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.   

Summer Fun

It has been a fun summer.  We have tried to stay cool and have fun.  With everyone heading back to school, I realized it had been quite awhile since I posted pictures, so I thought I would share a bit of what we have been up to this summer.

Jacob loves running through water and enjoyed the fountains and kid water play areas around town.   We had fun spending time with family.  We went to CA and spent some time at the beach.  It was funny to see Jacob's reaction to the sand.  We have been to the beach before, but this time, he didn't like the texture and feeling of the squishy sand on his feet.  He tried to stay on his towel but eventually his desire to play with a ball that was out of reach and on the sand helped him come to terms with walking on the sand.  The ocean water was too cold for Jacob, but Rob and I had fun playing in the waves with our brothers.

While in CA we also saw some of Jacob's cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  We had fun going to an aquarium, eating treats, playing at the park, and playing with cars and trucks.

Back home, Jacob spent time running through water fountains and going up and down the slide and teeter totter at the park.  He is saying a lot of words now.  I love them all, but a few favorites are: happy, catch, truck, apple, walk, hot, bye bye, and night night.

Toddlerhood is a fun stage.  Jacob loves to laugh.  He laughs a lot when I pretend to stumble or fall down, or when he throws a ball up in the air and it ends up bonking him on the head.  Jacob is such a good little boy and I feel so blessed to be his mom.

Here are a few pictures of our summer activities.

Jacob loves to line things up or stack things on top of each other. 

I love my little family

My happy little boy

Spending time as a family.

Enjoying the 4th of July with his grandma.

Out on a walk

Uncles are so fun.

Avoiding the sand

Safe on his towel

Fun times at the aquarium

Lining up and counting the spices after he removed all of them from his grandma's cupboard.

Eating his apple and petting the bunny.  

Enjoying the park with cousins.

Driving a truck

Joining in the competition to see who could last the longest on the ground while it rained and win an icecream treat.

Enjoying the splash park

Summer fun with cousins and grandparents.

Playing catch with his cousin

Summer fun

Hanging out in the lego box

Laughing and enjoying having his stuffed animal stuffed up his shirt.

Playing guitars with Daddy

Playing tennis as best he can.

As you can see, we had a great summer.  Hope you did too. 

Music

Last weekend, Rob and I went to a Coldplay concert.  It was awesome.  I loved all of the music they played.  A few times during the concert I would stop, close my eyes and take notice of the amazing sound that surrounded me.  It was cool.  The song Paradise will always remind me of Jacob.  Jacob loves dancing to that song.  He has a few funny moves.  Some of his favorite dance moves are: squatting, spinning, and getting in the yoga downward dog pose and kicking one leg up in the air.

I love how music and specific songs can remind us of different times or memories in our lives.  It is almost like songs can be a time machine.  

Last week I also heard a song that I had heard around the time when we had found out about little Jacob.  At the time we hardly knew anything about him, but the lyrics in the song perfectly described how I felt and how I was already in love with this little baby.  Even now as I type this I can feel that same happiness and excitement I felt that day.  

It is fun to see how much Jacob likes music.  Rob plays the guitar and most nights he will play Jacob a song before bed.  Jacob likes to sit on his lap when he has the guitar and help him play.  Even if Rob doesn't play the guitar at night, we will still sing a song.  And I usually always sing him a song before nap time as well.  Anyhow, a month or two ago when I picked him up to hold him before we had our family prayer and sang a song, he immediately snuggled with me and then started singing.  You couldn't make out any words, but you could kind of decipher the tune he was trying to sing.  It was so cute.  It made me so happy that he also enjoyed this little bedtime routine we had, and that he doesn't seem to mind that I sing out of tune to him.  

We sing various songs before bed.  Sometimes it is the "Itsy bitsy spider", sometimes a religious song like "I am a child of God".  Tonight it was "Row, row, row your boat".  We didn't realize how much Jacob liked that one, but the last few times he has sung the word "row" throughout the whole song.  It is pretty funny.

Dance party to "Paradise" by Coldplay

Slipping and Sliding

I took Jacob to the park today and he had a great time sliding down the big slide.  It was the first time he did it on his own.  The first time he did it, we were both surprised  He slid down so quickly--but he loved it.  After that, he went down the slide at least 20 more times.

I love being a mom and spending time with Jacob.  I am excited that our adoption profile is now up and running.  I hope to be able to take another little one to the park soon as well.