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July 14, 2004
Ok, now on to my Jacob . . . (my last entry was a catch-up for our lives, this one is all about Jake.)
RYAN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY
Well let's go ahead and start most current and work our way back and beyond. We went to Ryan's birthday part this past Saturday (July 10th) and we had a blast. Yes, we, I had a good time, too. Ryan is 2 months older than Jake and I can't believe these kids are turning 2!!! Ryan's such a smart little cookie, so mature for his age (has two older sisters), and such a little darling. His mother, Jennifer, is my good friend from church (but 8 years older than me). His older sister, Alexis, is my piano student. I used to baby-sit his sister, Meghan, on Wednesday nights at church. His grandfather, Mark, (Jennifer's dad) is the retired pastor from our church, the one who performed Lou and I's wedding, the one who visited us in the hospital the day after Jake was born, and who did Jake's baby dedication. We're close to this family.
The theme for Ryan's party was Nemo (so I decorated the webpage with tons of Nemo's) and it was a backyard water party. They had a slip-and-slide set up, and a little pool and the bottom of the swing-set slide. Oh the kids had such a good time. Jake was a little clingy, then decided to run around and have fun, but he didn't want to play where the other kids were. He prefers to be ALONE when he's playing (which he gets from his daddy.) Oh, speaking of Lou -- he was the ONLY father who wasn't there at the party. Granted, he had worked the night before, but even if he hadn't, he wouldn't have come. Whatever. It was also fun to spend some time with Sadie, the other child at church Jake and Ryan's age. We don't see her much and she's such a little doll-baby. And she has a new little sister who is 5 weeks old and looks JUST like her! We got to meet her for the first time at the party. I love new babies. Oh, and Zoe was at the party, too, and she followed me around the whole time. She loves me. ;o) The pictures on the webpage speak volumes more than I can explain, so just go to:
http://www.mypages.iparenting.com/webs/strangejen6/RyanBday1.html
to see our fun!
We're planning a party for Jake on September 11th this year -- it's a Saturday. His birthday is the 12th. Hopefully the children's guest list will be: Ryan (and Meghan and Alexis), Sadie (and Celia), Zoe, Elauna (and new baby?), Ella (Leslie's daughter), Evie, and Cara's 3 if she can make it down. Then Sunday we'll have a family party for Lou's relatives, who I really don't think will want to be in the midst of a dozen little kids. I hope everyone can come -- last year Elauna was Jake's only friend who came besides family. But Jennifer said she already told her husband they had to plan their anniversary get-away for the following week because she still feels bad for missing Jake's party last year. ha ha!
MY LITTLE MUSICIAN
Jake has started singing in the last few weeks and I'm so happy: he can match pitches. He can carry a tune. He sings along with the radio and TV. Well, he tries. But the fact that he clearly can match pitches and carry a tune tells me he got MY musical abilities and Lou's tone-deafness was defeated in the gene pool smackdown (you know, where each of your genes are vying for dominance so your child will be more like you.) Jake is SUCH a mix of the both of us, I was really worried for a while. But Jake really seems to be artistic like me -- he loves to look at pictures and books, he loves to play the piano and sing, he wants to color all the time . . . *sigh of relief.* I don't want him to be EXACTLY like me, but being a boy, I'm so glad we'll have some common ground to work from.
MY LITTLE ATHLETE
Speaking of common ground . . . I played basketball and volleyball up until my freshman year of high school, but quit (A) because I wanted to teach piano and spend more time on choir, (B) the preppy snots on my teams annoyed me, and (C) because my asthma bothered me too much and my inhaler wasn't helping enough to constitute killing myself running up and down the basketball court. But I enjoy shooting hoops and impromptu v-ball games . . . Jake LOVES to play with balls. He loves to play catch. He loves to try to shoot baskets. He loves to run. I can't wait to teach him how to shoot hoops. And how to catch a baseball. It'll be so fun! Lately he's also been seeing how high and how far he can jump off any object he can climb on, a game I'm not thrilled about but he finds a way to play once I turn my back. Oh, and the office chair my dad has at his desk in the kitchen, Jake crawls up in and dad spins him around and around. It's soooo funny.
MY LITTLE ESCAPE ARTIST
In my entry about our day with Cara I talked about how Jake wandered off and got himself stuck in her laundry room. He does this all the time now. The other day I was brushing my hair in my bathroom and I locked the bedroom door thinking he'd at least be forced to stay in there with me and not wander off (he can open doors but can't quite open the locks, although he understands he needs to twist the little button). I came out and I couldn't find him -- he had gone into my walk-in closet and was standing at the very back in the pitch dark, not making a sound. Just waiting for me to find him, then he cracked up laughing.
