Take me out to the ballgame

This could have been a blog topic for LOTS of blogs these last several months, had I been an active blogger. So instead I will just do several mini-blogs in this one longer blog. I want to go ahead and write things that I remember. There are so many fun memories to treasure.

I should have blogged about opening day (April 6). Jairus hasn’t missed an opening day game yet – 3 for 3 – thanks to the class of 2011 at LCCS. It was cold that day, but we all sure had a good time. And the Rangers won! What a great start to the season.

There should have been a blog about meeting Captain, the mascot. That was a pretty big deal.

We went to a couple of games each month (it helps that we live less than 15 minutes from Ranger’s Stadium), plus we listened to or watched almost every game this season. That provided Jairus with plenty of opportunities to learn about the Rangers. He can tell you the numbers for Ian Kinslar (#5), Michael Young (#10), Hank Blalock (#9), David Murphy (who was #7, but now Pudge is #7 and David is #14 – yes he can tell you that) and Elvis Andrus (#1).

He knows that when Marlon Byrd is up to bat you flap your arms like you are flying and simultaneously say “marlon byrd, marlon byrd, marlon byrd.”

He loves that fireworks go off when the Rangers hit a homerun. He actually wants fireworks for every homerun, opponents as well. And he thinks that even on the road the Rangers get fireworks for homeruns. In his mind homerun=fireworks, I guess.

Can you pronounce Saltalamacchia? Jairus can. Salty is a catcher for the Rangers. If you say “Jarrod” Jairus will finish with Saltalamacchia. Same with “Taylor”…Teagarden and “Nelson”... Cruz. At one of the LCCS high school football games a fan yelled for “Salty” – the nickname of one of the seniors. Jairus quickly came to tell me that Salty wasn’t here. He was playing baseball.

This summer Jairus went through a phase where he wanted us to spell things for him. He would always ask us to spell his name, mommy, and daddy. But it also wasn’t uncommon for him to ask us to spell Andrew or Jessie (church friends) and Hank Blalock or Michael Young. And when he went through his “what does (fill in the blank) start with” he also included Ranger players in his question arsenal.

Once early this summer, Joe asked Jairus if he wanted to go outside to play some baseball. Jairus responded with “Yeah, let’s play Rangers.”

Last weekend we cheered at the last home game this season. And this weekend we see the regular season come to an end. Although the Rangers had potential to actually play in the post season, they fell short. It is somewhat disappointing. But we just have to keep it in perspective -- they actually finished over .500 with the best season in several years. And it is only 6 months or about 184 days until April 5, 2010 – opening day!

Let’s Go RANGERS!

Just for a smile

Jairus always finds the moon when we drive at night. One night last week I started singing “I see the moon and the moon sees me, the moon sees somebody I want to see. “ Joe added “God bless the moon and God bless me, God bless the somebody I want to see.” Jairus, impressed with our little ditty, asks us to sing it again. We oblige. He then asks us to sing it faster. Again, we oblige. Then he made us laugh out loud when he asked us to sing it crescendo! Ahh, the influence of the Little Einsteins. Needless to say, we obliged…twice!

Jairus had a great, accident free day at school on Tuesday, so we went to chick-fil-a to celebrate. Driving to dinner Jairus informed us, very matter of fact, that daddy’s name is Joe. Impressive. He then sharesd that mommy’s name is Lynelle. Yes, he said it pretty clear. He is figuring life out!

One more quick backtrack story, just so I don’t forget. Back in August Jairus and I started doing “Eskimo Kisses” again. It was a fun flash back to when he was a baby. Of course when we shared our game with Joe he called them nose kisses in Spanish. That prompted Jairus to begin doing hair kisses and chin kisses too. It was pretty cute. But the story gets better. I had shared this story with Luanne. When Jairus saw her at school he wasn’t hip on the idea of a high five. Instead, he gave her finger kisses. :)

Just a memory

Who: Jairus and Mommy
What: a walk
When: Friday, Sept 25, 2009
Where: Around the "lake" in our neighborhood
Why: It was a perfect 75 degree night, plus Jairus wanted to go explore

Going down the big slide again -- all by himself!

