My precious little boy

Just now as Jamie is napping, a few happy tears welled up in my eyes as I think about how innocent and unaffected little children are. Obviously I don't mean innocent in the sense of never doing wrong. LOL, you know I don't mean that. I mean rather, unaware of social 'rules' and speaking freely their minds with no inhibitions, etc. and such concrete and simple thinkers. Oh how I wish our children remained this way for longer! I am so glad he's still fully in this stage.

Earlier today Jamie met my cousin (so his first cousin once removed) Craig. He's never met him before as we don't get to see each other often. Jamie was anticipating meeting him from the night before when I told him Craig would be coming over for breakfast the next day and Jamie was starting to get excited before his arrival this morning.

Jamie tends to get just a little normal amount of shyness or bashfulness when meeting someone new so when Craig actually came in and went over and said hi to Jamie, Jamie said a quick hi and then felt a need to look away for just a brief moment and Jamie moved over to his train table next to us. He immediately found his favorite train Harvey and, under the wonderfully innocent mindset of 2-3 year olds who assume you know everything already about their toys and toy names/characters came racing over to Craig and cut into the conversation to say, " Dis is my Harvey!! My other Harvey not work on dis track. It work different track." (Of course I'm translating for Craig b/c most people can't tell what Jamie is saying w/o me translating.) Then he enthusiastically handed it to Craig while he ran over to grab his newest train addition. He ran back over to Craig and said, " Dis my new choo choo. Dis name.....mommy. What dis name again?" I said, " Spencer." Jamie giggled, " Oh yeah. Dis choo choo named Spencer!" then Craig and Jamie played w/ trains for a few minutes together. Nevermind that Craig has never heard of Spencer or Harvey and all. I just love this young mindset and age that is so enthusiastic and isn't bothered or encumbered with having to explain what he's talking about. He just says it.

Recently a neighbor came over for a few minutes to talk and Jamie comes up to her, without the adult type of thing like saying hi or nice to see you and just starts excitedly telling her (again w/ me having to translate every word): " Pea fall in lake when big house fall off tree! Pea swam!" and he cackled with laughter. The neighbor lady is smiling and then looking at me like, " Whaaa?" I said, " Earlier, Jamie and I were watching a tv show [VeggieTales] and thought it was so funny when a house in a tree tipped over and the pea who was living inside fell out." Ha, that probably needed even more explanation b/c she's probably wondering--what? A talking pea?

I just love how he never thinks about the fact that another adult or child hasn't had the same experience as him and he just starts telling them stuff that he loves.

Jamie often tells me that Harvey is his favorite train (it's from the Thomas the Train series). We have the wooden railway series. These things are sooooo expensive, it's nuts! That company sure rakes in the bucks. As Jamie mentioned, there are not one but I think now 3 or possibly 4 different versions of Harvey and other trains now depending on which tracks you use. They are not interchangeable. Nice way to rack up the bucks considering one train alone is 13-25 bucks!!! 8-O

I am very grateful for the 40% off coupons from the craft store b/c they carry the series of wooden railway friends trains that he has.

I want to say, that despite my son being a very passionate and headstrong personality that can be a challenge to parent at times, I love love love him!!! And for the first time ever, two times this week he told me that he'd miss me when I was away somewhere!! He's been saying that for months to David and I was so hoping I'd get to hear those words, uncoaxed. Yay!! Jamie is still working on attaching but it's vastly better now than before. We still need to work on it though.

I'll add some pictures in a newer post in a day or two.

Pictures from past several months

Here are a few more Jamie pics from the past several months since it's been forever since I posted any! I'd post more but 5 seems to be the limit per post or else I just don't know what I'm doing.

In the Mr Potato head picture, you see two things: One, Jamie is clearly creative and thinks outside the box (at one point Mr P had three sets of eyes and his feet were sprouting out of the side of his head) and I love his kind of zany humor. Two, do you notice that Jamie wearing big boy underwear??! Yes, he's usually wearing undies when at home now during playtimes! We're potty training here! ;)

I included the guitar picture b/c he's my little rock star and he loves music and musical instruments. He *still* regularly pretends to be a conductor and asks us to play marching band instruments (pretending.)

In the bike helmet pic I included that to say that a friendly neighbor gave Jamie his old bike (yes a two wheeler but of course training wheels are on it.) He has enjoyed it several times now.

Finally, the picture of him eating ice cream is from back in March. There is a yearly event open to kids to visit a local farm and they provide homemade ice cream. Jamie enjoyed it and he was so cute I had to share that precious picture of him.

Jamie's 3rd birthday!

Jamie recently turned three! I can't believe it! Sorry I didn't post sooner. We finally found our camera cord connector so I can upload some pictures here!

There have been so many Jamie 'funnies' I kept meaning to write down that unfortunately with my memory as crummy as it is, I forget. So often he'll say something really funny and I think, " I've got to write that down!"

Pop Pop taught Jamie something I was hoping would be reserved for when he was a lot older (thanks a lot, Pop Pop!)~~the phrase, " Well, duh!!!" Well to my surprise (and consternation) Jamie knows the appropriate context for when to use the phrase apparently. The other day Jamie was experimenting with banging his head on some object; not a genius thing to do and not something he usually does. He said, " Owww! Well.....duuuuh!" I laughed b/c he said it at the right time for sure.

Jamie greatly enjoyed his third birthday party at his cousin Ava's house. Ava has a wonderful pool and a nice pool house at her house so it is ideal for birthday parties! Jamie and one other boy were the only boys at the party w/ 6 girls! (The boy and his two sisters are good friends of ours.) All of the other girls are Jamie's cousins. They all had a great time swimming! They enjoyed kid friendly dinner and cake and then when it was time to open presents you should have seen Jamie's face when he opened the Cranky the crane from the Thomas the train series. He has been longing with a deep longing for that toy for a long time now. He was jumping up and down and squealing and doing the dance of joy when he opened it. On the way home that night, in his car seat w/ cranky on his lap, he said, " Is Cranky for my very own?" I said, " Yes, Jamie, Cranky is your very own. Aunt Cathy gave it to you. It's your birthday present and you get to keep it." " For my very own?" he questioned. " I no have to give back?" he said quietly. " No Jamie, you get to keep it forever as your very own." A sudden shriek of delight filled the car and he said, " Yay! Cranky my very own!!! Yay!" He was so cute!

Here are some recent pictures (I'll do one from birthday and then other stuff.)

By the way, the one of him eating ice cream w/ his friend~~that is Will, his friend who was also at the same orphanage at about the same time as Jamie. We are so lucky and blessed to have been able to get to know Will and his family. He is a delightful little boy and we just love their whole family. Thanks to them we also discovered a nice beach to take Jamie to sometimes! We are glad we got to see them this spring as we don't live in the same area. I'll make a separate post sometime soon w/ more pictures since it's been so long! The picture of Jamie in his PJ's with his hand up in the air is from his birthday morning, fresh out of the crib (note the crib hair, lol.) He was delighted that it was his birthday! By the way, big news--he is working on potty training and doing a wonderful job at home. We're hoping we might ditch the diapers before too long when we're out and about as well!