Jakey...

Oh he is my love, my sweet precocious 3 year old middle child. We butt heads regularly. He drives me nuts. He is very particular about so many things, he doesn't like to eat anything else besides cheese sandwiches, yogurt, french fries, and nuggets. He won't touch a vegetable, rarely fruit. Meals are generally full of gags and tears. He screams for no reason, will cry at the drop of a hat. Everything about him is MORE MORE MORE. There is an intense energy that surrounds the kid. He is extreme. He has no fear. He wants to do everything himself. He is loud. He is incredibly smart...like at 15 months old he was talking in 5 word sentences smart. Before he was 2 1/2 he could look at small groupings of things and tell you how many there were, without physically counting every single one. He knows and has known all his letters and phonics since before he was 2. He lines things up sometimes according to numbers or colors or shapes sometimes. He did this just over a year ago with dominoes in his room. Tony and I saw it and both got freaked out. I almost ran to the developmental psychologists to have him tested for autism. These dominoes were in a perfect side-by-side line, two rows, lined perfectly straight and the numbers and letters all matched perfectly. I should have taken a picture. Instead we messed it up because it creeped us out. Jacob is intense. He has been this way since birth. He had breathing problems at birth and the NICU staff thought they were going to have to intubate him, (http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_tachypnea_of_the_newborn) instead they had to take him off the CPAP (constant pressure high flow of oxygen...think high speed train going in your nose, but it is really just oxygen) because he would not stop screaming. He wound up with just a nasal cannula and he was incredibly pissed about that. He had his food allergy issues, skin issues, everything seemed to be an issue. Poor kid. Everything about him is larger than life, except he is incredibly small. Did I say he drove me nuts? I love him, more than anything. I cannot imagine how life would be if I would have actually left him in the cart at Target like I wanted to one day. I think he is going to be the child who gives me the most problems. Do you want to know how I know this?

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He is exactly like me.