Jacob's Birthday!!!

Jacob kept telling me he was sad he didn't feel differently after he woke up on his birthday. I'm not entirely sure what he was expecting to happen, though. He's definitely grown up over the past year, but it's been more subtle. He's not as scared of stuff anymore and is willing to take more risks. He's always been scared of the monkey bars at the playground, but wants to do them. So I hold onto him, letting go every once in a while so he has to use his own strength to hold him up. Eventually, he got over his fear of falling off the monkey bars and will do them now. He'll jump off the swing mid-motion, rock climb up a short wall, he'll play outside without me next to him. I'm sure most of this comes from kindergarten and seeing other kids do things he was scared to do. And not having me around for a few hours a day isn't a bad thing either, for both of us.  He's very into art and loves drawing dinosaurs, monsters, and crazy animals. He also LOVES pretending and is always constantly a different animal, superhero, dinosaur or combination of any of those. Lately, he has been asking for help deciding what he should be pretending for that day and it's basically an impossible question. Anything I answer is "not quite right". Everything has to be "perfect", which makes the kid pretty anxious at times. He reminds me a lot of me as a kid. He's reading better and better, and lately has just been sitting around reading. He's also gotten very into Legos. He's big into making the kits, not so much into freestyling.  He's a sweet kid and can read other people's emotions pretty well. He really likes helping, most of the time, and I give him one day a week to pick dinner and help me make it. He really likes it, although he usually picks the same 3 things - chili, nachos or tacos.

Jacob's my first kid, so of course I have reservations letting him go and I'm worried about first grade, but he's showing me he's ready. I know once he gets going into school, the next 12 years will totally fly by and while the last 6 years of having lots of toddlers and preschoolers around have had their ups and downs, I'm totally not ready to let it go. Hopefully over the next 4 months I'll get (mostly) over it.

Happy Happy Birthday Jacob Zane!!  I sure love having you as a first kid.You're growing up SOOOO fast!!!