The Gosmas: talking

So, I have been trying to write this post for the past 3 months or so! I keep adding to it and updating his age. Oops!!

I have a hard time believing Jackson is turning 3 in just a couple weeks. He has changed so much and has become a sweet, caring, talented, intelligent, little boy. He's got a hint of an attitude and tends to get bossy sometimes but he always keeps us laughing and sometimes a little frustrated. The last update I did was when he was 28 months and he's changed so much since then!

Jackson is turning into such a little boy now. He can do so much for himself and also things to help me out! I am stuck often throughout the day while nursing Camden so it is nice when Jackson can help out. He will let Cooper in or out if he's waiting at the door and then give him his cookie when he comes in, he can go upstairs to get something from his room, get out his own bowl/plate and spoon/fork, he can get out a yogurt cup and open it, and sits at the kitchen counter to eat it.

Jackson wakes up around 8. He asks to watch Curious George and watches a 30 minute episode. After that he knows we turn it off. Just a few months ago he would have wanted to watch more but now he's much more agreeable and knows we turn it off and its time to play. He's been going to preschool at a local church 2 mornings a week. He enjoys going and is so good for his teachers! They said they would have 12 of him if they could! I am happy he behaves so well for them! They do lots of crafts, play outside, have music and science time, read books, eat lunch and play!

Jackson sleeps from 7:30 or 8 pm until 8 or 8:30 am. He is still napping every day usually from 12:30 or 1:00 until 3:30 or 4. He listens to a lullaby cd everyday while going to sleep. We read 2 or 3 books before nap and bed everyday. He is usually pretty agreeable about taking his nap but we have had a some days where we struggle to get him in his bed and struggle to get him to fall asleep.We have skipped his nap by choice a few times but he still really needs to nap. He is just so tired and gets cranky and whiny if he doesn't nap. Ever since we took the rail off his crib he was able to get out of his bed. He chose not to and would sit on the edge and wait for us to come in. Then we moved him to his big boy bed and he still chose to wait for us to come get him. All of a sudden when we were in Sanibel he got up on his own. He opened his door and came out and was so proud. He said "I open my door" "I woke up!"

Jackson is a pretty good eater but eats like a bird some days and then can devour tons of food other days. Normally he eats eggs, oatmeal, or yogurt for breakfast. He loves bacon too! For lunch he eats a lot of peanut butter and honey sandwiches these days. He also eats grilled cheese, quesadillas, chicken salad sandwiches, or sometimes turkey and cheese. He still eats a lot of fruit- especially strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, and sometimes banana, blueberries, oranges. He is not as good about eating his veggies but he'll usually eat a few bites of his broccoli or will eat some salad with us. He eats what we eat for dinner. He loves pizza and bbq and will eat other things I cook such as pork tenderloin, spaghetti, lasagna, bow tie fiesta, and panko crusted chicken fingers. He still drinks two cups of milk a day. We give him juice sometimes but its not a regular thing. Also when we give him orange juice we dilute it with water. He even knows it and says its orange juice and water! Jackson does not eat very much candy. He gets so hyper after eating candy or anything! He received so much candy from his Valentine's and I let him go through them all, choose 1 piece and I put the rest in the cabinet and he's never asked for it again. He loves to bake cookies or muffins with me but he still only gets one and after the 1st day he almost never asks for another one.

Jackson's speech has improved by leaps and bounds but he still has a hard time with certain sounds so we started with speech therapy. I am a big believer in early intervention and while I am sure in time he would be fine we wanted him to work with someone to help him. He really enjoys going to Ms Whitney once a week and she says she already has seen improvement and we've only gone for about a month!

He puts his thoughts together into sentences that surprises us everyday. It's been so long since I did a major update on Jackson and I have so many quotes and phrases and funny things he's done from months ago to record so I don't forget them. In August and September he said things like: I want play ball more, baby tammen eat more mommy tummy, my hewwo (he used to carry around one of our old iphones and pretend to talk on it), when he would wake up in the morning or after his nap he used to say, "mommy poopoo me" meaning he wanted me to change his diaper! Ha! He started being very opinionated and if we were going to throw the ball for him or something and he wanted Nana he would hold up his finger and say "no, Nahnah". When we are putting him to bed at night or for his nap he would always summarize what he wants to do when he wakes up, "watch george, ba, poppern" (He was still calling milk ba for some reason and loved popcorn and wanted it for every snack!) He names off everyone that is with us and tells us what he is wearing.

