Chef Jamie's debut!!!

Jamie Oliver, move over. Jamie LuQuan is an up and coming new chef to be reckoned with.

First time in the kitchen helping mama make dinner tonight (okay, so I made it easy for my son by having him help assemble bologna and cheese sandwiches.)

Look at his masterful plating job! We had to take a picture of his craftmanship--note how he placed one of the bologna sandwich triangles on its side and how he was sure to include a small piece of bologna directly on the plate to accent the featured dinner item. Of course none of that was planned and it was all by accident since he knocked the sandwich on its side accidentally and it fell into place next to the ones he placed intentionally and he happened to lay the bologna slice down on his plate after he ate some. Just look at the masterful, skillfully planned presentation I say! He also later selected a bowl for tomato soup from a choice of 7. He also selected grape halves and banana slices to place on his plate as well. I must say he has good taste. ;-)

Soon we will try our hand at make-your-own-pizzas!

Charades

Jamie is just starting to try to link 2 or 3 words together at a time now. It reminds me a great deal of charades b/c he isn't exactly using 2 or 3 actual spoken words, but usually one or two spoken words (never in sentence order), some gesturing and pointing in the place of other words and sound effects. It's quite amusing and I'm getting a real kick out of it.

For instance, a few days ago we went to a playgroup at someone's house w/ other 2 year olds. Jamie picked up a stuffed tiger and was carrying it around. It was the first time the host's 2 year old son had children coming to his house to play and he wasn't so sure he wanted to share apparently. Jamie wandered into another room with the stuffed tiger and I heard a boy crying after a couple of minutes (it wasn't Jamie.) Jamie came running into the room looking a bit concerned, still clutching the tiger. He said to me, " Baby!! Baby!!" and pointing towards the other room. I said, " Do you mean a boy or a girl?" "Boy!" he said, " Boy! Puuuuuuuuulll! (and he's saying puuuuuuuu as he's demonstrating with his hands a pulling action) then he pointed to the stuffed tiger. " I had no idea what he was saying, then it clicked. "Oh, Jamie! You mean the boy tried to take the tiger away and pulled it?" He nodded his head vigorously, pleased that I understood him. Ah! That is why the boy was crying. He couldn't get his toy tiger back from Jamie. ;-) This 'conversation' with Jamie might not seem like much sentence-wise but it's one of the first times he's trying to put more than one word together! When we were ready to leave the playdate, Jamie said bye to the other moms then turned to them and said, " Cah (car)! Then he made a brrrrrrrrrrr sound effect with his lips vibrating, then he said, " Mama." I said, " You're telling the ladies that we are going to the car and mama will drive?" He said, " Yeah!"

The first time I heard him put two words together since way back when he was first home (when he said two two word sentences only a few weeks after getting home then never did again until the other day) was when we were watching his favorite show, Caillou. It's about a little 4 year old boy and his family. Jamie adores Caillou. Sometimes Caillou imagines he's doing all kinds of things like being a car racer, etc. We were watching an episode over breakfast a few days ago and as soon as Caillou started to imagine himself driving a race car in a race, Jamie shouted, " Go Caillou! Go!" I had to laugh. He does things when motivated. His first 'sentence' in months is about his favorite tv character. It figures, lol.

Jamie is also really crazy about Bob the Builder right now. He loves to pretend he is either Caillou or Bob. When he pretends he is Bob he pats himself or says, " Me." Then he says, " Bah (Bob)." Then he says, " Hah (hat) and pats his head (for the hard hat Bob wears.) Then he goes off and pretends to fix something or build a road.

Another thing Jamie has enjoyed nearly every day for the past month or so is pretending to be a fire fighter rescuing a cat from a tree. He will take his fireman toy and walk it up the ladder (and if the toy is not available he'll use his fingers like legs going up the ladder) and he'll pretend to rescue an imaginary cat (or a fingerpuppet my cousin gave us.)

