History of the J Man

Some recent photos of the boys.

Most of you know by now that Jonah managed to swallow a small button battery a few days before his 4th birthday.  I don’t want to go into specifics because it makes me feel like a bad mom.Long-story-short, he told me he “accidentally” swallowed that “shiny thing.”  Once I figured out that it was we headed straight to Children’s Memorial Hospital and spent the next 24 hours there.

Here are some photos from his stay there.  He never felt sick and the battery ended up passing out the natural way.  Overall Jonah had a blast.  Just the type of hospital stay you’d want your sick kid to have, but I wished they had helped a bit more to reinforce the “we don’t put anything in our mouths that’s not food” concept.

It took us a year but we finally got Elliott’s haircut this past weekend.  Everyone always thought he was a girl, maybe now they will see that he’s not.  He did great, no crying or fussing during the process.  Personally, I miss the long hair but he’ll be cooler this way for the summer.  See before and after pictures below.

My parents got a bike from a neighbor so Jonah has been riding that one when we go to their house.  He’ll get a new one from us for his birthday too.  We were planning to get him a balance bike but now that he has this one with training wheels I don’t know what kind I should buy.  We may just bring Jonah to the store and let him pick.Below are 2 photos of Jonah on his “fire bike” (his name for it because of the paint job I guess).  I can’t wait until he is actually old enough to ride on a path with me.  I loved going on bike rides with my dad as a kid.

As part of Elliott’s one year physical, I had to take him in to get some standard lab work done.  Our pediatrician’s office doesn’t have a lab so I had to take him separately.   I brought him in Saturday morning first thing and he did great.  I don’t know if he loved the nurse or what but he didn’t cry for any of it, even the blood draw.  It was amazing!

Elliott is one now and while he still isn’t really talking he is at that point where he’ll follow basic directions: “Go get your shoes.” “Wipe off your mouth.” “What do you want, milk or water?” Those sorts of things.  For the last question he has signs for milk and water.  Plus he also signs now for “help” and “more.”  Like Jonah, the “more” sign often just means that he’s hungry and the “milk” sign could mean that he’s just generally thirsty or tired and ready for his milk before bed.  He still nurses 2-3 times a day but he’s drinking whole milk now and we’re trying to do away with the bottle all together.

He’s been sleeping better but still not great.  Often waking up and crying out briefly during the night.

He still sleeps in the pack-n-play in my office instead of his crib in the boys room at night.  We’ve never perfected the process of getting both boys to sleep at the same time in the same room.  It’s made more difficult by the fact that most nights, Jonah likes to play in bed before falling asleep.  Sometimes it might be quiet enough for Elliott to ignore, other nights it would not.  So we don’t even bother.  For now the system seems to work.

Elliott is also good at showing us his wicked sense of humor.   This is the kid who would bite me while nursing then look up and smile.  Also the kid who would smile and laugh in his sleep early on, and still does.  Dream laughing is hilarious - biting - not so much.  His new game involves starting something he knows he’s not supposed to do, pausing looking at you, then shaking his head no because that’s what he knows you’ll do.  It does show he understands but then he’ll do it anyway, the little stinker.

Or he likes to walk into a room with something then turn right around to make you chase him. He’ll keep doing that until you follow.

Right now I think he’s on a growth spurt.  He’s been taking long naps and eating a TON.  I don’t know where he puts it!  He’s about the same size as  Jonah was at 1 year but Elliott is 3 lbs lighter.  Neither of my boys were slim at 1 year but I can’t believe that Jonah was 3 whole pounds heavier.  That’s a big difference when you’re talking about less than 30 lbs!

There’s been a Buzz Lightyear resurgence in our house.  First Jonah spent the weekend in his Buzz PJ’s - during the day that is. He had to take them off so we could wash them overnight. Then today he wanted to wear his Buzz Halloween costume to school.  My feeling is that as long as he gets dressed himself he can wear whatever he wants! And at least I’m getting my money’s worth out of that costume.

My one fear is that he talks about how everyone will wear space helmets at his birthday party…not sure that’s going to happen…

Elliott had a good first birthday.  The extended family came over to our house for Mother’s Day/Elliott’s birthday.  We had a nice brunch then Elliott got to open gifts.  Or should I say, Jonah got to open Elliott’s gifts then maybe he let Elliott play with them.

Then of course there was birthday cake from which both boys only ate the frosting and left all the actual cake.

