Dear Jacob: April 2008

Dear Jacob,

This morning I woke up and realized that it's May. Geeze it came fast! I can't believe how fast this year, and this pregnancy, have gone by so far. As with the rapid pace of passing time, your development has also become too fast.

This past month was full of extremes, and I see your personality coming out more and more with these alternating polar moods. You're just about the most polite kid I know, offering up pleases and thank yous unprovoked. And a minute later you're having a tantrum about something. the tantrums at this age are really great because being a four year old, you've mastered the ability to continue on with one train of thought for hours at a time. This is evidenced by the little mantras you repeat in tune with the tantrum. Whatever it was the injustice committed against you was, well you pick a few words to describe the situation and just keep on repeating it. I'm getting better and better at ignoring these times, but sometimes it gets the better of me and I just start laughing at you. That doesn't usually help the situation.

These days you're sleeping hard, working hard, eating hard, and growing hard. I think you've had a spurt in height lately, that and all the hard work in the yard with Daddy account for your huge appetite of late. It seems like you're really taking life for all it's worth, coming out of your shell, approaching experiences with gusto. You're like an adult answering the phone the way you do and helping Daddy. All winter long you talked in circles about the 'projects' you had in mind, now finally you and Daddy are getting out there and getting things done. I swear it's absolutely incredible the way you can spend an entire day outside doing yard work.

A lot of the moms in our regular group have been commenting that you seem to have come out of your shell more lately. You seem more outgoing when you're around your friends, being a bit more of a leader. But you still need your alone time. It's funny to see you off to the side in your own world when there are many different kid activities going on. It's nice to know that you are able to self-regulate like that though. I'm that way, needing a lot of alone time to put things in perspective, and I can see you taking after me in that regard.

The public side of your personality is really coming to the surface as well. At times we'll be doing some random shopping or something and you get in front of me and start "hugging the baby" and giving me kisses. You'll say how much you love me and how much you love Daddy and just gush about life. And there's times when you can be really outspoken too. Just last week you were in Target with MamMa, waiting in a very slow line and you stood up in the cart, announcing to everyone, "I'm pissed!" How to-the-point. Something you like to do that really pisses me off is when yell out the window at passing strangers. Since we live on a main road there are always people walking by. A lot of the time they can't hear you, but a couple weeks ago you got particularly miffed when you saw a lady and her son walking on the road. "That's not safe!!" you yelled out the window and she totally turned around to see who was yelling at her. Red faced and jaw to the ground, I whisked you away from the window and delivered my admonishment to you.

I've recently discovered that if I say something in an accent or a funny voice that I can get you to do most anything. I suppose this would be considered a manner of pretend play, and getting one of your parents to PLAY PRETEND WITH YOU is the ultimate activity. I had a previous discovery when you were younger that if I pretended I was a momma animal and you were the baby, I could get you to do most anything - even let me close my eyes for a few minutes.


So much of your personality is maturing and coming to the surface, but the one thing that hasn't changed is that you are a nature boy to the core. There's nowhere you're happier than in the outdoors. And clearly your favorite place to be is Camp. You can occupy yourself with something as simple as sticks, in fact you always want to take them home from whatever place we are visiting. Just about every departure we make includes you finding a stick from the ground and declaring it yours to take home. You also collect garbage everywhere we go. You want to rid the world of litter. At home is a different story though. We still have to be ever so careful about what we throw out, rather what we let you see us throw out. Most every day you find something discarded in our garbage, pull it out and tape it to the wall. There are crappy business cards, old brochures, random pictures, you name it, it decorates our walls. You're such a crazy, quirky kid always doing something out of the ordinary, but if it means having you in my life, then I'm willing to put up with any kind of crap you decide to furnish our lives with.

Cheesy smile (above); Running around almost
naked in the back yard during a rain shower in
the 40 degree weather (below).