I love Jamie's realism or maybe it's humor? Recently he was playing with a little toy piano about 3 inches long and a plastic pig from his farm. He wanted the pig to lift and carry the piano somewhere so he pretended to hoist the piano onto the pig's shoulders and even grunted with effort like the pig was having to labor under the weight of the piano. I love when Jamie throws in the sound effects. ;-)

Oh, one last amusing thing Jamie did. Getting into the car to go to that playgroup the other day, as I was lifting Jamie in (hoisting would be a better word b/c that kid is solid!) I said, " Jamie. Are you a sack of potatoes?" And he patted himself and said, " Fry?" I laughed and said, " Oh. You're a French Fry?" He said, " Yeah." and smiled. I told him I would dip him in ketchup and I pretended to nibble on his hand. He wanted to do the same thing so he pretended to nibble on his other hand and then he immediately gave me a thumbs up with his thumbs, lol! Evidentally he tasted great.

Yikes, it's been a while!

Life gets going and it's hard to keep up with blogging. We moved to a new house (same city) and it is tremendously challenging to move in, manage to unpack and clean out the old house while parenting a very active 2 year old! All that aside, you really want to know about how Jamie is doing, right? His hair is growing longer and the curls are adorable. He has probably grown about 3.5 inches since we got him in October, can you believe it?? Maybe even more. He's 34 inches now. And 31.5 lbs!! My baaaaaaaaack! ;-) His latest skill he's honing is dancing. He has some pretty rocking dance moves down now and a sense of rhythm with his arms and fingers. ;-) I'll have to post a video sometime.

Jamie isn't progressing a great deal with his speaking skills so I think we'll be trying to get a speech eval done soon to see if he'll qualify for speech. I doubt he will b/c his comprehension is amazing and very good for his age, it's just the spoken language that is lagging.

Jamie continues to improve with his attaching to me. I get many spontaneous small hugs of affection throughout the day now, though his first words in the morning are still, " Dada?? no no no! Dadaa!" ;-) But even that is shorter now and he's fine with me w/in a minute or two. Jamie is so cute with his blossoming imaginative play and he wants to 'cook' waffles for me nearly every time we go to the playground and there is sand (he pretends the sand is a waffle.)

Birthday boy!

Jamie had a recent birthday. He will tell anyone who says, "How old are you, Jamie?" that he's two! Well, he'll tell you if he wants to tell you. ;-)

We celebrated in style by taking a trip to a local firehouse. The firefighter was so nice with Jamie. Jamie had lots of time to explore the valves and switches which was one of his favorite things to do there. He still enjoys wearing the firefighter hats they give out to each kid that visits. Later that night we had a family birthday party (Elmo theme of course) and I included a couple of pictures from it.

A few pictures from last week

Jamie just loves when David gets home from work so they can play. David gets the stuffed animals very involved in their play. I think Jamie thinks his stuffed animals can really run around and play with him b/c David makes them walk all around, ride cars, ride the slide, etc. Jamie thinks it's great fun and it is! ;-D Our little boy doesn't look very babyish anymore, does he? His 2nd birthday is coming up this week!

(You can see he still hasn't lost his love for wearing various 'hats' on his head.)

Duke Gardens

Jamie's first visit to Duke Gardens this past Saturday. They have a wonderful botanical garden at Duke University. It was late afternoon/early evening when we were there and it happened to be prom night for many of the local highschool seniors. We were in one area of the grounds near the popular azalea bushes when one group of teens from the school of math and science were having their pictures taken. The girls were smitten with Jamie ( I think one of them said she is from China too) so they asked for him to be in their picture so I posted it here.

Jamie enjoyed throwing sticks into the pond, watching some ducks, frisbee throwers, etc. and he greatly enjoyed throwing a football back and forth (in the manner that a young toddler throws a ball back and forth) with a man and his friendly son. He also thought watching a caterpillar was wonderful. He was very excited to watch all of the dozens and dozens of teens getting their pictures taken. We finished the night off with dinner at Whole Foods and he enjoyed sitting out on the patio at the store watching people come and go in their cars while we ate.

Easter pictures!

Jamie enjoyed his first Easter with us. He loved his basket and especially enjoyed hunting for plastic eggs over at his Mimi's house (David's mom and his step dad's.) Jamie's cousin Ava ( the one also from China 1 year older than Jamie) was there for some competition. We had to direct him to other spots for egg hunting b/c she was quite adept, having one year up on him. Here are a few pictures. ;-)