"What's That?"

All of a sudden Jackson is talking in small sentences: "that's a bagel," "ut-ohh it dropped" (unfortunately those happened in sequence). He's calling himself "Jack," labeling things as belonging to people "Set's blanket," "Daddy's chair," and has switched from calling me "Mama" to "Mommy," which I like. This language explosion comes with the constant and adorable question "What's That?" which he asks about everything that he doesn't know the name for. He has also memorized the names of sea creatures in his book and can tell you which one's the minnow, anchovie, guppy, sawfish, etc. I think "Max the Minnow" has officially unseated "The Pout-Pout Fish" for favorite read.

As he's approaching his 2nd birthday next week, Jack's doing all kinds of wonderful things: singing to himself in the car, commentating his own play, playing imaginative games ALONE for a few minutes (victory halleluiah), dancing and prancing whenever he feels happy, and playing a chase game with Dan who wears a monkey mask (Jackson is actually quite terrified of Monkey-Dan, but wants to continue playing the game after checking that it is truly Daddy under the "ee-ee" mask.) He's also constantly scraping his knees, trying to chew on rocks, and drinking out of the water-table in the yard. He's not very civilized. I have some work ahead of me yet!

Playing monkey-chase, wearing a bowl as a hat