Baby Larry

Jacob is particularly skilled at anything that uses his hands. We call him Baby Larry, after his mechanic Dadaw who was rebuilding engines on his own in his early teens. Meemaw and Poppop bought Jake these Mega Bloks Cars when they came out for Isaac's birthday. Isaac had his eyes on bigger prizes at first, but Jake was drawn to them. After only a few minutes he could take each one apart and put them back together. Similarly, last week Meemaw taught Jake how to use the Etch-a-Sketch by telling him just once how to turn the knobs. He figured out how to make diagonal lines go where he wanted all by himself.

Lately his talent for object-manipulation has surfaced in his endless appetite for puzzles. When our neighbor brought over a gigantic pile of dinosaur puzzles her kids didn't play with any more, it was Jake who had the interest and the patience to sit down with me and put together a 100-piecer. I give him object-oriented groups of pieces at a time (e.g., "can you build this T. rex for me?"), and he can put them together with no coaching. He's made it look so cool that Isaac joins in now and has become an expert in his own right.



I love Jacob so much for this because I have a special place in my nerdy heart for puzzles. My Grandma Ross has a Christmas tradition -- for almost 20 Christmases now she gets a new puzzle and we do our best to put it together, mostly she and I and my cousin Lucy, though occasionally we get other cousins, aunts, and uncles to join in. I can't wait for this Christmas, when Jake and I can get our geek on at Grandma's house.