It's been just Jack and I this weekend, since Laura flew to Pittsburgh to spend the weekend with some friends. To be honest, I think I owe her another weekend like this since I flew to Vegas last year and back to Seattle for a couple days last March.

Today started promptly at 7am - not by Jack mind you, but by my neighbor from upstairs asking if he could move my car. Oh, he didn't phone - he just poked his head in my bedroom window,

[in thick Boston accent] "Ed, let me use yawr keys to move yawr cahr, will ya?"

I'm all for breaking down the isolation of modern living, but this is ridiculous - he could've waited another hour. Still, he's putting in a patio in the backyard, must've been on a schedule. As it was, Jack was up soon enough. He's now old enough to call for us,

"Dad." "Daaaaaaad...." "Daaaaaaaad!"

Sir Jack now likes to have his milk in his crib for a bit before getting up. It's actually nice - gives me a chance to put some tea on and get his breakfast started. Picked him up from his crib,

"Wet Dad, I'm wet. Change jamee's." He'd spilled some milk on his pants. He wanted new pajamas - we compromised on put on some new bottoms. Maybe I'm not very sharp before 8am, but negotiating with a 2-year old is not as easy as it sounds.

"Momma plane." "Come home."

We had told Jack Laura was "on a plane". Apparently, he must think that's what she's doing this weekend, just flying around for 48 consectutive hours before coming home.

Our big adventure before lunch is to drive to BU and throw pinecones. Don't knock it - on the side of the School of Management are dozens of the best pinecones around (if you wanted to have a good pinecone fight). Jack's a little young for that, but he loves to pick them out, throw them all out of the sidewalk, pick them all up, put them in a pile, and throw them all back below the trees. Then the cycle repeats itself.

"Train dada, big train!"

The T runs down the length of Comm Ave at BU. So every 5 minutes Jack would stop what he was doing to point out another train. For lunch, we went had pizza at Bertucci's (which I think is Bostonian, for "Olive Garden") Our waiter must've thought he was the greatest waitor ever since Jack loved it everytime he brought us something -

"Juice!"

"Bread!"

"Peetz!" (which is Jack-speak for "pizza")

We drove home after lunch. Jack went down for his nap with his blankie.

"Momma come home."

"Yes, Jack, Mommy's coming home tomorrow."