Fearless Almost Fourteen Month Old

Jack will be 14 months old next week and I absolutely can't believe how much he has changed just in the past two weeks. I think these changes were exacerbated by the fact that I was gone all of last week so I'm noticing things that I really just took for granted, but there are some definite changes in his personality that I am just loving!

Jack has become Mr. Fearless lately. He runs head on into any adventure he sees. The other night while I was at work Johnny sent me a series of 4 videos of Jack playing outside with the dogs. He was running without hesitation into the sprinklers chasing after our biggest dog, Gordon. Whenever Gordon would open his mouth to guzzle water, Jack would do the same. It was SO funny! He is loving the dogs more and more and I think they're loving him, too.

Jack is also showing more interest in animals. When he was much smaller, I took him to a petting zoo and he wanted no part of it. Now, he walks up to strange dogs like it's nothing and just laughs and laughs when they bark. I'm really glad he's not scared of animals, but this means we have to watch him more closely to be sure he doesn't try to kiss a strange dog or something.

I've also noticed that Jack is listening to instructions and following them much better than before I left. He spent last week with both sets of grandparents and I think maybe having to communicate his needs more made a big difference. When he's home or at daycare, we've learned to understand "Jack's language" without questioning him, so he never really has a chance to ask for things or follow instructions. With the grandparents, he likely had to communicate more clearly, so he got better at it. It's so exciting now to say, "Jack, it's bath time" and watch him run down the hall to the bathroom. He's using his sign language more and is trying to pronounce words like shoe and fish. He's constantly saying "Dada" now and he and his daddy have become quite good buddies. Jack loves to wrestle and play chase and play ball. He is definitely all boy! He's also becoming much more independent. Don't EVEN try to get a graham cracker out of the bag for him...he will gladly do it himself!

I can't wait for Cate to get here, but I am going to savor these last few weeks with Jack by himself. It's hard to imagine being able to love anyone else as much...but I know we will all love Cate, too. I think these past few days have been God's way of showing me that Jack will be okay even without our undivided attention. He's growing up...way too fast if you ask me. But he's well on his way to being a super big brother. Fortunately, he'll always be my baby!