Dear Jacob: May 2008

Dear Jacob,

This month has been a lot of waiting and a lot of preparing. I'm starting to get restless waiting for this baby, but you're still really excited and helpful. I think this having a new baby is coming at the perfect time considering your age and level of interest is being the 'go for' in this house. We've developed quite a rhythm with you following me around helping out with whatever you can.

This great rhythm of ours makes me a little afraid though. We're so completely in sync most of the time, the pair of us going about the house doing the dishes, vacuuming, doing the laundry, hanging clothes on the line to dry. You're such an eager helper. There are rough times too, but when it's just you and me and we're left to our own devices we get along so well. Being your mom is the best thing I have ever done. It's perfect. And so I'm afraid that it can't get any better, I'm scared having another child in the house will take away from the dynamic duo that you and I have become.

When we get home from somewhere I hand you the keys and you go unlock the front door while I gather our things. This is just one of the things that will be super helpful when I have an armload of baby to cart around. As I write this you are downstairs in the basement cleaning up the rabbits' area. This is not a forced activity, it is what you most want to do right now - sweep up rabbit poop.

You're my shopping buddy. You have a particular interest in clothes shopping, which is awesome for me, the clothes horse that I am. Picking out baby clothes is probably your favorite right now, though we don't have a need to actually buy any. Hear that everyone? If you want to get us a baby gift, no clothes please. We have more than enough.

Some of your current obsessions include the water coolers that they have in waiting rooms, watching the weather report on TV or on the radio and 'checking the Yankees score'. You are really into the Yankees now, thanks to your father. You're not really aware of when the games are on unless Daddy is around to tell you so, but sometimes you'll just go to the TV, flip it on and channel surf announcing that you're going to check the "ankees score" and she how Jeter's doing. You had a recent fantasy line going where you and Spud and Jeter were off to a job together. I can't picture that without laughing out loud. In my mind I see it as the trio of you walking across a parking lot with your backs to the camera, ala the Mod Squad.

Swinging on the swingset is on the list of your current favorite things. Correction: Your father just read this and he reminds me that he is the one who gets stuck pushing you on the swing and he says it is your number 1 favorite activity. You want to be pushed non-stop. This is really frustrating because you pretty much know how to pump by yourself now, but you've just got to perfect the technique. Teaching you how to pump is something that I find extremely irritating.

As long as you've been my kid I've known to watch out for the times when you get quiet and disappear on me. These days when you've gone silent my first reaction is to pick up the telephone to make sure you're not on there ordering a dozen pizzas. See, I recently gifted you the old phone book and donned it "Jacob's phonebook". You carry it around to hidden corners of the house, open it to the pizza section and with the cordless phone in your hand you start to look up numbers and try to figure out how to dial them. I knew I should never have taught you our address or how to dial 911! As of yet, there have been no surprise pizza deliveries, actually, I'm not sure you know the actual delivery part is even an option so I will keep that aspect of the system from your awareness as long as I can.

A couple weeks ago the three of us went to the ice cream place down the road and you started talking about when you went mini-golfing there with Nana. Daddy and I did not remember this at all. After a long time questioning you Daddy finally remembered the time an entire year ago. And you remembered this! The things you've been coming up with from a year or more ago that we haven't talked about since are amazing. It's like your brain isn't yet clogged up with all the useless information that adults walk around with in their heads.

Our relationship is not perfect. Most of this pregnancy I have been super happy about all the things you do, and everything is cute, blah, blah, blah...but now that I'm getting to the end things are beginning to get annoying. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm going insane, or that the pleasant streak has run out. For instance, anytime we have to get ready to either leave the house or for bed at night, you go crazy. You really just act crazy. Screaming, running around like a lunatic, hurling objects all around the house. I don't know, I can't describe it, but it's the most aggravating time of the day and all I do is repeat over and over again to "Get your underwear off your head and please brush your teeth already!"

Also, and I think it finally hit me today when I said, "Hey, let's count to twenty!" to get you to shut up - but you've been asking some really annoying questions lately. They are questions that I think you should be able to figure out the answer to, you know, like 4 year old common sense, and they all start with "Why?" Wasn't that the two year old thing to do? "Why did you step over that puddle?" I don't know, that was pretty silly of me to not want to get my foot wet, huh? Things like that.

Anyway, the benefits of having you around really do outweigh the costs, so I guess we'll keep you around. We have gotten quite used to you in the past 4 1/2 years. You've left your mark on us. Like the other day when I quickly grabbed something from the bathroom cabinet and almost did a double take because I thought that it looked like the q-tip and cotton ball containers had been refilled. I didn't need to see it again to believe it though because it soon became perfectly logical - I understood Jacob has been here. It's like your little calling card, proof that life would not be the same without you.