The Little Kahuna

Jack had a great time during the weekend before last at the beach at Amelia Island (his first visit to an ocean as a toddler). He would point at the vastness of the sea and say, ever so keenly, 'Muh!' (his word for all liquids).

His vocabulary is growing exponentially now. Of course, 'beach' and 'pool' entered his lexicon at Amelia. It was also there that he finally started calling Hope something other than 'Papaw'... she is now 'Mehmeh' to Jack. Daddy and Mama are still probably going to address cards to her with 'YoNanaMamawMehmeh'.

At home we read a lot of books and magazines with Jack. His current favorites are Railways and Rhymes (a Thomas and friends book) and Wired magazine (his potty read). We can't believe the number of things he can name now. Nowadays you often only have to say a noun a couple of times for him to remember it. He's not really there yet with adjectives...sometimes he'll mimic ones he hears, but he doesn't tend to use them on his own. His verbs are pretty much 'EatEat', 'Go', 'Ride', 'PeePee', and 'PooPoo'. (Are there many more verbs needed to describe a day in the life of a todder?)

He's become quite the parrot with words that he doesn't understand. When he gets upset, Mama often consoles him by murmuring, 'I know...I know, Poor Baby.' Lately when he gets fired up and fussy, he sobs and screeches 'I know! I know!'

Kiddo also seems to have made up his own word game. One person says 'Beebah'. The next person says 'Kookah'. Repeat. We don't know if this is his take on a game he overheard at daycare if he just decided on his own that these syllables just sound good together.

Except for a struggle with napping, Jack's at an immensely fun age. He loves to be tickled. He's only gotten more quick to laugh, and he can entertain himself for a very long time with toys and books. You just have to keep an eye out for stunts that tempt fate and gravity a little too much. He takes great delight in balancing precariously and throwing himself backwards into things. (We wonder if he might be an Xtreme sport kind of guy when he gets older...Mama inwardly makes the Marge Simpson noise at that prospect.)