Happy Birthday Jake! Today is my second son's 21st birthday. He has grown to be quite the handsome young man. He's tells me he loves me whenever we talk or see each other. He's about 6'3" and loved the day he towered over me.

He was the one who has challenged me all the way through his life. He stopped nursing at ten months (my others were at least 2 1/4 years) walked at ten months (the others were 12 months), read the latest (like 10 yrs or something-he needed vision therapy and I didn't know it) and busted my brain by thinking of different ways to teach him.

When he went to Class Day with our ISP he was the one the other homeschool moms didn't want their kids to hang out with. He was the one who our Class Day coordinator would call an emergency prayer meeting with herself, me, Jake, another mom and son because that boy was misbehaving with my son. Many times I wondered, "Can I just get through the day without a crisis?"

At the age of 16 my husband took him to see the a school psychologist through Kaiser. His diagnosis? He has ADD and ODD. You know what ADD is but do you know what ODD is? It's Oppositional Defiance Disorder. I LAUGHED hysterically when Steve told me this. Remember me? I'm the one who has home schooled him for the past umpteenth years! I KNOW he has ODD I've lived it! Anyways, they offered to prescribe Ritalin and we politely declined.

So, Jake struggled all through school. Guess what? The same year he graduated he went to community college and took some plumbing courses. He got A's! He's just a hands on guy, he didn't care about capitals and punctuation marks or what the capital of North Dakota is (He lives in San Diego County-he just needs to remember how to get home and to work)! He works so hard every day for our family plumbing business. He at twenty-one is part owner of a condo with his brother. He is  tenacious like his mother, loving with a quiet stength like his father and bold as all get out. Makes me proud as a peacock when he slips in our pew at church. He loves to do things to shock me. Ahhh......I wonder what blessings he has in store for me next?