Jacob's verbal skills at one year

Our first baby genius was a verbal machine, generating at least 80 recognizable words by 18 months. His mini-me is on track to defeat even that mark, though this is to be expected, since this time his 35-year-old librarian of a brother is doing the training. Far more interesting than that boring old ma. In short, here's a list of words that escape the pouty Jolie-esque lips of my Jakeford.

Says every day and in context:
Dada
Mama
Dog
Kitty
Uh-Oh
Tickle
Ruff-ruff (barking)
Moo
Meow
Roar (as though he were a lion)
Hoo-hoo (as though he were an owl)

Has been heard to say:
Isaac
Jacob
Jean

I have to admit that, for the longest time, I was seriously worried that the second-child syndrome might apply to reading skills as well. I read to Isaac so much when he was little, and I'm sure I remember him being much more attentive than he really was...but it seemed to me that Jacob just had no patience whatsoever for books. Not that I ever made much time for it, but if I sat him down with a book, to snuggle alone with me in our rocking chair, or even just in my lap in Big Brother's room, he would wrestle and wriggle like a worm on a hook (not the bookworm kind) until I'd let him go.

But suddenly, at one year, it became as though someone flipped his reading switch on. He now has a voracious appetite for lift-the-flap books and brings them to me regularly, pleading with me to read to him using his signature phrase, "EH! EH!" He is psycho in love with Karen Katz. We have two of her books, "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" and "What Does Baby Say?" so I got him two more for Isaac's birthday. But perhaps his very favorite book in all the world is Open the Barn Door by Christopher Santoro, which was also a favorite of Isaac's from the time it walked through our door in Meemaw's suitcase in October 2005. Jacob wants me to read this to him nonstop and, if I'm not reading it, he'll sit and look at it by himself, stopping to moo loudly and obnoxiously in my direction when he finds the cow under the cow-flap.

"What Does Baby Say" has a special place in my heart because I think it set him off in this fantastic direction of imitation. The babies all say simple syllables, like "Ga-Ga!" and "Uh-Oh!", and when we read what each baby says, sometimes he tries to say it himself. Usually he gets stuck ala the proverbial broken record on the first baby's "Ga-Ga", and each response becomes "Ga-Ga", but when he can get past that, the results are magical. You can tell, even as young as he is, that he is really trying to make his mouth move in purposeful ways just as often as not. It is pretty awesome.