The Edomms: Jacob is 5!

This is the day every single year that my heart breaks a little and I'm so completely proud of my son at the same time. I cannot figure out why I have such a hard time with it, but for Jacob's birthday, I'm on the verge of tears for about 2 whole days. I am seriously tearing up now. I try to stay busy and make his birthday so wonderful, and so far it has kept me distracted enough to keep me from getting too caught up in my emotions.

As I'm writing this at 9:00 p.m. on his birthday, I'm remembering (some incorrectly I'm sure) the total rush of emotions that we had been processing for almost 2 hours now exactly 5 years ago. My water broke at 7:00 p.m., and we were at the hospital around 9:00 p.m.; we live literally 15 minutes away from the hospital, but Brian had to clean up and take a shower before we left. We were told in birthing class that we had a little bit of time, and I had not had any contractions leading up to my water breaking that day. I had been having some false labor for about 2 weeks, but nothing too major. Anyway, it was a completely lazy Sunday for Brian, and I had spent the entire day shopping by myself. I specifically remember a time, probably 5:30-6:00, thinking that I was thankful I had not gone into labor while I was out all day by myself. It was by far the best day of the second half of my pregnancy! I had not felt that good in a very long time! So I wore myself out, and Jacob decided he had to get the eff outta there. haha!

Anyway, our Jacob is so amazing! SO amazing that it has me a little nervous for teenage years.

He has literally had 2 timeouts his entire time in school....we are coming up on 4.5 yrs. He is a total rule-follower. At home, he pushes a little bit on rare occasions, but for the most part, he follows the rules and tries to give directions to Andrew to help us. He totally takes on a grown up role for that; we try not to let him take it that far, but I'm sure it happens a lot when we're not around.
Jacob can read simple stories! He has his favorite books around the house, and he'll read those to us. He has memorized most of those stories, but that's part of reading, too, I think. And now I hear him reading random things around the house and while we are in the car. It's awesome! To me, that is cooler than crawling, talking, or walking.
Jacob can do simple math word problems. I love this, but I'm a math girl.
Jacob is at the age where you can actually explain stuff to him and he really gets it. I don't have any real examples, but we are at the age where you can talk to him like he's a real person...all the time.
Jacob's favorite things right now are Lego City Policemen. We are officially a Lego house after the party yesterday. He loves to build and pretend various scenarios with them.
Jacob is the best big brother! He plays with Andrew so much, and Andrew can be so annoying sometimes. Jacob takes care of Andrew and helps him a lot. It's really amazing! I'm sure it won't last forever, but I'm thankful every single day that my kids actually like to play with each other.
I don't have updated stats. We'll get those next Monday at his 5 yr checkup.
Jacob rarely gets sick. And when he is sick, there are two distinct symptoms we've noticed lately. One is that he is incredibly grumpy in the days leading up to his actually being knocked on his butt with an illness. And two, usually an illness will show itself by making Jacob throw up. And once he does that, he's like a new kid. I took him into the doctor late last year (I cannot remember why), and he ended up having an ear infection. The nurse said his ear was "bulging," yet he never had fever, a change in appetite, or a change in his sleeping habits. As his mom, I feel this is incredibly unfair. How am I supposed to help him if he won't tell me/show me that something is wrong. He's a tough kid!
Jacob is finally finding his aggressive side! In his soccer game two weeks ago, he scored 3 goals. And in his game last week, he scored 2 goals. He's come a long way in a very short time with that! We have to give him a pep talk before each game to tell him that it is okay to steal the ball from the other team. baby steps...
Jacob is such a sweet boy, and he approaches things in life with a logical point of view...much like Brian. This isn't a bad thing, but its comletely different from the way I approach things. So it is an adjustment for me to try to think in those terms so that I can prepare him for something or just talk to him.
Lastly, Jacob has become very curious about church and God and Jesus. I'm not opposed to this either! I just don't know anything about it since I didn't grow up going to church. So I think I'll be taking the dive soon to take him to church. Brian and I talked over the weekend, and we think he would do fine with it all. We've told him how he's going to go to a new school and make new friends in August for Kindergarten. He is so excited! So I'm pretty sure he would do fine in the Sunday school setting at church and even with the service. Stay tuned...

Since Andrew's birthday was on Easter weekend and we were in Red Oak all day (best bday party ever), I thought it would be a good idea to go to Medieval Times for dinner for Jacob's birthday. I had purchased some half priced tickets at the end of last year, and the boys are completely into good guys vs. bad guys right now that it just seemed right. They loved it! Bonus: Brian felt it was worth it, too! We plan to go back some time to see it all again.

Happy 5th Birthday to my sweet, wonderful, amazing Jacob!