Reflections of, the Way Life Used to Be

So we're approaching Jackson's second birthday in a couple of days. It's been an interesting couple of weeks as my friend Kami is at BCH on bed rest while she awaits the arrival of her twins hopefully not for five or so more weeks. So I visit when I can, and her room is just three doors down from where we had Jackson almost two years ago. So I've been experiencing some serious de ja vu.

I went back and looked at my blog entries from two years ago at this time and it's amazing to me how different life is now, and how remarkably funny I was back then (kidding). Jason and I will sometimes reflect on life before Jackson came along and how basically we did absolutely nothing. Sure, Jason finished the basement, we played some sports, went to work, etc. But honestly...we did nothing. We had to have. Because there's no way we were doing anything before this because now we have no time because we are parenting. Life was carefree.

Sure, we had to be careful about what I was eating and what we were doing but at the end of the day, we would go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning and the only people we had to worry about were each other. And since we were both grown ups, Jason could roll out of bed, get a shower, get dressed and go. I could get up and do the same, and we didn't have to synchronize our watches and discuss our plan of action. Now everything is a plan, everything is a conversation. No decisions are made without determining what the plan is with Jackson and how our decisions and plans affect what needs to happen with him. It's something that you can't really understand until you're doing it.

So there's all these new responsibilities that at times feel inconvenient and cumbersome, but then there's all these new experiences that light you up. This morning I was getting Jackson dressed after breakfast and I gave him a high five for doing a good job. So he hops down off my lap and dashes into the kitchen and says, "Daddy! Five!" That seems like such an insignificant little thing, but what Jason and I know is that Jackson is now using our names to get our attention to do things that he would like to do. Daddy, befast (that's breakfast for those of you who don't speak Jacksonese). Mommy, bath. Mommy, out (of crib please). Daddy, sit down! Before it was all grunts and one word stuff, and now, it's Mommy, more meat please. Kids are cool.

I've Got Your Molar

Poor little buddy is getting his first molar. And it sucks. Lower right, closest molar to the front. It has been interesting watching it come in as we have been able to see the little points for a few days and now the totally flat part is breaking through, so needless to say yesterday was brutal. But he only woke up once last night when the motrin wore off and once he was re-medicated he slept until 7 am today which was nice.

As for other things Jackson, he is learning more and becoming more interesting everyday. He has new words like "doos" which is shoes and also is becoming adept at pointing at what he wants. He usually says please without us having to remind him to do so, and his new favorite song is Say You Will by Fleetwood Mac. He eats corn and watermelon like nothing I've ever seen, and enjoys meatballs a lot too. Jackson is a great eater and we are going to ride that horse for as long as we can.

Jackson also got his first at-home riding toy. Some silly FP fire truck that he can sit on and push himself around on it like he's Fred Flintstone. I got it for him last Friday because he loves to show me how he can ride those things at school. He walked into the house and Jason had assembled it for him and the look on his face was the all time greatest thing I've ever seen. It was like, really? This is mine? And it's here? At my house? And I can ride it almost anytime I want? You guys are great!

Rewards

Membership has its privileges. Jackson's latest thing is maybe among his most wonderful. His walking has gotten to the point where he will occasionally attempt dashing. He will also play with things by himself, and then turn around to make sure we are still there. Then, often times, once he sees one of us, he will run across the room and at the last minute lift up his arms so we can scoop him up and give him some lovin. It is adorable. He did this several times today at the mall play area. He would wander away behind some of the big rubber dinosaurs, play a bit, then turn around to see where I was, and run over and grab my leg.

There was also an incident at the mall. There is a particular feature of the play area on the wall...a disc that has plastic sprinkles inside and when you turn it, the sprinkles fall all inside the disc. Jackson loves it. Today he had waited his turn to play with it, and this little three or four year old kid marched over and essentially shoved Jackson out of the way. My boy did not fall down, he did not cry. I was about 20 feet away and started walking over because I knew what was coming next. Little 28 inch tall, 22 pound Jackson wound up and stiff armed this kid right in the chest. I got there about 2 seconds before four year old socked him a good one, and to be honest, once I was there Jackson was a little upset.

My feelings about this incident are mixed. Obviously the last thing you want your kid to do is hit. But I also don't want him to tolerate being bullied and pushed out of the way by this kid either. I'm not saying socking a kid in the face is good, but I think there are times I would rather he stick up for himself than come running for me or Jason. It's a small issue at school now that he went from being king in the castle in infant 2 to the youngest and smallest kid in toddler 1. He' s not interested in being low man, and he's not going to put up with people taking away his toys or pushing him around in there either. So it's something we'll continue to monitor and help him figure stuff out, but again...I'm not that upset that he sticks up for himself. I think that's cool.

Sidenote: soon after I picked up Jackson we went to another part of the play area. When Jackson wandered back over to the disc that had caused this conflict, this kid's older sister who was like maybe 5 years old says, I'm very sorry but a minute ago my brother was not nice to that boy. It was so adorable. She had been chastising him for about two minutes about being nice to the baby. Then his mom showed up with the 9 month old baby...and I thought to myself, "Now I know why this kid is hitting mine...middle child."