The drive home

Jacob and I had a fun day at a museum downtown and on our way home we had a fun conversation.  We talked about cousins and family and being a daddy.  (I just use the first letters of the names of his cousins.)   

J (Jacob): Is B my cousin? 

Me: Yes

J: And C and K?

Me: Yes

J: Are they my friends?

Me: Y

A minute passes

J: Can we talk about my cousins again?  Who are my cousins?

Me: I list off all of his cousins: B, C, K, B, T, M, K,C,

J: Who is C?

Me: He is your cousin.

J: Where does he live?

Me: California

J: Oh

Me: You have a few more cousins, N, & I.

He repeats their names

Me: You also have a cousin E

J: E is my cousin

Me: Yes, and L

J: L? is Carolyn my cousin (his friend Carolyn has a brother with the same name as his cousin)

Me: No, that is your friend and neighbor, you have a cousin L who lives in California

J: Oh, is that Henry’s L? 

Me: No,that is a different L. 

J: Oh, cousin L is a different L?

Me: Yes. 

J: Oh.

Me: And you have a cousin T

J: Are my cousins my friends?

Me: Yes, And A is your cousin

J: Oh, A is my cousin. Is S (A’s mom) my cousin?

Me: No, she is your aunt

J: Is she my friend?

Me: Yes

J: Is Grandma my cousin?

Me: No, Grandma is your grandma

J: Is she my friend?

Me: Yes, your Grandma is your friend

J: Is my Grandpa my friend?

Me: Yes

J: Is my great grandpa my friend?

Me: Yes.

J: He’s a good guy

I laugh.  Me: Yes he is.

J: Can we talk about my cousins again?

Me: Sure, why not. 

And on it goes. He lists their names, stops when one is similar to a friend of his and figures out if it is his cousin or not.  Talks about where each one of them lives, etc.  If only I could capture his cute little voice rattling all of it off.  It is just awesome.

Next little conversation:

J: Are we going home?
Me: Yes.

J: When I get home I will be a daddy

Me: Ok, what will you do as a daddy?

J: I will get married. 

Me: Then what will you do?

J: I will work and hmmm I will go to a meeting. I will go to a class and exercise. I will cook food. I will buy food. I will be a daddy

Me:I just smile and laugh

I loved talking with Jacob on our drive home today.  He makes me laugh.  I love seeing the world and life through his eyes.  It is so simple to him.  Cousins are friends and friends are friends.  And Jacob wants to be a daddy.  I have no words of wisdom to add to what Jacob said.  All I can do is smile.  Jacob is a special boy and brings so much happiness to my life.

 Jacob at the museum.  I also love the massive pile of coats behind him.  There were lots of school groups with us on this cold day.  Hope nobody lost their coat :)

Special moments with a future big brother

I absolutely love it when our son Jacob talks about adoption.  I don’t know what it is about it, but when he mentions adoption, it just touches a special part in my heart and I am so happy that it is a part of his life and everyday vocabulary.

Yes, I know it’s been ages since Christmas but I still want to share this sweet story from Christmas.  We had a secret elf who every evening would ring our doorbell and leave a small piece of a nativity set.  It was so fun, and Jacob loved seeing what new nativity character we got.  And I must add, our elf was so sneaky—we couldn’t catch him/her—and we tried.  :)  Anyhow, on Christmas eve, Jacob had already gone to bed by the time we discovered that our sneaky elf had left us our last piece of the nativity set, so on Christmas day after he had opened his presents we told him that the “elf” had brought him one more piece to the nativity.  He got so excited and as he unwrapped it, he discovered it was the baby Jesus.  He looked at it and said, “it’s another Jesus” (b/c of course we had our own nativity set and he had been surrounding our baby Jesus with all of the new pieces of this other nativity set he had been getting, and so apparently he hadn’t realized that every nativity set comes with one).  I replied, that “yes, it was another baby Jesus”, and he said, “Oh, He’s adopted!” and then wedged that new baby Jesus in with the other one for the rest of the members of the nativity set to look at and admire.  It was so sweet.  And my description here really doesn’t do it justice, but I just loved hearing him think out loud as to why there would be two baby Jesus’ in our home—of course it would be because we had adopted another one. 

Another fun moment we had was about a week ago.  Jacob had woken up from a nap and I met him at his door as he was coming out of his room.  He turned and walked backwards to sit in my lap (I just love how he does that) and as he sat in my lap we were facing his room and looking at it through the open doorway.  I asked him “how was your sleep?”  He said, “good”.   And then I mentioned how he was getting pretty big and soon would need a new bed (he still uses his crib—with just the front taken off so he can get in and out, so it is essentially a toddler bed), and then I told him that when we adopted another baby he would get to give his bed to the baby.  He wasn’t ready to give up his bed :)  Stating the “baby was not quite big enough for it”.   But he got so excited thinking the baby would be sleeping with him in his room and right next to his bed.   He got up and showed me where the baby would sleep—maybe right by his bed, or maybe where his rocking chair was, so we needed to move it to make room.  He also chatted on and on about how he would show the baby where the bathroom was and help it go potty in the night, and how he would be so nice to the baby and help out.  It was sweet to catch a glimpse of how magical and fun it will be for him to have a sister or brother and how excited he is for that to happen. 

And then today, out of the blue he was running around the house saying, “I’m going to be a brother!”  It was awesome.  Just like Jacob, I can hardly wait to have another little one in the house.  It will be great to see Jacob running around so happy and excited to be a brother.  I know he will be such a great brother and he and his siblings will have a great time together and have a rich and lasting relationship.