"Wash" Park

The past several days Jesse has been constantly begging for us to take him to his favorite park, Harold Washington Park, which he calls "wash".  Last night James decided we should go after dinner, so we walked down to the park, and Jesse had a blast.  James insisted that Jesse wear his bathing suit because he thought he would want to get in the water.  I was pretty sure that Jesse would not want to get wet because he hasn't been a fan of the water fountains lately, but I was wrong.  He had a blast!  

Today Jesse begged all morning for "wash", so this afternoon after his nap I finally took him.  He was so excited to go, but when I turned the stroller in a direction he wasn't expecting (had to run by Starbucks first for some caffeine for myself), he nearly flipped out.  Once we got there, he had the time of his life.  I don't know what it is about this park.  

I captured some good facial expressions in these.  Ha!

Poor City Boy

Jesse has recently started flocking to the bushes and the tall weeds and grasses on the playground.  I keep joking that he is a poor city boy who has some type of nature deprivation.  He loves to just sit in the grass and chill.  Today we went to a friend's new place, and before I knew it he was off exploring the bushes, having the time of his life.  Ironically, I am getting ready to start reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.  Perhaps Jesse is suffering from this disorder?

Interviews with Jesse

Here are some conversations between me and Jesse at lunch.  In the first one, we had been talking about Nana and Pop, so when I say "where do they live?", that's who I'm referring to.



In case you can't understand all of the "Jesse talk" in the second one, when I asked Jesse if George (Curious George, Jesse's favorite stuffed monkey) went with us, his response was "stuck the door" because he did get stuck between two glass doors.  Obviously Jesse still has trouble with that "st" sound. ;)

19 Months

Here we are at 19 months, closer to 2 years than 1 year!  I can hardly believe it!  Here is a not-so-quick update.  I always get carried away, but I don't want to forget all these things.

- Jesse loves his books more than ever.  If we are at home, he spends the majority of his time looking at books and bringing books to us to read.  I realized the other day that I have hardly picked up any toys all week because he only wants to get out books.  He has a really great attention span when it comes to books, but a much shorter one when it comes to playing with toys.  Some favorite books are Grover Sleeps Over, Freight Train, Green Eggs and Ham, and Cranes.

- He loves to "read" us his books.  He goes through the pages, giving us one-word explanations of each one.

- Jesse got a stuffed Curious George from Grandma and he was instantly attached.  He takes George lots of places and pretends to feed him and put him to sleep.

- Just this past week or so, Jesse has begun to speak in a lot of two-word phrases.  Some that come to mind are "Mommy sleepy", "Daddy work", "Mommy a girl" and "Daddy a boy".

- He still really loves cranes.  One of his favorite books right now is a book about different types of cranes and the parts of a crane.  He gets so excited every time we see one in the neighborhood.

- When we go to our nearby produce store, Jesse begs for cookies because the cashiers always give cookies to the kids in the check-out line.  A couple weeks ago I realized he was quietly saying "coooookieeeeee" when we were in line.  Now he is not quiet at all.  In fact, today he was saying "coooookieeeeee" from the moment we walked in the store.  I'm pretty sure the cashier thought he was a starving child.

- It's so fun to be able to see Jesse's ability to communicate grow and grow.  The other day Jesse was at the table eating his afternoon snack and he looked at me and said "walk.....school".  I took this to mean that he wanted to go see James at school (a few times we have taken a walk to campus to walk home with James), so I asked him if he wanted to go see Daddy.  He nodded vigorously and pointed to the hallway and said "stroller".  As soon as he was down from his chair he went to his room and got his shoes and was trying his very hardest to get them on his feet so we could go.  Then he was at the door banging on it and yelling "Daddy!".  So sweet.

- Still loves to help around the house.  If he is in another room and hears me loading or unloading silverware in the dishwasher he runs into the kitchen and asks to help by saying "help...fork", because he loves loading and unloading utensils.  He also loves to help Daddy take out the trash and the recycling.

- We always say a prayer with Jesse before bed, and Jesse now likes to add to the prayer by saying "church" and "park", so we make sure to include those in the things we are thankful for.  It's hard to tell how much he really understands of what we're doing, but he clearly wants to participate by adding to the prayer.
 
- Over the past couple weeks, Jesse has become quite possessive when playing with other kids.  Previously he might get upset if another kid took a toy away, but now he doesn't want anyone to even come near the toys he is playing with (especially the Cozy Coupe in the tot lot and the slides on the playground).

- He is still a really good eater, although last week he refused dinner almost every night and didn't eat well throughout the day either.  This week he is back to his normal self and is eating everything we give him and more.

Peanut butter is a messy snack.  Jesse loves to dip apple slices in peanut butter.

Here is Jesse's new "book nook".  I got this bookshelf down in our laundry room (there is a place where people can put things they want to get rid of so that others in the building can take anything they want) and painted it while we were in Arkansas.  This is where we spend lots of time when we are home.  Of course, it doesn't usually look this neat.
 

New Playground

Sunday we explored a new park just about 3 miles north of us on the lake.  The park opened in June, and we always noticed it when we would bike past it on the lake front trail, but we just now got around to actually making it our destination.  It was just a 10-15 minute bike ride away, and it was definitely not like any other park I've ever visited.  I'm not sure how to describe it exactly.  The play structures and the landscaping reminded me of a Dr. Seuss book.

