Play Time!

Jack and I have started hanging around our community center a bit more often. They have special times and days each week for little kids to come and have art time, gym time, pool time and even skate time. Jack and I have started attending the gym and art time. He loves running around the huge gym and playing with the basketballs, big blocks and following all of the other kids around. On our first experience there, Jack was the victim of assault. He had his eye on a little girl that was about 4 months older than him. He was following her all over the gym and she was growing quite tired of this, so, she turned around and gave him a big shove. Jack landed on his tushie and looked quite confused, he wasn't really sure how he ended up on his bottom. Well, Jack, take this as your first lesson in love. This is only the first time of many that you will be interested in a girl and when she finally gives you some attention, she just shoves you to the ground and you are left wondering what the heck happened. I would love to say that Jack was so bothered by this act of violence, that he went to play with other children, but no, as any other male would do, he jumped right up and continued to follow her and try to win her over.

When the little girl left (not in handcuffs even though the little criminal deserved such), Jack found new friends to play with--teenagers. I don't know why he is so attracted to teenagers, but he finds them wherever we go, ditches me and hangs out with his new buddies. On this day, he was giving them high fives and they were trying to teach him "knuckles". He would bring them a ball and they would roll it back and forth with him. If they forgot about him, he would go up to them, pull on their pant leg and hand them the ball again! It was so cute to watch him make friends all on his own! At one point, Jack watched with amazement while the teenagers were climbing on the rock wall. When they finished and went back to what they were doing, Jack instructed them to do it again with a series of grunting, pointing and pulling on pant legs! I really did try to get Jack to leave the teenagers alone, but he has a one-track mind! The kids were excellent with him, however, I do wish that Jack would be his normal self around kids of this age, he is the poster child for abstinence around most people.

Jack has also started hanging out with the neighborhood boys. As soon as we go outside, he runs to the side of our driveway that is closest to the house that they all hang out at and looks for the boys. He then will do a series of grunts as though he is calling them--sometimes it is a "Hey, I am coming on over, guys!", sometimes it is a "Hey, where are you guys at?". Luckily the friendship appears mutual and the kids love to impress Jack with their skateboarding and bike tricks! A couple of nights ago, the big boys had a game of basketball going while Jay, Jack and I watched from our yard. At one point, the ball was knocked in the grass and Jack jumped up, yelled "I got it!" (or something that really sounded like "AJHERGAADRE!") and ran over, picked up the basketball and brought it back to the kids. It was so darn cute to see him carry this basketball that was almost the size of him and bring it back to his buddies!

Here is a picture of Jack hanging with his neighborhood friends. On this evening, they all took turns letting Jack play with their glasses, bracelets and cell-phones (which by the way, EACH of these kids have cooler phones than I do and none of them are over the age of 14!). Jay and I were cleaning our vehicles and these kids just sat and entertained Jack for well over an hour before I had to tell the guys that it was Jack's bedtime!

Jack and I made it back to the community center again today. There were no teenagers to play with, so he just ran and ran and ran. At one point, a mother there with three kids ages two and under (the middle one was one she babysits), said to me with great sympathy, "Wow, he must really keep you busy!" How sad is that....a mom taking care of three small children was feeling bad for me and I only have ONE! The whole time we were there today, that other mom never moved, she sat in the same spot the whole time and the kids just kept running back to her and never caused any trouble. Jack and I, on the other hand, were running back and forth across that basketball court so much that you would have sworn we were actually playing a basketball game with imaginary friends! Jack was also climbing into people's strollers, getting into their diaper bags and even discovered how much fun it is to play with the drinking fountain!