Playtime

We've always had fun playing with Jonah, but as he's grown bigger and stronger, we've been able to introduce him to more and more toys and activities and the play time has got increasingly fun for us as he becomes more interactive. He has long loved his activity center and especially the plush monkey and toucan from it, but he really is rather big for it at this point and doesn't need to lie stationary and bat at things.

Over the six weeks or so, we've introduced him to a few new items, including his Exersaucer (which took some time for him to grow into in terms of his height: the one at day care had a lower setting which allowed him to use it earlier), the Johnny Jump Up, and his new musical table from the Basinger family.

The Exersaucer is a lot of fun and Jonah enjoys chewing on just about everything he can get his mouth on (you'd be amazed at his reach).  He is especially fascinated by the pandas on the teeter-totter, the bird that flips end over end, and the flash cards depicting animals (which are great "food").  Here's some footage from December 1.



The first time we tried the Johnny Jump Up, Jonah wasn't a huge fan. Perhaps we tried it a little too soon - his mouth was positioned right about where the top of the "seat" was. And while he's grown, he's still pretty interested in chewing the side of it, so we often pad it with a burp cloth because his drool and slobber are a bit prolific of late (in fact, we often have to mop up drips off of the floor!).  Today, he really got into it and looked like a little ballet dancer or marionette, but I didn't have the camera on.  Here's some video from December 14, though, the second time we tried him in it.




Finally, the newest toy that's caught his interest is the musical table that the Basingers sent for Christmas.  He's sitting really well on his own, so I put it in his lap on Friday to see what he would do: 



He definitely takes note if you press something on this and it makes noise from some distance away. As he's beginning to think about moving across the room, it seems like it is going to be a really good motivational factor. Can't wait to watch and see!