Dress Up and Kisses

The fall is in full swing. Tom has been extremely busy with band rehearsals. Jackson and I end up playing quite a bit in the evenings. He loves shopping with his plastic shopping cart. Usually, he races around the house, stopping just inches away from the walls or white cabinets. He's been running so fast with it that he's spun the wheels off of the cart several times.Jackson's vocabulary has started exploding lately, and it's much more clear. I love talking with him on our way to and from daycare. Usually he tells me that he's going to play with Nash that day, and then after some prodding, he includes the other kids in his class. Before we go to bed, Jackson repeats what I saw during bedtime prayers. It's so cute to hear him say "Dear God.....Amen".

When we walk out of the door from daycare, he points out who the parents belong to...such as Cort Dada or Reese Mama. It's amazing how much they really know at this age! Jackson has even learned directions. In the mornings, we like to play the directions game. I ask Jackson which way to go, and he tells me. He really does know the way to his daycare from our house. Sometimes, he'll tell me the wrong way, but he does it with a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous smile. When I ask him if that's really where we should turn, he'll shake his head and say "Nooooo" with a big smile and laugh.

Today as I was picking Jackson up, Owen's mom told me the cutest story about Jackson. This morning while she was dropping off Owen, she had asked Owen for a hug and a kiss. Owen wasn't going to give her one. Jackson heard her ask, and he rushed over and gave her both a hug and a kiss. Ms. Pam also said that Jackson loves to give hugs, and he'll run over to each of the teachers and give them a random hug throughout the day. We love your hugs, Jackson! They're the best.

We're still trying to decide what Jackson will be for Halloween. I think he should be Woody. He LOVES Toy Story right now, especially Woody. He likes to ride his rocking horse and whips his yellow hard hat around his head while saying something (we're still trying to figure it out). Tom got him the cutest pajamas for the fall. I couldn't help but try them out one night because they were so cute.

Jackson has also become very attached to the Backyardigans stuffed animals. He carries them everywhere, and lists them off by name. We can't take just one or two with us somewhere - it has to be all of them. Here he is carrying 3 of them around the house.

At night, he has to now have all of them in his arms for his bedtime story, and then we have to situate all 4 of them in bed with him. Sometimes I wonder if there is going to be room for Jackson in the bed between Petey, the 4 backyardigan animals, Quackers, and his blanket.

I think Jackson is starting to become afraid of the dark. He makes me turn his closet light on at night (with the doors slightly open), and he has to have his friends surrounding him. It's so pitiful at night hearing him cry "Mama, Mama...please?" We're also wondering if he has hurt his right knee. For the last several days, he's been telling us his knee hurts. One night, he even sat in our laps and let us put ice on it. We can't figure it out. Lately, he usually only tells us that when it's time to put him in bed...anytime he's hurt, we cuddle him extra long....and he eventually winds up in our bed. Keep your fingers crossed that it's not really hurt and he's instead just figured out how to get extra cuddle time!

Another favorite of Jackson's right now is wearing our shoes. I'll frequently see him clomping around the house in my heels or shuffling along the floor in Tom's tennis shoes. So cute! I remember doing that when I was a little girl. Hard to believe that someday, Jackson's feet will be as big as ours!

Kaleidoscope

Tom and I had been talking about taking Jackson on his first family vacation. We were trying to figure out what cities had children's museums....and then we realized that Tulsa had their own children's museum. So, we decided to check it out with Josh and Shannon White and their two kids, Sam and Ben. Jackson had a blast. We easily could have spent 1/2 a day there. He spent the first 1/2 hr in the restaurant room and seemed to have a lot of fun using the cash register and scanner to ring up our food purchases. He also liked sitting at the small tables. We pulled him away from that room into the "grocery store". Jackson loves shopping, especially pushing shopping carts. There was another young girl there (maybe 7 yrs old?) who was playing in the store, too. She kept reminding Jackson of various items on his "list". After he was done shopping, he took everything out of the cart (with a little help), and she rang him up. It was cute watching them play together.

