Dear Jacob: June & July 2007

Ha! I started this post exactly two months ago. It was going to be the June post and I was going to finish it before we left for our trip. But then we got busy so I figured it could be June and July, and that July would be short anyway because most of the month was taken up by our trip. And then we came back and life got busy again...so, this is late. But not very late.

6/2/07 You talk all the time about things that happened when you were a baby. A lot of the time it's made up stories that you wish had happened, or that you think are outrageous. "One day, when I was a baby, and you were sick, Daddy took my to that place down the road and I went on the bouncy-bounce." Yeah, right. You were never away from me when you were a baby. Most of the made up stories can be traced back to a few different experiences, just like a lot of my dreams are compilations of several different things. I think this one particular story comes from back in March when I had my wisdom teeth out and you might very well have gone many places with Daddy because I was completely drugged-up on pain killers and thus unaware. And the other part of it is the bouncy-bounce that they set up at Daddy's work in January when that one show comes to the college. You did go there with him, but it was not when I had my wisdom teeth out and it was not when you were a baby. Some of the stories actually happened to you though, and you've heard us tell stories about those times. I can tell you really love hearing about yourself as a baby now that you've developed such a strong sense of self, so I tell a lot of these stories to you now. I'm glad I've got so much in writing, otherwise I would have forgotten a lot of it.

You want to wear your work clothes all the time. This means your flannel shirt and Carthartt pants. It is June. Hot, humid, sticky. You can't be convinced that you'll be hot so you end up wearing them in the house most of the time. When we go to the playground it's hard to get you to take them off but we end up compromising by at least packing the work clothes.

8/2/07 I thought the trip might break the work clothes habit, but we took them with us. Thankfully though, they never came out of hiding. As soon as we were home, however, you were asking after them. You get up in the morning and start stripping down, getting in the hot, hot clothes before I even realize you're awake for the day. Or if you don't put them on, it's some other mis-matched get-up. You take one of your little yellow chairs and put it up to the closet, climb up and start peeling back the velcro which belongs to the best baby-lock device I ever purchased (at the dollar store). "Look Mommy, I can reach this now!" you exclaim. I just cringe and want and mumble under my breath that I need to remember to move it higher when you go to sleep.

6/6/07 You proclaimed the other day that playing with your tools is your favorite thing to do. No, really?

8/2/07 At this point I can say hands down that your most favorite thing ever, ever in the whole wide world is working with your daddy. Anything, as long as it's with him and it's real. It sometimes hurts to be the one you don't want to be with, but I have to say, I think this enthusiasm for 'work' has turned your father over to my side in terms of homeschooling. I think he has this vision of a father/son company and teaching you everything he knows, etc. School would just get in the way of that. Thanks kid.

Yesterday you told me you like your right hand better than your left hand. This was not surprising because the two hands on your body frequently have heated interactions where the left hand does something offensive to the right hand. Or sometimes they help each other. The right hands picks something up and gives it to the left hand and you tell me this was polite of the right hand. Your feet have the same kinds of exchanges, but not as often as the hands do. Oh, and sometimes they fight. This is great, it's so cute...part of me laughs to think how in later years I will look back on this kind of playing and see it as the beginning of your multiple personality disorder...hehe.

8/2/07 The hand/foot personalities still apply. I love it. It's so inventive of you. I would expect that kind of thing from a child who was deprived of any toys, but really, I would more expect it from a child of mine. It's the exact sort of thing I imagine I did when I was your age. Still I am constantly assigning genders and personalities to inanimate objects, as well as teasingly naming the little critters I take photos of. Anyway, my point is that I think I love you a little more for this quirk that we share.

June: "What do you think of that?" is your most-oft spoken phrase at the moment.

You're still doing the misprounciation thing where words beginning with 'B' are spoken with an 'a' sound first and then the 'b' sound. It's hard to describe...'ablieve', as in, "I can't ablieve it!" is a biggy right now. Abloons. I think it's mostly words where the first syllable begins with a 'b' and the second syllable begins with an 'L'. Because I don't want to give you a complex, but mostly because I think it's cute, I don't correct you. I hope this is ok. I hope I'm not inadvertently giving you a speech impediment.

8/2/07 One day on our trip, out of the blue, you got your 'sh' sound, as well as your 'ch' sound. And now it's evolved into you properly pronouncing and word that begins with S that you used to have trouble with. This is sad, as I expected it to be, but I didn't expect it to be so exciting. It's just very cute the way you are still getting used to your new kind of speech and when you say those words you really enunciate the sound.

8/2/07 You have become a completely self-serve child. You dress yourself, which I already wrote about. You help yourself to things all over the house, especially (to my dismay) the fridge.You bathe yourself (well), let yourself out (scary!), feed the animals (at the wrong times of day), you buckle yourself into your carseat. All of these things I am not allowed to help with. I have to stand there, patiently waiting for you to finish. But actually, it was more like that in the beginning of this phase. Now that you have gotten better at all of this stuff, there are times that you let me help. And I treasure them.