I think all parents do silly things to humor their children from time to time. It's one of the privileges of parenthood.
We recently purchased a used play set from someone via craigslist. Ben and a friend (and one of our new neighbors, pulled in at the last minute) were able to get it moved to our back yard on Saturday, but we have not yet been able to get it put together (tearing it apart and moving it took longer than expected). Of course having all of these pieces in the back yard - especially a slide - and not being able to play on them is rather frustrating for an almost 3-year old. So Ben humored him on Saturday night, lifting the slide up so he could go down it.
We've had some gorgeous weather the past few days so this scenario has played out multiple times, and I've even lifted up the slide myself. Hopefully we can get some help on Saturday to get the set put back together. It's amazingly difficult to round up 5 adults on the weekend in the spring!
(One final note: don't you love the too-small hat Jonah wears in the video? He insisted upon wearing it, even though a winter hat was unnecessary.)
Although our pediatrician had suggested we try introducing Jude to solid foods after our four-month check-up (in order to get more calories into him), we decided to stick with our plan to delay solids until six months, continuing to reap the health benefits of breast milk, minimizing the development of food allergies that are sometimes tied to an early introduction of solids, and maintaining my supply. We had introduced Jonah to solids after six months and felt that it had worked well with him and that we would repeat it this time around. While Jude's weight gain has been very slow, and he continues to be at the absolute bottom of the charts for weight (just 11 pounds 5 ounces at his 6-month check-up today), he's been on track developmentally. Although we were concerned about his weight, we felt the benefits of continuing with the original plan were worth it.
Whereas Jonah had not necessarily shown a lot of interest in eating solid food before we introduced it, Jude has been showing some signs that he has been ready. He watches us eat and occasionally grabs at our silverware and plates when he sits on our laps at a meal. He often stares at Jonah during meal times as well. We've had Jude sitting in the table in the high chair at meals with us for about a month, and while he tends to slouch to one side, he can support himself just fine.
What is going on here?
We'd planned to offer Jude solids for the first time last Saturday and opted to start with sweet potatoes again as they are a staple in our house and the avocados weren't yet ripe. We weren't quite sure how Jonah might react to all of the attention we
knew we were going to give Jude when he had this experience. Jonah
sometimes exhibits some signs of jealousy, and we knew we needed to be
sensitive to his feelings but also true to our desire to document the
moment as we wanted. We lucked out in that Jonah had resisted his nap
earlier in the afternoon and ended up falling asleep on the couch while I
read to him late in the afternoon. He slept on the couch while we took
our time feeding Jude. A win-win for all!
I'm supposed to eat this, right?
Trying to figure this out...
Not so sure about this any more...
Jude has been doing remarkably well with the solids! While he's still
trying to figure out how to work the food to the back of his mouth, and
it has a tendency to come back out, he's actually had a pretty decent
intake. We did three days of sweet potatoes before offering him avocado
at dinner time yesterday, and I actually had to prepare additional
avocado for him. He had avocado again tonight and ate a generous amount.
We may find that we can move much more quickly through a variety of
textures with Jude. While I don't mind making purees, it's nice to be
able to serve table-type food as well!
Ben caught it on video (while also taking photos):
Jonah couldn't stand that Jude was playing with "HIS" Tigger so had to take it away during the photo shoot. Jude grabbed Jonahs' sleeve
quite by accident and we watched a little playful back and forth between
the two boys. So nice to see them both smiling and generally enjoying one another! Looking forward to seeing much more of this!!!
It’s hard to believe it, but our little guy turned 6 months
old last week! Much has happened since we last blogged, but finding the time to
blog is just increasingly difficult these days. Let’s just say that we have our
hands full with the two boys, our full-time jobs, and trying to keep the
household running...
Since we last really posted about Jude (about 2 months ago),
he has hit a number of milestones:
1. He’s rolled over, going from his tummy to back just days
after the 4-month mark, and finally rolling the other way for the first time last
week (at least the first time I’d ever witnessed).While Jude can roll, he doesn’t really do it
all that often. If he’s on his tummy, he’s generally perfectly content
to look around and to suck his thumb or to inchworm or spin until he gets
frustrated or close enough to the item that he desires. If he’s on his back,
he’ll often twist and contort his body to see things (moving all of his body over but his head),
but usually gives up or spins enough in the process that eventually he finds
something of interest. Now that he is more interested in the world
and in getting objects of his desire, it will be interesting to see if he steps
up his rolling. It seems that the two other boys in his room at day care who were also born the same week are also in this boat (yes, three of them are within 5 days of each other!).
