I blame my ovaries for this

I need to blog more. It's really cathartic, and cheaper than a therapist! (only half kidding...) I do want to run down a few things that have developed as we enter the new year:

1. Jett responds to questions now with a head shake or nod. This is the most amazing development yet. He can also mimic Cash, the dog, in howling. It is really quite precious to hear. He will also give hugs on request (and kisses, if he's feeling up for it). He also brings over the dish towel (when prompted) and rubs it around in any spill he's made on the floor. And he still loves to throw things away. Almost forgot: he's on the verge of speaking. He's trying to repeat certain words we say, like sticker, and kitty. Amazing.

2. Jett is still a sick-prone kid who needs a crap-ton of sleep and who rather rapidly turns into this tantrumy, terrible, whiny monster of a kid when he's running low on energy. Which is often. It's as though he's not yet acquired the energy stores for all the energy he's attempting to spend daily and is always in the red. Always. This kid is not pleasant to deal with between the hours of 4 and 7. And many hours in between. Not that being sick helps. Add an illness into the mix (current illness? Hand, foot and mouth disease...) and he's even more irritable and less able to stay awake for even briefer periods of the day.

3. 2012 will not be the year Jett gets a sibling. Or 2013-2017, per my IUD timeline. I love my baby, but he's all we can handle, and I don't feel like taking chances (or acquiescing, yet, to Kenny's request for a vasectomy).

4. Jett's a nanny'd kid again. We pulled him about of daycare not because we thought he'd get sick there, but because he'll get sick anywhere and his being sick is inevitable and I didn't want to stress about rearranging work schedules to be home with him when he was infectious and couldn't be around other kids. The new nanny is practically a second mom, with her own 1-year-old, and Jett is still getting to hang out with at least one peer. It's been a great relationship thus far, and we'll probably send him back to regular school once winter, and the height of the cold and flu season, is over at the end of March.

5. Kenny and I still take turns being the patient one with Jett, and being the frazzled, frustrated, close-to-losing-our-shit parent that Jett so easily brings out in us. But we have this perfect tango down, perhaps because we've been performing this routine for just shy of a year and a half now. Kenny ends up with the demeanor of a saint with Jett on those days that I come home and can't even kick my shoes off without shouting. And vice versa. I'm Calm Mom on those nights that Kenny's at wit's end. There are nights, like tonight, when Jett can start to fry even the calm one's nerves, but that's usually when bedtime hits and all is good with order restored again.

This kid is amazing in all the things he's learning right now. But he sure does make us appreciate the precious downtime hours we get when he's asleep.