New year, new personality

First off, sorry for taking so long to get in the first of the year post. As you can imagine with recovering from Christmas and New Years plus the coming apocalypse from the Arizona Cardinals hosting the NFC Championship game, we've been swamped. Now, a news brief:

"However, Skynet became self-aware thus alarming its creators at its new found abilities. When the human operators attempted to shut down the system, Skynet defined all humans as its new enemy and decided to terminate all humans to protect its existence. Every nuclear missile in the United States under Skynet's control was launched at their preset targets and in the resulting counterattack of other nations' nuclear arsenals, three billion humans were killed in minutes as a result of the nuclear exchange." - Sarah Connor

Now that we have your attention, imagine this "self-awareness" on a much, much smaller scale and you have the little boy. Jakob's personality traits continue to grow and become more of his own. He's smiling more, laughing more, blowing kisses and showing more of these charming looks. He's become more fearless and while it still takes him a little while to warm up to new people, it's only a matter of time before he shows off his belly or gives a well-deserved high five. The other big news is that we took the side off Jakob's crib so it's officially now more of a day bed.

Words Jakob has now mastered:

Daddy

Momma

Oh-no!

Oh wow!

Awesome

Nana

and just this week. . .moon! They're learning about the nine (or eight) planets at his daycare and he now looks for and points at the moon.

Non-verbals Jakob has now mastered:

Smiling

Blowing kisses

High fives

Taking our hand and leading us somewhere

Dancing

Crawling up and down the stairs on his own

Getting off the bed/couch by himself

Clapping

Clicking his tongue

Shaking his head "no"

Signing "more"

Signing "all done"

Eating with a fork

For Christmas, Jakob got more quality than quantity. Some of his gifts include a table and chairs from Santa, a Batman 4-wheeler from Nana and Pape, Dancing Wubzy from his aunt and learning toys from Grandma and Grandpa and Great Grandmas. It was great seeing him understand this year and really get engaged in enjoying the time.

Although it's hard to see unless you turn over your monitor, you can see the boy in live action on the 4-wheeler at www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1PlpBLD2Mo.

Kim got Marc Guitar Hero and Jakob really enjoys watching daddy play songs he can dance to. Jakob also loves more and more time watching mommy cook and read stories.

This month Marc heads to Orlando to oversee a media event at the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex and a few other client meetings. One of these times, we're just going to plan on moving down there. The weather alone is enough to make you want to never come back to the Midwest.

Kim has officially started the countdown. 19 weeks until summer break.

More soon.