Then last night Lou and I were sitting on the couch watchin Last Coming Standing (OMG, how HOT is Gary the tall guy?). Jake was in the kitchen and was very quiet so I got up to see what he was doing. He had opened the pantry door, walked inside, and closed it. I don't think he was stuck, because he can open that door, but he was sitting very quietly waiting for me to find him. Laughed hilariously when I got him out. When we're at church he leads me around by the finger, weaves in and out of people faster than I can (because he's so small and I can't get through), then he gets away from me and runs away. Luckily there's one older guy at church who always manages to see this and catch him. A lot of times I'll just yell "someone grab Jake" and everyone at church is so nice and they do. Jake is much better now, though, about staying with me when we're outside and near a street -- I've been working with him on walking to the car, then standing behind the door and touching his hand to the car and waiting for me to open it. I'm so afraid he's going to get away from me one day and get hurt before I can catch him.
In his defense, though, I will tell you some of the things my mom tells me about what I was like. We've already established Jake's a lot like me, has so much of my personality and my likes anyway . . . when I was 8 months old I started climbing the furniture -- literally. It got to the point I had so much tip over on me, they had to bolt the furniture to the walls. I used to flip out of my crib, open the door, and roam around the house. One morning my mom couldn't find me anywhere and eventually found me sitting inside a cabinet very quietly eating Cheerios.
MY SWEET SWEET CHILD
When Jake is falling asleep, just as he's getting very tired he says quietly "Mama. Nana. Dada. Mama . . ." I always thought maybe he was just practicing talking, because he still at 22 months doesn't have a whole lot of words. My mom, though, finally figured out the other day what he's doing: when she lived with us from October to March while they were looking for a house (he was 13 months to 18 months), she put him to bed every night. While they were going to bed, she said prayers with him. "God bless mommy. God bless daddy. . . " etc. This child remembers doing that from 4 months ago and still does it every night! Don't ever think the traditions and activities you do with your children in their first years don't matter, because they do!!! Last night when Jake started doing that I said "God bless mommy. God bless daddy. . . " and went through everyone -- Jake got the biggest, sweetest smile on his face, like "mommy, you FINALLY understand what I'm talking about!"
MY SCREAMING CHILD
And now the other side of the coin. Yeah, the terrible two's are here in full force. When I try to get Jake to cooperate with me, first it's a "no no" with a sigh. I try again, and this time it's a whiny scream "NO NO NO!" Stomping, flailing about soon follows. Doesn't want to come inside. Doesn't want to put up his toys. Doesn't want to leave Nana's. Doesn't want to get out of the bath. Doesn't want to eat anything but starchy foods or dairy. Doesn't want to give up his bottle. Doesn't want Zoe to touch his toys. Doesn't want to listen to mommy's radio in the car -- wants Elmo, and will ask for it again and again and again until mommy thinks the sound of Elmo singing is much less a frustration than "Mmmmm-mo? Mmmmm-mo? Mmmmm-mo? Mmmmm-mo? Mmmmm-mo?"
OUR EXPANDING FISHER PRICE WOLD
I've talked before about how I LOVE the Fisher Price Little People toys, any and all of them . . . I don't usually buy Jake many toys, because we still have all MY old toys from growing up (which he actually loves), and several hand-me-downs for Jake from friends, then toys he's gotten as presents and some that we've bought him in the last 2 years . . . so it's not like he doesn't have anything to play with. But the Fisher Price Castle, which is fairly new, just caught my eye and I LOVE it, and I wanted Jake to have some FPLP toys for my mom's house. So I bought him the 3 playsets that GO with the castle (about $8 each) over the past few months, hoping eventually someone (mom, dad, Lou, Frankie, anyone) would take pity on me and buy the damn $20 castle. Well hubby got paid last Friday and Saturday morning bought the Castle for Jake! You wouldn't BELIEVE how excited Jake was when we opened it up on Saturday. As usual he pulled at me and at the castle, trying to get to is as I tried to unhook it from the packaging and put it together. He LOVES it. He thinks it's just the coolest thing ever. Lou and I almost had issues when I was buying the playsets because I wanted to get the Princess one with the pink ponies and he's like "no he's a boy he shouldn't play with stuff like that." I was like: ok, (A) Elauna and Zoe need girl stuff to play with at mom's house, and (2) DUH there are Princes in the Castle, there can't be a princess? You don't tell little girls they can have Barbies but no Ken to complete the set. COME ON. But I'm very excited to have the Castle set, I'll take pictures of it soon for the webpage!
