February 2006

February is the shortest month and always produces the fewest pictures of any other month. Is it because our fingers are too cold to pull out the camera for
cute outdoor photos? Is it that Jacob is not adorable in February? Is it that February is always a rotten month with nothing fun happening? We're going to
say (a) and (c) because, obviously, Jacob was quite adorable in February. Of course, he got an adorable haircut near the beginning of the month but the lady
cut his ear in three places so now he's traumatized and future photos will show him getting shaggier and shaggier. This month, Jacob decided to teach himself
many new tricks. One is the choreography to many Wiggles songs (may have mentioned that before), another is a forward somersault, and finally, the exciting
one, the alphabet. He can almost say it all the way through (with help) but, more importantly, he recognizes all the letters and can identify them with 98%
accuracy. We haven't been drilling him and it's not something they've gone over in school. He just loves his Leapfrog Phonics Magnets. Highly recommend them
to all parents! Except the letter L which sounds like "L says oo" and that's what Jacob thinks it says. It's like nails on a chalkboard hearing him sing "L
says oo, L says oo, every letter makes a sound, L says oo." He's trying to count to twenty (I think this is a Sesame Street-acquired skill) but it's so funny
because he gets to thirteen and then skips to eighteen and when we say "fourteen?" he says "eighteen" and does the same for 15, 16, and 17. And he basically
stops at 19. He started school this month. He seems to like it, especially snack time when he gets to check out all the other kids' goodies. Everyone brings
really healthy snacks so we haven't had an issue with candy/chocolate which is great and probably partly due to the nature of a co-op. Jacob has a toy that came
with an instruction manual that says that by the age of 2, a child should have a vocab of about 200 words which seemed like a lot to us at first but the more we
thought about it, the more we realized, he probably has more than that. It's an amazing change from this time last year when his words numbered in the single
digits! We'll tally them up soon and maybe post a list somewhere on the site. Meanwhile, here are this month's photos:

First Day of School!	Ring around the Rosies...	...we all fall down!	Playing with Grandma
Bowling...ball... crushing...legs...	Cheeeeese!	"Oh, this heavy mama!"	Done 'shoveling', now playing in the snow
Tossed into the snow by Uncle Boo	Mellow Moment	Ready? Jump!	Someone's being naughty at playgroup.
Jacob loves to play in the basement with Mom (or anyone willing).	Six cousins (Grace is being shy!)	Ayden and J trying to share the train set.	Playing outside in the COLD after school.
Lazy mom/babysitter barters popsicles for a moment of peace	Guys love Fries	Ketchup shot aka practicing for the frat.	Holding hands like they weren't just fighting (again)!