ABCs and 123s

Most of the time we have lived in Chicago, Jesse has always seemed fascinated by the numbers that pop up on the screen in the elevator. Since we live on the second floor, he sees the number two a lot. Back in the fall I would always tell him what it was since he seemed so fixated with it.

One day a month or so back when we were riding the elevator he started pointing at the 2 on the screen and it sounded an awful lot like he was actually saying "two". When we got home, I wrote it down on an index card and asked him what it was and sure enough, he said it again. We have continued to notice that he is really intrigued by numbers and letters. He is always pointing at big letters on his books and he notices them when we are out on walks. One day we were driving through a parking deck and he kept saying "two, two, two, two". Sure enough, we were on the second floor and there were big posters with the number 2 on them. I am amazed at how he can pick them out anywhere!

Since then he has also figured out 1, 3, T, and P and B (but these he gets confused sometimes). The other day James was playing with him outside and they found a random foam "G" on the playground; Jesse was enamored with it, so we went out and got him a set of foam letters and numbers to play with in the bath tub. He loves them!

Playing Peekaboo

Just some footage of Jesse playing a game of peekaboo with us tonight before bed.

The Horse Says Neigh

Jesse learned in the past week or so that the horse says "neigh". Until about two weeks ago, this boy could not be convinced that the majority of animals don't say "baa". He would tell us the sounds of lots of strange animals (by strange I mean not-your-traditional-first-animal-sounds kind of animals) like the rhinoceros, snake and owl, but nearly every other animal said "baa", no matter how many times we told him otherwise. I guess he finally had a breakthrough. He just got a Fisher Price Farm last week, and it is one of his favorite toys. Whenever he sees it he starts saying "neigh" over and over and over and over.

Spring Break Fun: Part 4

On our last day together we took a little day trip to some sand dunes along the coast of Lake Michigan. First we checked out Warren Dunes State Park in southern Michigan. It's about an hour and a half from Chicago, so we got there mid morning and took a hike over a dune and out to the lake for a picnic lunch. Since Jesse has outgrown his Baby Bjorn, James got to carry Jesse in the Moby Wrap, which meant having to carry 27+ pounds all in front. I'll have to say that I'm so glad it wasn't me having to do the hard work!

We saw a really neat "sandfall" on the first part of our hike...

Jesse had fun walking in the sand, although it was a little tricky at first.

We went down to the water, and I let Jesse get his feet wet. He thought it was pretty fun and cried when we had to leave.
We saw lots of flowers blooming. I still can't get over this crazy weather we've been having!

After spending the morning at Warren Dunes, we drove back towards Chicago and stopped at Indiana Dunes State Park. The plan was for Jesse to take his nap in the car on the way to Indiana Dunes, but he had other plans. James finally got him to settle down enough on our hike at Indiana Dunes, and he got a good 45-minute nap in the wrap.

It was so nice and peaceful to get out of the city for the day and enjoy some nature!

Spring Break Fun: Part 3

Monday morning we took a walk along the lake path to one of our favorite local spots, Promontory Point. Last time we were here, all Jesse wanted to do was play with our bike trailer, and this time all he wanted to do was play with his stroller.

Crossing the bridge over Lake Shore Drive...

Picture with Grandma and Grandpa at the Point:

Here he is playing with the straps on his stroller. He is super fascinated by any type of strap (strollers, high chairs, etc.). I think he is working on figuring out how they work so that he can plan some escapes.

Climbing on the stroller proved to be lots of fun, too.

Spring Break Fun: Part 2

Our church meets late afternoon on Sunday, so we decided to spend Sunday morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo. It's a pretty small zoo, but admission is free and Jesse still doesn't really have a huge appreciation for seeing all the animals, so it was a perfect outing for us. He seemed to be most fascinated by the zebras, swinging monkeys and the polar bear (oh, and all the birds flying around in the sky that weren't part of an exhibit...he was constantly pointing to them and saying "bee, bee, bee"). He also perfected his monkey sound (ah, ah, ah, ah) on the trip and has added this one to his repertoire of animal sounds.

