Dear Jacob: August 2007

8/4 You've been asking some deep questions lately. "Who put the sky together?" you asked while waving your hands around to indicate all of the sky. "How do they make things, like construction materulls an fans an stuff?" I tried to quench your curiosity but all I could come up with was a very juvenile answer and then told you to ask your father when he gets home. Just now, "Where does horseradish come from?" you asked Daddy. And then you lean in waiting for the answer, as if it holds the key to life. I get annoyed at those kids who ask a million questions and then run away half way through your explanation. Not you. You stick around for the end of it. It really makes a person feel as if they've used their breath for a worthy cause.

Motion is the one word I would have to use to describe you right now. You won't. Sit. Still. Ever. Always with the lets kicking around, arms flailing about. You wouldn't think to sit on the couch with your child, all snuggled in to read a book, or to lean down to kiss your sleeping angel could be considered a dangerous activity. But with you it is. We'll be on the couch all settled down and you decide there's something you forgot. Out goes the arm, elbow back right into my chest, or Daddy's groin, then you push off and a foot gets me somewhere else. Sometimes at night, when you're already asleep, I go to kiss you. Your limbs seem to know when I am coming, when my face is just close enough, and suddenly a hand goes up, slaps me in the face. Sometimes you get it just right and your nail scratches my eyeball. This is real fun. There is nothing like the sensation that you are going to lose your vision for the rest of your life.

Then there's the talking. It doesn't stop. Most of the time it's great. I guess when it is paired with the Touching is when it really gets on my nerves. After a long day of being around the same person and talking to them, doing things for them, well sometimes a mother's tolerance level is a little low. Sometimes she just wants to sit and be. Alone. And instead there's a little person, squirming, chattering on, and touching her. Sometimes all it takes is having a little person sitting behind her on the couch, and as he goes to move, his foot brushes her messy bun for the umpteenth time that day, and it's enough to send her head spinning around, frothing at the mouth with mean words spilling out of it.

8/5 Conversation skills have improved dramatically. This started on our trip. You are so shy and standoffish with your peers, but with adults you just want to tell them all the stories that are important to you but really have no relevance to the other people, and I am left explaining what it all means. I love that you are so eager to connect and share your experience of the world with other people. You are so like me in this way.

Along with the conversational nature of your being, goes the storytelling. You tell tall tales about what kind of work you and the 'team' are going to do, where the job is and what time you have to get up. The times of day that you come up with are starting to make sense. "I have to get up early tomorrow to go to a job, I have to be out of here at 6 o'clock morning." But just now as I am asking you to refresh my memory about what time you have to get up, and you're telling me that there are no jobs anymore, you canceled them. Okey dokey.

And with the storytelling, comes the packing. You like to pack bags. For everything. Just like I was when I was a kid. And just like I a still am. Back to you - you're moving out, Bob is building you a house, you have to pack up your stuff. You'll miss us when you move out, but you have to go. The week before that was the week the addition got 'completed' and you decided you were going to move your room down there. You pack your clothes for the trip to camp you want to take.

Right now we're having a chat about how you're moving out - you brought this up not knowing that I am writing about it at this moment, or do you know? That's another thing, you read my mind. This is something you have done for a while. So we're having this full-out, in-all-seriousness conversation about how you are moving out tomorrow. And I am totally into it, the conversation I mean, not the idea of you moving out. I love having conversations with you and humoring you. Sometimes I wonder if you are humoring me? Next you go over to Ginger and say your goodbyes in a really sad, high-pitched voice. The voices are something to behold. I love how into it you get when you're off in your own world. You do impersonations of people when you are relaying a story. It's such a riot.

8/29 Enough with Bob already. He has an opinion on everything. He has the answer to everything, and come to think of it, he' omnipotent too. Bob can do anything! Whether it's supervising you while I am away from the house, unclogging the drain, or building a village, he's your man. Basically you talk about Bob all day long. I've given up trying to deny his existence. I, too, have begun talk like he's real. It just makes things easier.

When you get into Bob mode, you suddenly become this pint-sized mass of bravado and it's rather endearing to see your confidence shining through like that. I worry a little that you might have a challenging go of it at times when you're older because you're a peanut; little, like me. But mostly I think it's cute, and I think you're cute. So it's fun to see that even though you're already a little man, you'll always be my little boy. Like just now on our walk when you spotted a car half a mile away and you practically jumped into my arms, or a few minutes after that when you were trying to be cool and suddenly jumped back and screamed because a bug had landed on you unexpectedly.

The questions are still coming at me non-stop, but they seem to be evolving at a rapid pace. During one of our long drives the other day Daddy showed us the farm where his grandfather grew up. We then talked about how his grandfather had died a long time ago, and that opened the door for the death questions. A couple weeks ago one of the dogs I have been pet-sitting for died. I waited a couple days for the right time to tell you because you are very fond of these dogs. You were sad, but worked out a story about how Bartie's soul and Maxi's soul were probably playing together in Heaven. I added the part about Bart helping Maxi out because Maxi is blind, but you've rather taken to that explanation. So when we were talking about Daddy's Pa, it reminded you of my father being in Heaven too. You told me that you think Daddy's grandfather and my father are in Heaven together playing with one another. I wouldn't mind if the line of questioning never evolves beyond where it is now because as a full-grown adult, that's the exact reality I'd like to believe.