Is it to early for me to say Jacob is going to be a lawyer when he grows up? Maybe he’ll be some type of negotiator or arbitrator. Or even a writer. All I know is he’ll be a wordsmith of some kind…

One afternoon in the pool, he was leaning against Marcus in an irritating fashion. After a few minutes of listening to Marcus whine, I asked Jacob to keep his hands to himself. In this matter-of-fact tone he’s perfected, he said, “But I’m not touching him with my hands.”

One day, Jacob and Samuel were playing in their room when Jacob started screaming, “Get the baby – baby – baby – baby – baby out of here.” (Samuel was destroying Jacob’s block project.) I went back and asked Jacob not to call names. “How would you like it if someone called you a baby?,” I asked. “But Mom,” he said, “I’m not calling him a baby, he is a baby.”

On another occasion, Jacob was outside pulling a spider web apart. I asked him not to do that as we were trying to attract spiders to our yard for a school project. I hoped to put it into perspective for him with this question, “ Jacob, how would you like it if someone destroyed your house?” He snickered and said, “You mean YOUR house.”

How about the time his friend Ivy gave me a handful of shells at the beach, and then I passed them right on to Jacob. I reminded him to thank Ivy for the pretty shells she had given him. His reply, “You thank her Mom, she gave the shells to you!”

One last story of his keen ability to interpret words, because heaven knows I could go on forever.

One evening while trying to cook dinner, I gave Jacob some paper and crayons to draw a picture. He insisted that I draw an array of bugs for him. I finally obliged. When I finished, he colored them and gave me the picture, “Here Mommy, this is a present for you.” As I proudly hung it on the refrigerator, he came in and said he forgot to draw a spider on it. “Jacob,” I said, “Mommy is trying to make dinner. It’s your picture, you draw a spider on it.” “But Mommy, you have to draw the spider. Remember, it’s your picture, I gave it to you.”

How could I argue with that?

Until next time,
CMH