Quite the Chatterbox

Jacob has become even more vocal as of late, and is constantly "talking." Some of it is intelligible, some not, but he is definitely improving.
One of his favorite things to do now is sing the "ABC" song. Of course, he doesn't actually say the letters, and will substitute whatever sound he likes, but he is almost pitch perfect with the tune. And if you sing the last part to him, "Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with . . . " he will cheerfully sing "ME!"
His favorite show on now is Blue's Clues, and for anybody familiar with it, whenever Jacob sees the pawprint, he will yell out "coo," which, obviously, is him trying to say "Clue." In addition, he will carry out a whole conversation with himself, over and over, saying, "A coo, a coo . . . oh, a coo? . . . A coo!" It is hilarious as he will do this over and over. And sometimes I will draw a pawprint, and as soon as he sees it, he says "A coo."
Perhaps the funniest, though, is that in preparation for Halloween, we bought Jacob a pirate's hat and sword (he loves wearing the hat!), which, once he saw at Michael's, he had to have. On his previous favorite show, The Backyardigans, they had an episode where they all pretended to be pirates, and sang repeatedly, "A pirate says arrr!" So, after reminding Jacob of the song, every time you ask him what a pirate says, he lets out this very deep, growling, "arrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!"
I need to post the pictures we took of him wearing the pirate's hat and holding his sword.

Fun In The Sun

As I said in our last post, we took a week off and spent part of the time at the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We were blessed with beautiful weather, and an amazing condo. This place was like a mansion, and I would consider moving there (marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, 3 BR, 3 BA, HDTVs in the living room and all 3 bedrooms, with DVD/VCR included). It was on the 7th floor, and we had an incredible view of the lagoon, and were right across the street from the ocean. Combine that with lots of good seafood, and we loved it. Jacob didn't think much of the water (the ocean or the swimming pool), but did love playing in the sand, after we washed the sand off of his face!
This was too cute to pass up. We wouldn't put on one of his shows (currently Blue's Clues is his favorite) in the living room, so Jacob went to join his Uncle Brian in his room to watch his TV.
Jacob didn't think much of the pool, but he absolutely loved the inflatable swimming ring we got him that was shaped like a dolphin. He has a walrus bath toy that he plays with, and apparently this dolphin looked like the walrus (to him), so he called it by the same name. He can't quite say walrus, and so the dolphin became his much beloved "Walry." He dragged "Walry" all around the pool, once in a while dipping "Walry" in and asking, "Wheresat Walry? Where is he?"

I took this picture last night! It was too cute to pass up. I even got Jacob to smile (it was actually because he had just pulled his Blue out of the wastebasket and was cheering). Jacob was great on the whole trip, and did extremely well considering the amount of time he spent in his car seat (30 hours, along with incidental traveling around town).
All in all we loved the trip. Jacob had a blast. We all got sick of watching (over and over) the Blue's Clues DVDs, which is currently Jacob's favorite show, but it was a small price to pay for him behaving so well on the trip. If anybody else is considering a trip to Gulf Shores, we would highly recommend going just a week or two after the peak season, like we did, and you will get great rates while the weather is still good. And I can recommend an excellent condo!
Now we have to settle back into the normal routine, until our next vacation! My family is making the trip out here in November for Thanksgiving, and we are all really excited. Richard is coming out from Utah, David from Korea, and my mom and Clyde from California.

