Jake @ 2-years-old

Way back on Jake's birthday, March 7th, I promised to post a more lengthy post about our sweet 2-year-old and include his 2-year-old pictures. Part of the reason I've dragged my feet getting it done (other than sheer busyness!) is because I have SO MUCH to say about dear little Jacob and not enough time to say it. As first-time parents, I think most of us can attest to the fact that we did a good deal of talking about our only child. In fact, in our exuberant joy at each milestone, I'm sure we tipped past talking and into the bragging category. In many ways, I think this is normal and somewhat expected. There is something incredibly special about watching first-hand, 24/7 a helpless baby grow and develop into a thriving toddler. It is nothing short of miraculous, which is why I imagine that almost every parent thinks their child is specially gifted in one way or another. And, of course, with the first child every little bitty development is carefully recorded, relatives and friends are inundated with baby talk, and the parents' lives revolve around their one and only child.

Then enter child two...and then three. While the miracle of growth and development is still completely amazing, it is not so new and is more or less expected. Also, time and attention of the parent must be divided among all the children leaving less time to chronicle milestones (and in my case, blog about it!). Additionally, for me personally, I realized how much I must have bored everyone around me with my almost-exclusive talk about Abby when she was our only child, and so I purposefully chose to be careful not to brag and not to monopolize conversation about my children.

But that said, my little Jacob deserves some time in the spotlight! It's time for me to do some bragging, so if that bores you feel free to just look at the pictures of our little cutie and ignore my comments. :)

Kevin and I suspected that Jake might be exceptionally smart fairly early on, but mostly kept it to ourselves. As a third child, he doesn't get nearly as much direct-parent attention as Abby and even Ben did, so one day (back in October??), I was quite surprised when we were looking at a book with shapes in it that he correctly identified square, triangle, oval, star and diamond. I was astounded as I had not actually purposefully worked with him on shapes yet. Around this time, he also started identifying several letters on his own so we started teaching him the rest which he mastered probably around January or February (letter recognition and most of their sounds, as well as singing the alphabet song).

Although I didn't say much of anything to people other than family, soon those around us began to notice his intelligence and verbal skills. In late November or early December, I started getting comments at church every time I picked him up for the nursery. One of the workers would say something, "Oh my word! He was pointing out letters in the alphabet and saying, "A is for Abby, B is for Ben, J is for Jakey, and more! He is so smart and he talks so well!" I smiled, thinking that it was nice that others were noticing it too.

Working on an alphabet puzzle at Aunt Sandi's back in March.

His teachers at the Bible study we attend also started making comments to me about his advanced speaking abilities compared to the other children, as well as how well he could do the puzzles and other play things. One time (in February I think?), they were so excited when I picked him up because Jake had answered one of the questions during the Bible teaching time. They had asked, "Who takes care of us?" and Jake replied, "God does!" The BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) children's teachers are faithful to teach the Bible lesson to the littlest of children, but don't often expect much in return as a response. In fact, they said that this was the first time in their eighteen-month-old to two-year-old class that a child had EVER answered a question! They were ecstatic! They then dubbed him the "Bible Scholar." :) Today was our last BSF class of the year and I want to include some of what his teachers wrote in a note to me:

"He is such a joy-filled boy with a beautiful heart - I can't wait to see how God will work in his life. It has been a fun year and I will miss him."

"Oh, Jacob, what a bright, precious boy! We have just loved having him in Bible class every week...yes, he is our star Bible scholar! He amazes me how much he comprehends about God."

What dear things to hear others say about your child, even at two-years-old! I will treasure these words and I, too, am excited to see how God will work in Jake's life!

Jake's verbal skills are truly amazing. He carefully annunciates words, has very good grammar, and has an enormous vocabulary! There is no way to even list all things he can say, as conversing with him is like conversing with a 4-year-old. He has been speaking in full sentences for months and months (wish I would have written down when he started doing that!). He is such a good speaker that people are often very surprised to learn how young he is (even though he is a bit petite for his age anyway!). Our pastor even got confused and was thinking Jake had turned three not two this past March because he seems so much older. :) At his two-year-old check-up, his doctor was surprised when she asked him what his name was and he replied prouldy, "Jacob William Marks!" She then pointed to Abby and asked what her name was and he said, "Abigail Elizabeth Marks," and then to Ben to which he answered, "Benjamin Isaac-a Marks" (he pronounces Isaac like "Jessica" with an I instead of a J). He also knows Kevin's and my full names and has long known his and his siblings ages.

