Don Rickles is Jackson's New BFF

Move over Ernie and Cookie Monster, Don Rickles is taking over the toddler market. He is Jackson's new best friend.

During take-off from Tampa, I was trying to keep Jackson's attention away from being scared, so I pulled out Southwest's in-flight magazine: Spirit. Right on the inside cover was an ad for one of the older Las Vegas casinos (Golden Nugget maybe??) talking about its $100 million renovations and entertainment. It also had two inset headshots of some headliners that were going to appear at the casino - Don Rickles and Rich Little. For WHATEVER reason, Jackson really got attached to these two chucklers like white on rice. He made me say their names over and over again. He wasn't laughing at their names, he was just trying to get them right. I can't imagine what the passengers sitting around us thought as I said "Don Rickles" and "Rich Little" for the 9th billion time. Jackson just kept pointing at their headshots and making me say their names over and over. I tried to distract him with toys, food, juice, ANYTHING....but he wouldn't bite. He just loved him some Don Rickles. Don't get me wrong, Jackson asked about Rich Little too, but only in the way that the ugly girl at the bar gets attention from guys because her friends are good looking and THEY are the ones that the guys are after. For those that couldn't follow: Don Rickles would be the good looking one in this scenario and Rich Little is the ugly one.

Jackson just really took a liking to Don Rickles. He would not put the magazine down. At one point, I snuck the magazine away from him so that he could have a snack, but he immediately started reaching and screaming: "Don! Don! My Don!", so I gave it back to him. Lessen learned: Be careful what you show Jackson when you are trapped in close quarters. You never know, next time, he might get attached to a picture like this: