Another busy month has rolled by between posts.

Jack was very excited in the lead up to Christmas this year, and one day asked Doug to 'take him to Christmas'. We couldn't put any presents under the tree beforehand since he wanted to open any immediately. Jack was very excited by the concept that Santa was going to be delivering his presents. I had trouble getting him to sleep on Christmas Eve as he wanted to stay up and see Santa. I managed to watch a bit of the carols with him, and once he had seen Hi 5 perform with Santa he was finally ready for bed. I asked him what present he wanted Santa to bring him and he said a 'purple present'. I asked him the same question on Christmas morning and he asked for a 'yellow present'. So easy to please at this age!

He was just so excited by each and every present he opened - it was lovely to see. Once again he was overwhelmed with a great range of presents from his extended family, us, and Santa. His immediate favourite was a Thomas the train starter set (from Grandma Q). We also got enthused and bought extra Thomas things from the sales. So Thomas has now taken over our lounge room!

Jack handled the Christmas trips to visit his Grandparents well. He had fun playing with 'big big cousin Hayley' at Grandparent C’s, and with my parent's new kitten in Geelong. However, with his back molars now on their way, over excitement, lack of proper sleep on the trips, and a slight cold all combined – the days between and after the trips were some of the more difficult behaviour wise that we have encountered from Jack. Thankfully he seems over the worst of it (until the next tooth anyway) although he is still not fully back to his normal self.

Aside the trips, we were busy with a number of activities in past month. Jack did not want to perform at his music concert, and made me feel bad putting him through it with the grandparents all watching. With his grandmother's beside the stage encouraging him and me with him on stage, he did manage to participate a tiny bit with my help, but it was an experience we would rather forget! Jack was however very excited to attend his first Wiggles concert, and asked about 'big Murray' (a huge blowup Murray on the stage) for several days afterwards. We went to a work BBQ and work breakfast leading up to Christmas, and wound up all his activities. Without our normal activities we have found more time to visit parks, and have found a great local swimming pool that has 3 different toddler pools, waterfalls, and a wave pool. Jack really loves the pool visits and it is great to see his excitement. I also took him on an outing to see Wind in the Willows. He was intrigued by the performance, and especially enjoyed seeing the characters play various instruments during it. He did want to sit on my knee though the entire thing, and got a bit concerned when any character came too close. He was a little scared by one character with black and white face paint. Afterwards we had a little visit to the Ian Potter Children's Garden, where we enjoyed rolling down little hills. We also had a quick visit to the shrine. It it nice to have the time to enjoy a few little outings without the normal busyness.

Summary of Jack at 30 months:

. Jack is now one of the older kids at his childcare room. They reported to Doug this week that he had taken on a leadership role within the room and showed the younger kids how to do things. His Thursday childcare also reported him interacting and talking to the other kids in the room last week. We are hoping that being an older child in the room will help develop his social confidence.

. Jack loves playing with his Thomas trains, his many cars (including new Elmo car setup), construction toys and power tools. What a typical little boy! He has also mastered his new 3-wheel scooter from his grandparents C and enjoys riding it the length of the house (needs a little help turning it back around though)

. Jack continues to develop his sense of humour. There is a Hi 5 song that says 'you're my number one'. So I have been saying 'Mummy's number one’ to him, which he has been repeating. The other day he started saying 'Mummy's number 2'. I tried to tell him that Mummy was number one, but he replied saying 'Daddy's number ne, Mummy's number two' and then laughed gleefully at my reaction! I checked with Doug in case he had been coaching him to say this - but Jack had come up with it by himself.

. Jack now has 18.5 teeth. We are counting down until teething is finally behind us - hopefully sooner than later.

. Jack has mastered 'drag and drop' on the computer now, which opens up more games he can play. He really loves playing a range of games on my computer, and wants to do so multiple times a day (and often throws a tantrum when I tell him it is time to do something different). I have been amazed at how many great games there are for him to enjoy even at this age, as well as their educational content.

. Given Jack's early skin rashes when anything was put on his skin, I have only just started using bubbles in his bath over the last couple weeks. He is really excited by it, and it has given him renewed enthusiasm for his bath. He was also excited by bubbles in the swimming pool, going through the waterfalls, and the waves in the wave pool (sitting on my knee at the edge to feel them splashing into us, as well as me holding him in deeper water to feel the sensations of going up and down). So he is having lots of water fun currently.

Posted by Al at 3:20 PM