3.25

It's not that I wish away days, exactly. It's that sometimes I look forward to the next thing.
I'm ashamed to say that I've been doing that a lot lately.

Three is proving to be, um, well, interesting. The first quarter of it let me know that everyone was right when they said that three is worse than two. Jake was a dreamchild at two. Not to say this is a nightmare, but it has definitely been toss&turny.

Jake is much more independent now than ever before, which is nice. I manage to read at least 50 pages in whatever it is that I'm reading these days without little fingers smudging up my pages. That hasn't happened since Christmas of oh-five. Even in the belly this kid had me running around. My house isn't gross anymore. I get time to clean while Jake is playing with his cars or trains or shoveling landscaping rocks from one pile to another in the backyard. I will readily and loudly admit to using television as a babysitter from time to time. It hasn't worked this well since the day Jake figured out how to climb out of his playpen.

We are plugging away at spelling small words. Names and numbers and colors, mostly. And of course the obligatory cat rat hat mat dog log frog bog car jar tar stuff. I didn't think to start with this stuff this early, but Jake needs to know how everything is spelled, and needs to sound things out, and needs to be a creepy overachiever that makes me worry that he will be the next Unabomber.
I learned to read at three with the help of my librarian grandmother so I guess he is keeping with par. She always told me that if I knew how to read there is nothing in the world that I couldn't know because every answer is in a book. Well, I don't know about that, but I know that being a good reader has made my life pretty damned easy.

If you ever buy anything for Jake, don't bother unless it's red. He won't want it.
If you ever buy anything for Jake, he's still way into McQueen. Disney is pure horrid genius, with their producting that appeals to children from age 2-10. I'm working hard to be sure that he never sees another marketable movie until he's in fifth grade so I don't need to change up the trend in our house. I'm okay with McQueens and Maters and Sallys rolling out of my ears for another seven years. I'm used to it.

I've contacted every mother of a three year old that I know because I wanted to make sure that they were going through the same crap I am. The same type of non-listening, bossy, impatient, obstinate child that is driving me up the walls is driving them up the walls too. It's like a memo went out over Nick Jr. or something.

Between bouts of impossibleness, Jake is doing pretty well with the charming and the loving and the butterfly kissing and the tickling and the cuddling so he gets to stay in the house. For now.

Jake loves to play board games. Jake likes Candyland, but thinks it's for babies now that he knows a two year old can play it thanks to daycare. Chutes and Ladders has gone untouched for three weeks. The dominoes are getting dusty. I've spent about 7 hours since Monday playing Sorry. I'm thinking of picking up (the Pop-o-matic) Trouble next time I go to the store because I'm a little board of Sorry. Do they still make Trouble? Parcheesi? Aggravation? Clue? Pente? Those were the games I liked growing up. I haven't played a bored game in 20 years until this year. I hated them for a very long time, but now I realize that it beats running around on all fours pushing a car from the kitchen all the way up to the front window a million times. I'm getting old, and I just can't take the wood on my knees. Poor me.
Jake can be a sore loser, but I secretly like it when he pouts because I make him shake the winner's hand before going to sit in the corner and thinking about what it takes to be a good sport.

I love when that kid is in the corner. I have figured out a system to do a million things while he is there, out of my way. I'm colossal at conquering my entire house in the time it takes for Jake to figure out sportsmanship. Don't tell him, but there have been a few times when I cheated to win in anticipation of his getting fifteen minutes in the penalty box. This is why I know I'm a terrible mother. Because sometimes I need to poop all by myself after flipping the laundry, starting dinner, kissing the cat, washing the dishes, writing out a check, sweeping the floor, and watering the plants. All things that can't be done correctly with "help".

Bedtime is still my favorite time of day. I ask Jake if he has any questions for me and sometimes he blows me out of the water with whatever it is weighing on his little mind. If he doesn't have any questions for me, I ask him a question just to see what he thinks on a subject. Sometimes I ask him what a word means, or where something sleeps, or where something goes when we throw it away. Sometimes I ask him about lessons that we learned that day. Academic or otherwise. I love the way he thinks and retains information and warps it up and around until it fits into his worldview.

Jake's vocabulary is pretty advanced these days, but he still says some things that I refuse to correct. Like "last day" instead of yesterday. "Umpsinedown". "About me" instead of without me.
He's nearly obsessed with asking "what time it is?".

Bike riding is coming right along, with training wheels.
Swimming is okay. He loves being in the water but not so much the doing what he is supposed to be doing in there. I just got approval to take Thursday afternoons off from work so I'll be taking him to the pool then for an hour or so of pure playtime.
The neighborhood parks are always there in case we need them.
Jake's trying to hop and skip and jump on one foot. He's amazing at hitting a baseball but only slightly okay at catching it. He can kick a soccer ball better than his dad can. He wants to play football. He loves basketball and says he wants to learn to play tennis. I'm 32 and I've never once used a tennis racquet.

I thought Jake grew a bit but I measured him last night at 37.5, same as he was three months ago. His hands and feet look big, his face looks totally boyish and zero babyish, and his ribs don't stick out so much anymore. He's broken the 30 pound mark, but only by a hair. Despite eating everything in sight. Including almost two cans of black olives last night for desert. Ick. He can have them.
Poor kid wants to be big so bad that he tears up about it sometimes. It's adorably pathetic.
Have you ever seen him cry? All his tears get caught up between his eyelashes. He has to cry for a long time before the tears fall, thanks to his eighty mile long lashes. It's almost fun to watch, to bet on how many minutes before they reach the breaking point.

For our anniversary last Friday night, we drove Jake out to West Chester where Dave and I met back in 1994. It was so surreal to see a kid that we made run around the same campus that we ran around 15 years ago. Things never seem to change on campus, except for the newer buildings on the outskirts and a Starbucks that was saddled up to the library. When I'm there I always felt 18 years old no matter what the calendar says, but I've never been there with Jake before. My time space continuum came crashing down on itself. My clock has always been stopped in that little corner of that little town. Not so anymore.

I like time. I like to think about times past, I like to think about times come, I like to think about now.