updates

Well, I cannot believe that it's been over a month that we've posted here. For those of you who aren't aware, Andrew and I have signed on to run a new business here in Fairfax, the Fun Bus (www.funbuses.com). It's a mobile kids' gym in a refurbished school bus that attends daycares and preschools for weekly sessions (and we do parties, too!). ANYHOW, that's why things have been slacking on the "look how cute Jake is!" end of things.

Not that he's not adorable. He walks everywhere now, although not always where we want him to go (and always with his hands held at shoulder height, for some reason). He's really fast, and LOVES to walk around outside, exploring things. I'll admit that it's nice to be able to put him down without worrying about him dropping to all fours and crawling through the dirt... of course, now we have to start finding some "good" shoes for him...

With his new-found mobility comes a lot of mischief. He loves to open and close the dishwasher and play with the knobs, and on more than one occasion he's set it to "timed wash" and we've woken up to hear the dishwasher going downstairs. Unfortunately the stove looks a lot like the dishwasher from his level, so we have to be extra-vigilant about that. He LOVES sticks or stick-like things, and he loves to hit things with them. Spoons, chopsticks, straws, brooms, mops, even toilet plungers (when our backs are turned) aren't safe from him... Luckily (or unluckily?) he's also discovered that you can sweep with a broom, so now he tries to help with that.

Still no real words yet, although "uh-oh" is a little out of practice. He definitely has a version of "hello" that he uses: "Eh-woo". He picks up anything that looks like a phone (and since our cell phones are small rectangles, that is almost everything) and tucks in under his chin against his shoulder and says "eh-woo" into it. If there's actually a person on the other end of the line though, he gets freaked out why his toy is making noises. He's also started using a version of "Thank you". It doesn't sound like thank you (more of a "dee-tah") but he says it whenever we hand him something.

I'm going to try to dig up some pictures from his birthday, so you can all share in that. We've been having a lot of fun over the last month, and our little boy is growing so much!