Posted September 15, 2008

Jacob

Personality

Jacob, 11, is my eldest son. Jacob gave us a big scare during birth and the next 48 hours, but he is fine now. Humans need oxygen. My testimony, here, is that he was healed by the direct power of God, and I cherish him with that knowledge. Only his motor skills were affected, not his charm. He walked very late, but rode a bike early. He took a little physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, and that was all of what he needed. My heart leaps whenever I see him run, and he recently ran as far as three miles. Jacob is also the most articulate prayer-giver in the house, and has been for a long time. His heart is as purely for Jesus Christ as any boy on earth. While I tend to compare him to the proper standards set by two perfect older girls, everyone else that meets him thinks that he is the sweetest boy that they have ever met. He is exceptionally well-behaved and definitely likes to please everyone. He will do extra things around the house to get the recognition. Jacob is also outgoing, an idea person, exceptionally funny, and does things his own way but does them right.

Academic

Jacob’s teachers in the Blue Springs School District have really brought him up to speed with a strong foundation for his future. He ties his shoes slowly, or sometimes does not articulate his long hurried sentences. But his vocabulary is advanced, he gets 100% on most spelling pretests (pretests given before the coursework designed to teach the words to be tested later), he is at or near the top of his class in math puzzles (we call them puzzles instead of problems), and he is at or near the top of his class in number of books that he has read. With effort, he gets his homework done and gets straight A grades. He is brilliant and innovative, he counted to one hundred when he was three-years-old, and he learns songs on the piano by ear without ever having a lesson. Besides, is just so cute that no girl will ever care if he could cut straight with a scissors in fourth grade. He already has a little harem of girls, and I mean the cutest ones in class, that follow him around school and give their allowance to him, organize his backpack for him, and send him flirtatious emails. Jacob says that he is shy, but he makes friends more easily than his sisters and is always in a crowd of well-behaved boys at school.

Activities

Jacob has enjoyed walking, running, and biking with his family. He has participated on teams or classes for baseball, gymnastics, swimming, and walking club; and most recently taekwondo which has been his favorite. He goes to 24-Hour Fitness on my guest VIP pass. He is also playing the clarinet. He loves bowling, which I do not, and when we were in Hungary he wanted to go bowling in the hotel instead of see the sites, which of course I did not allow. He loves science and exploration, like snorkeling or hiking. When we were in Hungary, he slipped racing down a mountainside and needed stitches in an industrial Eastern European city hospital decorated in gray and more gray. The doctor snuck us in and out of the back door and did not charge us for our two visits since we were not citizens of Hungary.  Jacob has been to thirteen countries and is anxious to visit New York at night and the Statue of Liberty.

Interests

Jacob still likes toys, so interests still come easily. He also likes photography, music, his limited (educational) video game time, writing on the computer, remote controlled cars, building with educational toys, exploring, home construction, sports, boating, fishing, the color red, cooking, restaurants, drawing, nature, and animals. He has nicknamed himself Animal Boy and enjoys watching the Animal Channel, as well as news channels and even the cooking channel.

Inclination

Jacob is the family entertainer. He loves to imitate, animate, act, tell jokes, make people laugh, sing out loud, poke at people, and play out fantastic scenes from his own creative world. He is also an extremely clever writer, inventing imaginative characters. He can do things like demonstrate different flying techniques for one hundred different flying animals, and imitate any animal he has ever seen. His poetry and creative writing astound me; and I know that everyone thinks that they are a poet, but Jacobs writing (much likes his prayers are) is profound. My best word to describe Jacob is imaginative.

Future

Jacob wants to be a scientist/inventor when he grows up. Jacob is becoming more independent lately, which has been a new phase that is exciting for everyone. This school year, he really began to take care of himself in the morning, get up without an alarm, cook his own breakfast, watch the clock during breakfast, get out of the shower on time, and get his backpack ready for school; and after school do his homework without direction. Generally he cares much less about nutrition than the other three of us nutritionists in this house. But when we were in Hungary, he decided to be a vegetarian, at which he succeeded remarkably until he saw a Thanksgiving drumstick four months later, and that has been his favorite food since then.

Jacob is pictured below as photographed by his sister Samantha

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