THIS, I am going to miss

I am going to look back years from now and wish I'd kept this up more frequently, to document all of Jett's activities and patterns and funny things he says at each age. I'm going to do myself a solid and try to document some of this now.

Jett still loves to eat, but is easily distracted from dinner because playing is FAR too attractive an activity over eating. He still loves his Kitty for bedtime but thankfully, gave up his pacifier around two months ago. He went to bed two nights in a row randomly forgetting to ask for it, so I figured he could probably live without it. We "lost" it on the third night, and after spending 10 minutes thoroughly scouring his room and the bathroom, he seemed satisfied to know it was just plain lost and we moved on. He sees pacifiers every day at Nanny Jourdan's house, and is never tempted. We were prepared for the end of the world when the pacifier separation day came, but it turned out to be one of the easier things we've dealt with.

Potty training has also been somewhat easy thus far. Without much effort (baiting him with Skittles), Jett is able to use the potty chair regularly and accurately, but only if his pants aren't on. As long as he's naked from the waist down and his potty chair is in plain sight, he'll stop what he's doing to run over and take a #1 or #2. And I can just sit on the couch and read my book and he'll come let me know what he's done because he expects his reward: 1 "potty Skittle" for #1, 2 "potty Skittles" for #2. Our neighbors recommended this approach as it worked for her kids 15 years ago, and it's worked quite well for us, if only because Jett never gets refined sugar and even 1 Skittle is a precious, coveted treat. The trick is now to work on Jett's recognition of the "urge" when wearing pants...

Jett is talking nonstop, though it's not all understood. He was screaming Daddy dancing tonight but it turns out he wanted to show Daddy his dolphin. When he first wakes up in the morning, he'll announce it happily: "I wake up!" Santa says "ho, ho, ho." Shoes and juice are very easily misinterpreted. If he wants a light turned off, or the TV turned off, or whatever else he's dictating that day, it's "ock." Monsters are friendly, but pronounced "montser." There are more times than not where, in the absence of context, I'm at a total loss and have to admit to Jett that I can't fulfill his request because I just don't understand (when Kenny's around, he translates as he's much better with the translation). When he talks about things in terms of size, everything is "baby" or "big." He was sick with a cold recently and we still have to nebulize him when he starts to get sick. I think he was starting to tire of the nebulize routine, and we tried to convince him that he was still a little sick, and that he need to continue nebulizing for a while. He wasn't convinced until we spoke his language and mentioned an equivalent: "baby" sick. So now, when he has a little cough or a runny nose, he'll tell us he's "baby sick." So flipping adorable. Oh, and lately, he's been protesting the end of an activity with "Two mo minutes, two more minutes." Makes you realize how frequently we must use this phrase with him. He's also fond of bargaining with us for "one mo time" to extend playtime...

He also started responding with "Don't tell me!" when he takes offense to being reprimanded. He also uses "bad" as an insult. When he's upset and we're trying to distract him from his tantrum, he'll very spitefully tell us that whatever we're doing is 'bad." Santa is "bad" or his puzzle is "bad" or the snack is "bad" and if we try to protest and indicate that things are good or simply, not bad, he vehemently admonishes the item as bad and tries to start a fight. Cute, right? The other night he was running around in mad circles at the end of the night, just going nuts, screaming "I crazy, mommy. I crazy!" And I was inclined to agree. But whenever I tell him he's crazy, he giggles and says no, "Mommy crazy" and the back and forth escalates until Jett gets mad and screams adamantly that Mommy is the crazy one and Jett most certainly is NOT crazy.

We recently had the basement remodeled - November - which was great timing as we actually had room for all of Jett's Christmas bounty. Jett is absolutely smitten with the basement. When he wakes up, he wants to "go downstairs, basement." He doesn't want to come up to eat lunch or dinner, or miss his toys spending the night at Nanny Jourdan's several times a week. He LOVES the basement. It's a pretty sweet setup devoted mostly to Jett with a media room space for Kenny (and Jett). I just got a treadmill so I suppose I've got a nook carved out down there too, so I can't complain. Really, as long as Jett is happy (and his toy mess is out-of-sight and out-of-my-mind), Mommy is happy.

