boy 1

boy 2

jack-a-mo

john has been playing that "my grandma and your grandma sitting by the fire, my grandma says to your grandma 'I'm gonna set your flag on fire' ... talkin' 'bout hey now, hey now, iko iko an nay, jockomo feena ah na nay, jockomo feena nay" (lyrics sites rock). anyway, aidan has taken to calling jack jack-a-mo, which is what i think john was trying to do in the first place by playing the song over and over and over. i broke every rule i had in child naming when we chose jack. a name that does not easily morph into other forms (jack in the box, jack o lantern, crackerjack, hijack, the list goes on and on and on) was one of my big no no's. whoops. and thank you to john for encouraging our first son to use one of these variations.

setting:
aidan supposed to be napping, but awake.
jack supposed to be napping, but apparently hungry and fussing.
aidan loudly from behind his closed bedroom door, "MOMMY! MOMMY, WHERE ARE YOU? jack-a-mo is crying, jack-a-mo is hungry, jack-a-mo needs a bottle. JACK-A-MO! WHERE IS JACK-A-MO? JACK-A-MO! JACK-A-MO! JACK-A-MO!"

baby+toddler=less blog

aidan's new trick is this puzzle of united states. he has west of the mississipi and the southeast down perfectly. that whole northeast thing is a bit of a quandary. for those of you that live in arkansas, utah, pennsylvania and missouri i've made sure he knows those states belong to you. as we're approaching three (uh, nine months away) he seems to be able to focus on one task for a longer period of time. this is generally helpful to me and generally very helpful to the teachers at school, gymnastics, etc. it is not helpful when he decides to focus that attention on torturing cats (we had an incident with a rock yesterday), throwing tantrums or painting the wall.

here is an attempt to get both kids to pose for a picture. about two of the twenty i took came out. in most of the pictures aidan is trying to accost jack and jack just has that silly grin on his face. we have some version of leapfrog going on in some, excessive hugging in most and he still likes to squeeze jack's nose. odd.

and here's jack. still the easiest little thing ever created. certainly based on the stories i've heard of my childhood, i don't deserve to have this child. clearly, he should have been jeff's. i'm extremely grateful at my good fortune though. he's sitting up pretty well, not rolling over (the doctor says his head is probably too heavy for him. yes, she really said that), he babbles a ton and has started doing a very high pitched scream. oh, and he's none too pleased when everyone walks out of the room on him.