Jake carries things in his mouth.

Jake is going through a phase where he carries his stuffed animals in his mouth as he walks. He does this most often with his bear "Scout"*.

The problem is that as he walks along, holding the animal in his teeth, he can't see where he's going. So he will often trip or fall forward onto his face.

When we randomly pick up one of his stuffed animals it will often be wet with his saliva. Sometimes the stuffed animal is stained a strange colour. We realize that whatever he was eating at the moment had dripped out of his mouth and stained the animal.

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* Scout has a USB port. We plugged him into the computer and downloaded some new songs and told him Jake's name. Now he says out loud "Hi Jake". And uses Jake's name in the songs. When Jake first heard this, he sat up straight in surprise and pointed to himself. We said, "Yes, Scout is talking to you." Toys are insane these days.

The worst things about kids' toys.

You only notice or think about kids toys when you're a parent. A few things I've learned about kids' toys:

- It's really hard to predict a good toy. You can never tell from the package.
- A huge percentage of kids toys are poorly designed or made.
- Some of them do or say weird things. I swear one of Jake's toys yells out "BITCH!!"

Here's a list of the worst things about kids' toys, in no particular order.

1.) Batteries. Some toys use the expensive AAA batteries - and just eat them up like candy. Also, when the batteries die, the toy goes a little crazy and starts shouting out gibberish. Usually at 1am.

2) Some toys have buttons or switches that are too hard to push for kids. Also, some toys don't react fast enough when you push the button.

3) Some toys have annoying little reminders that sound after a few minutes of being idle. "Play with me!!!" Which sucks, because we've just distracted Jake enough to play with something less annoying and suddenly you hear, "Play with me!" and Jake scurries back to play with the annoying toy.

4) Some toys encourage bad behaviour. For example, they make a sound when you throw them.

5) Some toys miss opportunities to educate. When you press an animal button, it makes the wrong sound. Or the songs don't quite sound right. Or one toy promotes its name brand. "Thank you for playing with Leap Frog!!" Marketing.

Jake tries to pick things up.

Jake's in a phase where he tries to pick up large objects and carry them. But since he can't walk, this is difficult. I have to hold him under his arms so that his hands are free to carry large toys. Then his little legs pump quickly as he tries to walk somewhere else with his toy.

I have no idea why he'd want to move a toy from one location to another location five feet away. A lot of times the toy is too heavy and he drops it on his foot or on the floor. He likes this. It makes a big sound and the toy does a couple flips. It amuses him.

He might remember to try and pick it up again, but more often then not he forgets that he was carrying it somewhere and sits down and continues playing with the toy.

In his crib, he will pick up his block and try to drop it over the side onto the floor. He manages to do this about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time he drops the block or loses his grip. When he starts throwing or dropping his toys out of his crib, we know he wants out.

We encourage him to simply ask us.

Jake surprised us with 2 new signs.

I love it when he surprises us. The other day we were on the bed when the alarm clock went off. He tapped his ear - which means "noise" or "sound". I had been doing that sign for awhile, but I didn't think he ever saw me.

We tried it again the next morning. The alarm went off and this time he didn't sign it. I tapped my ear and said, "Can you hear that sound?" and he looked back at the alarm clock.

They've also taught him "milk" at daycare (which is like milking a cow with your hand). We only use "drink" with him, never milk. The other day when Cindy was offering him a drink, he signed milk.

A couple weeks ago we noticed Jake suddenly walk across the floor, without warning, hanging on to his train walker. He had just gotten up by himself and started pushing the thing across the floor. It was bizarre seeing him walk by, because we'd never seen him do that on his own. Suddenly, you see this kid walking past.

When he first started using the walker, you had to hang on because he'd push it faster than his feet could keep up. So he'd be in danger of landing on his face. Now he has more control of the train with his arms, but hasn't figured out how to turn. So he'll just go in a straight line until he bumps into a wall. The train makes a little "beep" sound when this happens and he laughs.

He brings it back and pushes it into the wall over and over again. Now he's started to sit down and turn it with his hands in another direction. Soon he'll be able to do this on the fly.