So Christmas. I held back toys we'd bought because package after package continually arrived on the doorstep addressed to this kid. Thank you all for your generosity, but you're making it hard for me to combat this spoiled only child syndrome thing :) He loves all of his toys, but he's like a freaking humming bird playing with everything in a 30-minute period. He'll start with a puzzle. Or two. Then trains. Then Legos. Then his house. Then trains. Then the ball pit. Then the pirate game. Then Legos, then the Kitty game, then back to trains. Sadly, he takes after me in the easily-frustrated arena, and can't seem to play anything for longer than 60 seconds before he is whining or crying or throwing it or admonishing it as "bad." And then it's "heyyyypp," "heyyyypp" (help, help) and we try and reason with him and display an alternate way to do something and tell him to take deep breaths and that Legos are meant to come apart and that's fun, and that sure, we'll play trains but no crying, etc.

Jett sings now and his favorite songs are plenty. Before bed, we sing a repertoire: Twinkle, Twinkle always starts us off, followed by Baa Baa Black Sheep. Then "EIEIO"and Itsy Bitsy Spider and two alternates mixed in every once in a while. He thinks it's hysterical when Kitty sings in meows, and damn near loses his mind in giggles when Kitty and Mommy duet together (Kitty tries to cut in on Mommy's verses and sings plenty off key and is really just quite a ham). He thinks fake burps (after Kitty drinks too much milk) are HILARIOUS. He cracks up when Kenny pretends to be a monster lurking around the bottom of the bed who eventually climbs up onto the covers to discover Jett wrapped up with Mommy in hiding.

Jett has moved on from the standard Nick Jr fare. Well, it's just been honed. He loves Dora and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and will passively watch most other cartoons, with the first 10 minutes of a Pixar movie included. Ten minutes to sit next to Kenny on a couch (well, maybe not sitting, but remaining on the couch in some fashion) is huge. Jett doesn't seem to be as mesmerized by the iPad and doesn't HAVE to have my phone anymore to play games in the car or at dinner, but he does typically require some cartoon on in the car, which he's gotten accustomed to with Joudan's pimped-out nanny chauffeur service with the Escalade movie service. And we bring the iPad with Mickey or Dora for longish trips in the car as well, but out of the car, it no longer seems to hold his attention all that frequently. And when it does, he simply wants to watch the same thing that's on the TV. "Jett, Dora's on the big TV, let's put the iPad away." No. Watch Dora on iPad. And then Dora's on both screens for two minutes until Jett has lost interest in both and I go around shutting off unattended electronics.

Jett counts to 10, and then counts to 12 sometimes, and then 14 and 16 are repeated several times and a 20 may be randomly thrown in. He likes to listen to stories, which is why our bedtime routine is a rather daunting 30-minute process (teeth brushing, changing, book selection, book reading [3 books], lights out and singing). He sings the ABC song really well - it's a favorite - but has yet to relate it to letters or words. He's very clever...when we took him to bed the other night, dragging him out of the basement to go to bed, he indicated that he had to potty, when prompted. This never happens. The potty chair had been left in the basement, so I offered up the big toilet. "No, baby chair." Kenny and I looked at each other to figure out if it was worth going down to the basement to get the chair when Jett slinked down onto his stomach and was poised to slide down the stairs as he was offering to go get the chair. Clever bunny. Tonight, he offered to keep cleaning up as he'd just been rewarded with Helper M&Ms and figured he'd try to earn some more. Smart.

I love watching this every day. We've gotten to an age where I can affirmatively respond to those commenting that "you're going to miss this stage," and yes, I will miss 2.5 year old Jett. He's still quite fussy and whiny and aggravating but he's a friggin doll and funny and happy (I happy, mommy), and I'm trying to make as many mental snapshots of this stage as possible because I will definitely miss this.