Spring Break Fun: Part 1

We had a fun time with James' parents over the first half of spring break. The weather has continued to be incredible, with highs in the 80s, so we have tried to soak up all the time we can outdoors.

When they arrived on Saturday afternoon, we spent a little bit of time on the playground outside our building. Jesse has just gotten to the age where he really enjoys it. Back in the fall when we would go out to the playground, it was a constant battle to keep him from eating all the wood chips, but now he entertains himself quite well playing with all the riding toys and climbing all over the equipment. All the pictures in this post and subsequent posts were taken by James' Mom. It sure was nice to not have to worry about lugging my camera bag around, and she got some great shots of Jesse while they were here!

Winter? What's that?

We have had some marvelous weather this past week with highs in the 70s and even low 80s! I am in disbelief...five months ago I remember getting out to enjoy what I thought would be our last nice days before winter hit, but then those nice days just kept coming and coming. We've had some cold and snow, but it hasn't been much worse than an Arkansas winter. All of the experienced Chicagoans say that winter never came this year, and I am definitely not complaining!

We have been spending lots of time out at the playground this week, where Jesse has taken a liking to climbing all over the playground equipment. He started out the week struggling to walk on all the wood chips at the playground, but now he is getting around like a pro.

Today was James' first official day of spring break (yay!), so we decided to take a family bike ride this afternoon. Jesse loved riding along in his bike trailer. He screamed bloody murder when we put his helmet on him, but as soon as he started moving, he really seemed to have a blast. We ended up riding down our street and crossing over Lake Shore Drive to the lakefront bike path, which led us to Promontory Point (a big piece of land jutting out into the lake), where we stopped and let Jesse roam around for a bit before heading back home.

As soon as we let him out of the trailer to play, all he wanted to do was get back in the trailer and examine all the straps and wheels.

No matter how far away we took him from the bike trailer, he immediately began walking straight back to it. This is what he looked like when we tried to distract him.

Heading back to the bike trailer yet again...

Almost there...

My Husband, The Chef

Before Jesse was born, I really enjoyed cooking and trying all sorts of new recipes. Now, it is more of a chore. I mean, it's just not as fun when you have someone constantly hanging onto your legs or trying to come into the kitchen to hang onto your legs (but screaming because he is being prevented from doing so).

Several times recently James has taken it upon himself to cook us a really nice meal. We decided that once or twice a month we should eat a nice, uninterrupted dinner once Jesse is asleep. Tonight was our second time to do this, and it was so, so nice to not have to do any of the cooking!

Tonight's menu included baked lemon pepper chicken, fettuccine tossed with sautéed beet greens and bacon, beet chips and broiled pineapple with frozen yogurt for dessert. All the recipes (except for the chicken) came from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. Here's what these dishes looked like when Martha made them. My pictures didn't turn out very good, but the food definitely looked (and tasted) very yummy!

And just in case you came here wanting pictures of Jesse, here are some new ones.

He's learning and changing a lot these days, but this is not one of his finer accomplishments:

Family Photo Albums

Since we now live 10+ hours from both sets of Grandparents, my Mom and James' Mom made photo books for Jesse so that he can have pictures of each side of the family. We look at them a lot and we name each family member, but it wasn't until this weekend that we realized that he now knows who most people are. I wasn't too surprised that he could find both sets of Grandparents (since he has spent lots of time with them and we Skype with them fairly regularly), but it kind of freaked me out when he knew exactly where his Uncle Steve, Aunt Lisa, Aunt Katie and great-Grandmother (my Dad's Mom) were in the photo books (but the only one he gets consistently of those four is his Uncle Steve).

I've been trying to get some on video for the Grandparents to see. Here he is yesterday morning finding his Grandmama and Granddaddy and Uncle Steve. I haven't managed to get good footage of him finding my parents yet (ran out of time on my video camera), but I hope to soon.

Pretend Water

Here is Jesse pretending to drink water from a cup. He started doing this a couple weeks ago with the play dishes down in the tot lot and did it again today when playing with his plastic cups and bowls.