Jacob and I went on another one of our Mommy & Jacob Adventures! This time, to a new park!
I spent a couple hours in the early morning 'torturing' Jacob by having him smile nicely for his 5 year old photo shoot. My promise was that as soon as we were done, we'd go find a new park! And that's exactly what we did!
We loaded up the car and headed north - all the way to Maple Grove! We went to the Elm Creek Park Reserve which had an amazing play area. The ground was that bouncy rubber and was full of slopes and hills for kids to climb up or roll down. There were rocks and ropes for climbing, tall tunnel slides, a sand and play area for smaller kids, some unique swings and a wide variety of other equipment.
Jacob was super impressed! He took off running and didn't stop once. "Mommy, over here! Mommy, you can't catch me! Mommy, you're too big for this!" I thought he might be a little hesitant to try to tall tunnel slides but he zipped right down! Until one time, while taking his time going down the tunnel, a few girls came in after him and Jacob got a foot to the head. He was down with the slides after that.
By far his favorite activities at the park included "swinging". One was a round disc that kids could sit or lay down on while parents swing them back and forth. The other was almost like a zipline... they had a chair kids could be strapped into and could push the chair back and forth along the curved path. I was very impressed by fellow kids and parents - we had no issues with rude kids and all the parents were doing a great job about making sure kids were sharing and taking turns on the equipment.
The weather was cloudy and a little bit chilly, but I was still sweating following Jacob all around, so I would say perfect weather for the park! After the park, we found some lunch and McDonald's and then I had promised Jacob a stop at the big yellow barn for some candy.
Jacob fell asleep about 7 miles before the Candy Store but woke right up when we arrived. This was our first time stopping since the remodel and man, that place is just huge!! All the fun painting and decorations were super cool and of course, you can't beat the candy collection!
We managed to get home by about 4pm where Jacob decided he wanted to help Nana mow. So I would say it was a successful adventure day at Elm Creek park! They did have a swimming area so we might have to check that out if we get back up there!
This post is long overdue. I'm not even sure I'll be able to remember everything that's happened in the last couple of months! :)
Since the last post, Jacob had another couple short bouts of sickness, including bronchitis. It took him a while to get over that one, we were doing breathing treatments for quite a while. He also got the hand foot and mouth disease from daycare but only had a small fever for one day and then was acting like his normal self again. He did get spots though all over his body and didn't really have any sores in his mouth, so I don't think he was in too much, if any pain. He also has eczema, so that made it look a little worse too. Since then though, he's been healthy!
Jacob has grown and changed so much in the last two months! He's officially self feeding, no more pureed foods. I was still sending some to daycare but only to get rid of what I had in my freezer. Jacob loves to eat. And he can eat a lot! He's pretty good about chewing, but likes to shove a lot in his mouth and then he signs 'more' before he's even done chewing what he already has! He's really good about signing 'more' for us too when he's eating and in fact, has starting doing it now if we do something else he likes and wants to see more of. We just started working on signing 'please' with him too. He loves peas, carrots, cheese, chicken and strawberries. But he's a good sport and will almost always try something new. Sometimes he'll pick up a new food, try it, spit it back out only to pick it up again and put it right back in his mouth! Haha! We've also been spoiling him with the occasional marshmallow and ice cream cone. :)
Jacob loves to go swinging and before it was really warm enough, he loved to kick his feet in the pool at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We did finally get him in the pool last weekend and he LOVED it. He splashed the entire time with a huge smile on his face! We also have a small ball pit (a $5 garage sale find) that he loves. Okay, mostly he loves just sitting in it and throwing all the balls out of it. :) But he's mastered climbing in and out of it on his own. He also still loves anything that makes noise or plays music. In fact, he's started to dance with the music, mostly swaying side to side or shaking his head, but it is too cute. He's also really figured out some of his toys. Like putting the rings on the stacker - and then looking around waiting for us to clap for him. He also has this gear toy that turns the gears when you press a button and he's figured out where to put the gears to make them turn and he also likes to put them on the largest gear and watch them turn on that too. So smart! Jacob also enjoys opening and closing doors. If you're holding him, he'll make sure to help and when he's on the floor, he'll crawl to open it and then crawl to the door again to close it, curling his little toes so they're out of the way.
He's still not walking but he is a crawling machine! And he can really zoom across the room when he wants! He's also really figured out how to get from a standing to a sitting position now so when we try to get him to stand and walk, he just plops his butt down if he doesn't want to. But he'll get there in his own time. He can pull himself into a standing position really great too. He also has 7 teeth, with an eighth close to cutting. Jacob loves to hear himself and is in a phase of screeching. He will screech to get our attention or when he wants more of something. It's cute at first, but gets old pretty quickly. :) He still talks a lot and sometimes it even sounds like he's singing. He also still does the Jacob Jig - which is when he gets really excited, holds his arms out and opens and closes his fists. It's the cutest thing! Sometimes he'll wave his arms around during songs and it looks like he's conducting! His new favorite song is the "Hot Dog Song" from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I found a YouTube clip of this one song on repeat for an hour and while I don't enjoy listening to it that long, it satisfies Jacob!
As for Austin and myself, a lot has changed in the past two months as well. We've relocated (again) and are currently living with Austin's parents in Tipton. We were waiting to find a place to live until Austin found a job and now that he's working, we're looking for a place probably in the Mt. Vernon/Lisbon area. Austin has started working at Tipton Structural Fabrication as a steel cutter. Very different from teaching, very physically demanding, but he's really enjoying the change of pace. My job is still going great as well. It's getting easier and I'm understanding a lot more, but there is still a lot to learn!
Well that's about it for now. I'm sure I could think of more things the longer I sit here but this is plenty. :) Our sweet baby boy turns one on Thursday and I'm still struggling to figure out where the past year has gone. But more on that in the next post... in about six months. ;-)