2. Jude’s a pretty good sitter, all on his own. Until he just
completely flops over backwards (or forwards, but usually backwards). He’ll be
sitting just fine for several minutes and then fall over seemingly out of
the blue, after performing somewhat more difficult feats of moving toys or arms and legs without incident. He’s gotten really good at this in about the past 2 weeks or so. We first started encouraging him to sit on his own after Easter when we got out the
musical table and propped it up on two legs. Supported initially by two
boppies and then by one and none, he really seems to enjoy being able to see
more of what is going on around him, especially seeing what Jonah is doing.
3. Jude is an avid thumb-sucker. Doesn’t matter which one. But
one of his thumbs is pretty much a permanent fixture in his mouth. Sometimes he
double-thumbs it. It’s a good thing the thumbs are inseparable! I have mixed feeling
about this – it’s nice that he doesn’t need to have the pacifier to comfort
him, but at the same time, I worry that it will be difficult to wean him from
the thumbs…
Caught on camera sucking both thumbs at once!
4. Jude also enjoys eating his feet, so much so that
giving a bath can be a bit of a challenge as he’s practically doubled over in
the bath and little of his body is exposed. Socks are often victims of this
compulsion too.
We've hit a number of other milestones as well, such as playing with certain toys, getting some great vocalizations, and starting solid foods (yesterday). Those will come in separate posts - hopefully sooner rather than later. How amazing it's been to watch this little guy grow and change!
With all the talk of "Snowpocalypse" and various other names for the big winter storms floating around, we've been pretty fortunate to not have gotten huge amounts of snow at any one time. It has been cold, though. Fortunately, we've got a couple sweet boys who know how to make us melt.
A happy little guy
Jude obviously doesn't have any words, yet, but his smiles and expressions just turn us to mush sometimes.
Jonah has a full arsenal of words at his disposal to go along with his expressions, and I wanted to be sure to share some before they are lost to time. This isn't just the standard "I love you" and random "I'm happy" that still have full impact, but other little things that he says.
Michelle bought some daffodils today. Jonah constantly reminds us that yellow and orange are his favorite colors with great enthusiasm. He was thrilled when he saw the flowers, and I introduced him to smelling them along with enjoying how they look. After lunch, he said "I want to smell the yellow flowers again!" As I type it, it doesn't seem to have as much impact, but it was really sweet the way he said it.
Reading by turtle-light
A few nights back, after reading with Jonah, he was playing with his Twilight Turtle, which projects stars on his ceiling and walls when lit up. Usually he likes to shine it so that we can "eat" the stars or so we can have the starts on our faces or hands. That night, knowing it was cloudy out, he asked me to open his curtains so he could share his stars with the sky.
Michelle told me a story at daycare where they had puzzles out, and after completing one, he walked over to a friend and asked if he could "please do the puzzle with" him. They then continued to work on the puzzle together. I'm sure I don't do the story justice, but it sounds like such a sweet moment.
We recently got some books through the Scholastic order at daycare. One of these books quickly became a favorite: Penguin and Pinecone. Completely out of the blue while we were eating lunch one day, Jonah looked at Michelle and said "Mommy, you will always be in my heart." Then he turned to me and said "Daddy, you will always been in my heart, too." The unlikely friendship between a penguin and a pinecone introduced him to the expression, and it blew us away that he would use it.
There's nothing quite like sweet words from your two year old to melt your heart.
It's hard to believe it, but our little guy turned 4-months old today! Where has the time gone? We've been having a ton of fun with Jude as he has become more and more social.
We took Jude to the doctor today for his 4-month check-up and were a bit shocked to learn that he weighs just 10 lbs. 5 oz. (slightly less than Jonah weighed at 2 months), and measures 23 3/4 inches (exactly the same as Jonah did at 4 months and in the 10th percentile). (See what Jonah looked like in the post we wrote when he was 4 months old!). Developmentally, Jude is where he is supposed to be, but we'll be watching his intake and growth a bit more closely in the coming weeks.
