History of the J Man

A few days ago (back on June 9), Jonah turned two!  It’s so hard to believe that he’s as old as he is.  It seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital, wondering if we’d ever be able to make things work.  Well, thanks to Jonah’s wonderful attitude, we are very lucky to say that the past two years have been tons of fun.

Part of turning two meant going to the doctor for a two-year checkup, which we did this week.  He is still in the 75-90th percentile for height and weight (35.5 inches tall, 31 pounds, or thereabouts) and in the 90th percentile for head size, which Julie loves to point out.  His head really is pretty large, especially when I see him standing next to other kids around his age.  It’s pretty enormous.  One can only assume it’s all those brains he has.

We did receive some rather sad news on our last doctor visit, though nothing having to do with Jonah himself.  Rather, we discovered that our main pediatrician at Kidz Health, Dr. Shah, is leaving the practice because the is doing a fellowship at University of Chicago.  Certainly this is a great opportunity for her, but this means that when Jonah goes in for his three-year appointment, it will be with someone else.  We were both pretty bummed about that, as she is great with Jonah and our personalities mesh really well.  She’ll be missed.

In other news, Jonah’s word bank is ever-expanding.  Some recent words he’s picked up are “Elmo,” “Amy” (after his Aunt Amy who lives in Normal, Ill.), “apple,” “happy,” and “more” (which he always signed but never really said out loud).  I’m sure there are a couple of others that I’m forgetting, but his verbal development is marching right along.  Apparently he should be up to about 50 words by now, and a lot of times he makes a sound to denote something.  For instance, he has a sound for “baseball,” which is him making the sound of the ball hitting the bat and swinging his arm.  I think that counts as a word.  With all his animal sounds and other things, I think he’s at 50, or at least close to it.  We’re not too concerned because generally speaking, Jonah does a really good job of getting his point across with hand motions or other sounds.  Perhaps once he starts going to school and other people are not as familiar with his sounds he will be forced to use his words a little more.

Not sure if this was written in another post, but another new word that he now loves to use is “no.”  Unfortunately it manifests itself when trying to get him to eat something or change his diaper or get out of his crib or take a bath, etc.  Not sure if Julie has experienced the same thing, but seems like lately he’s fighting me at first to do a lot of these things.  But then, once he’s in the bath, let’s say, and he cries before bathtime, then he cries when it’s time to come out, so it could just be his ego beginning to take hold.  He’s starting to realize that he wants things and gets upset when you take them away.  So far, I can’t say his twos have been “terrible,” as the saying goes, but he’s definitely a person with his own wants and needs, likes and dislikes, so hopefully his attitude doesn’t get too wildly out of control.  I think Julie and I do a good job of setting limits, but I don’t think we are terribly strict with him either, so I’d like to think we’ve struck a solid balance between the two.

Well, we have a pretty busy weekend lined up, so I will sign off for now.  Our friend Matt took some photos of Jonah which you can view here.  I should also note that he is professional photographer who is available to take pics of your kids, weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc., so if you know anyone who is looking for professional photograhy of any kind, please contact me and I can send along his info.