In Search of Myself

Jake-isms

At night when we're going to sleep, Jake insists on talking.  A lot.  It's SO cute.  If I stop talking, he sits up, points to my chin and says "TALK!"  He likes our what color is . . . game, he likes to tell me that Spiderman flies, he tells me about playing in the sandbox with Sadie (he says "Sandbox."  And I say "did you play in the sandbox today?"  then he says "Yeah. Sadie."  "Oh, did Sadie play with you?"  "Yeah, rake."  "You used your rake in the sandbox?"  "Yeah.  Green."  "Oh, your rake is green?"  "Yeah.")  He's so goofy.  The other day I got his first "I love" statement out of him.  We were playing the do you love . . . game, and after I went through mom, dad, nana, grand-dad, Kathy, and Elauna, Jake sat up and said "I love dog!"

We took a walk the other day down our street (when we get near our house, Jake starts saying "Walk? Road?" and if it's still light out, we walk up and back real quick, takes about 15 minutes.)  So as we're walking, Jake points to the street and says "Jake's road!"  I said "Oh, is this YOUR road?" and he laughed and said "yeah."  He calls my car (and Nana's car) Jake's car, and he calls our house Jake's house.  And he's always pointing to me and saying "Jake's mom."

Ok, then this morning he was in my bed and I was awake (against my better judgement -- it was 5:30 in the freaking morning!) and in my bathroom getting ready for work.  He started crying, so I went and sat next to him and asked what was wrong.  He wouldn't tell me, so I said "What do you want?" and he whimpered "Sleep."  So I patted his back and said "Well go back to sleep, baby."  He patted the bed next to him and said "Mama.  Sleep.  With me."  *sigh.*  A kid after my own heart.

I love Priscilla

Priscilla and the girls came over last night at like 8:30 and stayed until after 11.  I will happily sacrifice sleep for some girl time.  Jake even behaves for me better when they're around.

We had some good talks.  Like, we really talked.  The kind of talks that you can't have with most people.  We have those a lot lately.  When we first started hanging out, our talks were hesitant.  Guarded.  We watched Friends together, talked about being pregnant, talked about impending motherhood, then about our adjustments once the kids arrived.  As that first year progressed, we were opening up more, falling in love with each other's kids, and realizing we could lean on each other.  We started testing the waters, stepping out a little at a time to see what would happen if we opened up.  Another year and a half allowed us to gradually realize that we really could be real, and that judgements would be withheld.  We're at the point now that we can show each other our scars -- the scars we don't show anyone else -- and then talk about how we got them and how they still kind of hurt.  (I'm speaking metaphorically about scars, of course.  We're not like dropping our pants and saying "look at this!"  heh.)

A month or two ago, Priscilla called me one night after Jake had tested me all afternoon.  She asked how it was going, and I said "Jake is making me want to throw him against the wall."  I had said this about Jake's behavior earlier to Lou and Lou got pissed.  He was offended that I would say that, and thought I was threatening Jake.  Dude, it's just how I FEEL, you know I would never hurt Jake, I told him.  It's like the comedian who said "I can see now why some animals eat their young."  She wasn't going to eat her kid.  She was making a point.  But he didn't get it.  When I said this to P, though, she said "Oh my gosh, Elauna was acting that way yesterday and I almost went insane."  I just wanted to hug her through the phone.  Sometimes as a mother what you need is someone to just GET you, to know what you're going through and to say it's OK that you're feeling the way you are.  And what I said to her then was "See?  THIS is why you're my best friend.  You understand the random things I say."

So there's that, and she keeps bringing me frappucinos and then we split a mini Starbucks chocolate cake.  That makes any night a good one. 

P.S. Thank you, sister Sheri, for all the cool pictures you take of me.  These pics from summer 2003 are so special to me.  You rock, dude!

A few Easter pics

Well, it may be a while before I really sit down and talk (write) about Easter -- I am working hard to edit all the photos I took that weekend.  I'm going to redo the bulletin board in the children's department hallway at church that I'm in charge of, so I took pictures of like ALL the kids on Easter Sunday.  So I'm trying to get those ready, edit the pictures of P's girls and plan some SB pages for her, then there's the dozens of pics I have of Jake . . . and you know, work gets in the way of me doing all this.  Heh.  I've been busy lately and trying to stay on top of things at work so I can earn my keep.  But for today, here are three pics from Easter.  I was bound and determined that I was going to get at least one really good pic of Jake in his outfit, but he wouldn't sit still and he wouldn't smile -- then I caught him happily playing on the slide, and this one will work. 

