Seriously, Jakey. What's your hurry?

Chalk it up to his natural genetic capacity for genius. Perhaps it's his super-coolio older bro, the stunningly handsome walking and talking machine. Whatever it is, Jacob has used the past two weeks to focus his brain-rays on blowing milestones to dust.

His first act of sheer genius was to cut his fourth tooth, the top left incisor, on the heels of its right counterpart. Dude is 8 months old and already prepared to guillotine your fingertip. For whatever reason, the left one was apparently much more painful and resulted in three days of general Jacob crankiness and unrest which was no fun, no fun at all. But now that it's through, we can see why all the drama -- poor fella has inherited my gigantic front teeth along with my gigantic long nose. Excuse me, Dada? Where are those captivatingly handsome Irish genes now? Getting drunk somewhere in a mitochondrion?

Whereas Jacob first began goo-goo-gooing at Mamaw and Dadaw early last month, the past two weeks have coaxed many more syllables from his pouty little bow lips, and there is NOTHING CUTER. I am so disappointed in my lack of a movie to illustrate this. I will keep trying. You have seen nothing so adorable as Jake screaming "DEH-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEH-DEE" at an entertaining Dada or Big Brother in his loudest voice possible. He likes to gurgle to himself, too, as he cruises around the table, as though he required a "gurrrrrrrrr" motor sound to keep him going.

But perhaps the most breathtaking of all is that this psycho baby is trying to stand by himself. Many, many times a day he pulls himself up on the coffee table in the living room. Almost every time, he will temporarily let go and find himself standing with no support whatsoever. At first when he did this, he'd do crazy arm-windmilling in the vein of some Looney Tunes character at the edge of a cliff until he'd regain his grip on the table. However, after about a week of practice, he can stand still for a full second without wobbling before he reaches back, apparently out of habit.

Isaac was reluctant to stand. He learned how to stand unassisted for a week, I think, before he started walking. It's funny -- I was just remarking to Dada a few days ago that, if Jacob keeps with Isaac's pace, he'll be walking in three months. Now I think Jacob intends to write his own pace, one that requires his parents to supplement themselves with crack, or perhaps meth, to keep up.