Hello Mr. Duck

Checking out all the geese

oh happy day!

Picture by Jairus

Mommy is tired...Jairus, not so much!

Hiking up the big hill with the help of a walking "stick"

Through the jungle tree

Wee little yam

Recently, we started playing a matching game with Jairus. The game consists of Bible characters identical to the cartoonish ones found in his Bible for toddlers. It is interesting how he has learned to identify some of them from our readings, or perhaps from a Sunday School lesson, or a VeggieTale show. He readily recognizes: Pharaoh, David, Goliath, the Good Shepherd, Eve, Daniel, Jonah, Jacob, Mary, and Martha. Our favorite, however, is when he sees Zacchaeus.

EVERY time he turns over the Zacchaeus card, he says, “Remember?” and then proceeds to sing the song, “Zacchaeus was a wee little yam…” He kind of stumbles over a Sycamore tree... but he does a good job of actually looking up into the tree (with his hand above his eyes and head up). He probably learned that song mostly from a kids CD we have and maybe even from Sunday School.

It is amazing how well little children associate these types of things. For instance, when he turns over the Jonah card, he remembers his recent Sunday School story and acts out for us the part of Jonah running away! He also does a pretty good imitation of the fish barfing up Jonah after Jonah told God he was sorry.

When Jairus turns over Daniel, he sings us the VeggieTales song, “Oh no! What we gonna do? The king likes Daniel more than me and you. Oh no! What we gonna do? We gotta get him out of here.”

While our pastor’s recent sermon series was on Joshua, some Sunday School lessons were also focused on his character, so Jairus wanted to watch the VeggieTales episode “Josh and the Big Wall” every day for 2 weeks. He quickly associated Joshua with a wall falling down.

Needless to say, playing this matching game with Jairus takes awhile! But it is fun to witness God's outstanding design of the human intellect!

From the Mouth of Jairus

I have 8 sticky notes filled with ideas for the blog. For at least the last 6 months I have been adding to these notes. Maybe it is time to put these ideas into words and pictures; maybe I should actually blog. Not because people still read a blog that has been inactive for months, but because I want to remember these years from now. Maybe it is time.

Language. That has been the biggest change in Jairus these last several months. His language development is so fascinating. It is also so multifaceted --not only the vocabulary and usage, but his keen observation skills which he can then articulate and his memory and his ability for application.

Some of my notes/memories:

One of my favorites from months ago… One morning Joe and I were having a conversation in the computer room about Jairus’ recent problem of waking up during the night. We really had no understanding of what caused this problem or any good solution of how to solve it. I said to Joe, “He is just a mystery!” Right after that Jairus walked into the room, tugged on Joe’s hand, and said, “I mystery.”

Many times this spring and summer when Jairus would get very excited he would call either of us “momdy.”

Jairus is so much like his daddy -- social. When we leave restaurants or stores he will wave and say “bye everyone!”

This past winter we attended several middle and high school basketball games. Almost nightly Jairus would get his basketball, run up and down the hallway between the computer room and master bedroom, and yell, “Getting rebounds, Mommy!” Granted, he wasn’t dribbling or shooting…details!

When Jairus obviously had a stinky diaper, we would ask him if he was done and ready for a clean diaper. He would tell us, “I’m stilling right now.” We translated that into I am still pooping right now. :)

Every so often he will use a big word but not in the right context. I didn’t even know that Jairus knew the word “dictionary.” But one early morning Jairus was trying to tell me that daddy was in the shower. Instead, he said that Daddy was in the dictionary. I just had to laugh.

