4 1/2 Years Old

Jake is in school for longer hours and more days this summer, so I had the goal of updating the blog daily. I've got the time to update it now, but just no material. So I guess I will just stay updating it weekly.

I hope Jake appreciates that we gave him a very short first name &
he has a very short last name. It makes it easier when learning to
write your name!

This month, Jake is 4 & a half. Wow. We are just 6 months away from having a 5-year-old. He is what he is into:

• He loves to watch movies. He goes through a time period where he LOVES a movie for 2 weeks. He'll watch it every day or every chance he gets. Then at the end of that 2 weeks, he is done. This week's movie is A Goofy Movie. He completely cracks up watching it. 2 weeks ago, it was the old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. And before that, it was anything super hero. And 2 weeks before that, it was the TV show Max & Ruby.
• He loves for you to read to him. His favorite is still the "If You Give..." books. (If You Give a Pig a Party, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, etc...) For Christmas, he got the book Pete the Cat I Love My New Shoes. He loves it & it is such a cute book! He also loves the Look & See books.
• He is learning so much in his summer school. The other day he was telling me about the flag & how it had 50 stars on it. And he was telling me about the Christian flag. They are learning about Moses this week, so I've heard TONS about Moses. I love it.
• He can count to 100, sort of. He has of course 1-20 down, and he knows after that, it is twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety then 100. But usually by the time he gets to the 40's, he starts getting all out of wack. Then its a jumbled mess and then he says 100. He never does it the same consistently. One time, he'll leave out 30-50 and another time he'll leave out 60-80. He also insists on counting EVERYTHING, so it can take a while to do things.
• He loves shapes. He will talk & talk about shapes and what makes that shape. He loves to point out circles, triangles, squares, octagons, etc...
• He loves to ride his bike. He wants us to take his training wheels off because he thinks that because Robbie doesn't fall off, its because he doesn't have training wheels. So if we take the training wheels off his bike, he won't fall off either. We've tried explaining that's not how it works, but that's like explaining something to a rock. Robbie did raise the training wheels, so technically, he is riding on only 3 wheels. We are trying to teach him to balance on only 2 wheels. Work in progress.
• He loves the pool. He is much more outgoing this summer than he was last summer (his mom isn't, but at least he is). He is also braver. The swimming lessons helped, even though he doesn't swim as good for us as he did for his teacher. We certainly don't trust him in the deep in without his puddle jumper. He is getting braver about putting his face underwater, so that's a huge improvement as well.
• He sleeps with a little puppy lovee (that is appropriately named Puppy) that we would love to break him of. But every time we discuss it, he completely freaks out. I'm a fan of doing things cold turkey before they become habit. The pacifier, bottle, etc.... But I think we waited too long with Puppy and now he is super attached. Puppy has to stay in Jake's bed and the only time Jake can have him is when he sleeps. But how long should you let a child sleep with an item like that?
• I don't understand his memory. It is either horrible or great. Every day when I pick him up from school, it is like pulling teeth to get him to remember anything. I'll ask "what did you do today", he'll answer "I don't know". I'll ask "who did you play with today, what was their name", he'll answer "I don't know". It drives us crazy! I just start bringing up random topics, and finally it will jog his memory and he'll tell us a little. But then other things, he remembers like an elephant. A few weeks ago, we mentioned that his friend Grant was going to come up & see him in August. So Jake has asked every single day if Grant was coming up today. How do you remember something discussed weeks ago, but don't remember something you did 2 hours ago? It drives me bonkers!

I have to say, right now, he is at a pretty easy going stage. He is old enough to do things on his own (I don't have to do EVERYTHING for him) but he is still young enough to be cute. Each day I see him becoming more & more of a boy and not my little preschooler. Because we are scared this could be our only, I just want to soak up every single moment with him. And he makes it pretty easy. He loves to cuddle, he's sweet and affectionate. And he may just be a tad bit spoiled:). I adore this little boy and am just grateful that he is here with us.