Wild Thing

THIS IS JAKE!! If I had to describe our son in terms of punctuation he would most certainly be an exclamation point. Two exclamation points to be exact which are defined as a writing tool used to indicate intensity of emotion, loudness, etc. He is capital letters all the time. And bold. Let's not forget the bold. He is a bold, capital letter with two exclamation points at the end about 95% of his waking life. And sometimes for good measure he is also underlined.

All I'm saying is that Jake is very excited about life. He has not really discovered his inside voice. He has not really discovered that walking can be better than running in some life situations. And he has not yet discovered that not every little thing that happens to him is worthy of a theatrical debut that merits an Oscar nomination.

A lot of people might not see this side of Jake. Sometimes he seems quite shy. I cannot get him to look people in the eye and say hello when they speak to him. So how can I claim he's the fireball I describe him to be so often? All I say is give him five minutes alone in a room with you. His true colors will come out.

We were at Cabela's the other day looking at dead stuffed things because that's how we roll around here. Jake was in front of the rest of us having an animated conversation with himself. Or whoever it is he is ALWAYS talking to. A nice, older gentleman walked by us who just happened to be wearing a shirt that looked like the American flag (it was Veteran's Day.) Jake stopped his conversation just long enough to look at the man, point at him, started laughing hysterically and turned back to us to say "LOOK AT HIM! HE'S SO FUNNY!!"

His excitement for life has landed him in trouble at school a few times this year. It seems there are a couple other boys who are also exclamation points in his class. They have trouble keeping their hands and feet to themselves. I think tackling each other is also a problem. Anyway, he has two of the sweetest teachers who put up with his antics every week. For Thanksgiving, they sent home the cutest list of all of the kids in class and what qualities they possess that the teachers are thankful for.

It went something like this. We are thankful for "Jane" for being such a good friend. We are thankful for "John" for his ability to answer questions. For so an so for her quiet, gentle nature. And then, we are thankful for Jake and his excitement about everything everyday!! I just cracked up. His other cohorts were described with words like enthusiasm and high spiritedness. God bless their teachers. Let me tell you if you have more than one high spirited, enthusiastic kid in your class you have your hands full.

Anyway, parenting this excited about everything everyday child has gotten to a most challenging stage. We don't want to quench the excitedness. We just want to harness it and use it for good instead of evil. If we could figure out a way to power cars with it that would be good too.

Our search has led us to this book which I'm hoping will give me some insight into the mind of the boy. Wild Things-the art of nurturing boys. Maybe it will help me figure out Mike as well!