A Four Year Old's Perception of Life

Leif and I were marveling last night at how much Jakob is growing up. Now that we have Caleb to compare him to, we realize how far he's come.

Not too long ago I was fretting over him not being able to take his own clothes on and off by himself. Now he can do both all on his own. He still has the occasional problem with putting them on backwards.:) I should have taken a picture of him when he walked in yesterday all ready for church. Have you ever seen a four year old walking around clueless to the fact that his dress pants are on backwards? It is very cute!

We've been working on helping Jakob name all of the letters without any help. He's thrilled with the challenge because he gets a new dinosaur every time he gets four more down. I was amazed with how many letters he really knew once we sat down and figured it out. He knows all the letters except L and P. So he's a lot further ahead then I thought. On track for his age. He has also almost mastered writing his name. He will occasionally mix up the B and the K. His good teacher taught him the correct capitalization as she taught him. So he writes the capital J and the rest lower case letters. I'm happy with his handwriting too.

Jakob Loves being a big brother. These last couple of days Caleb has had a cold. I swaddle him in order to suck the congestion out of his nose. Caleb HATES this! Jakob always asks to hold and rock Caleb after I finish the whole frantic ordeal. It is precious to see and listen to him sing and rock Caleb. The first lullaby that Jakob sang to Caleb was interesting. It started with Jakob telling Caleb how much he loved him, then it ended with Jakob saying "... and I hope you don't die..." I of course recognized right away an underlining concern of Jakob's that Caleb will die like the twins died. We talked about how Caleb is strong and healthy and that he will live a long time. I explained that the girls were very sick and their bodies weren't strong enough to live. I am often amazed at this four year olds' perception of life and the world around him.