Jackson is at a cute age where he comes up with the most imaginative scenarios and wants me to play along. Usually it's superhero, dinosaur, or basketball related.

Recently he's made up a character that seems to make an appearance daily. He stands on the fireplace and says "Mom get ready! I'm going to throw suckers and candy to everyone!" So he picks up armfuls of pretend candy and throws it into the air and waits for us to catch them. The joy on his face as he plays "candy man" is so genuine, that I always play along. I think I'm going to let him watch some of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tomorrow. It's probably right up his alley.

He's also started repeating us when we talk (repeating us when we talk). It really gets on my nerves (gets on my nerves). It's hard for me to believe I have a child old enough to start copying what I say (start copying what I say).

Last week at storytime the children learned about the Chinese New Year. When I walked in to pick him up I said, "Jackson, what did you learn about today?" The mother next to me chimed in and said "They learned how to say 'hi' in Chinese!" I looked back at Jackson and asked him "How do you say 'hi' in Chinese?"
"Bonjour" he said.

He is very curious about the world around him. He is always asking about very insightful things. Where do the birds go when it's cold? How does water turn into ice? What happens to us when we die? It's cute to see his little forehead scrunch up as he is contemplating life.

Last week I brought a book home to work with Jackson on learning to read. It's made up of 100 lessons and I got Jackson very excited about it. When I opened to the first page his excitement was immediately thwarted. He saw lots of letters, but he wanted to read WORDS. So he flipped to the center of the book and said "mom I want to read here, where there are lots of words." Poor guy had a sad lesson on patience, Rome wasn't built in a day, but unfortunately for Jackson he doesn't even know what Rome is.

A couple of mornings ago Jackson asked to watch a movie as soon as he got out of bed. Greg promptly told him no and walked away. Jackson came running after him and started screaming frantically. "Dad if you don't get a movie right now I am GOING TO DIE! DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE???" He then proceeded to flop on the ground and lie on his back. He closed his eyes and after a couple of seconds peeked his eye open to see if Greg was looking. Greg ignored him and the rest of the morning ran smoothly. He must have inherited the drama from Greg's side because I can't imagine I was ever like that as a kid.

We've recently been waking Jackson up late at night to have him go to the bathroom to help keep him dry in the mornings. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But Jackson is not the sleepy compliant child I thought he would be when we wake him up. Instead he is an angry/annoyed/scowling child. Last week we woke him up and he started yelling at Greg "I TOLD you, I already went to the bathroom at Katherine's house!" and as he pulled up his pants and stomped back to bed, he yelled over his shoulder "I'm almost FOUR!"
Well then. Can't argue with that logic.

We love Jackson. I can't think of what our family would be like without him. A very boring one, that's for sure.