My Babies are Growing Too Fast!

Jake just turned 11 months a few days ago, and Samantha will be 25 months tomorrow, so I figured I better get one post written for both of them! Recently I've been nostalgic for the baby stage when feeding and cuddling Jake. We are lucky to get a few minutes of cuddle time with him before he is squirming to get down to explore. I remember loving this age when Samantha was nearly one, and I still love it now. Jake is still young enough to be my little cuddly baby, yet he is becoming so independent and wants to be involved in everything. He is so curious, and has a great time playing with all of the toys. As is evident from the photo below, Jake likes to get into everything! His favorite toys right now are the ball popper and the stacking ring toy that you can also put balls in the middle of to create lights and music. He is able to put the balls in the tubes and knows how to push the button to make the balls pop out of the popper. Besides these toys, Jake wants to be doing whatever Samantha is doing. This gets Samantha into a tizzy at times because she is very concerned that Jake is coming to get her things. She is very good at finding him another toy to occupy his time when she doesn't want him to play with her toys.

At the playground today, Samantha was playing with a kickball and another child was having a meltdown on the ground because it wasn't his turn to play with the ball. After carrying the ball around for a few seconds, Samantha went over to him, bent down, and said "you okay?" She handed the ball to him saying "your turn." Hopefully her sharing with Jake will continue to affect her interactions with other kids.

Jake is still crawling and walking by holding onto things. He is very fast, and I have to keep my eyes on him all the time or else he is into everything. It has been very challenging to get anything done like make lunch or dinner with the two of them around because Jake loves to climb the stairs and follow Samantha all over the house. There have been a few times when I've been forced to confine Jake to the exersaucer purely for his safety and my sanity. This never goes over very well.

Both Jake and Samantha are talking away a mile a minute. Jake is never quiet, and full of da-da-da. Other sounds he is making are ba, ga, la, and ma, but da is by far his favorite! I swear that the other day in the grocery store when I was saying to Samantha "can you say hi to the nice lady", that Jake responded "hi", but of course, he has yet to repeat it, so maybe I was only dreaming! Samantha's newest stall tactic is to keep talking. She wants to do everything herself, and instead of actually doing things herself (getting out of the car, coming inside, putting on her clothes, etc, etc), she sits there and makes countless observations, or asks many questions. As we were coming inside today, all of a sudden the garden figuring became very intriguing, followed by a close study of the door mat. Jake and Samantha are taking a Music Together class for 10 weeks and they both absolutely love it. When I play the cd in the car Jake even "sings" along with the music! I told this to Chris the other day in the car and I don't think he believed me until he really did hear Jake singing!

It is hard for me to believe that pretty soon we'll have two walking kids, and we will be exiting out of the baby stages. One more month on formula for Jake and then we'll be weening him off the bottle. Samantha and Jake provide me constant laughs and wonderment in a day as well as hair pulling frustration. I realize that at this point a year ago I was out of work on bed rest, and so technically I had started my gig as a stay at home mom. This past year has been so fulfilling and hard all at the same time, but I can honestly say that I have never looked back and wished that I was still working. Sure I need my breaks here and there, and I do miss socialization with co-workers, but being a stay at home mom has been a really great experience for me thus far. I might not be saying that in another year after dealing with a two year old for the next year!