If Jairus is at home whenever one of us returns home, he likes to open the door leading out to the garage and at least wave hello. Several times this spring he would tell me “Mommy, you’re here!” Or one time he yelled when Joe got out of his truck, “Hi Daddy – it’s me Jairus!”

Enough for now. I don’t want to overwhelm my 2 blog readers with too much at once. After all 2 blogs in a weekend is a lot!

Potty Training

Earlier this week, we decided that it was finally time to try potty training again. The attempts this summer ended up fruitless and just left all 3 of us frustrated. On Wednesday, with about 18 cool Thomas and Disney big-boy underwear options in the drawer, we eliminated the daytime diapers. Having conducted some internet research and interviews of friends and family who have recently mastered the art of potty training a child, we also implemented a Thomas the Train sticker chart to keep track of the successes and award a prize at completion of a track (6 station stops).

Well, Jairus had no interest in the potty (still!). Wisely, Joe set up a chart for himself and tried to encourage Jairus by showing him how to get stickers on the chart. No buy in. At the end of the day, Joe had 5 stickers and Jairus had wet a dozen cool big-boy pairs of underwear.

On Thursday he wound up wetting himself only 6 or 7 times, but he still had NO interest in the potty. Joe even showed him the big prize - some Little Einstein figurines - which he liked, but it did not succeed in convincing him to pee-pee in the potty. It was a hopeless cause. Then came Friday.

Friday started off like the other days. Actually it might have been worse. Lynelle suggested trying the alarm because this summer Jairus responded well to alarm alerts to tell him when it was time to come inside or when nap time started and ended. But, when the alarms would sound, Jairus had NO interest in the potty. Actually, he grudgingly refused. Finally, Joe used the bathroom and received his 6th sticker, which finished the track. He could now play with the Little Einstein’s. Jairus wasn’t all the interested, until Joe opened the box. Jairus went ballistic; “I want to play with the Little Einstein’s,” to which Joe replied, “Only daddy can play with them b/c he went 6 times in the potty.” Immediately Jairus pulled down his pants and ran to the potty and standing on his stool peed mostly in the potty. It was like he was peeing on demand. Joe was amazed.

Of course he got a sticker, and he thought he immediately should be able to play with the Little Einstein’s, but Joe worked on explaining that after 3 times they would go to the park, but after 6 times he could have the Little Einstein’s. He tried to go again immediately with no success. So on the 2nd successful potty trip, they played a Curious George game on the computer for 20 minutes. On the 3rd time, they went to the park. On the fourth time, they played Curious George again, and the 6th time, he won the ever-coveted Little Einstein’s figurines!!!!

Here we are on day 2 of successful potty time, and we are still giving him a penny and a sticker for every successful trip to the potty, and so far he hasn’t had any accidents. He has even gone a couple of times unprompted and then told us about it. How long will our bribing last? Who knows? We have had one successful trip to Wal-mart in underwear and tomorrow we will see what happens at church. It is just exciting to be finding success. And we are praying that it continues!

Alive and Well

I know that from the lack of activity on this blog, some of you may have been wondering if the Wolfe family was indeed alive and well. In the last couple months I have been making notes for several cute Jairus blogs…but have only now felt like my head was above water. School this semester was extra challenging for both Joe and me.

But here is picture proof that we are still kicking. This past weekend we met some friends in downtown Fort Worth for dinner. While we were waiting we played in the mirror windows on some building. Good times. One quick Jairus story... A couple weeks ago I was holding Jairus as he woke up somewhat unhappy from an afternoon nap. Since he was in my lap like a baby, I started pointing to his eyes, nose, mouth, etc while asking him to identify them. We did that a lot when he was little, so it was a flash to the past. Jairus then identified my chin and cheeks. So I then pointed to his forehead and my forehead and identified it. Jairus quickly told me “no. It’s five-head.” I corrected him, but again he identified my forehead as a five-head. Even when Joe asked later that night Jairus said five-head. And anytime friends have asked, Jairus continues to say five-head. I guess that works. :)