Just a quick post because Jonah and I had some fun hanging out tonight, and I captured a little video to go with it.
Jonah has gotten quite animated when pointing things out in books. What started off as just some simple quizzing in his word book turned into him excitedly pointing things out with a triumphant "Right there!!!" I needed to capture it.
He also seemed to have some fun looking at himself while I captured the video (I used the front camera on my phone because I was sitting next to him at the time). I thought we could have a little fun with that, so we did.
Some of the funniest bits couldn't be captured though, because they happened when I showed Jonah the video. He loved watching himself and reacting to the questions in the video while watching. He would answer the questions as though he were in a race with his video self with a huge smile on his face.
Today marked Jonah's first "swimming lesson." Sure, he's been to the ocean and even been in a pool before, but this was his first organized swimming activity with other kids complete with instructor.
The first problem was deciding who got to go in the pool with Jonah, because both of us wanted to (it was a lot of fun the last time we did it in September). So Michelle and I resorted to rock-paper-scissors. After tying the first two rounds on scissors, I took the third round with paper over her rock and chose to be in the pool with Jonah, leaving her to play photographer.
We arrived at Bay View High School (the lessons are organized through the city) a little later than we intended, but found out where to go to get to the pool and get changed. We got into the pool area just as the instructor was getting everyone ready, so Jonah and I needed to get in the water quickly.
As soon as we hit the water, Jonah was saying "All done!!" He wanted no part of it. He thought the water was cold and didn't want to spend any time in it. I tried to calm him and keep us moving in the hopes he would get used to the water temperature, but he never completely got over it (perhaps some bad memories from the cold water in his pool on his birthday?)
"All done!!"
"Get me outta here!"
The class began with some activities that didn't seem appropriate for Jonah's age (jumping into the pool - he still hasn't figured out jumping on solid ground yet), but he seemed to be the youngest in the group and most of the others didn't have issues jumping in. Most of the first half of the lesson for us was trying to get Jonah calm enough to be able to try some of the activities (and hear what the instructor was saying).
Finally, I grabbed a rubber duckie from a bucket of toys they had on the side of the pool in the hopes that would help. Success!
Jonah was finally distracted enough from the water, that he was able to at least kind of participate in the activities.
Rubber duckie, you're the one! You make pool time so much fun!
The rest of the class got to pick toys at this point, too. We played a little game where we tossed to toy away and the kids got to "swim" for it. Jonah opted to exchange duckie for a "dur-dal" (turtle).
Sorry, duckie. You've been traded.
Chasing the turtle.
More turtle chasing.
After that we did the Hokey Pokey, played some other games that Jonah couldn't really do, and everyone else sang some other song we had never heard before.
This will probably be more fun in the future, but at least Jonah is getting used to being in the water. More pictures are posted to our family web album.
Ben's away on another business trip and had to leave midday to make it to the West Coast for training sessions tomorrow morning. If I didn't want to show some cute video, he'd never know that I introduced Jonah to the world of couch cushions as toys... Jonah's a pretty active kid and loves to go outside, but it was cold enough that I really wasn't in the mood to stand around and watch him push his tractor up and down the street (which he prefers over the snow). Bad mama, I know. I wanted to find something that would allow him to be a little more active while staying inside and figure it was as good of a time as any to introduce the couch cushions to him.
I'm not sure he realized what was going on at first as I piled the cushions up at the one of the room, but it didn't take him long at all to figure out what he could do with them:
After he crawled up and over them for a while, I decided to set some up like a tunnel, as he continues to love trains and thought it was a good opportunity for imaginative play. Unfortunately, the best video of him going through the tunnel is rather fuzzy (what I did wrong with the iPhone is beyond me):
He also enjoyed sitting on the couch and discovering the stuff I need to vacuum up, had a bit of a fit when he knocked over his tunnel as it needed to be recreated ASAP, and he enjoyed pulling on the zipper on one of the cushions to see what was inside.
I have a feeling we have much more of this in store. After dinner, he walked up to the couch on several occasions, touched the cushions, and said, "off." As he is easily distractable, we didn't do any more cushion play today, but I look forward to building forts and having more creative fun!
While I was out playing with Jonah in the snow yesterday, a VW Beetle drove by. Jonah did his usual point and said "car!" I saw it as a teaching opportunity.
Michelle and I have always had our own way of playing the VW Beetle game. We always played it as "Punch Buggy, no returns!" when you see a Beetle, but she grew up saying "Slug Bug, no retaliation!" Here I started to teach Jonah the "proper way" to play the game. :)
Michelle was feeling pretty ambitious about getting some assistance from Jonah with thank you cards this year. I thought it seemed like a good idea, and it started off pretty well!
Here you can see Jonah adding his touch to a thank you card, including picking colors. We got him to say "thank you" at the end, also.
Unfortunately, that was the only card we were able to get his help on. We aren't going to say here who gets this one because we don't want to make everyone else jealous, so please keep it to yourself! :)
What a difference a year makes! When 2011 started, Jonah was working on sitting up on his own on a regular basis. As we roll into 2012, he walks, talks, and knows how to unlock the dishwasher and open the door. If only he could reach to put the dishes away!
We already knew Jonah could recognize words and was saying some words (Michelle recently wrote on his growing understanding of colors), but in the past few weeks, he has really started to use words and to better understand the meaning behind them. He still has some of the "mine" and "no" in him, but we are encouraging him to use his words to better communicate what he wants, and to ask when he wants something instead of just saying "mine!"
With this in mind, he is learning to say please with things. He is especially cute because he signs with it when he says it, but sometimes using both hands (which is closer to "bath" in sign language). We used to have to say "More what?" or "Up what?" to squeeze the "pleash (please)" out of him, but he is starting to put the words together on his own with greater frequency.
His requests themselves are becoming a little more accurate, too (except when it comes to food - he still thinks we are fishing for a "please" when we ask him what he would like "more" of...). He asks to "read please" or to turn a light or toy "on please" or to "open please" or "mik (milk) please." The request for turning a toy on is actually pretty rare, because one of the first things he does with any toy seems to be to figure out how to turn it on and off. He has a new toy where a knob sticks a little, though, so he has some trouble with it.
Even more fun, especially during Christmas-time, was that he started to learn "thank you." It was just something where one of us said "Can you say thank you, Jonah?" and he shocked us by actually doing it! With this new found word, he was able to personally thank everyone for his Christmas gifts. Sometimes he even surprises us by using it on his own without prompting when a request has been filled for "more" or "up." Sure, it comes out more like "dangkyu," but its meaning is certainly clear.
A grateful little guy
On top of the polite words, Jonah is also starting try some larger words. Usually this is just repeating us, but it is so cute to see him working on words like "alligator" (as part of an Eric Carle animal flash card set or the Nuchi animal train set his Auntie Julie got him for Christmas).
One of our new favorites, though, is a simple word: "yeah." We used to ask what book he wants to read and go through a stack. He would say no, no, no... until we got to the one he wanted, and he would just grab it. Now he says, "yeah!" We can also ask him things like "do you need a diaper change?" or "do you want some milk?" and he will say "yeah."
One of my favorite uses so far was tonight. After reading a bedtime story, I told him "I had a really good day with you today, Jonah. Did you have a good day?"
Snuggling his head into my shoulder, he said "Yeah!"
