History of the J Man

We’ve just finished our holiday letter.  Only a few days left till Christmas but we’re sending it electronically this year so most everyone should have gotten it already.  For those only on snail mail we’ll send them out. 

If you didn’t see our letter come through your inbox, just email Chris or Julie or leave a message here and we’ll send you a copy.

Happy Holidays to all!

Over the last month or so we started struggling with getting Jonah to bed.  I’m not sure if it was his new found use of the English language that kept him wanting to stay up and learn or what.  We certainly had to fight him there for a time.  Now, it seems that we’ve slipped back into more of a normal routine without the fight, however, now mornings are becoming challenging.

Weekday mornings Chris gets up at 5:30, showers, walks the dog and leaves for work around 6:30.  Most days Jonah would wake up some time between then and 7:00.   I should back up and say that at night now he wants to fall asleep with his light on low and his door open.  He asks for both specifically.  Both seem to help keep him calm at bedtime so that’s fine.  Whatever works.  I go in and check on him once he’s asleep and turn off the light.  At some point during the night I check on him again and close his door so Chris doesn’t wake him in the morning when he goes to walk the dog. 

For the past couple mornings he’s woken up and started screaming because his door is closed and he can’t open it himself.  We have one of those toddler door knobs on the inside because we don’t WANT him opening the door on his own.  We don’t want him wandering the house at night getting into who-knows-what.  I’m a light sleeper but I’m not sure I’d hear everything. 

(Side story: Last Saturday when he woke up early Chris walked to his room and told him he had to play quietly in his room till 7:00 but didn’t close his door.  At some point though I heard him and it didn’t sound like he was in his room anymore.  Chris again went back to check on him and said he was reading books in his bed.  Well we were both right.  The little stinker had gotten his chair, moved it up to the shelf in the dining room where we keep his box with crayons and craft supplies and helped himself.  He even got paper.  When I got to his room a little later I saw that he was working on a project with his glitter glue in his bed!  Fortunately I only saw glitter on the paper and on his pillowcase.  All his crayons were in there too and I don’t want to imagine what he could have done with those!  Needless to say, that container is up and out of reach now.  Ok, end of that story.) 

So as he cried to me “no close door” yesterday morning I contemplated leaving it open all night.  I really don’t want to do that though so I told him that I close it in the morning so daddy doesn’t wake him up.  I told him just to call me and I’d come get him but if he woke up too early he could turn on his light and play quietly in his room. 

So what do you know?! Before Chris left with the dog this morning I asked him if I should get Jonah up to get him ready for Leah’s house and his response was, “I think he’s already up, his light is on.” It’s really nice that it was so quiet today until about 6:15 but now I’m not going to have any idea how much sleep that kid is getting.  I doubt it, but for all I know he could have gotten up at 5:00am today!  Unlikely but possible. 

For now, while it’s dark in the morning and I’m not too pregnant to be uncomfortable sleeping I’ll take those few extra minutes of quite in the morning as long as I can.  In a diaper, in his own room there’s not much damage he can do, right? 

We’ve taken a bunch of holiday related video lately so I have a few more to upload but this one is ready today.  I doctored it up a bit by pulling out the best parts of a bunch of short videos we have of Jonah baking and decorating cookies and cupcakes.

Holiday Baking from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

Chris only gets to see Jonah for a couple hours a day during the week because he leaves so early in the morning then we try and get Jonah to bed by 8:00.  So they concentrate on playing together on the weekends, especially ones like this one when I had a errands to run for a few hours. 

Here’s a video of what they were up to while I was gone.  Jonah calls these “houses” but I used to always call them forts.  This is exactly why we need a new house with a family room and a separate living room.  So he can use the family room couch cushions for this and not take up our living room. 

They obviously had a good time while I was gone.  In case you can’t tell exactly what Jonah is saying for his name it’s “Big Boy Jonah D….!”  We’ve gotten him to add his last name but that “Big Boy” part seems to be sticking. 

Jonah & Daddy with fort from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

On an unrelated note, he’s still doing a great job with potty training.  We haven’t had any accidents while he’s in his underpants.  He will go and pee in his potty on his own when he has to go.  We’ve even been out in pull-ups a few times and he’ll wait and use the bathroom there instead of going in his pull ups.  He still asks for a diaper when he has to go #2 but I’m not pushing that to change because I figure it will happen on it’s own.  He did get away with a diaper for longer while I was out on Sunday though by telling Daddy he still had “more poops.”  That works with Daddy but this morning he tried to pull it with me too and I put underwear on him and told him if he still had more he could do it in the potty.  So far so good.  We have Thomas undies for Hanukkah and Christmas too, just to keep the momentum going.

Just look how proud he is in those big boy underwear?!  They are Mickey Mouse ones and he literally wanted to pull out the ones he wore yesterday to wear them again.  Good thing we have 2 sets.

