Happy Second Birthday to Jack!

My baby turns two today.  I have been wanting to give him a birthday tribute, but Jack his hard to capture in print.  You need to see and hear the wild, sweet little soul in action.  Every day with him is an exhausting, endearing, exasperating adventure.  Words will not be sufficient, but for the sake of record keeping I am giving it a go.

And as fair warning, this is rather a long and selfish post.  Selfish, because this is mostly for Josh and me, so we don't forget the little things our two year-old Jack does.

There are so many things I love about Jack.  His eyes are a deep, sapphire blue, and he can point at them and say: "bruuuuuu."  His golden hair, though shorn for the first time, is still a glorious thing to behold, especially after naps, when it takes on a bouffant life of its own.  It did not lose its curl with the first cut, either, to our great relief.  And because he is a head sweater, his hair is often very curly.  He bounces around with legit ringlets in the sultry Virginia summers. 

Jack loves music.  He conducts, waving both arms with gusto.  Even when he's falling asleep in the car, I can see him in the mirror with one finger on each hand pointed up, determined to keep going even while his eyes are closing.  He loves to sing, and he's getting better and better at picking up on vowels and consonants that he recognizes.  He understands crescendo, and he will let his wordless croonings swell to glorious decibels.  His taste in music is a bit eclectic/nerdy at this point--he loves to sing along to "Misty Mountains" from The Hobbit, "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Miserables, "I am a Child of God," "Twinkle Twinkle," "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, and John Rutter's "Candlelight Carol" (one of the lullabies I sing, and his crescendos on the "Gloria, gloria" part are thoroughly magnificent).  He also loves to dance, caper, hop, and shuffle in a circle to his favorite jigs, mostly taken from the Riverdance soundtrack.  He cannot resist the 1/16 or so of his blood that is Irish.

He loves to read and be read to.  He has a giant box of books, and he will command we bring it to him on the couch, after which he will tip the entire thing over onto his lap, depositing books up to his chest.  In the car seat he will sit pleasantly with a book perched in his hands, and quietly read to himself, which makes me deeply happy.  Then sometimes the book gets hurled across the car when he is done with it and ready for another, which makes me deeply concerned at the thought of his newborn brother sharing the back seat in a few weeks.


Jack does not love food so much.  He will eat a fairly wide variety of it; he just doesn't care about it.  All he really cares about is whole milk; everything else is tedious and extraneous.  He doesn't eat well unless distracted, and then we shove the food in while we can.  He also doesn't seem to feel the cold--something that has been a trial for me this beastly winter.  He will play in 20 degree weather until his hands turn bright red beneath his gloves, or sit happily in a pile of snow for thirty minutes when I am done and ready to be indoors in about three.  It's his disinterest in food and the immunity to the effects of extreme weather that make me wonder if Jack has a career ahead of him in wilderness survival.

Jack has started praying along with us.  For some time he has dutifully clasped his hands together during prayers, and he's said "amen" with gusto ("MEH" is usually how it comes out), but recently he has started muttering along with whoever is praying, and he will join in on the words he knows, usually at high volume: "MAMA" "DADA" "CHURCH," etc.  He also thinks Josh is the only one who knows how to pray well, because pretty much every time we ask him who should say the prayer, he yells: "DADA!"  Oh well.  

Jack has a man-crush on Buzz Lightyear.  He wakes up from his naps saying: "Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"  And when he watches the opening scene in Toy Story 2, when Buzz flies in from outer space, his eyes light up and he whispers reverently: "Buzz. Buzz. Buzz."  When he sees planes go overhead at the park, he puts both arms in the air and yells: "Buzz!  Buzz!"  At the Disney store, where there was an entire row of Buzz figurines, he went from box to box, pushing the buttons, and saying each time with affection and energy: "Buzz!  Buzz!  Buzz!"  When Josh carries him on his shoulders and takes off running, Jack raises his arms high and flies like Buzz.  You probably get the picture: he loves Buzz.   

Jack loves to help me make cookies; we make them at least once or twice a week, far more often than this lumbering pregnant body needs them.  My favorite part is when he orders me to get the eggs.  He'll look me directly in the eyes, then open his mouth and say as deliberately as he can: "Ehhhhhhggs."  This is a newer word and he is proud of it.  He loves eating cookie dough, but doesn't care much for the finished product.  This is not so wonderful for that part of my brain that always fears the specter of salmonella. 

Jack's energy levels are astonishing.  Perhaps this is why this second pregnancy has made me feel like an 80 year-old hippopotamus.  When he is in his comfort zone, he loves to put on a show.  If we have guests over, and they have proven their friendliness, Jack will sing all his songs, do animal noises, and his favorite party trick: imitating the three suitors from the Disney/Pixar movie Brave (I can't even remember why or how this got to be such a big thing for him, but he loves it).  His all-time favorite is MacGuffin, the beefy young lord who breaks a log in one scene with his bare hands in an attempt to impress Princess Merida.  When Jack wants to put on a really impressive show, he will do his MacGuffin impersonation over and over again: he mimes breaking a log with his hands, and then makes a sound like an explosion going off.  He does it sometimes to the people in the pew behind us in church when he wants to be charming, not realizing how obscure the gesture and movie reference are.  We get a good laugh out of it, which is probably why he does it.  He also went through this phase where he would roll his eyes back into his head and smirk.  We found it both creepy and hilarious, and he kept doing it because when he first started I would usually shriek and laugh in a mixture of fear and amusement... who wants to see their sweet toddler suddenly show you only the whites of their eyes, horror-movie style?

