Play it again Jake....

Play it again Jake...
(March 27, 2009)


The progression of most young babies when they finally get the hang of their hands and grabbing things is to start banging on things. Shake whatever they get their hands on, hit anything that they can reach and the goal of all of this shaking and banging it to see what noise they can get out of it. Hence the very popular rattle companies! Jacob has always liked the toys that were musical instruments, there is a link to a very very old video of Jacob banging away on a toy drum to the right in my links section, I think he was around 7 months old and still getting the hang of sitting without support. Then of course his favorite toy for months and months were his piano and xylophone that he got for his 1st birthday.

But I was curious at what point do the toys stop being just instruments of "noise" and more instruments of "music"? Has Jacob always gravitated towards musical toys because he liked the "music" or was it just the internal instinct of small children to like the noise aspect of it.

I noticed the other week that Jacob was starting to get excited about dancing and trying to sing and move along to songs. The favorite action songs being "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Patty Cake" he has started actually moving along with the motions with me and although they aren't perfect they are good enough to bring a smile to anyone who sees him trying to move along. And of course you haven't lived until you have seen Jacob do a mean air guitar! (HILARIOUS) I decided to see if this musical kid of mine was ready to take it to the next level and leave the old "bang on" instruments behind for something a little more child sophisticated! The result was the following toe tapping hoe down!!

The funniest part about this is that I have Jacob enrolled in numorous craft/activity classes through our counties Parks and Recrecation department and we had a craft class the other day with about 7 other youngins' and after he was done his painting he got his harmonica out of my purse and started walking around playing it. I wish I would have had my camera because the other kids followed him around like little two year old groupies! He loved the attention!! I was tempted to put a hat down on the floor and gather donations, you never know with this economy!

It is almost spring....

It is almost spring.....

How can I tell that it is almost spring? Here is how.....

BUBBLES!!!!

Cross your fingers and hope it works!

Cross your fingers and hope it works!
(March 13, 2009)


This is probably starting to sound like a broken record to some people who read this blog, but Paul and I are still having a MAJOR problem with Jacob eating. Quite frankly.....HE DOESN'T!!!!

He will eat fruit of all kinds, shapes, colors, and flavors. It could be fresh, dried, or in a can. He of course will still eat crackers of all kinds and at least I have been able to incorporate some "whole grain" versions into the mix. But what the real problem is would be EVERYTHING ELSE that doesn't fall into the fruit/cracker category.

There was a week where cereal was a big hit. I could get him to eat a bowl of cheerios, chex, rice krispies. But now that isn't even an option it ends up being the soggy mess that is half stuck to the bowl within a few hours and since it doesn't have a long shelf life once milk is added I have decided that it isn't very practical since some mornings it will take Jacob over an hour to take little bird nibbles and finish his breakfast. I have tried numorous things like not offering him milk until after he has eaten, that usually just ends in him not eating OR drinking for most of the morning. He was gung ho about waffles, mini pancakes, and french toast sticks but as with adults sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and those too are starting to be less and less appealing to my picky little toddler.

Let's not even talk about meat products. My son gets whatever protein I can shove into him, but if you really measured it, it wouldn't be much. He will eat hot dogs (YUK!) and any sort of processed chicken product (i.e. nuggets, popcorn chicken, and dino shaped chicken). He REFUSES to even try ham cubes, turkey cubes, hamburger, meatballs, and chicken breast.

My mom gave me a good idea about giving him different "dips" for things. I thought this was a great idea so I started offereing different kinds of salad dressings, honey, ketchup, etc..... I thought it was a success but Jacob just liked the act of dipping but then hated the actual eating part.

SIGH!!!!!

I did have what I hope was a breakthrough yesterday. My neices Therese and Caitlyn came to babysit and for some reason Jacob would eat the whole house for Therese (he has always done that) so I tried something new with him. I decided to make cheese pizza for Lent (no meat) and I had read that sometimes when you let a kid help make the food he will want to eat it.



