These are a few of my favorite things....

I must apologize that it has been far too long that since I have posted here. I must admit, it is so simple to post on Facebook-- anything from videos to status updates. But really, neither of those things does the justice that a post really does. It can't describe the hilarious stories that Jamey brings.

Thus, two months after my last post, I wanted to fill you in on a few of my favorite "Jamey things..."

-Jamey kisses: Every night, after I rock Jamey in his chair for a few minutes, I stand up to lay him in his bed. Although he is usually half asleep on my shoulder, he picks his head up, puckers up, and kisses me lightly on the lips. Then he lies his head back down on my shoulder and goes back to sleep. I think this must be my most favorite of all favorite things because I don't ask for it. It is a completely Jamey-prompted moment.

-Jamey reading books: Okay, so Jamey can't READ books, but you wouldn't know it from watching him. He will pick up a book and sit with it in his hands. His eyes will go back and forth, as though he is taking in the words. He will flip the pages. Everything anyone else might do.

He will often also hand a book to me to read, but he doesn't want me to read it TO him. He wants me to read while he reads. That is, until he is done with his book, and then he steals mine and gives me his.

The coolest part about Jamey's reading is when he knows the book so well that he can say phrases of it. The other day, he picked up "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" from Eric Carle and just started saying, "Brown bear, brown bear, brown bear, brown bear..." over and over.

-Jamey's Denglisch- As Jamey learns both German and English, a few things get caught in the middle. This is very normal, and I must say, also very cute. When you ask him what a rooster says, he will tell you-- "Kikiriki", which is what they say in German. When you start to play Peekaboo, you may notice he says "Guck guck" instead. For him, this is right. Here is a little Denglisch demonstration.

-Jamey and Friends- Jamey is really starting to get to know people now and lights up when he gets to see his friends. Last week, as Glenn and Jamey started to walk to the park, Jamey suddenly derailed and wanted to go to Jaeda's house, the little girl who lives two doors down. She is only 5 months older than Jamey and they get along great. At practice the other night, I was in a back room with Jamey and spied Monica in the main room. I said to Jamey, "I think Christopher is here!" He immediately swivelled his head around, searching the room. I asked him, "Do you want to go see Christopher?" and he gave a loud "YEAH!" And off he ran. Once he had spotted Monica and Christopher, his run turned into as much of a sprint as Jamey can do.

-Jamey and Ipod Touch- Glenn loaded a few apps on his Ipod Touch that Jamey would be able to use-- kids' games that let him touch the screen without fear of ruining an app. He has gotten the hang of it pretty quickly. Here you can see he knows pretty well what to do. It makes him seem even older when he sits on the couch with the Ipod in his two hands.


Sure, Jamey is starting to show off his temper and starting to fuss more, but it is still the funny things that hold my attention the longest. We have had 2 time outs, which seemed to have worked some. He is also getting into anything and everything, trying to put the littlest things in the most inconvenient places-- namely, behind the couch. We still have to rescue his James train from back there, as he wanted to see if it could drive up and down the wall. Oops.

Our little Plattler

For those of you who said it couldn't be done.... well, there actually aren't any of those, but anyway.... we are beginning to see that Jamey is understanding us in German as well as English. We ask him to do things like "Drum" or "Point to a tree", and he does it. I can ask him in German "Where is ...." and he points to it, no problem. And lastly, we see that he uses the same hand sign for Please whether we speak to him in German or in English, showing us that he understands that it means both Bitte and Please.

To up his Germanic type influence, he is beginning to do some our group dances. Keep in mind he gets no instruction, but that hardly matters. Just look at Christopher dance and that will tell you. Let me preface this story by saying that in our group, we do a dance called "The Miner's Dance." In it, our men are all carrying small hammer and chisels. The setting for the dance is a salt mine and throughout the dance, the guys make music using their hammer and chisels and tapping them together.

So, the other day, I was sitting on the couch when Jamey came to me and began making the sign for "Please." This usually means he wants me to do something. I looked around to try and figure out what he wanted, but there were no clues to be seen. Then I noticed that he had a toy hammer and screwdriver in his hand. On a whim, I began to sing the Miner's Dance song. His face lit up and he began to tap them together and move in a circle. At times, he would put down the tools and begin to plattl, slapping his hands against his thighs, just like Daddy. It truly is amazing to watch him begin to dance just through observation! Here is his performance.

Jamey's New Desk

In the past two weeks, Jamey has had an endless stream of visitors. First, it was Grandma V, Granddad and Aunt Gini, who had never met him before. Then, the day they left, Aunt Lindsay came to visit, armed with some gifts for Jamey.

As Lindsay's boys have gotten older, they have begun to give away their old things. Ben, her youngest, decided that Jamey might like his old Buzz Lightyear desk for his room. And like it, he certainly did. The moment he saw it, he walked over and climbed up into it. He would drag a book up into the chair with him and sit at it, reading his book. Just like in school. On top of that, when he is done, he pulls his books off his desktop and stores them in the chair of his desk.

Great gift, Ben! Thanks a bunch!!!!!

And the following weekend, after getting through 103 fevers and double ear infections, Jamey visited with Hoopapa and Grammy, along with cousins Susie, Amanda, Melissa, and her Baby Ian. Not to mention all the Boswells and Aunt Joyce. It was a great November birthday celebration and a lot of fun for Jamey, as he begins to play well with his cousin Isaac!

