"Mama, wheresa munch?"

Ah, the second year of life. I can’t remember mine, but watching Jack live his each day makes me wonder what mine was like. Did I grow as fast? Did I find the same amount of joy and thrill in things like dying balloons dancing near the ground, choo-choo trains that go on forever, white snow falling from the sky, and doggies? I have no idea. All I know is that this has been a thrilling year for me to be a part of, and though we’ve faced our challenges, what with a growing preference, will, and independent stubborness, I’ve often remarked to friends how much I love this stage.

One of my favorite aspects about Jack’s development right now is his verbal explosion in the past couple months. When he first turned two he was way behind the “averages” for kids his age, which brought us mild concern (okay, slightly more than mild). We were told to wait until he was two and a half, or even three, and to watch for growth in vocabulary and sentence structure, but if by three he hadn’t at least reached some of these particular milestones it would be recommended that we see a specialist. It’s always hard to hear those things.

However, much to our relief he has blossomed rapidly in a very short time. It began one week, and has seemed to continue fairly consistently. He began to repeat almost everything we said, even if we weren’t even talking to him. If I was on the phone, I could hear him copying my words to himself. One day in the car we got stuck at a train when we were running late and I said, “SHOOT!” and my little copy cat in the backseat quietly said, “Shit.” Hmmm.

So while I am grateful that things seem to be on track and he’s finally picking up the two- to three-sentence thing, what I absolutely LOVE about this particular stage is that his words are still in the only-mommy-and-daddy-can-understand-us phase. It’s almost as if we are a bilingual home, with Jack speaking one language to us, and us speaking another back to him, although we both understand the other’s. We find many of his attempted words quite hilarious, and often find ourselves bursting into laughter.

Tonight we piled into the car—hats, puffy coats and all—for a quick run up to the store to get some frozen pizza for dinner. Despite the fact that I had to chase Jack around the ENTIRE HOUSE in 4-5 inches of snow because he refused to get in the car (insert deep mom-on-the-last-straw sigh), he was delightful at the store, garnering much attention and many compliments on how well he was pushing his kiddie cart and helping Mommy (“Jack hup Mommy!”).



On the way home I was explaining how we had to go home and cook the pizza in the oven, and he said, “Cook. Pizza. In Uh-men (oven). Home. Daddy. Doo-rah (Dora the Explorer). Monking. (“Monkey” or Boots, Dora’s pal). Yay, pizza!” I LOVE that he says “uh-men” instead of oven. And monking—well, you just have to hear it to understand the fondness with which he talks about Doo-rah and Monking.


He has a book based on the traditional “Going on a bear hunt” premise. It’s very repetitive and rhythmic; Eric even made up a little song for the repeated, “We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna catch a big one…” part. Each page then says, “Oh, no! A forest (or river or mud or cave)! A big, dark forest (thick, oozy mud, etc.)! We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ll have to go through it!”


Jack is addicted to this book. We read it many, many times a day (I know, Dad, it’s payback for the night you read, “Good Night Moon” twenty times in a row just because I kept asking). But now he’s started to read the book himself. And it is SO funny. He skips through a lot of it, but he knows the pages that have the “oh no!” parts, which he puts on a very worried face and uses hand expressions as he shouts, “OH NO!!!!!!” The part that makes us laugh the most is when he does the last line, “ Oh no, we have to go through it” because he gets so animated and excited that he skips half the line and it comes out like this: “OH NO HALFA GO TOOOIT!!!!!!” complete with an arm motion of sweeping through something and with this very concerned look on his face. Tonight when we read it before bed, he was trying to do the sing-song part and Eric so started to sing with him, to help him, and Jack stopped and gave Eric this look like, “Excuse me? I believe I am the one singing? You are totally cramping my style.” We both buried our heads in guffaws. My other favorite word from this book is the way he says “mud”: mundt. How can one little word make a heart swell so much every single time I hear it??



Yesterday in the car I was stopping for a much needed toffee nut latte and I was trying to prepare him that we were not here to get french fries; any time we are at any kind of drive through he gets all excited and starts shouting, “FWIES!!” (Bank ATMs, drive-up pharmacies…don’t YOU think they should offer fries?) So as I was trying to get him to say “coffee” I realized he’s still struggling with the “F” sound; he usually just blows air out of his mouth. So finally I said, “Mommy’s getting a LATTE” to which he replied, “wat-tey.” When we pulled away from the window, he said quietly, “Mommy. Wat-tey. Mommy…fwies???” Poor kid.