The one of the 3 of us, we always try to get a family picture on holidays, and this was the best we could do.  (See collection of pics of the 3 of us on the right, under "Happy Together.")  Jake wanted to get down and play.  My hair looked great that day (I actually curled it!) and I had make-up on, but I didn't get ANY good pictures of me that day!  URG.  P took a couple,   and mom took this one, but they're all just EH.  (and yes, I know my arms look enormous.  I'm going to start lifting weights to tone the flab . . . but I swear they're not really THAT fat.  Bad angle?)  But whatever.  The last pic, Jake and my dad and Lou were playing ball -- Jake is getting GOOD at his little basketball hoop!  I see sports in his future.  ;o)  It was nice to see my three boys out there playing together.  (click on pics to see detail.)

Doctor's appt.

Bonnie asked me about how Jake's eyes are doing, so I need to update about Jake's allergy issues.   I took Jake to the doctor yesterday morning because he had a pretty bad cough -- what my mom and I describe as "croup-y."  (Oh, and our pediatrician's nurse -- who has dealt with Jake since he was born and who we LOVE -- is 7.5 months pregnant.  See?  EVERYONE is pregnant.)  Anyway, I told the doctor that my theory about Jake's cough was that between getting the dog and seasonal allergies, Jake had a ton of drainage lately, and especially last week -- but it was all clear, so I didn't worry about it at the time.  Some of the drainage, though, settled into his chest and turned into a small infection from there -- thus the cough and colored snot over the weekend.  (And Jake feeling more tired and grumpy which is NOT fun for either of us.)  The doctor examined Jake and told me that's exactly what was wrong, and he gave me a prescription of Amoxicillian (the pink gross stuff -- which Jake threw up when I tried to give it to him straight.  And he had just eaten orange baby food, so I have a LOVELY stain on my living room carpet.) Anyway, doc also told me to give him Simply Stuffy when he's having allergy issues.  I asked about the red eyes (which have since gone away), and told the doctor I thought it was just Jake needing to get used to the dog, and he agreed.  I also asked the doctor about Jake's bloody noses -- he gets them at least once a week and they never last long or bleed hard, but it seemed odd that he keeps getting them.  I called the doctor's office about it a few months ago and the nurse said to keep Jake's sinuses moist with saline spray and that would help.  The doctor said that it's really normal for little kids to get bloody noses and that at this age it's too early to diagnose the bloody noses as a symptom of a bigger problem, so not to worry about it.  So it's all good.

Sweet Baby

Ok, so you know how sometimes I mention that my baby (ok, Priscilla's baby) will give me big kisses back when I kiss her?   She was totally cracking us up yesterday.  We had Priscilla's family over to my mom's for Easter lunch (and Jake and Lana had an Easter egg hunt, it was SO CUTE -- more about that later, when I have more time.  Here's a pic of the kids in their Easter outfits -- click to see detail.)  Anyway, we were sitting at the table talking, and I had Aowyn on the table in front of me.  I kept kissing her on the cheek, and every time I did, she'd get a huge smile on her face, turn around with her mouth wide open, and try to kiss me back.  Priscilla grabbed my camera and took pictures of her doing it, but A also loves cameras, so whenever she saw the camera she would stop and stare (oh, and she's holding a white paper towel in some of the pics, and it blocked her face!  ugh.)  She's such a goofy baby -- but seriously, the sweetest, most well-behaved I've ever known!  *sigh*  I love that kid.  Ignore how goofy I look in the pics, k?

A boy and his papa

*sigh*  my boys are so cute.  And I'm getting good at photoshop -- they were sitting on our muli-colored couch when I took these pictures!  (click on pictures to see detail.)  Lou has decided that he wants me to start a "dad and me" scrapbook for Jake (I guess to balance out Jake's "mom and me" book.)  What makes me laugh is, two years ago (and until pretty recently) Lou was completely annoyed by my accumulation of scrappin' stuff and all the time/money I spent on it . . . now he's wanting to be IN the books more.  But it's all good.

What's yo' name?