MY NEAT CHILD
Jake loves to sweep the floor with the broom, which he calls "boom." I got tired of the volume of toys at my mom's house (and cleaning them up before we leave in the evenings) because she didn't have a good way of organizing the. So I bought 4 medium sized tupperware tubs with snap-locking-lids and divided up the toys: blocks, dishes, Fisher Price Castle stuff, Fisher Price old-school toys and cars (you know, the little circular choking-hazard people from the 80's.) Now Jake's only allowed to play with one category (bin) at a time, and he has to put it back up before he can get out another one. Mom is doing good enforcing this, and after about 2 days Jake got on board with it and now cleans up pretty well (sometimes with help and intense supervision. Sometimes by his own free will.)
MY POTTY-TRAININ' CHILD
Jake has been in the process of kind-of potty training for about two months now. Meaning? When he wakes up in the morning or from naps, my mom puts him straight to the potty and he pees. Before he takes a bath, he pees in the potty. Sometimes he'll volunteer the information, saying "Ba-pa?" which means potty. He hides when he poops, and the few times we've tried to put him on the potty when we KNOW he's almost pooping, he refuses, so we're not pushing that. Usually in the evenings and through the night we just let him have a diaper. He very seldom will go to the potty for me but is very consistant with my mom. As long as he's making progress and ok with the process we're keeping very laid back about it. I'm in no rush to get him out of diapers (but the money saved would be nice!) His favorite thing to do while he's sitting on the potty is pick off little pieces of toilet paper and stick it between his legs to fall in the potty. He also tries to do this when I'M on the potty, which is funny.
MY COORDINATED CHILD
Jake is getting really good at eating with a fork or a spoon and usually if we sit him down for a meal that's not obvious finger food (like crackers or a hotdog), he INSISTS on a utensil. He tries to help me cut his hotdog with a butterknife. He can unscrew bottle caps (yeah, not good.) He can blow bubbles through the bubble wand (oh my, he LOVES bubbles.) His speed and agility when doing puzzles scares me a little. He picked up on that early -- around his first birthday, I think.
MY STILL-SILENT CHILD
Well, I can't say silent, I guess, because he makes a LOT of noise. And he does sing all the time. He's making a little progress learning new words, but he still talks less than his friends the same age (which I know doesn't necessarily mean anything.) I finally have him saying "please" consistantly (a very quiet "puh"), but I can't get him to say "help." He would rather plow through himself and figure it out or just break it or fall down than to ask for help. (Just a male thing?) His favorite words are "ding" and "honk." (As in Honkers go "honk honk" *as he beeps his nose* and dingers go "ding ding" *as he hits the top of his head. Still a Sesame Street baby.) He also says "ding" when anyone starts or stops the microwave. Cute. He says my sister's name, but he says "Kah-teee." Still mostly communicates with grunts and whines, though. ;o)
Oh, and he finally said his first sentance last week: "Where's my bear?" My mom has a bunch of beanie babies she keeps on bookshelves in her bedroom, and Jake loves to go in there and grab them all. Jake had one in the living room, and when mom fed him in the kitchen, my dad put it away. Jake runs back into the living room to play with the bear and it wasn't there, thus the "where's my bear?" So funny. And sometimes when we're talking he'll just clear as day repeat a few words he thinks are funny, then laugh at our shocked faces -- this usually happens when mom, dad, Kathy, and I are all sat down for dinner together (probably twice a week we eat dinner with them because my mom is a great cook and Lou sleeps until 7 or 8 p.m. anyway, depending on how late his meetings went after work. Being on midnights, he ends up having supervisor's meetings in the morning after he's worked all night, which makes him VERY tired.)
Anyway, that's a pretty good snapshot, I think, of Jake and what he's been up to lately. One last thing he does that's funny: he has scrapbook radar. He KNOWS when I'm scrapping and having a good time (which is a lot lately, I've got a bug, what can I say?) and it's usually when I'm letting him lay down on the couch to watch Bear and fall asleep. He'll be ok for a while, then get up and walk over to where I am at the dining room table, drag me over to the couch, and make me sit there with him as he tries to fall asleep. What a goof.
As I've said before, be sure to TTM, and take a look at Jake's almost completely up-to-date webpage!!!
http://www.mypages.iparenting.com/webs/strangejen4/index.html
Jen
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