Jude at 3 months.
We get lots of smiles, laughs, and jabbering from Jude now, and it is
fun to learn more about this little social guy. He is almost always in a
good mood and is a pretty easy-going baby. He enjoys playing with the toys in his
little activity gym and on his bouncy chair, and enjoys - for the most
part - his tummy time, where he is working very hard to roll over (and
has come very close to success). We'll try to post some video of these activities in the coming days. Jude loves to eat his hand and lately
has been seen frequently sucking on either one of his thumbs. We have
introduced him to the Bumbo for short periods over the last few weeks, and he does really
well in it, just hanging out and enjoying the activities that are going on around him.
Of course, it's interesting to see the interaction and interplay between the two boys as well. Every "toy" that comes back out for Jude has to go through rigorous Jonah testing first, as was the case with the Bumbo:
This sure is a different experience!
Hey - wasn't that my chair?
I can still fit in this! This is MY chair!
In terms of the personal dynamics between the two boys, it has generally been sweet. This evening, Jonah was concerned that Jude was trying to eat his burp
cloth and tried to pull it off of my shoulder so that Jude wouldn't "eat" it. I explained that Jude
wasn't trying to eat it, but that sometimes the burp cloth got in the
way of his hand getting to his mouth. It was nice to see Jonah exhibit
some concern for Jude. And then Jonah tried to get Jude to laugh by
making up his own "baby talk" and blowing raspberries at him.
Unfortunately, it didn't work in this instance, but it was so much fun to
watch Jonah take an interest in and watch out for Jude. There are still times where he has fits and asks us to not bring along Jude, or tells me to not nurse Jude because he would rather I do something else, but overall, Jonah is a good big brother.
I follow a lot of art and education blogs and browse Pinterest from time-to-time, searching for various activities that I think we'll enjoy doing at home with Jonah. Recently, I came across a couple of ideas that focused on resist painting and thought it could be a fun, educational, and seasonal activity we could engage in with him.
The essence is that we used painter's tape as a resist on paper and canvases. Jonah doesn't yet have the dexterity to do this on his own, but we quickly ripped and placed the tape for him and he went at it with his paintbrush (and hands). The first weekend, we made snowflake scenes on art paper; the second weekend, we made Valentine-themed messages on canvas. I'm not sure whether it was the additional experience, the novelty of the canvas, or the slightly smaller size of the canvases, but he was much more enthusiastic about it the second weekend. We actually had to tape off a few more canvases while he was working to satisfy his creative binge (note to self: time to stock up on more multi-packs of canvases at Michael's).
Sticking out my tongue always helps!
The project was a great opportunity to work on a number of skills and introduce some new concepts, including use of a paint brush, color mixing, negative space, resists, different media (canvas versus paper), pulling tape off of canvas, and the concept of Valentine's Day.
Jonah's idea of color mixing right now is quite interesting: he pretty much just pushes all of the paint around until it becomes mostly the same color. When we encouraged him to use a particular color and mix it on the canvas, he would go around and get a dot of each of the colors from his palettes (paper plates), such that he was never really adding just one color to his canvas. The results are great, but the process is not at all like how we as adults might have gone about it. I know it's important to remember that!
Intent on his painting, with that tongue still out.
Additionally, he has really started to use the brush quite well, moving it around on the paper and canvas in broad strokes. However, during each session, he eventually found his hands to be the most compelling canvas, painting the left one thoroughly (and well up his forearm as well). When we painted canvases, he also actively used his hands as a brush at points to distribute the paint.
What will this look like when I get the tape ripped off?
When it came time to pull the tape (resist) off of the paper and canvas, we found that we couldn't really let him help with the paper artworks, as the paper ripped away a bit. However, he was able to help remove tape from the canvases (for as long as it kept his interest), and it was fun to watch his reaction as he saw the clean, white canvas beneath.
The snowflake works are now hanging in the playroom where we can see them every day. For Valentine's Day, Jonah selected an artwork to send to each of his grandparents; Ben and I got to keep three of them and I know we will treasure them!
