Word count

So I decided to do a count of all the words Jake now says since it seems like he learns a new word every day. So far, I'm up to 45! What an amazing guy! The new ones include words like "up" and "oval" but also, and this should be obvious from the picture, "bubbles." He knows body parts like eyes, nose, teeth, and hands. Foods like cheese and juice. He knows what a lot of animals say (moo, woof, meow, quack, roar!) and some animal names (turtle, llama: you know, the useful ones).

His favorite words are flower, apple, mine, and Daddy at the moment. Still no word for Grammy, but he appears to be trying. Oh, and Elmo, of course. Words we have to spell now because he knows what they are and LOVES them (thus, will instantly want it) include cheese, Elmo, cracker, and bubbles. That first one you have to be seriously careful with. Mommy's fallen in to that trap before. Not only do you need "some," you need at least 4 slices or watch out! I only had 3 in the car on the way to Grammy's and it wasn't enough so we stopped at Whole Foods (where they traditionally have samples out) and gave him some Wensleydale with cranberries. Um, not a hit. He wouldn't even take the cheddar after that (for a good 20 minutes). I guess it's an acquired taste. Oh well, more for us!

Another word - this one's a biggie!

Jake can now say his own name! Yay! I think it took so long to get this because 1) Jake isn't an easy thing to say, if you think about it and 2) we so often call him different things (Jake, Jacob, sweetie, baby, angel, squeaky, etc.) But last night he pointed at Daddy, then Mama, then pointed at himself and said "Jake." OK, more like JK, but still, it was clear and consistant. My clever man!

Watch out Jackson Pollock!

My little artiste! I decided to find some rainy day stuff to do because we wouldn't be able to get outside yesterday so I bought bubbles, one of those heavy duty balloons you blow up with the rubber band on it so you can punch it, and finger paints. The bubbles were a huge hit. I guess they play with bubbles at school because he already knew the word and the sign. In fact, after they'd been up for a while Steve was holding Jake and Jake was signing and pointing and saying what sounded like "apples" and we couldn't figure out for anything what he wanted. Turns out, once I started really watching, he was signing, saying, and pointing to the bubbles. Boy, I can't imagine how dense he must think I am! "Duh, Mom. BU-BEL-S. Do I need to spell it??"

He had a moderate amount of fun with the finger paints. It was amusing for about 20 minutes but he didn't understand why he couldn't then just get up and walk off without mommy scrubbing him down. Maybe we'll do the bath finger paints for a while before we go back to these. Any way, he didn't try to eat them, so that's a big boy for you!