June 11

I know, I know, what an imaginative title for this post. To be honest, not a whole lot of new stuff has happened, but I felt an obligation to put something up. I haven't taken any new pics of Jake since the last ones I posted, so I can't fill up space with those, so you'll have to be content with my ramblings.
Jacob continues to entertain and frustrate us, all at the same time. As his skills increase, so does the level of mischief that he can cause. Lately he has discovered climbing, and has even attempted to climb the book shelves on either side of our TV (much to his mother's dismay!). Right now he has discovered a wonderful invention - balls. He has at least 6 that he is fond of, but each morning he arises he calls out "ball" looking for one very specific one. It is a rubber bouncing ball that has a plastic eyeball in it. It bounces the best of all of them, so it is his favorite. If he can't find it right away, he'll look at you and ask "Wheresit?" The search will continue until he finally obtains it, at which point he will yell out triumphantly, "ball!"
His vocabulary and speaking skills are increasing as well. Unfortunately, he has now successfully learned how to say no. Just last night Leigh Ann asked him if he wanted to go to bed, and he looked at her and said no.
My brother Richard moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan back to Salt Lake City last week, so now our nearest relatives are Leigh Ann's family about 8 hours away in Chattanooga. We did get an opportunity to go up and visit Richard once while he lived in Michigan, and we were able to drive over to see Lake Michigan (you can see it in the background of the picture of the three of us on the side of the blog). Unfortunately, Jacob developed two ear infections and a sinus infection, staying up all night crying and forcing us to head home early so we could get him in to see his doctor.
Summer seems to have finally come to stay, and we have been enjoying the sunny days. We try to cook on the grill at least once a week, and Jacob loves going outside to the point that you have to drag him kicking and screaming back into the house (literally).
Otherwise, life goes on. We are still working, still working hard to keep up with the exercise and diets, and still constantly searching for new ways to entertain ourselves.

Fun With Food

Not that he has ever been the cleanest little boy when it comes to eating, but I thought I would show some of his dirtier moments when it comes to eating. The worst is usually when he has macaroni and cheese, or sweet potatoes. In fact, mac and cheese is the regularly scheduled meal on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which also happen to be his bath days. So far we have refrained from taking any bath blackmail pictures.
While he is not yet the biggest speaker, he is starting to make more sense. He now says dada regularly, but unfortunately uses it for both mommy and daddy. His other favorite word is ball, and it usually refers to one specific ball that is currently his favorite toy. When he can't find it right away, he will usually turn to one of us and ask, "Where is it?" And then, if you call for him, he'll usually turn to you and ask, "What?"
He particularly gets cracked up when you fake a really big sneeze. Just tonight, he started doing them himself. He would get himself all worked up, and then do his biggest sneeze, which mainly consisted of him spitting, but it was hilarious. This is what typically passes for entertainment now that 24 and Lost are done for the season.

First Haircut

We finally decided that Jacob's hair had just gotten too shaggy, so we broke down and took him to get his first haircut. Not that we didn't think that his bushy mop top wasn't cute, but it was just sticking up in every direction all the time and was starting to hang over his ears and into his eyes. So we got him an appointment at Cookie Cutters, a place that specializes in little kids' haircuts.
They get to sit in a little car that can be raised and lowered, and there are TVs for them to watch some movie. Jacob enjoyed watching "Cars" while he got his hair cut. At first he wasn't too excited about it all, but when the girl that was cutting his hair brought him a sucker, he decided maybe it wouldn't be so sad after all.
Below are a series of pictures from what he looked like before the haircut, a couple during the haircut (including my favorite with his hair put up in a mohawk), and the final product at the place, as well as a picture with him all cleaned up at home afterwards.
Jacob did remarkably well and did not complain at all during the whole ordeal. All in all, it was a pretty good experience, and he looks like a cute little boy again, not some homeless child.





Not much else new has come our way since I posted last. Work continues. Leigh Ann is starting day one of her three working days which will include Memorial Day. Such is the life of one who works in the healthcare industry. Sometimes you have to work a holiday. I am taking the opportunity to get caught up on John Wayne films (May 26 would have been the Duke's 100th birthday, so they have been showing a lot of his movies on AMC and TCM).

Candid shots

Well, sometimes you do whatever it takes to calm the beast down. Jacob has not been feeling well for the last couple of days, so we have been doing everything we can think of to get him to settle down. After breakfast, he was pitching a fit, so I turned the computer camera on him so that he could see himself, and I snapped a couple of pictures in the process. They aren't as high of quality as with our digital camera, but they're not bad.
Later in the day, to get him to calm down I gave him some apple Pedialyte, which he loves. That calmed him down enough that he was in better spirits, and then he really got lively when he learned how funny it is to pelt the cat with one of his balls. That got him hysterical, until the cat decided he had had enough, so he jumped the gate at the bottom of the stairs and fled under Jacob's crib.
Jacob got sick early Friday morning, or late Thursday night. We're not sure exactly when. All we know is that when Leigh Ann went to get him out of bed at 9am, his crib looked like something out of a horror movie, and you could see everything he had eaten the previous day. After washing him thoroughly and airing out the room, he finally looked like a little boy again.
Anyways, here are the pictures.

More Easter Pics

Here are some more pictures, including Jacob's first ride on a carousel.

Easter Fun

Easter was a mixed bag this year. Unfortunately, while Children's Hospital considers Christmas a holiday, they don't do the same for Easter. And since it was Leigh Ann's usual weekend to work, she spent Easter at work with the dinner I had made the night before. Jacob and I had a bachelor's Easter dinner with our friend Adam, whose wife and daughter were out of town for a wedding. We didn't get any Easter pictures taken, because Columbus is looking more like Christmas than Easter.
On Monday, we made the trek down to Chattanooga, TN, to spend the week with Leigh Ann's parents in their new house, sandwiched between Red Bank and Signal Mountain in the north-western section of the city. Leigh Ann is having to adjust to a new house, after spending most of her life in their old house.
We went out and took pictures of Jacob at a park along the Tennessee river, even though the weather has not been the best here in Tennessee. It has been fairly windy, and there has been a bit of rain. Jacob also got his first ride on a carousel at the park. He thoroughly enjoyed riding around on a frog, but got even more enjoyment out of running around in the large field afterwards. It was a chore to try and get him to go back to the car in the end.
Both Leigh Ann and I have caught some kind of bug which has tried to dampen our stay, but we are still enjoying having a week off of work. We are not looking forward to the drive back to Columbus tomorrow. Jacob does well on the drive, but the last half hour always seems to be a little too much for him. Having a DVD player in the van has been a lifesaver.
While here in Chattanooga, we always take the opportunity to head down to Birmingham to see friends. We stopped in to see my old boss at UAB, who was ecstatic to see me again. He tried to convince me to come back and do a postdoc with him. Needless to say I turned down his offer. We then went and met our friends Andy and Rheanna Stevens and had dinner at my favorite BBQ place, Dreamland. Anybody who ever gets to Alabama has to try this place. For you westerners, it will give you an education in the true meaning of BBQ. BBQ is not a verb. What we call BBQ is really just grilling. BBQ is a noun, and is a specialty of the south. I have vowed many times that I would die with a Dreamland rib lodged in an artery.

Here's what you've been waiting for

That's right, here they are. The latest pictures of Jacob. Still a rascal, but don't let these pictures into fooling you that he is a very serious kid. In all reality, he is almost never serious. He is more often than not playing and smiling. He just won't ever smile when he knows the camera is on him.