From there, we went into the black light room. Jackson loved the containers with bubbles and the multi-colored lights. Each container had a small plastic fish in it, and Jackson loved trying to figure out where "Nemo" was. They also had a game where you were supposed to hit the button as it lit up....Jackson was way better than Josh or Tom! The next weekend, we came back to Kaleidoscope. We had been giving him some eye drops to prevent an eye infection. When we got in the black light room, it looked like Jackson had a batman mask on....he had rubbed his eyes when we put the eye drops in, and the eye drops were fluorescent in the black light. It was pretty freaky. A couple parents had to ask if he was ok...we all had a pretty good laugh over that one.

Kaleidoscope also has a great indoor playground. Tom went in with them because Sam and Jackson weren't quite ready to get to the 2nd level on their own. Once they got up to the 2nd level, they had a lot of fun. It's kind of like a maze with 2 levels and slides. They had a great time playing there.

They also had large portable pieces for building. Tom built a mini-castle for Jackson with entrances to crawl through.

The playhouse was totally kid-sized. It had an upstairs, and the downstairs was constructed like a regular living room, complete with kid-sized chairs, recliners, and a fake fireplace. It was also the

dinosaur room with lots of dinosaur figures and a kid-sized triceratops that kids could climb on.

I think Jackson's favorite part (other than the playground) was the stage. Jackson is such a little performer. Between the hats, the costumes, the microphone, and the tambourine, he was all set for a great performance. I love how he's just throwing his hands up in the air here, almost like he's saying "Look at me!"

Fun at the Kiddie Park

One of our new favorite places is the Kiddie Park in Bartlesville. Unfortunately, we didn't learn about it until their season was almost over, but we were able to visit twice before they closed for the year. Jackson and I went with Sara Delgado and her family first. It was so cute to watch Jackson and Sara's son, Finn, interact with each other. The Kiddie Park has a little bit of everything for kids of different ages - a train that goes around the park, small roller coasters, cars they can "drive", etc. And almost all of the rides are 25 cents!

Jackson's favorite ride was the horse-drawn carriage. He had so much fun pulling on the reins and saying "Giddy-up!". For his first ride, he said "Wow!" at least 1/2 the time through it. The look on his face was pure joy. By the end of the evening, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much just watching him have so much fun. The second day we went to the park, it was packed. Rather than each child getting to ride on the rides by themselves, they had to share with someone else that they didn't know. I didn't quite know how Jackson would react to that, but I think he had even more fun sitting with someone else. Jackson spent half the time just smiling and being friendly to the other kids.

Jackson and Finn also rode the boats together. Jackson looked to Finn a lot to see what he was doing. I was pretty nervous - I was afraid Jackson would stand up, crawl out of the boat and fall into the water! Thankfully, Finn was there to keep Jackson preoccupied.

We rode the train both times we were there. We got some great pics. Jackson liked waving to others from the train and yelled with excitement when going through the "tunnel". The cars on the train were definitely designed for little kids, though....it was funny watching Jackson push his way between Papa and Gramma to get his seat!

The carousel was not a hit, to my surprise. I thought Jackson would have liked riding on the horses, but I think this one was a little fast for him (and me!). The first time, he lasted about 1/4 of the way through and spent the rest of the ride in my arms. I thought of Dad quite a bit on this ride - even I was getting dizzy! When both Tom and I were riding with Jackson, he started to feel a little more comfortable - even to the point of waving to Papa and Gramma on the sidelines...which made me extremely nervous!

Jackson had so much fun at the park...and it wasn't just on the rides, either. Papa let Jackson have his first taste of popcorn, which he LOVED. And he took full advantage of the music playing over the loudspeakers to pass the time while waiting in the line. I'm a little worried....Jackson loves popcorn, dancing, singing, and shopping. I think Jackson takes after Johnnie more than me!