More, Please!

We introduced some sign language with Jude when he was somewhere between 6-9 months old and continue to use it with him on a daily basis. In most cases, he can speak the word but continues to sign at the same time. From the get-go, he adapted some of the signs to make them own, most notably the sign for "please." The standard ASL for "please" is to use an open palm touching the chest and moving in a circular motion like this:

From the first time we introduced this sign, Jude has signed this by putting both hands on his chest/belly and moving his trunk from side-to-side, often quite excitedly. Here's an example where he was begging for some additional sour cream on his plate (and he uses the standard sign for "more");



He certainly gets his point across with his modified sign and I guess that's the whole point of introducing sign anyways. But it's funny how kids make things their own!

Tickle Monster!

For some reason, Jude has recently decided that he should "tickle" Ben and me when we crawl on the floor to clean up around his chair at dinner or snack time. We have no idea what prompted him to decide that this was a good time to tickle us. While we certainly have a fair amount of tickling in our household, it's not like we do any tickling at the table. Jude's been doing the occasional "tick-uh, tick-uh," since April (he first "tickled" me on a Sunday afternoon when Jonah and I were laid up sick on the couch), but recent weeks feature regular tickling sessions like this one:

He so thoroughly enjoys himself when he does this to us and his laughter and his pleasure in it is infectious. We love playing up our reaction to encourage the fun. Now if only we could keep him from pulling my hair in conjunction with the tickling...

Pour Some Water on Me!

It's been over a year since we've taken the time to blog. Yikes! I guess life just got busy and priorities changed. Finding time to blog didn't take precedence, even though we've been documenting the kids by taking lots of photos and videos and posting the sweet, silly, and insane little comments they make on Facebook. But as Jude's been getting bigger, I find myself looking back more and more to remember where Jonah was at this stage or what he enjoyed doing, etc. Not so much to compare them directly, but more for reference points. And it's nice to read back through some longer pieces to remember what we were doing and feeling at particular points in time. So my hope is to try to do a bit more blogging in the coming weeks and months, even if they aren't particularly long posts.

So... to get things started, I thought I'd share this video taken on Monday. We pulled out the water table and set it up on the front yard in the hopes that it would entertain the boys for a while and I could do some weeding in one of the flower beds nearby and Ben could till the garden out back. This was the first time that Jude really was able to play at the water table as a water table. He was too little to use it last summer (not standing at all), and we pulled it out once over the winter and filled it with birdseed in the house so he could just have some tactile play when we couldn't get outside.

Needless to say, he LOVED it and enjoyed pouring the water on himself just as much as anything else (well, he did also like to drink the water out of the cup).

Between the water table and the sandbox, we had four (if not more) outfit changes over the course of the day. I think we need to get this little guy to the pool!

Silly Things Parents Do

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.)

Jude tried solids

Ready to try this eating thing!

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):

Here's a link for a look back at  Jonah's first experience with solids.

Look who's 6 months old!

What a heart breaker at 6 months!

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! 

Melting the Coldest Winter Snow

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.

Add caption

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.