For the records...and a confession of sorts

When Will was a newborn, he sounded like a pterodactyl (according to J, anyway...I personally have no history of hearing or knowing what one sounds like). Anyway, I called him my "squeaky Will" because, well, he was squeaky. He never cried(still doesn't much), but just made precious little noises all the time. So much so, in fact, he squeaked his way out of the bassinet in our room into his nursery within just a couple of weeks of moving in.

Around the same time, I noticed that at night I could hear Jack on the baby monitor in his room making an awful, shrill noise. However, (like at the end of most days) I was just glad he was in his bed, in his room and not causing too big of a disruption, so I didn't stop him. Also at the same time, we were starting our "Growing Kids God's Way" small group and were learning about getting obedience "right away, all the way, happy way"...zero tolerance for the breaking of established rules, with the immediate consequence of a spanking. One of our said established rules was NO loud noises in the car (we had gone so far as to talk about how it could make mommy and/or daddy hurt us in the car and maybe even hurt other cars if Jack scared us while we were driving). Well, about a week after the shrill bedtime noises had started, Jack let one rip while we were flying down 280 from TigerTown. It scared the mess out of me, and since it was definitely a violation of our rules, I pulled over as fast as I could to spank his little leg and talk to him about why we don't make noises like that in the car (and preferably not anywhere!). As soon as I finished my diatribe, I pulled back on the road, satisfied that I had brought Jack into submission and that he had hopefully learned his lesson...and I also noticed that he was very quiet in the backseat. Then after a couple of minutes I heard a soft whisper coming from the backseat, and my precious toddler offered up this explanation in his sweet little voice for his misbehavior, "Squeaky Jack."

And that's how this unperceptive mommy lost her nomination for Mom of the Year, and "Jumpin' Jack" got HIS edifying nickname (that, and the fact that 97.7% of the time he's jumping).