Halloween, Argh!

For Jamey's second Halloween, we wanted to find an awesome costume, and wanted to go around as a family one more time. At Party City, I found a $10 costume and a little plastic sword that fit perfectly. It would allow Glenn and I to find easy accompanying costumes to use. And the final touch would be that we would build a pirate ship out of Jamey's plastic car.

In the earlier part of the day, we ventured to Cox Farms, with the help of a Westfield student who gave us a free pass to get in. There were slides galore, which Jamey loved, and every one kept giving him candy. It was all capped with a hay ride, on which it started to rain, and the driver pretended to get stuck, scaring me to no end!

When it came time to really go Trick-or-Treating, we met up with Jaeda and Caden from down the street, and took off, hoping the rain would hold off some more. It sprinkled off and on, but it was still a good time. Jamey tried to go into a few houses, but still enjoyed going up to the doors. He didn't hold his pumpkin to get candy, but Mom took care of that for him. After all, I will be the one eating the candy. I may as well pick it out!

When we got home, I went to the center of the room, turned over his pumpkin and let the candy cascade out. This elicited from Jamey, a loud "Ooooohhhhh!" And it taughth him a new game. Whenever I tried to put the candy away, he would pick up the pumpkin and dump it right back out!

As Promised....

As promised, I am posting two videos of Jamey that I just love. Both are also on my Facebook. The first shows some of Jamey's talking skills.

And here is one that shows that Jamey knows just what to do when we do "Ein Prosit" at the end of our dance shows. This is what we sing as a toast, and during it, we wave our arms in the air, like we are waving around a mug of beer. Apparently, Jamey has been paying attention.

There-ya-go.....

It has been a good amount of time since I have updated Jamey's blog. Now that he is walking... no, running... I spend most of my time trying to keep up with where he is going and what he is getting into. Today, while Glenn was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, he disappeared into the kitchen and came back around the corner and immediately dumped the tin of roughly 100 straws that he had found. This was almost as good as the time when he dumped the box of roughly 1000 coffee stirrers when we visited school. Lucky for me, he helped clean up, by handing me the straws to put away.

In any case, I am going to put in a few little snippets of Jamey now-a-days. In one month, he has become quite mobile and quite vocal. From week to week, he changes in that way. About two weeks ago, he had his 15 month appointment, which left him with a positive result and an all-clear from the doctor. He is now 24 lbs (45%) and is in the 80% for height. Determined not to disappoint in the brains department, he is STILL in the 95% for head size.

-As many people have already said to me, you never realize some of the phrases you say ALL THE TIME, until your 15 month old child begins to say them. Luckily for me, one of those things is "Thank you". However, I realize now that every time I give something to Jamey, I say, "There you go." And how do I know this? A good amount of the time, when Jamey hands me something, he follows it with a quick, "There you go", which sounds more like, "There-go". Be careful, though, because it sounds much like his "Thank you".

Other phrases he can do: Up, Tickle Tickle, Gabba Gabba (in reference to his favorite TV show), ball, apple, banana, more, milk, buh-bye, and hi. Of course, there are many Mama's and Dada's mixed in there too.

-Like parents, like baby: Jamey's new favorite snack is croutons. One afternoon, while I was cooking, he went into the pantry and pulled out the bright blue bag of croutons. When I put it back, he went back a few minutes later and selected the same bag. So I gave him a few. After that, it was pretty standard for him to push past all the other bags of food in the way in order get out those croutons. It has gotten to the point where we have to hide the croutons because that is all he wants. One day, he mistook the "Lipton's Ready to Make Tomato Pasta" for his croutons and demanded to snack on it. Instead, we just made the pasta as part of our dinner.

Both Glenn and I, as children, LOVED croutons. We sat at the dinner table the other night, reminiscing about how we used to have our parents smuggle plates of croutons for us from the salad bar. Apparently, even these types of things are genetic.

A video of Jamey talking is soon to follow.... Until then, here is a picture of Jamey and Christopher at one of our shows!

A Birthday Wish for Katie Lamken

Tomorrow is a special day for Jamey and his "girlfriend" Katie Lamken. It is her second birthday, and she is far away from us. We miss her greatly and wish that we could be there to make some of the delicious Elmo cake that Katie's grandma made-- especially since she doesn't like icing. There is a mess that needs to be made of that icing, and Jamey would be perfect to do it. Ah well. Another time.

Because we can't be there in person, Jamey wanted to send a special birthday message to Katie, via my blog. Lately, he has been playing Mr. Cool and allowing us to put his sunglasses on him. Well, the way it works, is Glenn or I put the glasses on our head (quite a tight squeeze). Jamey then sees it, and thinks it is hilarious, and yet also totally cool. Then he grabs them off our face and hands them to us. Tilting his face up, he allows us to put the glasses on him, and then begins to bounce.

Katie loves watching Jamey's videos, we have heard, so we thought this would be a great thing for Katie to get to watch. It would have worked perfectly if Jamey weren't obsessed with anything electronic. He was in perfect dancing position until he saw the camera in my hand. He immediately ran over to me and well, you can see his reaction in the video. Either way, I think it is a totally cute video and I know Katie will enjoy it too!

Happy Birthday, Katie! We will see you soon. Be nice to your little sister when she is born on Friday!!!!