When I tell him that Daddy is on his way home from work, he often stands by the window or the door saying, “Daddy, weh-ah-you?” When we drive by Eric’s office building Jack yells, “Daddy wok!” We then usually pass the college soccer, football, and baseball fields, to which Jack says sadly, “No socceh. No fuh-ball. No baseball.” Whenever I pull into the driveway where I babysit Jack says, “Yay Nen!!” (Ben is the little boy I watch, whom Jack loves and always greets with a big hug. Unfortunately he hasn’t gotten the “B” down yet for Ben…)



One interesting development is that he recently began calling me “Anka.” It drives me crazy. Especially when we are at the grocery store as a family—a happily married and committed family—and he yells, “Daddy! Anka!” as if I am Daddy’s mistress or something. Each morning we are greeted with a delighted, “Hi Daddy! Hi Anka!” I’ve finally started to say to him, “No Jack. Not Annika. Mommy.” So occasionally now he will say, “Anka!! No… (pause) Mommy!!!” followed by a big grin.


The past few days he’s started to throw his toys up into the air just to have them come down and conk him on the head. Sometimes it gets out of hand and he ends up AIMING at the shelves of pictures on the wall. So yesterday I said to him, “Jack, that’s too much.” And for the past two days whenever he gets carried away and I say, “Jack…” he looks at me with a mischevious grin and says, “TOO MUCH!” Then last night we were walking to our car in the cold wind and Jack buried his head in Eric’s neck saying, “Too much! Too much!”


At Sunday School he learned his first song—at least the first song he’s repeated and actually sung to a tune—and the best thing is that it’s a CLEAN UP song! So whenever it’s time to put his toys or markers or blocks away, all we have to do is start singing, “Cars away, cars away, thank you for putting your cars away!” and he instantly starts singing along and putting his toys away…not only is this immensely helpful in that he doesn’t resist playtime coming to an end, but it is SO sweet to hear his little voice in this sing-song way. In fact, he some seems to want to finish what he’s doing just so he can sing the song.


Today he was watching his “Maisy” video, in which the narrator has an English accent. At one point there was a spider that came onto the screen, and Jack said, “Bug!” The narrator said, “Oh, look, Maisy, it’s a spider!” And Jack repeated just like what he had heard: “Spidah.”



He loves football these days. We almost always watch the Bears on Sunday afternoons (painfully, yes), so he loves sitting with us and yelling aggressively, “GO GO GO!!” even though neither of us ever yell like that. He also loves to throw up his arms and say, “Oh, no!” whenever any play ends. I found an Urlacher jersey at a children’s resale for $4, and he calls it his “Fuh-ball shirt” (well, he doesn’t always get the “R” in there, but he tries). He also loves wearing his Cubs baseball cap and his tennis shoes—no matter what else—if anything—he’s wearing. The only reason this is possible is that he’s learned to put on his socks and shoes by himself. Many times I’ve come in after his quiet time (i.e. Mommy-hopes-you’ll-nap-time) to find his sock drawer open and multiple layers of socks on his little feet. Since he can do this by himself, he usually has shoes and his hat on about 2.4 seconds after he wakes up in the morning. It’s quite a funny sight to witness him sitting watching his morning cartoon while still looking sleepy-eyed and rosy cheeked…and dressed to go outside.

One of his favorite cartoons at the moment is “Curious George,” which is actually quite an enjoyable little show. He can say George (minus the “R” sound), and he calls the Man in the Yellow Hat “Daddy Goh-ge.” We think this is so interesting; he calls Ben’s mom “Mama Nen” and he calls older, er, wiser-looking men, “Papa.” (Sorry Dad!) This week we were watching 101 Dalmations and when Pongo and Perdita came to rescue the puppies at the end Jack yelled, “Daddy! Anka!” Hm.



A few months ago, as he had become quite adept at using the buttons on the TV, he ended up pushing the “eject” button on the DVD side so hard that it actually popped INTO the TV and out of our reach. So at that point we were stuck with having to use the remote to open the DVD drive, which proves interesting when it is your one-year-old’s favorite toy and is often missing from sight. However…last week Ellie dropped the remote into a tub full of water. It worked okay for a few days, after drying out and getting new batteries. But then strange things started to happen.


For example, when you pressed the FF button it would mute the sound. When you hit play it would change channels. Finally, after probably a day of this madness, it just died altogether. But you know what the absolute worst, worst, WORST part about this death was? There happened to be a DVD in the DVD player that was now un-removable (is that word?). A DVD that was borrowed from the library. One that I could not WAIT to give back. One that my husband WILLINGLY checked out at Jack’s request, even though we have watched all the other ones and I have hated them all equally and begged and begged for them to be destroyed eternally—all copies, everywhere. And now I might have to actually pay for and OWN this movie? HECK NO.

AIR BUD: WORLD PUP.




Just the thought of this soccer-playing-dog disaster flick makes me shudder. I am praying desperately for the TV to work again very soon so we can get this awful excuse for a movie back to the library without having to pay for it. And just for the record…guess what Eric checked out at the library with Jack this week? AIR BUD: SEVENTH INNING FETCH. “But we haven’t seen that one!” Oh. My. Goodness.