Names Jake calls me: mama, mah-muh!, ah-mah, mom, mum, mom-mom, moooooom, maaaaahhhhhmmm, mommy, Jake's (pointing his finger at me)

Names I call Jake: buddy, bubby, bub, Tigger, Jacob Alex Tigger, honey, sweetie, sugar, sugar-pie honey bunch, hunny-bunny, booger, booger butt, boog, sugar booger, boogie woogie, Jacob, Jah-Koby, Jake-a-bee, Jakey (jay-kee), Jakey-wakey, Jakey-poo, Jake the cake (Evie started that), puppy (when he's acting like a dog), Jacob Alexander (when he's in a lot of trouble), Jacob Alex (when he's in a little trouble), Alex, Zander, baby, Jake-man, Jakester

What odd things do you call your kids?

Disturbing . . .

Those of you who read Holly's recent post about a sex offender in her complex are probably pretty disturbed about the whole thing.  Someone from work sent me the following website:

http://www.criminalcheck.com/

You can type in your zip code, and this brings up names in your area.  (I would even do zip codes in your surrounding area.)  Clicking on the name will give you more information -- like the address.  I live at ***1 (street), and there is one at ***8 (street.)  Also, at ***4 (street), a guy runs an on-line p0rn store from his house.  Nice, eh?  So across the street from me and one over, then two more over, I have weird perverted men living within shouting distance.

I UNDERSTAND that people need to live SOMEWHERE, that once they're out of prison (if they even had to serve time), we can't just put them on an isolated island.  [Although, hey, that'd be nice.]  But it IS pretty disturbing when you find out they're across the street.  And the p0rn store?  Eeew.  Can you even DO that from a residential home?  Can I bitch about it to my neighborhood association?

Those of you who know my address?  Google the street name in quotes.  It should be the link at the bottom, "Play Time."  (the name is SO disturbing.  You'll see that one of my old pages from Jake's website comes up from Google because I mentioned the subdivision name [stupid Jen], and I've since taken that whole page down.)  But don't click on the p0rn site link at work or with kids nearby, there are some pictures on the main screen.

*edited to add*  I talked to Lou about the site, and he cross-referenced the list with the Tennessee government site, and he says the guy on our street doesn't show up there.  It appears the site I was given isn't an official government site . . . but if so, are the people it's pulling up still offenders?  If not, why would it bring up their addresses and names?  Our theory is maybe it's comprehensive of everything out of state and they happen to live here in TN now, whereas maybe the TN gov site lists only those who committed crimes in TN.  I guess if nothing else, we're reminded that we really can't trust anyone and we need to keep a VERY close watch on our kids (and lock those doors!)

Look what I made!

Well, I am making progress with this Adobe PhotoShop thing.  I have a LONG way to go, but I have learned how to do a couple of things.

First, I did a project for my boss, which was a great learning experience -- and I got $25 for it!  Yay me!  She brought me this picture of her granddaughter -- a great picture, but very distracting background.  I took it home and scanned it at a high dpi so I had a digital file to work with.  I figured out how to remove the background all around her and make it transparent.  Then I bought a cool background on a website -- it cost $1.25, and I can use it again and again (and it downloaded IMMEDIATELY -- talk about instant gratification!  I love the internet!)  Then I layered the picture of Ashle*gh onto the background, inserted text, and voila!  I'm a genius.  I printed it at a Kodak kiosk, which prints 8x10 -- before I left for Walgreens, I put the square image on a bigger white background so I'd be able to crop to exact measurements, then burned the file to a disk.  The square picture ended up being 8x8 (which is one size people use for scrappin', BTW.)  (Boss) was thrilled to death with it.  (Click on pictures to see in detail.)

I ALSO figured out what digi-scrappers are doin', and was able to make a page banner for my new Scrappin' with Jen website, and I am so proud of myself!  I have a lot of topics in mind for entries, so if you want to learn about scrappin', stop by!  (If any of you are seasoned scrappers and have something to share and want to "guest" blog, that would be fun too.)

So Jake.

Ya know how as a mother, when you're taking pictures of your kiddo, what you really want is to capture them the way you see them.  The joy, the silliness, the childish charm . . . and it's hard to do, because how can you capture that on camera?  But every once in a great while, it happens, and you look at the picture and it makes you smile and even laugh a little, and you think "THAT's what I've been trying for.  That's the look I'm going to remember when he's grown and gone away to college and I sit around, missing my boy."  Well, this is one of those pictures.  To anyone else, it may just seem like yet another silly picture of Jake making a face, but to me, it brings tears to my eyes.  And a smile, too.