Whack a toy

Jonah has been quite interested in his activity center since we first introduced him to it.  At first, it was more fun for me because it gave me something concrete for me to do with him and I could make up stories about the toys that came with it and he could touch, feel, and look at them and listen to the music and lights.  He'd definitely show interest in the toys and even nearly rolled over trying to get them at times, but he didn't really have the control of his hands and arms to interact a whole lot with them.

Well, that's changed a lot in the past couple of weeks.  Now it's all about reaching to move the toys around, grabbing them, etc.  He still gets enthralled by the lights on occasion, but he can consistently whack those toys like crazy.  It amazes us how intent he can be at times and how he sometimes seems to be whacking the toys without even looking at them (does he know he's hitting them?). Here's some footage of him from Saturday:




Similarly, he's become more engaged with the toys in his seat, which we don't always put in front of him.  One of these days, he'll figure out that he can pull the banana and make music happen.  Here he is in his chair last Sunday:



He's had so much fun with these, that we bought a bar to attach to his car seat.  While the toys on it seemed to scare him a bit at first - mainly because they're a bit noisier - he's loving them as well!

Thumbs up!

This is from October 7. I intended to make this post couple weeks ago when this happened, but I got a little behind.

Jonah loves to eat his hands. Apart from a one off time about a week after he was born when he found his thumb, he pretty much just liked to "eat" his entire hand. (Disclaimer: Michelle says she noticed him finding his thumb a couple other times before this, too. This was just my first time seeing him get his thumb and watching him soothe himself to sleep with it.).

Jonah and I were playing before we took him to daycare, and he was starting to get a little upset during tummy time. Normally he would have his hand in his mouth, but that still wouldn't calm him completely. For some reason on that morning he found just his thumb, and he was so soothed by it, he fell asleep. I had to capture some pictures and some video... :)




Update: in case you were wondering what he looked like when he found his thumb in early July...

He was so tiny then!

Urine for a little laugh

This morning, Jonah did something he hasn't done in quite a while: peed while I changed his diaper. He went from napping on me to hunger tantrum in about .04 seconds, so I brought him upstairs to change him before passing him off to Michelle to feed.

When I got his diaper off, it looked like some pesky poo escaped the back of his diaper and had gone up his back. While I was investigating, he peed a little. I noticed, but thought he was done, so I returned to cleaning him up.

He wasn't done.

Our little guy turned into a little geyser. I couldn't cover him with the dirty diaper, and for some reason I didn't think to grab the new diaper, so I tried stopping the gush with the diaper wipe. Let me tell you, diaper wipes are great to clean up a mess, but they are certainly NOT absorbent. Jonah didn't like being covered by the diaper wipe. He must have stopped peeing when he was covered up, and would start up again when I removed my makeshift diaper wipe peepee teepee. Pee -- ach! cover it up... wait... check... More pee! - cover, wait, check... Still going!

Michelle and I both started to crack up watching this whole little comedy unfold because there wasn't much we could do except wait out the little storm and contain it as best as possible. Jonah even stopped crying a bit while he was making his little mess to look at us like we were crazy. Fortunately, we were able to keep it contained to the changing pad, and all is good now.

Pumpkins!

With Grandma and Grandpa Gregg in town for a few days and some gorgeous fall weather, we decided to take Jonah to Barthel Fruit Farm in Mequon to pick some pumpkins from their patch.  Although it was somewhat late in the season, we still found some great pumpkins in the patch and came back with 14 for the reasonable price of $25.  Grandma Gregg bought some apples (we bought some last month), I nursed under a beautiful tree, and Grandma and Grandpa played with the orchard's two dogs.  Jonah probably didn't really know what was going on, but seemed to have a great time taking it all in.


In the afternoon, we all ventured to the West Allis Farmer's Market, where we found beautiful mums, a nice deal on mix-and-match squash, and tons of end-of-season produce.  I broke down and bought several heirloom apple varieties: Russett, Snow (Fameuse), and a Banana variety. Tried two of them today: yummy!  (Particularly the Russett.)  Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of Jonah riding in the Baby Bjorn and chilling with his Dad.

