Jack-Jack Attack: February 2006

Just this moment noticed a posting from Tenzin Tsering's family. Tenzin is a young fellow at the Tibetan Chidren's Village whom we have sponsored for several years now. The TCV supports children and families who are refugees from Tibet, and provides a fine education (as well as teaching traditional Tibetan culture) to youngsters who probably couldn't get that education even if they were in Tibet; the Chinese have done all they can to erase indigenous Tibetan culture.

Anyway, if you are looking for a worthy cause and want to help some kids with a small monthly donation, we can vouch for the TCV. We have always been in touch with Tenzin and receive letters and pictures from him as well as detailed reports on the many successes of the program. If you want to visit TCV click this link:

Tibetan Children's Villages
Direct link to How to support TCV

I won't waste a lot of time on apologies for the absence of new Jack stuff on these pages . . . there has been plenty of news to report but your humble blog editor is also a film editor in real life and his thesis films at AFI have begun. What this means in English is that 6 days a week Daddy (the aforementioned blog editor) leaves the house around 7:30 with Jack, drops him at his daycare, and does not return home until around midnight. Whereupon he has some cookies and milk, checks his email and collapses. Meanwhile Mommy is living the life of an almost-single parent every night, at least. This will go on until mid-June so bear with us if you do not hear from either of us or see a lot of updates. There are however many things to inform you of and many photos to get to -- so here it goes. Note, After the update I will just post the pics without a lot of notes or the usual narrative -- there are so many of them and they kind of speak for themselves. Also, email subscribers please note, the email will only post my initial posting of these reports -- and not the repostings I do after that initial posting when I notice all my ghastly typos and correct them all, so please don't take me for an idiot!

Also, do leave a message if you are checking in by clicking the comments link after the posts. Love to get them especially from strangers (Namgyal, how did you find this page? And are you Tibetan?) but naturally from all our regular friends and family as well.

And now to the updates!

The picture above, and the swing pictures below were taken this afternoon on Jack's first-ever trip to a playground. Sliding down a slide left him nonplussed but he really got into the swing after a while, and even more so into the attractive Asian lady at the next swing. He couldn't take his eyes off her for a while! Hilarious.

Amazing that in the space of less than a month, the following things have happened.

ITEM: Jack has sprouted not one but four teeth. Two are plainly visible on the bottom and the others are just making their debut. There is no way to describe how cute he is with that lospided smile and a little tooth sticking up out of there. I swear, he is like a cartoon baby or Cupie doll. However, to date he has resisted our efforts to document this dental breakthrough. Updates to follow.

ITEM: Jack can now actually crawl! For the last couple of months we've watched him do this sort of thing where he could get up on his hands and feet, stretch his body out, propel himself forward with his legs and face-plant a good few inches from where he started. Not the most graceful movement -- rather what the first life forms might have looked like as they flopped and slogged their way out of the primordial soup and onto dry land, one imagines -- but efficaicous; he could get from point A to point B with alarming speed. Now, though, Jack has mastered four-wheel drive and is all arms and legs in a flurry of action which makes him very hard to contain, which is why we have, courtesy of Nanny and Pop, a fenced-off play area for him in the living room. We used to be able to deposit him on the bed surrounded by a miniature mountain range of pillows and brush our teeth or get dressed, but now he climbs over them like a monster truck rumbling over a stack of Toyotas. Really quite something, and has upped the exhaustion ante around the house quite a bit for Mom and Dad!

ITEM: Jack is now mostly feeding himself solid foods, with bottles in between. I get the biggest kick out of watching him eat. He has these little cereal puffs that he will just shovel away. It is so fun to watch him learning to use his fingers and concentrate soooo hard on grabbing that one particular pea or what have you. So far, cereal puffs, eggs and cheese are big hits. Some fruits, like mango (see below) he makes a hilarious face at but keeps plowing away at them. I think that when something is tart and sweet he likes the sweetness but doesn't know what to do about the tartness. The result is a confused and somewhat pained expression!

ITEM: Jack can now stand up in his crib. I found this out the first time when I woke up as usual to the sound of him crabbing in his crib. I walked in to find him standing upright in the crib absolutely petrified because he couldn't get down. "Dude! What the hell!" I exclaimed. Now, he still can't get down some weeks later but is taking steps holding the crib rail/playpen/table edge or what have you. I saw him today take a cautious move toward sitting down, with one hand on the rail of his playpen (he couldn't see me watching) but then he chickened out and stood back up. Anyway he now can reach his mobile and many other things and suddenly seems a lot more grown up than he did just a few weeks ago!

So I think that covers it for now. Like I say, a lot of sudden development in the last four weeks! I am teaching Jack's Mommy how to update the blog sometime soon. So this should mean more frequent updates in the near future. In the meantime, take care and stay in touch!

Now before you start screaming about babies and plastic bags, know that seconds before this picture Genevieve turned and saw Jack making a beeline for this bag of stuff she had just moments ago cleaned off her desk. Shades, I fear, of things to come as Jack's mobility increases!!!