Weird Eating Habits

Jacob has been a bit frustrating as of late with his ever changing eating likes and dislikes. The only constants seem to be ketchup, french fries, grilled cheese, and fruit loops. Everything else is completely hit and miss, and can change from one day to the next.
So imagine our surprise at some of the odd things that he has developed a real taste for. For one, he loves dill pickles. We tried this at one of our local BBQ places, and he just gobbled down the dill pickle slices (almost as surprising as the fact that their is halfway decent BBQ this far north of the Mason-Dixon).
He likes my Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits. In general he likes most crackers, but I thought for sure that the high pepper content in these would be a turn off. Not really, though. The little boy mooches off of me whenever I have these out.
Finally, and this was the biggest surprise, Jacob loves salsa. We went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant last week, and Jacob normally will munch on the tortilla chips. He kept pointing at the bowl of salsa (we assume because it looked so much like his beloved ketchup), so we pushed the bowl to him. We thought for sure he would start crying once the salsa hit his lips. This is by no means a super hot salsa - I would say mild-medium - but imagine our surprise when, rather than crying out, he proceeded to redip his chip in the salsa. For the rest of our meal, he continued to eat the salsa - not just dipping the chip to wet it, but actually scooping out the chunks and everything. Who knew?
We are heading down for a week to spend time with Leigh Ann's family. We are planning to take a couple of days and head down to the gulf coast (Gulf Shores, AL) for some sun, sand, and surf. Unfortunately, we may end up getting rain, wind, and indoor pools. Cross your fingers for us.
For Labor Day, we were daring and staged a large grill out at our humble home. In total we had 10 adults and 5 children, and our kitchen and living room were packed to capacity. It went well, though, and we had plenty of food and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. A new family that we have met through church came as well with their 3 children, along with our friends the Bevans, and a few others. Jacob played the role of the troll under the bridge, challenging all that tried to pass by his chair as he was eating. Actually, what he would do was kick (lightly) one of the other children everytime she passed by his chair.
Jacob is exactly one month away from hitting 2 years old. He continues to grow and learn. His vocabulary is increasing, and he is getting better at letting us know what he wants, but there is still a lot of gibberish mixed in with real words.
Leigh Ann just had her schedule changed at work, so she now goes in later to work, and we find that we no longer have to have a regular babysitter for Jacob, as we can now trade him off on the days that she works. This means Leigh Ann gets more time with him (we will wait to see how she survives that!). Our friends the Bevans will watch him on Fridays for a few hours, but Jacob seems to love going to their house. Their little girl comes over on Mondays, so Jacob gets to see his girlfriend twice a week. Quite the ladies' man.

Calling All Cars

As I said, one of Jacob's favorite games is to hide his cars, then turn to you and ask, "Wheresat cah?" He loves these little cars, because they are particularly easy to hide.

Sometimes eating can be so tedious, don't you think? In an effort to not be the world's worst parents when it comes to what we feed our child, we have begun to make whole meals out of vegetables. Jacob still is fond of some types of food that are green, such as peas. But sometimes, it just isn't quite as exciting as macaroni and cheese, or a grilled cheese sandwich (are you catching a common theme for his favorite foods?).
He has added quite a bit to his vocabulary as of late. Maybe it is from hanging out with his girlfriend, Abby, who is quite the accomplished speaker, and is a few months younger than Jake. He now can say car (cah), cup (cuh), shoe (soo), ball (bah), block (blah), Winnie the Pooh (Pooh), no (NO!), mommy (mommy or Mom!), daddy (dada), cheese (sounds kind of like shee, but we are confident it is cheese, because he holds up a piece of cheese when he says it). I may be leaving out a few things, but that is a pretty good list. He also understands toes, even if he will not say it, because if you ask him where his toes are, he will reach down and grab them. He can also correctly identify his bath toys, which are boats, a walrus, a shark, an octopus, and a lobster, and if you ask for each one, he will pick them out of the water and toss them at you!
Finally, what collection of children's pictures would be complete without one of your child walking around in your shoes. Jacob now enjoys taking my shoes and putting them on. It has been fairly difficult to catch him in the act with a camera, but Leigh Ann was finally successful.
Not a lot of news to report. August has been a mixed bag, weather-wise. We had a week where it was miserable, both hot and humid, but we seem to have kicked the humidity, which makes it a little more pleasant. Leigh Ann has been battling a dual bacterial and viral infection, and has temporarily lost her voice. Ever the active one, having to spend a couple days at home with nothing to do is almost worse than the illness itself. I come home to find her bored out of her mind.

