Familiar Faces

One of my favourite things about Jake growing up is his increased awareness of the world around him and the people in it. The sheer delight on his face when I go to get him up from a sleep still melts my heart, as does the little voice saying "'Ello Daddy!" and whilst he's currently calling my wife by her first name, he still recognises her as Mummy and goes to find her every morning.

Beyond that, his recognition of our friends and family is slowly increasing, but it's interesting to see who he remembers, which names he can recall and how he groups people together. For example, he now knows his 4 grandparents by sight (even through a grainy Skype connection!) and gets their names right most of the time. However, both Grandpa and Papa go by Papa, and when we went to see his great grandmother (going by the name Baba in the family) he initially talked to her as Granny, as being someone older with white hair. I have explained to him the brownie points to be earned by getting people's names right, especially grandparents.

When it comes to aunts, uncles and cousins, he's less confident. However, he knows the names of my sister's kids and found pictures of them the other day at Baba's house and came running in calling their names. He also picked them out during a family Skype conversation and delights in their company every time we see them. It may be that they spend a significant amount of time playing with him whenever we get together, or that they're closer in age to him so are that more interesting to be around. In either case, it's cute to watch. He's aware of his Aunts and can just about do names, but definitely recognises them on sight as people who will adore him and play with him (which also most of the rest of the world). Uncles he's a little less sure about, but that's also probably because we don't see them as much.

Our friends are an interesting mix as none of the ones we see regularly have kids and even those who we see on a frequent basis, Jake still takes a little time to remember who they are and that they are nice people to be around. On the whole, he tolerates their presence in our house but will definitely play with them if they get on the floor with him. There are a few exceptions, especially on our softball team, who he actively smiles at when we get there and who he will seek out as playmates during the game. There's a certain amount of Jake's trust to be won through reciprocity and engagement, but the rest must be down to the smell, or small body language cues, as he has been known to lend Hobbes (a sign that you've joined his inner circle of trust) to effective strangers and withold his affection from some of our closest friends for months.

As his language and communication skills continue to develop, it will be interesting to see if the way in which he engages with our friends and family also changes.