the longest blog entry ever

my shaggy little boy before his hair cut: after hair cut:

more photos pre hair cut:

of course I love the front of this shirt...

but the back is pretty awesome too

playing with his new shopping cart toy

there's nothing more fun than a pile of pillows...

except maybe a new couch!

this is what happens when Jake eats refried beans with his hands

Jakey has had a busy couple of weeks with many "scary" appointments. My cool little dude had his first dental appointment last week, and he loved the pediatric dental office because it was full of toys for him to play with, including a pretty awesome train table right next to the dental chair he was (supposed to be) sitting in. LOVED the toys, but HATED the dentist. He screamed the whole time she was checking his teeth. Luckily, he didn't have to get his teeth cleaned this time. It was only a "peek-a-boo" appointment to check and make sure that his teeth look ok - which they do. And now he doesn't have to go back until December - yay!

Jake had his 18 month check up on Monday, and he is still tall! His current stats are: 35 1/4" tall (between the 85th and 90th percentile), and he weighs in at 25.7 lbs. (50th percentile). He's long and lean. And he's an eating machine! Lately, he has been eating a ton and sleeping in almost every day which we think = another growth spurt! We thought he was going to be getting a shot or 2 at this check up, but it turns out he doesn't need to get them until his next check up - at 2 years old. Even though it was a needle-free appointment, Jake was not a happy camper while the nurse and doctor examined him. Poor guy. Now that he is more aware of what is happening, he gets so scared when "strangers" are poking and prodding him. And really, who can blame him? He checked out A-OK though, and his latest bouts of sinus AND ear infections are gone! His development is right on track for his age (we always love to hear that!) and she said that he should have a word explosion sometime between 18 and 24 months. At the time of his appt. I counted 13 words that he uses in the proper context, but now it is probably around 20 (not including animal sounds which he loves to make). Lately, it seems that he is picking up new words every day. His latest faves are elbow (I think he likes the way this one sounds), tiger (which sounds like tigoo), and hello (he pretends every toy is a phone, and he holds them up to his ear while his shouts this!)

Today (Saturday - I started this blog entry a few days ago) was by far the worst appointment of all - his hair cut. Dunt dunt duh. (Picture a black cloud forming over the hair salon.) All I can say is - it was a NIGHTMARE. Jake has had his hair cut 6 times - today makes 7. You'd think it would get easier every time, right? Nope. Today was the worst one yet. For his first few hair appointments I tried taking him to my hair stylist - he cried but it was tolerable. I stopped taking him there though because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of making an appt. in advance and driving him to another town, paying more, etc. Then I tried the place that Joe goes which specializes in cuts for men and boys. It was less expensive, and we could walk in, but...the stylists there - if you can call them that - were none too happy about dealing with a screaming baby. And they refused to let me hold Jake on his lap so he had to sit by himself in the chair and I had to basically hold him down. The last straw was one of the stylists admitting to us that she hates kids! Who says that? And if you really do, why work for a place that specializes in hair cuts for men and BOYS? So...after that I decided to let his hair grow and just put dresses on him if I had to. I just didn't want to deal with it and traumatize him further. But that only lasted 2 months (the long hair - I didn't actually make him wear dresses) because I am so NOT a fan of little boys with long hair (sorry, Kate Hudson). And unfortunately for Jake, his Italian genes on both sides make his hair grow faster and thicker than most toddlers I know. So that was about all I could stand. In the meantime, I was questioning every local mom of toddler aged children I could find to ask where they take their kids for hair cuts. I thought I had found a winner when I met a mom at an indoor play place who had a friend that comes to your house to cut your children's hair. Score! Too bad she never emailed me with her friends info :( But I finally got a good recommendation from my friend in the mom's club. Like Jake, her son hates hair cuts. So we made a same day appointment for our little man, and hoped and prayed this time would be different. We came prepared with his favorite snacks, and I explained where we were going. The stylist even had toys waiting for him when we got there. But as soon as he figured out where he was, the waterworks started. We tried lollipops, we tried toys, I tried singing to him - which calmed him down for a little while - we tried pretending to cut dada's hair, but nothing worked. He screamed, he cried, he kicked, he squirmed. And let me tell you, he is strong and stubborn. And he was angry. It took 4 of us (Joe, 2 stylists and me) to hold Jakey somewhat still so that she could cut his hair. It was my worst mom moment yet. My poor little guy was so upset. It was awful and his crying broke my heart, but it had to be done. And guess what? As soon as it was over he calmed right down and started playing with the basket of toys in the waiting area! He turns on and off the drama just like that. I'm not quite sure what it is about getting his hair cut that he hates so much - the stranger is his face, the noise of the clippers, the sitting still or all of the above. But we can only hope that as he gets older, it will get easier. Otherwise, pretty dresses are in his future :) And thank goodness for the owner of the salon who cut his hair because she was amazing! She stayed calm and patient the entire time, and did a great job despite having to cut my squirmy worms hair at such weird angles while he struggled to break free from the torture. We will definitely be going back to her again. And the more we go, the less of a "stranger" she will be.

Wow, that was a novel. If you are still reading this, you must have too much free time on your hands. Just kidding :) But seriously, I think I just used my blog as my therapy session because I was traumatized that I traumatized my child. So onto better, happier things...

Jake is a little sponge, soaking up so much knowledge on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. He repeats tons of words whether we ask him to or not. Which means we really have to get better about spelling the non-kid-friendly words we use! He LOVES to be read to, and point at all the pictures to find out what they are or tell us what they are (if we ask him where something is, he points to it). He will carefully select each book and bring it to one of us and say "read." It is so cute. And he knows how to count too. Well, kind of. If we say "can you count these" or "how many are there" he will point to each one while we count for him. He now tells us when he's hungry by saying "hungry (sounds like "on-ree"), eat" and/or pulling at his high chair. He finally started figuring out how to drink from a straw, but that is still a messy learning process. He loves to use utensils, and tries to eat everything (even cheerios and veggie straws) with a fork.

We are keeping really busy with our Monday and Thursday play groups, and our Wednesday Kindergym and Friday Kindermusik classes. Jake is one of the youngest in both classes so I'm hoping the mostly good behavior of the older kids rubs off on him :) He has done a lot better in this session of Kindermusik, and doesn't run amuck as much as he used to. He loves to help put the toys/instruments away, and getting a stamp on his hand at the end of class. And he likes to dance!

Jakey's "dancing" consists mostly of marching and bouncing in place, but it is really cute to watch. He likes to turn on his Rock 'N' Roll Elmo and dance to the songs he sings! He also loves to watch Ellen dance on TV. I don't keep the TV on during the day, but in the late afternoon we like to watch Ellen together! He doesn't sit still for much of it but the dancing keeps his interest. He also still loves Yo Gabba Gabba and Team Umizoomi which we let him watch after meals so he can finish his milk while we clean up. These shows do teach him life and math lessons though so we don't feel bad about letting him watch a little TV.

Jakey is still quite the character and makes us laugh all the time with the silly things he does. He is such a ham, especially around my parents. He gets really excited to see them and likes to show off and make lots of crazy noises and faces while they are around. Too funny.

Oh, and a follow up to my previous post regarding keeping Jake rear facing in his car seat. The American Academy of Pediatrics just came out with a new study which recommends that children stay rear-facing until at least the age of 2:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/health/policy/22carseat.html