Best kid ever

Said at the dinner table at Ama's Saturday night: "Mommy, can we go to the book store on the way home?"

'Nuf said.

These are the moments

This is what cameras are for. Those moments, snippets of time, that you think you will always remember, but you don't. Moments that are normal and every day, but that are the stuff of which life is truly made.

Jake and Lauren (a/k/a LoLo) playing the pool. Ah, the final days of summer!















Jake at guitar lessons with Gabe. In the first they were matching the musical alphabet (A-G) and then Jake got to play guitar a little. We played a lot of "red light/green light" because Jake has a very hard time with "only play when you're asked." Of course, he's also only 3 (Steve would add "almost" but I'm going to spot him the month since he's such a good guy). I love that he's learning focus and self-discipline as well as guitar. I'm learning all about what motivates him, which is an unexpected benefit and a lesson that will, I'm sure, serve us well as he approaches school. So far what seems to motivate him the most is being self-directing. He will do what you want him to as long as there's the promise of getting to do what HE wants to after that. He also loves beating mommy at things. We had a competition Tuesday before ice cream night and he won. He got to have the chocolate-dipped cone with the sprinkles at B&R. I had to have a cup. I'm not sure which he liked more, getting the cool cone or denying it to me. I'm not sure what that means other than a few lessons in sportsmanship in our future!

Jake and the Fire Dragon

I know, it’s been forever since I’ve posted. Honestly, there have been quite a few things I wanted to post, but didn’t have any pictures (the old camera broke, a replacement has been procured) and just kept putting it off. I wanted to blog about Jake wanting, as his own idea and without ANY prompting, to take his BFF Jack’s mom flowers for having Jack’s birthday party (what a sweet kid!). I wanted to blog about the fact that his verbal skills have matured amazingly since he’s started the 3 year old class and that now he never. stops. talking. I’m sure there have a been dozens of other moments in the past weeks, but you know how they slip by. It all goes so fast.


Friday we went to the open house at Jake's school. It was Superheros and Princesses. Jake was dressed as "Super Jake" in his baby blanket (made by Carrie) and his bug mask. He was the hit of the party! He got his first face paint - a spider on his cheek. Sadly, the mean Mommy made him wipe it off before bed. Much crying ensued. This has become far more common lately.

However, there is one story that I have to write down. It was yesterday while we were driving from breakfast at Ettore’s (because the power was out at the house) to the park. I’m going to try to remember as much of it as I can, but it was pretty involved. There was a dragon hiding in the tree and he was following us, so I had to drive fast to get away from him because he was breathing fire. So I sped up. I made the light turning from Fair Oaks onto Howe, but just barely. I didn’t think the dragon was going to make it, but apparently there is a dragon shortcut that I’m not aware of because not only was he still following us, but he had caught up and was breathing fire right outside Jake’s window. Fortunately, I drive pretty fast (at this point I was picturing getting pulled over by a cop and having to explain that I was speeding because there was a fire dragon following us, can’t you SEE it?!) and we came to the bridge over the American River. There was some discussion of calling a fireman to put the dragon’s fire out. We called, but things were moving pretty fast by then. Daddy explained that dragons can’t cross running water (I thought that was vampires, but Daddy assured me it’s dragons) so we were safe.

Or so we thought! There was another fire dragon waiting for us on the other side of the river! At this point I’m still a little confused as to how it all happened. The fire dragon left us at some point and went to Ama’s to eat all of Jake’s cookies (OH NO!). He ate them all gone and I told him that Ama loves him very much and will get him more cookies. But that wily dragon got slime all over the new cookies! But fortunately for us there was a knight going to Ama’s and he defended Ama from further ravages of the fire dragon. Between him and the firemen and, I’m convinced, the placating effect of cookies, the fire dragon was changed into a water dragon and everyone knows those are super nice. So it all worked out. Fortunately for us, if not so fortunately for Ama’s cookies.

I don’t know whether I’m going to love 3 or hate it, but it definitely won’t be boring!

Almost 3

Since it's been since the 4th of July since I've posted I'm going to pick and choose my comments and still deluge a bunch of stuff and pictures. So here goes.

Jake is totally and officially potty trained! He was awesome and has done a wonderful, amazing job at picking up this important skill. I had no idea how freeing having him trained would be, but it's been just great.

Jake loves water. Whether it's Papa's house swimming and making funny faces or the Folsom Aquatic Center (thanks to the Sages for getting us hooked on this place!) it's been and will continue to be a fun summer!

We went to the State Fair this Friday as well. We saw the dinosaurs (that roared too loud), the baby pigs, the petting zoo (goats, llamas, deer, sheep, wallabys, and donkeys, oh my!) where he hugged goats, and the RIDES! Jake is finally tall enough to go on some of the rides by himself. He particularly liked the jet ski ride and the jeeps. He wasn't too into the food, until I got a funnel cake. So Daddy and I picked up the slack.

He has gotten really into drawing with markers at the recently repainted table in his bedroom. He does lovely work, I will have to take some snaps of it to post later. Meanwhile, I'm sure I've forgotten about 1,000,000 things so I'll go think and get back to you. Enjoy the pics!