Speaking of prayer…tonight as we prayed, Jack repeated just about every prayer request, which is so precious to hear. When we prayed for family, he said the names after me, “Daddy. Mommy. Ah-yee. Papa. Gram-ca (his version of Grandma). Nana. Grampapa (or something like this, for Grandpa Marc). Connie (for Grandma Connie). Rika (Aunt Marika). Jon. Beebee Sol. Mika. Simin (Simeon). Manna (Amanda, neighbor girl). Anna (sick girl at church).” At the end he said, “Tee-too Gee-sss. Ah-meen.” What wonderful words to witness.



Lastly…any ideas what a “munch” is? I promise it’s not what you might think. It took us awhile to figure it out, but here are a few clues: “Mama, watch!” “Daddy, doggie sockr.” Ellie: Hm…I wonder what would happen if I put the munch in the bathtub… Mommy: “Oh, no, Eric! The munch is broken!!!!!”


For my own sake (and possibly any interested grandparents or aunts and uncles), I’m going to list his current words…please don’t feel obligated to read my list…I know it’s more for my own fascination years down the road…


Pizza passa (pasta) cheese bet (bread) peas mak (milk) ice wawo (ice water) fuh-bah (fruit bar, often confused with football) ckr ckr (cracker) cookie ice keem chochit (chocolate) appo nana (banana) beh-fis (breakfast) nunch (lunch) dinno (dinner) boo (bowl) pate (plate) fohk (fork) poon (spoon) pup (cup)


Doggie puppy ki-ee (kittey) monking (monkey) chi-chen (chicken, also kitchen) sox (fox) ratoon (raccoon) A-fant (elephant) RARRR! (lion) peeg (pig) oww or “oo-oo!” (owl) sish (fish) bid (bird)


Ah-pane (airplane) choo-choo or twain choo choo twacks cahs (cars) twucks boat bike


One two free foh fize six seh-men eight nine ten eh-neh-men tweve tirteen porteen fizteen sixteen seh-menteen eighteen nineteen (although usually not in order, more like, “1, 2, 5, 6, 10” or sometimes he points as he counts and says, “1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, TEN!!!!”)


Mah-kuhs (markers) cuhrs (colors, meaning crayons) popper (paper) books watch (meaning movie please) bocks (blocks) socky (soccer ball) basset ball (basketball) fuh-ball baseball pay (play)


bweenkie (blankie) nigh-night jamma time guys (referring to your three musketeers: puppy, baby bear, and doctor bear—your bedtime buddies) wops (wipes) duper (diaper) shit (shirt, though there is a hint of an “R” so it doesn’t always sound like profanity) pants socks shoes hat coat


Jack Jackson Mommy/Mama/Anka Daddy/Eh-ick Aye-yee (Ellie) Papa Gram-ca (Grandma Whitaker ) Nana (Eric’s mom) Connie (Grandma Connie) Gramp-ca (or some version of “grandpa” and “gramca” and “papa,” for Grandpa Marc) Rika and Jon (aunt and uncle) Bee-bee Sol (Solomon) Mika (Mikaila) Simin (Simeon) Nanen (Nathan) Bob (Rob) Nanet (Janet) Ee-mee (Amy, Mommy’s friend) Nen, Ah-yee, Joe, Smmm (Ben, Allie, Joe, and Sam)


Sat (sad) boon (ballon) awight (alright) uh-kay ah done tee-too (thank you) up hop (help) see uh-men (oven) cook hot white snow yights (lights)


chuch (church) Gee-ss (Jesus) pay (pray) ah-meen (amen) sing


Eye-you (I love you) Bye bye ‘Min! (come in!) He-yo (hello) Wheresaball (toy/book/blankie/car, etc.)? No push Aye-yee Sah-ee (sorry) Jack no touch



He has so many more words than this, and he learns more and refines the old every day. What an exciting time in life, to watch actual ongoing development right before your eyes. My mom always teases me when I beam with pride over his cognitive growths, because she says it’s the “teacher in me,” which I guess I partly true. I am fascinated by child development, so it’s probably one of the reasons I was drawn to teaching the little ones. But I also think that most parents must go through at least some phase (if not all phases!)where they are in awe of their child’s abilities and developmental progress. I was recently reading in a parenting book about the stage from infancy to five years, and how the one word that characterizes this time is change. There is such rapid growth and development, they say, that many parents end up thinking their child is a genius because “They catch on so fast!” or “He learned ten new words today” or that kind of thing. When in reality, most kids DO develop and change at these ridiculous paces during these years. So teacher or parent—I am loving Jack’s changing abilities and having a front row seat for the day to day progression of toddler to pre-K little boy.


Although… I could write an entirely different post about the things I especially do NOT like about this stage, such as the daily challenging of our authority and his hourly choices to disobey…these aspects of this age are wearing me out. But let’s save that discussion for another day.


P.S. I tried to do spell check before I posted this, but it was taking so long because of all the phonetically spelled words that I gave up. Sorry.



P.P.S. Just a little disclaimer: I am so fed up with Blogger. Every single time I add a picture or change a format it adds about three spaces between each paragraph. I cannot for the life of me get it to look normal. So, I have no idea how it will post.