Here are some pictures from our lovely day:

Good times, bad times...

...we know we'll have our share (to paraphrase Led Zeppelin).

Today started pretty nicely. After breakfast, Michelle and I took turns playing with Jonah while the other one showered. Then we took advantage of the weather and went for a nice walk. Jonah looked all about, checking out the changing autumn leaves and the other sights.

Things went downhill, though, when we got home and it was time for him to eat. He erupted in tears, and was nearly inconsolable. We did eventually calm him, and he got some sleep. He was the same at his next feeding, though, and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. He was clean, well slept, and we were trying to feed him. No fever, so we figured he wasn't sick.

Our only thought: could he be teething already? He is exhibiting the usual symptoms. Thanks to the power of the internet and confirmation from some books, it seems it is possible. We tried chilling some of the teething items we have, and he seemed soothed by the chilled pacifier, but wouldn't keep the teething ring in his mouth. The pacifier also couldn't be in his mouth to eat, so I ran out to pick up some Teething Tablets and Baby Oragel. We tried the Oragel first, and it seemed to have done the trick so we again had a feeding baby.

We were hoping to get out later in the day to spend some time enjoying the unseasonably warm weather on a blanket in the back yard. With a happy baby, we opted to make that happen, though it was later than anticipated. I'm really glad we did, because Jonah seemed to have a really good time (and we definitely did!).

I will let you judge for yourself, though. I capture this little bit of the fun.



[or you can view it on YouTube]

Adjusting the car seat

Jonah is definitely getting bigger! This morning I had to adjust his car seat straps to account for the fact that he has gotten taller. We are looking forward to his 4-month check up in a couple weeks to find out exactly how much he has grown.

Bumbo time!

Jonah's definitely been showing some neck strength and stability and he seems to hold himself up pretty well on our laps, so we decided to try him in the Bumbo seat on Wednesday night.  He didn't stay in it too long and wasn't quite sure what to think:

Last night, he got some more time in it while we were eating dinner.  No worries: we watched him really closely and took him out when he started to slump to the side a bit.  He did really well and we think he enjoyed sitting up closer to us while we ate, but it also seemed like it required a lot of his concentration and he was happier and smiling when put back in his laid-back style seat.  He's getting strong enough, however, that he twists and contorts in that at times, as if looking to somehow get out of it.

First time parents

One thing we've noticed lately is that we seem to get quite a few comments from people who recognize that Jonah is our first child. Usually it is an older couple making the comment, and one of the first times we heard it was at a baseball game when the comment was preceded with the statement "That little guy is getting plenty of attention..."

My first thought is that if Jonah were not our first child, we would probably have our other kids with us in these situations. It also makes me wonder if some parents really pay that much less attention to subsequent children. If we have more kids, I hope we give them the same kind of attention we show Jonah. Yes, I know it will be different with our time divided between kids, but hopefully quality time with multiple kids isn't impossible.



This is just an unrelated picture of our happy boy. :)

More Tummy Time

In my excitement to play with my new video camera, I forgot about adequate lighting.  Our living room isn't the brightest room to begin with, but it didn't occur to me that we didn't have the lights surrounding the fireplace on tonight when I shot this video of Jonah doing tummy time.  And it's too precious NOT to keep and post and share.  The little guy is getting darn good about lifting his head!!!

Razzing, Playing with Spit, and the Like

In the past 10 days or so, Jonah has taken a definite interest in trying to razz.  It started the night that I recorded Ben playing with him in the first video I posted, and has steadily continued to now.  There are times when Jonah gets very serious looks on his face and you wonder what is wrong, and then he rolls his spit in the back of his mouth or manages to vibrate his lips for brief periods and you know that he was concentrating intently on how to actually perform those actions.  Sometimes he clearly surprises himself with his success; other times he clearly gets frustrated when he can't seem to make it happen.  Either way, it's darn cute!

Here's brief video taken in the car on the way to work yesterday morning.