Santa Claus

We took Jonah to see Santa at the Brookfield Square Mall on the Monday after Thanksgiving so that Grammy Sweets could join us. One benefit of going so early was that there really wasn't any line to see Santa and we were able to get through quickly.  We weren't certain how Jonah would handle Santa; he generally is pretty good with strangers, but we know this is also the period when kids generally start to freak out at seeing Santa.

The photographer explained to us a strategy that really worked well. She told us not to "introduce" Jonah to Santa, but to instead walk up, plop him down in Santa's lap, step back so that she could get a picture (using an Elmo toy and encouragement from us), and then we could introduce him to Santa after that.  The strategy worked pretty well.  Jonah didn't cry, but most of the time he sat on Santa's lap, he had a pretty serious look on his face. In the end, we got the following photo that makes it look like he was snuggling into Santa's arm, but I think he was more reacting to the toys he was being entertained with.

Don't I look like I'm snuggling with Santa?

Just because one experience with Santa worked well doesn't mean that a second will.  On a Friday earlier this month, Santa made an appearance at the Marquette Child Care Center, where Jonah's reaction was slightly different:

To his credit, Jonah did actually get on Santa's lap.  Apparently few of the kids in his room made it that close to Santa and instead freaked out and cried before they could even sit on his lap.

Last year, Jonah enjoyed Santa pretty well:

How much Jonah has changed in the past year and how much he will change before next Christmas! At this point, Jonah can identify Santa, but doesn't identify him as someone who brings presents to children for Christmas day. I wonder what he will ask Santa for next year??

Merry Christmas!

May your holidays be bright and merry. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2012!

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Clearing snow

Over the summer, Michelle made a good pickup at Goodwill: a John Deere tractor for Jonah. We started him practicing early with it when there was nothing to push. He was just starting to walk at that point, so it was great walking practice.

This fall, he had the opportunity to try it with some leaves while I was raking:

The real test came with the dusting of snow we got over this last weekend. It wasn't much, but there was some snow for Jonah to experience:

We need to practice emptying the plow. :)

Unfortunately, we cut his time short with the plow because he kept getting up too much speed before hitting the splits between the sections of driveway (like the one he is stuck at one in the beginning of this video) and sidewalk, thereby stopping the tractor much faster than he could stop. After a couple crashes, we figured it was time to move back inside. Did he do that on purpose to get out of work??? 

What we've got here is a failure to communicate

Poor Jonah. He knows what he wants and is very vocal about it, but he still cannot figure out how to communicate all of his wants and needs with us.  We've taught him a bit of sign language, but as they don't use it at day care, we figured there wasn't a lot of value in introducing a lot of signs that likely would not be reinforced. Perhaps we need to revisit this decision, as we seem to have more and more communication issues of late, and Jonah seems to be struggling to understand the difference between "yes" and "no" and other terms and phrases (perhaps he's also having trouble making up his mind too).

Here's an example Ben used recently to illustrate one of our challenges:

Us: "Do you want this grape, Jonah?"
Jonah: "No!"
Take it away. Jonah: "Mine!"

Jonah (pushing his plate): "All done!"
As soon as it is out of his reach: "Miiiiiiiiiiiine!"

I don't know what tantrums will look like as Jonah moves past his second birthday (can this qualify as "terrible twos" right now?), but I somewhat shudder in anticipation. We have had some pretty serious tantrums and meltdowns in the last 6 weeks or so, with one of the worst coming yesterday morning as we were simply getting up and getting around for work. He seemed to be particularly in need of his Terrific Trains book and Ben read it to him after getting him dressed.  The only way we managed to get Jonah to calm down for breakfast (major crying and thrashing while trying to get him strapped into his seat) was by reading it to him while he sat in my lap and feeding him his oatmeal at the same time. These are not strategies we normally employ, as we don't want to encourage the behavior, but it has seemed to be particularly strong of late. Perhaps it is teething, a cold, or something else that is exacerbating his behavior.

For those of you who think he's the sweetest little guy ever (and he is, most days), here's a sample of one very minor episode from a couple of weeks ago:




I know patience is supposedly a virtue and one that I need some help with at times; Jonah is certainly helping me on this front!

Splashing it up at the Domes

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we paid a visit to the Mitchell Domes to check out the holiday setup in the special events dome and to give Jonah some opportunities to go "outside(!)" without actually being outside.

First stop was the "holiday dome." The setup this year was disappointing in comparison to previous years. It was pretty much a lot of poinsettias with a little bridge and a couple Christmas trees. It was nice enough, but it felt a lot more barren that past setups.

Holiday Dome 2011

We made the mistake of bringing in the stroller for Jonah. Once we pulled him out of it, all he wanted to do was push it!

"I don't need anything but this stroller to have a good time!"

We hid the stroller behind a coat rack when we left the holiday dome.

They had an old time sleigh, but it was tough to get Jonah to sit.

We couldn't get Jonah to sit by this Santa, either.

Ho Ho Ho!

I suppose I can't blame him...

In the Arid dome, there was a big ball hanging from the ceiling that captured Jonah's attention for the most part.

The best part of the visit, though, was in the Tropical dome after Jonah had his snack. There was a puddle on the ground, and he had some fun splashing around in it. Michelle was able to capture a little video.




More pictures are posted to our family photo site.

Thanksgiving with Grammy Sweets

This year for Thanksgiving, we decided to host Thanksgiving. Only Grammy Sweets was able to make the trip out. She arrived on Thanksgiving day and stayed until the next Tuesday.

Jonah is completely enamored of a series of books, The Amazing Machines Truckload of Fun by Tony Mitton and Ant Parker. He is very persistent when it comes to reading these books, and Grammy quickly got roped into some. His current favorite is Terrific Trains, but he will select one by having us go through each of the options, one by one until he agrees to one.

Grammy reads a book to Jonah not long after arriving for Thanksgiving.

We didn't get a picture of the full Thanksgiving spread, but there was plenty of food for all. Jonah had a plate with a little of everything, but didn't try much. It turns out that he wasn't feeling well, so his appetite wasn't very big.

"This stuff was fun to move around on my plate!"

We did some painting with Jonah, but Grammy got some good video to go along with some pictures we got, so that will be a post of its own. Here's a photo to hold you over.

"Painting is fun!"

There was plenty more story time, too.

"C'mon! Can't I enjoy a story in peace?"

We also made a trip to the Mitchell Domes. That will also have a post of its own, including some more video.

Before Grammy left, Christmas came early for Jonah. It worked out well. Grammy got to open the Christmas presents she got him with him!

Opening presents with Grammy.

Pretending to be a present.

Landing airplanes!

Another highlight of the weekend was going to Candy Cane Lane to see all the Christmas lights. When he sees Christmas lights that catch his eye, Jonah says "Lights! Lights!" to let us know. When we got there, we pulled Jonah out of his car seat, and he sat in Mommy's lap for the slow drive through the neighborhood. He was completely mesmerized by the lights, and afterwards he was in a VERY good mood.

It was a great visit!

More pictures from the weekend are posted to our family photo site.

Big shoes to fill

Jonah has been a bit obsessed with shoes lately. He's taken to taking off a shoe partway through dinner for some reason a couple nights this week. If he finds shoes around the house, he says "shoes!" and brings them to us.

Tonight, he brought a pair of my shoes to me, but something was different. He wouldn't put them back. I finally figured out what. He wanted to wear them. After a couple of attempts getting in and out of them, he attempted to walk in them. Here are the results: