril Lavigne on iTunes and singing songs we learned in class to our own soundtrack.

4. Watching Daddy and Unk Stee Stee play tennis.  One of Jack's favorite toys over the past few weeks has been a tennis racket.  Baby Agassi?

5.  Doing somersaults into his crib.  He pushed a massive box of diapers from his closet to the head of his bed.  He then climbed on top of the box, grabbed hold of the headboard, flipped over, and landed flat on his bum sitting up on his pillow.  This was so thrilling that he asked to get out immediately and headed straight for the box again.  He can now complete the entire process in about twenty seconds, including getting the box out of the closet.  

Fortunately he hasn't shown any interest in getting out of the crib by himself.  I have repeated to him over and over, "Momma and Daddy need to help you with getting out."  So now whenever he starts to put his leg on the crib's top rail, he stops, pulls his leg down, and says very seriously, "Momma, Daddy," followed promptly by the demand, "Momma UP, UP, UP!" occasionally punctuated by a, "Peeeeas" and the sign for please.  Still, I'm thinking we'll need to turn the crib into a toddler bed sooner rather than later.  Ugh--NOT looking forward to nighttime and 5:30 a.m. (still nighttime!) visits to our bed.

6. Repeating absolutely everything everyone said.  He even attempted "important meeting" after I left for our homeowners' association meeting Saturday morning.  On Wednesday my friend Neesha came over with Jack's friend Maddie and her newborn baby brother.  As Neesha was leaving, she said to Jack, "Tell your Daddy hi for me!"  Jack obliged.  In spades.  I must have heard, "Hi Daddy, Neesh Neesh!" several hundred times in the past five days.

7.  Daddy being home and not having to work.  After two rough weekends in which Ben had to work for hours and hours (but at least at home rather than at the office), all three of us have come to appreciate just how much Ben's job change last spring has improved our family's quality of life.  It's so nice to have my best friend back!