Needless to say he ate half a slice with me, and ate another WHOLE slice with Therese and Caitlyn. This is a kid who wouldn't even try Ketchup, pasta sauce, cheese, or anything else for that matter other than what I listed above.....who knows it could be a fluke or we could be on to something. But I sure am awaiting the day where I can stop blogging about the horrible eating habits of my son and start talking about how he eats me out of house and home! Wish us luck!

The ever expanding Jacob Dictionary!

The ever expanding Jacob Dictionary!
(March 4, 2009)


Everyone kept telling me that once Jacob hits 18 months that he will start talking more. As of a few weeks ago we were limited to about 5-7 words and honestly a few of those he had been saying since he was around 11 months. Heck he had been saying BALL since he was 10 months old.

I am one of those parents that don't count "baby talk" as words. For example Jacob gets a bottle before bed and he calls it a "Ba-Ba" partially because I started calling it a "Ba-Ba" and the word just stuck, but since that isn't a real word I am not counting that as one of the words that Jacob says. Some parents count anything that they understand and that is fine but for the sake of this post I will only be counting words that Jacob says 100% clear and that anyone who would walk off the street and hear him talking would understand. But know that as with all babies he has a few "Jacob-speak" words that only his Mama and Dada would understand......one that is still stumping us is "Dat-un"....hhhhmmmmmm....maybe "That one"??

In the past two to three weeks Jacob has started adding words left and right. The most recent was today when he looked at a picture of himself and said "Baby"......I have been trying to get him to say baby for MONTHS!!! He also has decided that "Bubble", "Bye-Bye", "Ball", "Hot", "Uh-Oh", "Mama", "Dada", "That", "Bug", "Yum", "Book", "More" and last of all "G' Day" (we watch the Wiggles) are words that he can now pronounce.

I know that there are kids out there that may have a vocabulary of 20-30 words by 18 months, but he is very observant and knows many many many things so I am sure that if he keeps up the new words like he has been the past few weeks you will be reading a post from me talking about how he won't be quiet soon enough!

One thing that is very exciting is that Jacob FINALLY calls Paul "Dada" now you might think...HUH??......18 months and doesn't call his father Dada.....but what Jacob started doing is calling ANYONE Mama, He could say Dada, but if you were taking care of him at any point in time you were "Mama". If you asked him to point to Dada he would, or Grandma, or Grandpa, or some of my nieces and nephews he knew who everyone was, but in terms of calling them they were all MAMA!!!!! He is now calling Paul Dada which is one of those FINALLY moments we have been waiting for and something he could have done MONTHS ago!!!

As with crawling and walking, Jacob is yet again proving to me that milestones be damned he is going to do everything in his good old time! But as with his crawling and walking I am not stressing over the talking as much because I stressed over the crawling and walking and he did those fine so I have learned my lesson that Jacob is his own person and that he is going to talk circles around me soon enough! But it is nice to be able to have him talk to me more and let me know things!

That HAS to be a record!!

First let me say that I apologize if the above picture grosses anyone out or offends them, but I got to thinking this week as I was constantly wiping the snot from my sons nose that I as a person and most parents I know change quite a bit when they have children.

Think long and hard back to before you were a parent and if faced with a similar situation above yet the child was replaced with an adult how many of us would think this was cute and run and go get the camera while they heard their child say BUBBLE BUBBLE BUBBLE? If the situation were poo or puke how come although still disgusting it doesn't make the usual parent's gag reflex go screaming. (I have however had a little too much of Jacob puking once).

I know that we as parents have to help these young people because at the beginning they can't move, grab, or have the overall coordination to help themselves. But I think it even goes past that. I have talked to parents of 10 and 12 year olds that still say that the "bodily fluids" of their children don't gross them out, but if their spouse, a stranger, or heck sometimes even themselves have boogies EEEEWWWWW GRRROOOSSSSS!!!!!

Anyway after the much too serious post last week I thought I would get back into the swing of things and let you know that Jacob was EXTREMELY proud of his snot bubble and actually smiled, pointed and tried to blow another one the rest of the day. The cold is gone now but I will always have the memory of the famous SNOT BUBBLE!!!