Last night he wanted to put a diaper on to go #2 but once he was done we went back to underwear and he’s been good about going on the potty every time.  Hopefully we can keep up this new trend.

As many of you know for a while there when asked his name, Jonah would reply, “Big Boy!”  Now we can get him to say “Jonah” and even squeeze his last name out of there sometimes. 

Today he really was a big boy.  Today was the first day with big boy underpants.  After his nap Kate and Jonah tried sitting on the potty for a while with no success.  Then shortly after he got up he stopped, drew in a quick breath and said, “peepee coming.”  So they ran back to the potty and went.  After that Kate thought it might be good to leave pants off for a while.  When I saw him getting ready for snack time with a bare bottom I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to pull out the big boy underwear I had stashed as gifts for the holidays.  We pulled out ones with cars and ones with  Mickey Mouse.  We saved the big guns for later (Thomas).

He got one pair a little wet but otherwise did a really good keeping them dry.  At dinner he did the same, “ooh, peepee” so we rushed him to the potty and he went.  I think it’s pretty cool.  Not sure how a longer period of time will work, or how we’ll do for #2 but I think the fact that he knows he has to go before he does is a promising sign.  If we could get him solidly potty trained before this next baby arrives that would be great.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  At the minimum he has to be potty trained to go to preschool in the fall.

I’m sorry we haven’t posted in quite some time, but we have been quite busy the last month or so.  If you haven’t heard, Julie and I will be expecting our second child in May 2010 (official due date: May 7)!  Obviously we are all very excited, and so the “History of the J Man” will need to be expanded to include the history of another little one in about six months.

Julie is doing relatively well in her pregnancy, which means that there have not been any complications.  However, the first couple of months she battled some severe nausea that has finally subsided.  But now she has been battling a cold and was recently diagnosed with a sinus infection.  Plus she hasn’t been sleeping that great lately (part of which can be blamed on my snoring).  But the good news is that the cold seems to be going away and the nausea also seems to be a thing of the past.  Hopefully this winter will be smooth sailing.

In case you’re wondering, no, we don’t know the gender yet, though that visit is next month.  I think the plan is to find out, so once we know, we’ll post the result.

As far as Jonah goes, he continues to grow like a weed.  We have been particularly impressed by his comprehension of language, which seems to have exploded overnight.  It is now not rare for him to string together four or five words to get his point across and he also comes up with words that I didn’t know he knew and don’t know where he picked up.  I’m sure this is just the beginning as far as that goes.  He also will parrot back almost anything you say, which is a recent development.  For example, we are trying to get him to say “Happy Turkey Day!” to surprise everyone when we host this Thursday.  As for his size, with doctor visits not coming nearly as often, I assume he’s still big for his age.  When we wrestle, he’s pretty strong!

The only other newsworthy item to report is that he seems to be having trouble sleeping lately.  He likes to go to sleep now with the lights on and his music off, and gets really upset when it’s time to be left alone for the night.  Not sure if he is afraid of the dark or monsters or what, but it means his bedtime seems to be stretched to 9 p.m. or later, which is frustrating.  Hopefully it’s just a phase he will grow out of by May 2010, if not sooner.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Every time we asked Jonah what he wanted to be for halloween this year he said a baseball player…so that’s what he was.  After the one Cub’s game that Chris and I went to this year we stopped in the store across from Wrigley and bought Jonah a pinstriped t-shirt and a warm up suit to go with it.  The costume was super cute and he can wear it again in the spring.

The video below is from one of the homes near my parent’s house in Evanston where we went trick-or-treating.  In addition to all the other cool decorations they had this machine that blew bubbles filled with smoke.  It was very cool and I think it was the highlight of Jonah’s trick-or-treating outing.  That and the candy at the end of course. 

Smoke Bubbles at Halloween from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.

Jonah and I made a pumpkin the other night after work.  Instead of trying to get a 2 year old to carve or dealing with knives we used the Mr. Potato Head-like pieces that my friend Rachel gave us to decorate our pumpkin once we scooped the seeds out.  I should say once I scooped the seeds out, Jonah didn’t want anything to do with sticking his hand into the pumpkin. 

So we put the face on it and when we were finished Jonah said it needed shoes.  Below are some photos of Jonah and his pumpkin with shoes.

Though Jonah doesn’t play baseball at home as obsessively as he used to, he still likes to take his turn at bat.  We pitch to him and if he hits the ball he takes off running down the hall, tags the backdoor, then runs back home to home plate.  Sometimes he even slides.  It’s a lot of fun and a great way to burn off those last few ounces of energy before bed.

Here’s a movie of Jonah and Chris playing baseball the other night. 

Jonah at the Bat from Julie Diehl on Vimeo.