A Little Justification Goes a Long Way

Good news, blogger friends: a) I remembered what I was going to write about yesterday, and b) The Biggest Loser is over until January, so you have at least two weeks until I rave about it again.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the aquarium with my parents. Jacob had a wonderful time—there were four people to chase him/carry him around/feed him rolls, plus all kinds of fish and whatnot to look at. We went to celebrate my mom’s birthday, but Jacob probably thought it was his.

 

When it was time for the walrus feeding, the trainer went through a routine with the I-forget-how-many-hundreds-of-pounds beast to show off all she could do. The best part was when she explained that what the animal was doing weren’t tricks, per se but “behaviors,” skills she would have naturally used every day in the wild, but that she was doing on command while in captivity in order to keep her mentally and physically fit. “Behaviors, not tricks?” I thought to myself. “I can use this.”

 

So, friends, today I share some of Jacob’s recently developed “behaviors”—things he does naturally (in the wild?), but will do on command to his parents’ delight. I wish I could have captured some of this in video, but whenever I pick up the camera, all I get is a video of the little man whining to hold it himself. Maybe letting him play with it that day wasn’t such a good idea.

Jacob’s skills run the gamut these days. He’s a bit of a Renaissance man, tackling a little of everything. If we ask him where his ear is, he’ll point to it. If we ask him what a cow says, he’ll say, “Mmmmmmm.” And perhaps the most exciting trick, I mean, behavior, is that when we say “J-E-T-S!” he answers, “Jets! Jets! Jets!” For serious.

The performance isn’t always flawless. Honestly, if you ask him where any body part is, he’ll point to his ear (although he did make one valiant attempt at “belly button” yesterday). The other day, I asked him the two verbalizing questions too close together, so he ended up telling me that a cow says, “Jets! Jets! Jets!”

I’d like to meet that cow, for sure.

 

Spelling Bee Gone Horribly Wrong

Jacob may not be saying a whole lot of words, but he certainly understands a lot of them. John and I are at the point where we have to spell anything that involves food, eating, or a trip to the park, unless Jacob is going to be involved with any of those things immediately. The little man knows the names of all three meals, most of his food, and “hungry” and “thirsty.” Can you say “one-track mind”?

 

This made for an interesting conversation over the weekend. We’d been out to a Christmas party on Saturday, and on Sunday there was still some f-o-o-d left in the stroller for Jacob’s afternoon s-n-a-c-k—crackers, to be specific.

 

As we prepared to go o-u-t, John wanted to be sure there was enough for our little food monster, but all the spelling can get kind of time-consuming. He shortened things and ended up asking me if there was “c-r-a-c-k” in the stroller. I confirmed, then doubled over in laughter so that I could hardly breathe.

 

Yes, dear, there’s crack in the stroller. Just the kind Jacob likes, too.

 

The Demise of the Ducky

There is a blessing and a curse to blogging about life with a young child. More often than not, the behavior/oddity/phenomenon I post about one day is gone the next. This is great news when I’m writing about something that frustrates me or is difficult to manage. This is bad news when I post about bathtubs.

 

Jacob was getting very cozy with his ducky bathtub last week. He’s always loved it, but last week he was in it a couple of times during the day, fully dressed and with “toys” like spatulas and kitchen timers.

 

 

Saturday morning, John and I woke up to find the ducky had taken a turn for the worse:

 

Jacob may have slathered a little too much love on the poor guy. The really bad news is this is our second ducky tub. The first one didn’t quite make it through our family vacation in June. I think we moved it too often in and out of the bathroom we were sharing. Just because something is inflatable doesn’t mean it should be repeatedly traveled with. The company very generously sent us a second tub for free, because I couldn’t find the hole through which air was leaking.

 

I’m not sure how many more times I can request a free tub. Although as far Jacob’s concerned, this one still works just fine.