Jacob's shape-recognition moved on to another phase when one day a few months ago he was walking through the kitchen touching his fingertips together. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Triangle!" This turned in to a regular occurrence for him and he enjoys almost daily making various shapes with his hands and asking us to do the same. One night about a month or two ago, Kevin was tucking Jake into bed for the night. Jake was fiddling with his hands and said, "My hands. My two hands." He put finger tips together and said, "Do you know what this is Daddy? This is a rectangle." Then he made a triangle with his fingers and thumbs and said, "Triangle!" Then he asked, "Daddy, can you make a star with your hands?"

Making a triangle with his fingers.

Jacob loves to tease and make jokes in his own little way. For instance, as I got into the car, I said to him, as had climbed into the driver's seat, "Hey you! Are you sitting in MY seat?" He replied, "I'm sitting in Jake's seat!" (pause and smile) "Noooo, I'm sitting in your seat." He is a very silly, happy, fun little guy. In the picture below, he found Abby's old Easter hat and insisted it was a cowboy hat. :o)

He also loves to play pretend. He went through a phase where he pretended to be a bunny every day for probably a month or two. He often entered a place (BSF, my parent's house, a store, etc), hopping away and saying, "boing, boing, boing! I'm a bunny!" hoping someone would notice him. He definitely likes to get attention. :) After going to our pastor's house for dinner and meeting their pet snake, Jake changed from pretending to a bunny to a snake for awhile...which consists of making lots of "sssss" sounds. :) And while he still plays by himself a lot, he does join in a fair amount of the time with make believe play with Abby and Ben. And, of course, being a boy, he loves to pretend to fly airplanes and dig with his machines and race his cars...complete with many sound effects. :) He's also said that when he grows up, he wants to "be an astronaut and go to outer space." I think this has been heavily influenced by our many trips to the Museum of Flight. :)

Pretending to feed his favorite stuffed kitty some of his milk from his sippy cup.

While Jake is fairly easy-going and obedient, he does have a stubborn streak and is at the stage where he is fiercely independent. He is also showing a bit of rebellion lately and testing of boundaries as he purposefully does wrong things to see how we react. All to be expected at this age, but still never any fun to go through as a parent. But even in the midst of his growing independence, he has also started to develop fears. Sometimes a strange sound will scare him right into my arms. A few nights ago, he was crying in his bed and I came to check on him and asked what the matter was. He said, "I'm scary." I said, "You mean you're scared?" "Yeah, I'm scared." Ha! I love it when he messes words or phrases up, and it's so rare that it makes it that much more cute. :)

One thing we don't get a lot of around here is kisses from Jake. He likes to cuddle and snuggle and loves to receive kisses but he rarely GIVES kisses. In fact, for a couple months he would refuse to kiss us if we asked but would instead turn his head, lean his cheek toward our lips and make a smacking sound with his lips. For awhile we thought maybe he was confused about kissing...until I saw him give at least a dozen kisses to some of his favorite stuffed animals. Finally, after asking and  asking, he will occasionally give us a kiss on the cheek, but it is a rare occasion. Strange, huh? But we keep on kissing those adorable, chubby cheeks over and over and over - who couldn't resist? ;o)

Picture from Easter afternoon.

And speaking of adorable, although I never want my kids to find their worth in outward appearance and it is certainly not something we have much control over, I do have to point out that Jacob is incredibly cute and it's not just his biased parents who think so. Almost every where we go, we get remarks about how cute he is. We've heard many times - from strangers! - that he is the cutest little boy they've ever seen. And several times we've heard comments like, "Your children are so beautiful...but that one is amazingly adorable!" Of course, some of that is his smiling, playful personality shining through and also his age (what 2-year-old isn't cute?!). All I know is that I can lose myself in his big dark eyes and long lashes, I melt when he smiles, and I LOVE just watching him run/sleep/play/eat - because it's all so cute! :)

And that is Jacob's 2-year-old post. I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out (for instance, how he can sing his favorite songs, Jesus Loves Me, Joy to the World, the Alphabet Song, and Twinkle, Twinkle; and how a long time ago he started coloring with crayons very carefully and somewhat inside the lines, and more!). Oh goodness, I almost forgot to post a picture from his birthday party. Jake chose to have a garbage truck themed party. I tried to get him to pick airplanes or construction machines, but he was adamant that garbage trucks be the theme. So garbage trucks it was....and it was so fitting that his party ended up being on our garbage pick-up day so he got to begin the day with one of his favorite activities:

We played a "throw the garage into the bag" game (the garbage was wadded up pieces of newspaper - he, of course, loved this just as much as most of his presents!), he received several garbage truck toys (which he often sleeps with now!) and garbage truck books, and of course got a garbage truck cake (which definitely stretched my cake decorating abilities :P).

He loved it all and that's what counts. The party was such a hit that he's still talking about it two months later and can't wait for another birthday. :)