20 Months!

Somehow I got away from doing monthly updates, but today Jake is 20 months, which I think warrants a blog post! I've been waiting for this month. I remember with Samantha that between 20-22 months her gross motor skills became much more steady and that we didn't have to be right on top of her at the playground. Jake is looking much more stable these days as well. He is up and down the stairs, climbing over furniture, running, and doing this funny half jump/skip on his tip toes.

Jake is talking a lot. He says something for almost every word, but I think that anyone else wouldn't really understand what he is trying to say. We can't even be sure 100% of the time what he is saying, but he is talking. When he isn't talking he is screaming. He is loud. If he doesn't get what he wants, he screams. Yesterday we were at the grocery store and Chris and I split up with one kid each and somehow whoever was with me ended up screaming and every time Chris could hear them clear across the store! I just kept shopping and acting like I didn't hear them screaming.

Jake takes after his dad when it comes to eating. He will be eating and slow down to the point where I think oh, he must be done eating. So, I got to wipe him up and all of a sudden he has more food in his hands. Then, 5 seconds later he is part of the clean plate club. Often times Jake will be done with his food and he'll finish off what Samantha didn't eat. He could literally sit at the table for 45 minutes eating because he just takes his good old time! I think he is in for a growth spurt because he has been sleeping and eating pretty well.

Jake is very interesting in sitting on the potty. I think that when Samantha toilet trains we will probably just go ahead and have Jake use the potty too because he just wants to do everything that his sister does! (just a side note that Samantha starts preschool tomorrow...the teachers said we should wait to do any potty training until she starts school and gets acclimated to her environment; so, I would say that at the end of February we will begin with potty training!)

I just can not believe that my little baby boy is going to be 2 in 4 months! One of our babysitters was here the other day and she was saying to Samantha that she had to go get the baby (Jake was waking up from a nap). Samantha said to her, "there are no babies here, just Jake and Jake is a big boy!"

*The photo above was taken at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. The kids and I went there last week to see the exhibit Fins and Feathers: Original Children's Book Illustrations from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Overall I was disappointed in the exhibit, but the museum as a whole was very interesting. There was also an exhibit on Norman Rockwell and the chairs that the kids are sitting in above was a set up of the "Front Porch", which, like Rockwell's images, "takes you back to a simpler time, a world with fewer distractions, when life seemed to move a little more slowly."