Thursday Thirteen - Jake

So last Thursday, I took care of 13 Emmaisms. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't put the spotlight on my son this week? So without further ado, here are 13 things that make Jake Jake.

1. Reading - Jake has been reading since he was about 3 1/2. He's a boy genius, I tell ya. And he doesn't just read the pre-readers, either. Today we were reading "The Wizard of Oz" and when I say we, I mean he was reading to me. We haven't been able to spell out surprise plans like Z-O-O in this house for a LONG time.
2. Toothless Wonder - He seems to have a knack for nearly (or completely) knocking his teeth out. Dave and I joke that by the time he should be naturally losing his teeth, he won't have any left.
3. HAIR! - This boy has some of the thickest hair I have ever seen on a person (besides me). He walks around most days with permanent bed head because it just gets in one position and stays there. You have to pretty much dunk his head in water to get it to lay down. Which reminds me, he's probably due for a haircut.
4. Blues Clues - Jake would watch Blues Clues 24 hours a day if we would let him. And when he's not watching it, he likes to get the whole family together to act out a fake show. Emma is Side Table Drawer, Dave is either Steve or Joe, I am Mailbox and Jake is always Blue. We had a new record this morning for number of clues in a single game. He usually has us find 4 clues...this morning it was 6. I had to find out what Blue wanted to do with an apple, a ball, a picture frame, me, chalk, and Jacob. That was fun.
5. Hide and Seek - He loves to play hide and seek, although he's really not very good at it. He "hides" in plain view. When he is hidden, he says "I'm right here!" until we go and find him. His favorite time and place to hide? Under the kitchen table, with all the chairs pulled out, when Dave gets home from work. The kitchen is the first room you walk into from the garage.
6. Leapster - Jake is addicted to his Leapster. He played it so much when we first got it for him that we finally had to take it out of the house and put it in the car. He is now only allowed to play it in the car. If we go on a long car trip (say...8 hours to Illinois), he's only allowed to have it for 30 minutes, then he has to take a 60 minute break. And he counts down almost every single minute. I wish I were exagerrating on this one.
7. His sheer size - Jake's a big kid. I don't mean his overweight or anything. He's just tall and solid. He's only 4 and people regularly mistake him for a 6 or 7 year old. He weighed over 10 lbs. at birth and never slowed down.
8. His bedtime routine - We really have to start paring this down. Every once in a while, we'll add something new to his routine, but we don't ever take anything away. I rush through it on the rare occasion I cover nighttime, but when Dave is doing his thing, it can take him up to 45 minutes. There's the obligatory time for hygiene, 2 or 3 books, general goofiness, back rubs, head rubs, nose rubs, prayers, talking about our day. It takes a LONG time. And Jake LOVES it!
9. Marbles - He got a marble chute a year or two ago for Christmas, and it's his favorite non-electric toy. It's about the only thing that keeps his interest long enough for me to waste away in front of quickly jump on the computer.
10. The Alphabet Song - O.K. I've already said he can read, which is going to make this one sound strange. He doesn't know the right words to the Alphabet Song. He's good to go until he gets up to L-M-N-O-P. When he sings it, it comes "H-I-J-K-and the letter P". Go ahead. Sing it to yourself. Amazingly enough, it works.
11. Hi Neighbor! - We try to really hammer home manners in this house and evidently we are doing something right. If Jake is in the room with someone he doesn't know, he will walk right up to them and say "Hi! My name's Jake! What's your name?" Which we love, but is oddly coming at about the same time that we're starting to talk about stranger danger. Any advice on how to have an open, polite kid in a increasingly dangerous world?
12. Teddy Bear and Ball - These are with him almost constantly. He likes to carry them around the house with him and if they aren't in his bed at quiet time and bedtime, then we have to do a whole house search for them. And ball is not a cute name for some other kind of stuff animal. It's litearally a stuffed ball.
13. Favorite things - provided by Jacob himself while I sit here and type this... color: gray; TV show: The Upside Down Show; song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; food: macaroni and cheese; daddy: David; book: Get Out of Bed!; friend: Kaia (his cousin...sorry Maddy!)

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