In Search of Myself

Jake randomness

Jake's favorite words to read outloud: oops, uh-oh, no, splash, hiccup

Yesterday Jake found a small pencil sharpener I bought, got out all his pencils (we have a TON of wooden pencils) and sharpened almost all of them.  He got the hang of it pretty quickly, and was having a lot of fun.  Then he decided he needed to use the newly sharpened pencils on a dot to dot book.  (If you give a mouse a cookie.)

The day before that, he discovered a box (which has been sitting out the in living room the entire time) of random stuff that happens to include winter hats and a lot of yarn gloves.  He started putting everything on and taking it off, then decided it all needed to come upstairs with him.  And yesterday he must have put a pair of mis-matched gloves on and off about 20 times.

See?  Random.

Commercials

Jake loves commercials -- to the point where he'll get very upset with me if I ever try to mute them or fast-foward them on a video tape.

He's asked me before about the Subway commercial -- the one where the boy asks his dad stupid things, like can he get a trantula and can he go bungee-jumping.  His dad, of course, keeps saying no; the kid is all thrilled when he gets to Subway and asks "Can I get pickles and mustard" or whatever, and OMG, she says yes.

People, asking for certain things on a sandwich and asking your dad if you can bungee jump are VERY different things.  This commercial is STUPID.

Anyway, yesterday we went to Nannie and Pa's in M'boro, and on the way home Jake suddenly said "The commercial says at Subway, they don't tell you no."  I said "Umm, did you see a Subway?"  He said "No, but those words are in my head."

O. k.

Classroom rules

I just talked to the teacher at the Montessori school, and she said that yesterday at the beginning of circle time she was reviewing rules with the class.  She said they use nice hands and an inside voice, and then Jake spoke up and said "And we don't hit, kick, or push!"

Gee, ya think someone tells him that a lot?  :)

(Since he doesn't always understand social behaviors or expectations, I tend to compensate by working it into conversation whenever I can.  That way he's learned it by rote, but it usually works!!!)

She also said that he had a good day yesterday -- and actually took a nap, which NEVER happens -- and once he got up from something and when he came back, someone else was in his chair.  Instead of freaking out about it, he went up to her and said "Ma'am?  That boy's in my chair."  SO CUTE!  I'm VERY proud that he didn't react to the boy, and used his words with his teacher.

Birthday party, May 31st

Yeah, so it takes me a while sometimes.  But mostly 'cause my camera's battery died after my 2nd picture at the party, so I had to wait until I was able to get together with birthday girl's mom and get the pics.  :)

anwyay.

Priscilla and the girls and Jake and I went to a birthday party for one of Jake's classmates.  It was HOT that day, but we had fun.

Yes, that is UT carpet you see on the floor behind him.  *blink blink*

Jake REALLY likes playing with water balloons!!!

He also loves jumping on a trampoline and dragging his friends around in a wagon.  :)

Counting by 6's

On the drive home from his first day at a Montessori summer day-camp thing (he did SO good!  yay Jake!) we got to talking about numbers.  I would tell him which exit we were passing, and then ask him how many miles it was to our exit -- a number that he knows well.  He was able to do the math pretty well and figure it out.  Then he asks: "Mom, can you count by 6's?"

Uhhh.

So I started.  I got to 60 and stopped a bit.  He wanted me to go on.

I got to 120.  I told him I was DONE.  It's hard to fight rush hour traffic and do math in your head.  Ok, just hard for me.

So then we were figuring out what 56 plus 10 was.  Then we kept adding 10 and adding 10.  And can you believe that when we got to 96, he knew that 106 came next?  Where did this kid get his brain?!!!  (Hint: not me.)

In the garden

Mom and I are sitting here talking, and she said that the other day she was letting Jake pick tomatoes from the garden.

She says he came inside carrying ONE tomato and said "Nana, make me some marinara sauce!"

Zoo funny

While we were at the ring-tailed lemur exhibit (the one that last time, upon walking up to the exhibit, Jake said "Look! Ring-tailed lemurs!" and I said "Whaaaaa?" -- amazing what Zaboomafoom can teach a kid), I asked Jake where lemurs live. He said "Mad-a-ca-gar." He was TRYING to say Madagascar, which was correct.

At another exhibit, our friend Amy asked Jake where those animals live.  It might have been meerkats.  He looked at her like she was stupid, and said "In the wild."  Duh.  LOL.

What did YOU do today?

. . . 'cause here's what we were doing:

There's also a pretty hilarious picture (which I won't be sharing) of me and Jake on some swings.  (See?  Fat people can still have fun.)

So if you haven't guessed the location, this is the Nashville Zoo.  One of the people in my deacon group (which is mostly my "Young Adult" Sunday School class plus some others) planned for us all to go to the zoo after church for our 4th Sunday activity, but everyone else was busy.  So it was me, Jake, and Amy.  But we had fun!

(And this was after an 8:30 a.m. Cracker Barrell breakfast with 3 great-aunts and a great-uncle on my mom's side, 'cause they were passing through on their way to Florida, then driving all the way into town [Nashville] for church -- during which I basically wrestled with and yelled in a whisper at Jake.)

I am going to take a nap now.

More math

(completely out of the blue)

Mom, is 3 four times 13?

No, buddy, it's 12.

Awww, man!  I counted wrong!

But you were really close.

I WAS really close!

P.S. Lou and I had a talk about the million times a million question the other day, and we think that possibly it's a trillion.  Any math geniuses out there who can confirm this?

Random questions

Jake: mom, what's 1,000 times 1,000?

me: (counting zeros on fingers) umm . . . a million?

Jake: what's a million times a million?

me: uh . . .  I have no idea.