A month of Potter

The month of July ended up being dominated by Harry Potter. Leigh Ann and I were able to go see the newest movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the day after it opened. We saw it on the IMAX screen, with the 20 minute action scene near the end in 3-D. This ended up not being quite as good as we had hoped, as the action got very jumpy and hard to follow.
On the 21st, then, our copy of the last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, arrived in the mail, and Leigh Ann began at once to read it. She was done within a week, and I then quickly read it. So now he have the whole story. On the whole we both enjoyed it. Leigh Ann has now decided to reread all of the books, while I have decided to go back to my old favorite, J. R. R. Tolkien. I've started reading the Hobbit (I don't know how many times this makes for me).
Jacob's vocabulary continues to grow. He enjoys pointing out cah (car), cuh (cup), stih (stick), and ball (which he uses interchangeably for both balls and rocks) wherever we go. Of course, his favorite word is "no." He has lately taken up saying it 2-3 times whenever he says it. Thus, when you ask him if he wants to go to bed, he will usually reply, "No . . . no . . . no!" I can't imagine how he has picked up this word.
We continue to believe our son has been blessed with an overactive sense of humor. While he can now say both "Mommy" and "Dada," he seems to enjoy switching them. While with me, he will call to me, saying Dada, and whenever he hears the phone ring, he will look at me and ask "Mommy?" However, when Leigh Ann appears, instead of calling out "Mommy," he will yell out "Dada." We are convinced he does it, not because he doesn't know the difference, but because he knows it will get a good laugh.
He currently has a few favorite games. One is to throw the ball around and chase after it. Another is to take some object, usually a ball or one of his cars, hide it, and then go up to you and ask "Where'sit?" This is great fun for him, and he gets a huge grin when you discover his hiding place (which is usually always the same place). His final game is hide-and-go-seek, which he especially enjoys playing with his friend, Abby. He will hide around a corner, and then shriek with delight when she comes around the corner and finds him. Jacob really loves playing with Abby, and loves it when he goes to her house to be babysat (I usually have to drag him out to the car, with him kicking and screaming because he doesn't want to leave). From time to time, though, he can get pushy with her, and we are trying to teach him not to push other children.
Otherwise we are continuing on as usual. Summer hot weather has hit us here in Columbus, although we have had quite a few days thus far where the weather was really pleasant.

Jake is learning to eat with a spoon now, and it has been interesting. He is doing really well for being at it for less than a week. We have tried with cereal and yogurt. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not. His biggest problem is that he can scoop up the food and bring it to his face with all of the food still on it, but then has the tendency of turning the spoon upside down to put it in his mouth (I guess he thinks that it should lay with the bowl of the spoon on his tongue, as it seems to fit better that way), and spilling most of the cereal and milk onto his tummy. We have typically been stripping him down to his diaper to do this, so we don't go through too many outfits a day.
He has definitely gotten more picky in his eating, and will change his tastes from day to day. One thing that he still loves, though, is french fries. He especially loves them with ketchup. Ever since a recent trip to Wendy's, he also prefers to have his ketchup in a little cup, so he can dip the fries in the ketchup. Sometimes he just prefers the ketchup, and will dunk the fry, lick the ketchup off, then put the fry down and do it again with a fresh fry (you see, the old one is now used).
Leigh Ann and I went to see the newest Harry Potter movie last week, and we loved it. While the book was not our favorite, we really enjoyed the movie. We saw it in IMAX, with the 20 minutes of action near the end in 3-D. We would have preferred seeing it on the normal screen. Maybe it was because we were too close to the screen, but with all the action taking place, the 3-D was too jerky, and the image didn't always match up, so it wasn't a great experience. Oh well, live and learn. We have already pre-ordered the last book, and are supposed to have it delivered to the house on Saturday. I'll have to suppress my natural impatience while Leigh Ann reads it. That is why I recently went to the library and got some books I thought would occupy me for a while. If not, I'll probably just reread the 6th book.

More Fun With Friends

We're hoping our friends, the Bevans, don't get too sick of us. After staying at their house until 11pm on the 4th of July, we were there until almost midnight celebrating Maury's birthday (hope I spelled it right!) on Saturday. Jacob wasn't quite as happy this time around, until we determined that he was hungry. You would think that sooner or later we would catch on to his various signs. Maybe one of these days he'll just actually tell us that he is hungry.
We had burgers and sausage, again grilled outside, and enjoyed the sunny evening (wishing that the 4th could have had that good of weather).
Jacob and Abby again played together, and their budding romance continues to blossom. Yesterday at church, Jacob was acting up (we are not big fans of church from 1-4 pm, since Jacob doesn't get his proper nap, and so is really cranky at times), but when Abby came up and put her head on his shoulder, he became silent and looked at me as if to say, "What's this all about?" It was really cute. We watched Abby for a couple hours yesterday evening as well, and they took turns laying their heads on each other's shoulders. In addition, they had great fun climbing up and down the stairs and playing hide-and-go-seek.
Leigh Ann and I are excited for this week, because I have already ordered our tickets for the IMAX showing of the new Harry Potter movie. We're going to see it on Thursday. We have mixed emotions about this movie. It is Leigh Ann's least favorite of all the books, and made her so upset when she read it, that she had to throw it across the room a couple of times when things got so frustrating.
Here are a couple new pics of Jake. He enjoys putting a little wicker wastebasket on his head and walking around the living room. Every once in a while he will do it, and I finally got a picture of it. So . . . enjoy!