IHEARTJACOB

The end is coming. Jacob is the 18 y/o baby of Wes' family, about to graduate high school, go to Snow for a semester then leave on a mission.

Let me take you back a few years to when I met Jacob. He was probably about 10 or 11 y/o and the most annoying chatter box I'd ever met. And I'll admit I was openly as mean to him as I would be to my own brother. All in my misguided attempt to correct what I viewed as his social backwardness. A few examples of this besides that he talked more than I do: we would play games and he wouldn't play to win, but to keep others from winning; or he would make up jokes like, "OK, so the pope, a rabbi and Pres. Hinckley all got on a plane..."; or at 12 couldn't get himself a bowl of cereal on his own and memorized the song and dance at the end of Shrek; last of all singing Lovely Ladies from Les Miserables and not knowing what he was singing about, when I told him it was about prostitutes he asked what that was.

But in the last couple years he has really come into his own, and I find myself on the way home from some family event saying, "Jacob is really turning into a cool kid that I like to hang out with." He's really smart, he's had sex ed so now we can say lewd things around him and he gets it, he plays to win, he has a job, can drive, has a plan, he's a fabulous uncle, a good-looking dating machine who is so sensitive and always thinking of others, but a disturbing dancer.

I really am going to miss having someone to tease about their prom date, and how he was almost not VL anymore, but she was a really good hugger. (Apparently she have him all the signs that would lead up to a doorway kiss, but it didn't happen.) I do love watching him blush as the whole family is trying to extract the juicy details. I'm just saying that I'm going to miss the days of having a sibling (in-law) who is almost not VL and all of the fun that that entails.

I love Jacob and I think he's turned into an amazing, smart and handsome young man (when he finishes growing into his arms, hands and feet and is taller than his brothers). And I'm looking forward to the day when he's not VL (and I have the whole story of how it happened), because that means that he met someone as cool as he is.