In October he started calling milk ma and then in November starting calling it moalt. He started always saying "just a wil bit" (uses his thumb and first finger to show just a little bit!). Out of nowhere he started saying "nice" for everything, We say lots of please and thank yous all day long but I have never taught him to say ma'am or sir but he started saying "pease sir" after he would ask for something, when he wanted us to pick him up he says "picka me up", he loves playing ponteboo (peekaboo) on the sofas behind the cushions, he counts the stairs when we walk up, 1,2,3,4,8,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,13,13.His manners have been really good lately.

In December and January he started saying "mommy got?" "mommy doing" always wanting to know what I had or was eating or drinking or what I was doing. "Yellow man hat" from Curious George, "yeseday"(he would remind us about what we had done yesterday), he was always so expressive with his hands, Jackson can spell his name and always recognizes his name when he sees it. He would say how he wants to go outside and I would say its cold so he would tell me "I put on jacket, socks, shoes, gloves, hat.

In February he would be doing something with his toys and would always say "I'm making someding" or he might say that when he's piling all the cushions on one sofa. If we started getting ready to go somewhere he'd ask "where's me going", we talk a lot about listening and what we talked about so he was always saying "rember what talk about? always with big hand and face expressions! He enjoys cooking with the kitchen he got for Christmas. Loves to serve us tatche (coffee), soup, pancakes, eyys (eggs). He sits his stuffed animals (both georges, mickey mouse, bear, snoopy) at the table and serves them food on plates and tatche in cups. Says tartruck for firetruck, deet for feet, dork for fork. I started making smoothies and he would help me and every time I would get a new ingredient out he says "bueberries, I wuv bueberries", "yogurt, I wuuuuv yogurt"and so on. He started saying "pease may I wear dis downstairs" pointing to his jammies, says "pease may I have my bitin (vitamins), moat". When someone sits in his spot he says "that's me sits". When we were at the beach he got up from his nap himself and was so proud. "I woke up! I open my door". One night Jimmy was putting him to bed and he tried to put George under his jammies. Jimmy asked why and he said "he's hungy, he's eating my tummy". Jimmy explained that babies just eat from mommies. Then Jackson put george over his shoulder to burp him.

In March he says done for phone, and always wants us to fill up his doggie (froggie humidifier). He started this phase where he asks "who bought that?" for everything. It could be a new jug of milk, box of Annie's bunnies, new toothbrush or anything! He is so observant and notices everything. At night when I am nursing Camden Jackson will come in to say one more night night. He comes in whispering and says night night, asks if I'm feeding Camden then always asks if I want him to cack(crack) or cose(close the door). He'll ask a couple of times and for some reason it makes me laugh. He comes over to kiss me and gives Camden a kiss and says I wuv ooo. He went through a phase where he would say "huh?!" after everything. I would repeat myself once and then would say did you hear me and then he would say yes, so I wouldn't repeat myself again. Now sometimes he just says "huuuhhhhhh?" or "whhhaaaaatttt?" and it cracks me up in his tone of voice.

So many wonderful and happy memories over these past few months. However with all the good times come the whiny, crying, stubborn days too. He is such a sweet and thoughtful boy but is also a typical 2 year old. We had a lot of big changes for him in the past few months including me on bedrest and not being able to do things with/for him, adding a new baby to the family who takes lots of mommys time and attention, and then after I broke my wrist and was unable to do anything for him again. But I think he has coped amazingly well given the circumstances. The not listening and whining/crying is what frustrates us the most. Some days he tries my patience so much. I know that most of his attitude and not listening is either from being tired/hungry or just needed more of my attention. He acts out to get my attention and get a reaction from me. So even if he is not listening I try to not react so much.

He is also such an outdoorsy kid. Just playing outside and running around make him happy. He is obsessed again with tennis and baseball. We are going to do tennis lessons in the summer. His baseball skills blow me away. We can throw the plastic softball to him and he hits it with his bat about 85-90% of the time. Out of the air. And not just a tap but hits it over our heads. He loves reading and we read books at nap and bedtime every day and sometimes other times during the day. He goes through many favorite books and will want to read the same book for a couple days before finally changing to different ones. Some favorites: Dr. Seuss, Little Blue Truck, Curious George, Pocket for Corduroy (He always wants to nuzzle noses at the end). His favorite toys these days are puzzles, any kind of ball (he even will use a fabric tomato and his plastic frying pan and pretend he's playing tennis!), he likes to "cook" in his kitchen.