The finished works of art!
Early stages of covering the paper, with tape still visible.
Painting his hands instead of the paper. Caught in action.
It's amazing how much something as simple as bathing can evolve as a part of the routine and how quickly it can do so. I'd forgotten what it was like to bathe a newborn and how challenging I find it to support his head while cleaning his back side. And how little time it really takes to bathe a newborn, as they aren't yet into playing, stalling, or pitching fits. Or that they might actually dislike the bathing process.
Jude was not happy about his first bath at home. We did it in the spare bathroom in a small tub that came home from the hospital with Jonah, and I made it as quick as possible. Jude screamed and cried the entire time. Jonah had to be present to witness it, but he spent the entire time washing his combs in the sink nearby, which was both a help and a hindrance. I secured privileges of the first bath at home because Ben had those privileges with Jonah. Fair is fair, right?
Who cares that my brother is screaming about a bath right next to me!
We only did one sponge bath like this at home before graduating to the baby tub in the tub. And ever since that time, Jude has pretty much unilaterally LOVED his bath time. He can be crying up to the moment you put him in the tub, but once he hits that water, he just chills out. Of course the poor kid gets absolutely no privacy because big brother has to come along to check out what is going on (he might miss out on something) and to take advantage of the additional opportunity to play with his bath time toys.
Jude's first bath in the "big" tub.
Jonah's interest in Jude's baths has its perks: while Ben has traveled in the last couple of months, I was able to bathe Jude and manage Jonah by taking advantage of Jonah's desire to help. Suddenly I couldn't remember how to draw a bath and needed his assistance in the bathroom. He came running, happy to show me, and I closed the door behind us so he was effectively corralled. He played fairly innocently alongside the tub while I was able to take care of business, and he took care of emptying the little tub while I got Jude dressed. The downside, of course, is that Jonah can get in the way as you try to get Jude in and out, and he also gets himself in little predicaments (falls) between the toilet and tub as he moves all over in his imaginative play. (He also unapologetically walks all over your legs.)
Jonah playing with his duck boat while Daddy bathes Jude. Typical scene.
Baths with Jonah are now all over the place. He used to consistently LOVE his bath time, but lately he has been throwing fits about it: sometimes because he doesn't want to take off his clothes, sometimes because the water is too "hot" (it's not), and sometimes because who knows why. Invariably, the days when he throws the biggest fits about getting in, he then throws the biggest fits about getting out. Sigh. The joys of parenting a 2 year old.
This does not qualify as a fire truck in Jonah's view.
We do still have a lot of fun during our baths. Lately, the Matchbox cars have taken much of the focus during bath time. But we've also gone through periods recently where other activities took precedence, such as writing and drawing in the tub with the washable crayons he received as a gift. Requests could be very specific, such as a certain number of tractors, trucks, cars, buses, etc., or very generic, such as "write something." Ben is a much better artist than I, so I can't say that I loved the "drawing" phase, particularly when Jonah provided commentary to me that my artwork was not up to stuff. Take, for instance, the fire truck I drew here. Jonah informed me that it was NOT a firetruck. Sorry - I'm already insecure enough about my drawing abilities. I don't need that from a kid!!! I do credit this interest in drawing and writing with his knowledge of all of the letters of the alphabet. We practiced them in the tub (which he enjoyed immensely, honestly), and we occasionally practiced a few words as well.
Sometimes we sing and use the toys as a part of the fun. For a while, Jonah was very much into the "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" song, and we used it to work on counting/numbers and just having fun in general. I caught it on video one night in December (though it wasn't Jonah's best performance on the counting side):
Now, we can't play with the little frog without Jonah stealing it and having to squirt us. He still can't quite figure out how to fill it (and it does tend to "stick" in the collapsed position, so no additional water will enter it without coaxing). It's hilarious when he has to stop squirting you to ask you to fill the frog and then immediately expects you to give it back so that he can get you wet.
So many fun times and memories have been made at bath time! We very much look forward to seeing the two boys interact together and have fun in the tub, but expect that is still some time away. In the meantime, separate back-to-back baths it is!