There was an assortment of slides.  The toddler slide...

The conveyor belt slide...

The long, steep slide...

And then this one, which James had fun trying out.

There were also lots of climbing opportunities (as you can see, a lot of the equipment is geared toward older kids).

Of course, Jesse eventually discovered the water fountains.

Another kid demonstrated for him that you can turn on the water by touching this pole.  Jesse thought this was just about the coolest thing ever (it's not so cool, though, when you are hanging out under a fountain and the water gets unexpectedly turned on by another kid, which Jesse experienced this past Friday at another park).

I love the trees!

And the great views!

Crown Fountain

Jesse and I ventured downtown with some friends yesterday afternoon.  He had a great time splashing around in the Crown Fountain at Millennium Park.  We are looking forward to soaking up this last month of summer!

He spotted the orange cones right away and ran back and forth between them most of the time.

I asked Jesse and Kayla to pose for a picture, and this is what I got.

I wonder if Jesse was trying to copy the pose of the woman behind him?

Ladies' Man

Jesse still loves to give kisses, and a lot of times it's unprompted.  I meant to post these cute pictures a long time ago (thanks to Andrea for taking these!).  These were taken on the 4th of July, when Jesse spontaneously joined his 4-month-old (at the time) friend Charlotte on her play mat and wouldn't stop smooching her and staring her in the eyes.  I have to say that this is a big step up from his previous attempts at interacting with other kids, which mainly consisted of him whacking them on the head with his hands.

18 Months

I am a bit behind on posting these days.  It always takes me longer to catch-up from a trip than I think it will. Now that I am actually getting around to writing Jesse's 18-month update, he is closer to 19 months than 18 months.

- Books are still the activity of choice for Jesse most of the time.  He is always bringing us books to read to him.  Recently we got out a box of my old books and Jesse has picked out a lot of new favorites.  I don't think we'll be needing a trip to the library anytime in the near future, because he has barely scratched the surface with these.  Some of his favorites are "The Three Bears", "The Firefighters Counting Book", "Grey Rabbit's 123", and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".  When we get to the end he usually says "again" and will sit through it at least once more, and maybe twice.  For now he doesn't seem interested in his board books, but I'm sure once these "new" books lose their newness, he will be interested in those again.

- Jesse also really loves going to any playground.  He loves climbing and sliding, and just the other day mastered some ladders on the playground beside our building.  He also just decided that he likes the swings. Previously he would only last about 30 seconds before he wanted to get down and run around, but now he will stay in for at least 5 or 10 minutes.

- Loves to use the word "no".  Some days he literally wakes up saying this word and won't stop. When we hear him in his crib muttering "no", we know it's probably not going to be one of his better mornings.  He doesn't say "yes" yet, but he does nod his head.

- Over the past month he has developed an attachment to some of his stuffed animals (his monkey, Monk, and giraffe, Jerry).  They sleep in his bed at night, and even though they have been in his bed for quite a while, he just now seems to really want them.  If we forget one of them at bedtime, he will ask for it.  He often wants to take them out of his crib with him in the morning, too.

- He learned the song "My God is so Big" from my Mom and will do some of the motions and finish some of the sentences.  At the end of the song, he always says "church", because they also sing this song in his class at church.

- We realized that he has some concept of where he is in our neighborhood.  He often points towards church and says "church" (coming from different directions) and somehow he always seems to know where the crane is, even when it's out of sight.

- He loves to walk places, so as long as we're not going more than 3 or 4 blocks or bringing back groceries, we let him.  He is very good about holding our hands.

- He is not a huge fan of pools, unless they are kiddie pools.  He has been in a pool several times this past month and just seemed discontent both times.

- Jesse is generally very happy and goes with the flow.  The only time I really feel like he is very difficult is at mealtimes.  He is still a good eater, but he really loves to throw his food and his cup.  He seems to go through phases where he eats really well and throws food only a little bit, and then he'll go through phases where it seems like all he wants to do is test his limits and he will hardly eat a thing.  

Visitors

James' Mom and aunt drove me and Jesse back to Chicago last week and stayed with us for a few days.  Here are some of the highlights of their visit (thanks to my mother-in-law for the pictures!).

1. Giordano's Pizza.  Deep-dish pizza is a must on any trip to the Windy City.  Jesse has gobbled it up in the past, but would only eat a few bites this time.  I'm not sure what there isn't to like about it, but for whatever reason it just wasn't his thing that day.

2. Millenium Park in scorching heat and very high humidity.  We got quite a bit of exercise and we felt like we were going to die of heat exhaustion walking from the car to the Bean.  It was my fault, since I didn't realize we could have parked much closer than we did.  We survived, though.

3. The Shedd.  Jesse loves this place.  It is especially great how he can just walk right up to the glass and see in.  He loved seeing the dolphins and whales and penguins, and he especially loved playing in the Polar Play Zone, where kids can pretend to be penguins by climbing up rocks and sliding down chunks of "ice".

This was right before the start of the biggest meltdown I've ever seen Jesse have.  He was totally done seeing the fish, and even though he ended up doing fine once we got out of the aquarium, the meltdown continued (and grew a lot worse) once we got back to our building.  There was lots of flailing and screaming and head throwing, but once dinner was served he went back to his normal self.

4.  And of course, Jesse loved all the time spent with Grandma and Aunt Carol (not to mention getting to see Daddy again).