He loves to be outside, and this winter has been rough for us.  It has been too frigid, too snow-covered, or too mud-slimed once the snow has finally melted (and before it has snowed yet again) for sufficient outdoor play.  He has loved being outside since he was a newborn, when it was about the only way we could get him to sleep.  He could be in the worst, tantrumy mood as I'm wrestling him down the stairs of our apartment, but the moment we step foot outdoors, he comes alive.  He takes off running, and is on the alert for all things of great interest: squirrels, sticks, rocks, puddles, birds, firetrucks, and school buses.

He is a dexterous, coordinated child.  He throws balls with surprising and sometimes terrifying
accuracy and force.  He can do pull ups, for crying out loud.  He loves to do jigsaw puzzles, and always knows just which way to turn each piece so it fits squarely in place. 
He adores the moment when Daddy comes home, because Daddy will run with him "rrrrast!" (fast).  They chase each other around the apartment with various kitchen implements--usually spatulas and wooden spoons.  Sometimes Jack demands that I join, and he can usually lap me at this point in the pregnancy.  I shuffle; he flies.  Jack and Daddy also take turns doing "butt bombs" on the bed (jumping up and landing on the bed on your bum).  Jack has learned to do tickle attacks.  He will run up to Josh or me, make the tickle sound, and attack whatever vulnerable part of the body he can find, be it back, leg, or face. 

Jack is a man of passions, both good and bad.  Sometimes for no apparent reason he will call my name and throw his arms around my neck and rest his head on my shoulder, and the world is perfect.  Then there are the tantrums, and the world is not perfect.  It is loud, irrational, startling, frustrating.  Diaper changes have long been nothing short of apocalyptic.  Pregnancy has made this especially difficult, as he likes to kick, and this belly of mine is right in the line of fire.  He gets in what I call his "clear the decks" mode, where nothing is allowed to remain on a raised surface, be it a book, glass of water, toy, lotion bottle, plate of broccoli, etc.  Everything must go flying across the room, and he moves too swiftly most times for intervention.

He is certainly an attached boy to Mommy and Daddy. When I am on the phone, or even just having a conversation with Josh, he bellows my name at the top of his lungs.  Sometimes he will climb up on my lap and grab my face and say "MOM" very seriously, then rest his head on my shoulder (that one works better than just screaming at me). Depending on his mood, one parent usually isn't enough; he must have both, especially around 6am. Both must drag their exhausted carcasses from the bed to go read books or make Playdough figures or drive cars.  Sometimes this gets frustrating.  But when he reaches one arm around my neck and the other around Josh's neck, and pulls us both in against his soft little cheeks, this is not frustrating.  It is rather indescribably precious.

Jack is a true and affectionate friend.  As a much belated follow-up to my previous post, Jack did eventually accept the new Mr. Tiger, and they have been joined at the hip ever since.  He calls to him by roaring.  He also has a hierarchy of blanket friends.  There is the primary, can't-live-without-blankie, called "bees."  It is baby blue with big white polka dots. Then there is the secondary "bees tars" (the star blanket).  It is also baby blue and covered in yellow stars and moons.  It is a small quilt that I made when I was 18 as part of a church activity, after arbitrarily deciding my first child would be a boy, so I am rather touched that he has chosen it as a favorite.  There is also the third tier blankie, which is brown with white polka dots.  He refers to this blankie as "brooooowwwwww" which is said more like a roar than a word.  Often, Jack will not go outdoors unless the entire family of blankets and Tiger go with.  It is one of the cutest things ever to see his little legs shuffling toward me, his body and head entirely covered in the pile of blankets he is trying to bring along for the ride.

I am actually not sure which he loves more -- "bees" and Tiger, or the ultimate pacifier, the ba-ba, or bottle.  I have said he is addicted to whole milk.  This is not really an exaggeration.  He is always at his sweetest when he has a ba-ba.  He automatically becomes cozy, cuddly, and affectionate.  He collapses onto my lap, or pulls me onto the couch, and rests there, one hand stroking his blankie.

I feel like I have not begun to capture even a spark of this life that has utterly revolutionized my own.  Jack changed my world.  I have never known exhaustion and frustration until he came; I have never known such depths of devotion, love, and loyalty until I held his fragile little body.  This second year of his life has been easier than the first, probably because I have slept more, but also because his ability to express himself has increased, and his personality and character emerge with greater clarity every day.  Heavenly Father has blessed our home with a loving, spirited, intelligent, energetic, enigmatic, sweet, ardent little boy.  It is with the utmost joy that I celebrate these past two years with my darling Jack.  Thank you, son, for turning the world on its head and bringing greater sharpness to all our joys.  Happy Birthday, Jack!  I am so grateful to be your Mom!