That was a couple days before his birthday so last night we also had cake and let him open a gift.  Elliott is our musical baby so he’s been enjoying all his new music making toys.  He got a little piano as a gift and I found him in the play room yesterday morning.  He had pulled it off the shelf and even turned it on by himself.  There’s a microphone on the side and he knows to “sing” into there.  It’s very cute.

What wasn’t so cute, however, was him not sleeping on his birthday night.  He went down fine at 8pm but then was up from about 10pm - midnight.  I have no idea why.  But he’s one now!  And walking everywhere!  Isn’t the sleeping supposed to kick into high gear right about now?

I have a lot of updates that I’ve been meaning to write about for weeks.  I’m not working full-time these days but between juggling a couple clients, interviewing for a new job, researching to find a new job and spending time with the boys I feel like there’s less time now than there usually is.

Jonah

Jonah continues to love school.  I swear he comes home each day singing a new song and talking about a different kid.  He does have a couple BFFs but he does a great job of playing with other kids on days his BFF is not there.  His vocabulary is also expanding rapidly.  Some of our favorite new words of his include: dead end, muck, nocturnal and automatic.  He’s also been counting and doing simple math problems both at our prompting and on his own now.  We do them a lot at the dinner table.

This session of gymnastics just ended but he’s come a long way.  I’ve been able to take him myself a few times this session and it’s great to see him running and participating in the activities and also answering the teacher as she talks to the group.  I think school has been great for Jonah’s self-confidence.

Elliott

Elliott has been growing and learning new tricks a lot lately too.  The biggest ones are walking and signing.  He’ll do sign language signs now for ‘milk’, ‘water’, ‘more’,  and the other day I swear he did the sign for help as he reached for the door knob on the front door.  He knew it was time to go an apparently didn’t want to wait for the rest of us.

I was prepared to write and tell about how often he will now stand on his own and will occasionally take a few steps in between furniture but by Friday those couple of steps have begun to stretch out to 4-6 at a time.  Usually it’s with us calling to him and pulling away as he comes towards us but now I’ve seen him take a few all on his own too.  Today he was literally laughing out loud as he walked between Chris and I.  His other trick is playing catch.  If you roll the ball to him, he will throw it back and laugh.  Chris is also sad that he is using his right hand to this almost exclusively, which means his dream of Elliott playing major league baseball one day probably won’t come true.

This won’t be news to anyone who I’m friends with on Facebook but Elliott is also out-eating Jonah at times.  I hope they both continue to be good eaters who like a lot of different foods as they grow up.  On the other hand, at this rate Chris or I will have to pick up a 2nd job during their teen years just to keep food in the house.  Elliott does eat well but so far I think he’s trending slightly smaller than Jonah was at this age but with more hair (and in certain lights his hair is reddish!).  There’s not a huge difference between their sizes but he’s not as heavy as Jonah was, based in their doctor visit records at least.

Unfortunately, Elliott still isn’t sleeping through the night very well.  He’ll still wake up a couple of times a night, though there are some nights where he doesn’t wake up at all, so it’s a little hit or miss.  He definitely not anywhere near as good a sleeper as Jonah was and remains.  You can change Jonah’s clothes if he’s truly out, but the other day Chris took Elliott for a walk in the stroller.  He was asleep when they came back and all he did was raise the shade on stroller and Elliott was awake.

Lastly, I need to get Elliott signed up for a music class.  Jonah likes to sing but Elliott seems to be our musical boy.  He likes it when anyone sings, he dances to his toys that play music, he likes to play with Chris’s guitar and he even starts to hum a bit himself when he’s tired.  It’s very cute.  Maybe he’ll take after Chris and have some musical talent.

When we go out everyone always thinks Elliott is a girl. We wanted to make sure to document this look. We haven’t gotten his hair cut professionally yet. We probably will when he’s closer to a year old. In the meantime I prefer to think of this as his Justin Bieber hair style. Maybe it helps hide his crazy teeth.

In other Elliott news, we’re pretty excited that he is beginning to sign.  When Jonah learned how to communicate what he wanted, it seemed like he wasn’t as cranky.  Right now, he’s got the sign for “milk” pretty much down, and tonight he did “more” for the first time.  When we ask, “How big is Elliott?” he will put his hands up (usually) when we say, “Soooo big!”  At least he seems to be learning that when he does it, it delights everyone, which of course makes him excited.  He’s also started to clap his hands here and there, but usually just when he sees someone else doing it.  A couple of other motions he does is he waves when you say hi or bye and he is also starting to kiss, which is very cute.

One thing Elliott has really picked up on is when he has a toy phone, he will hold it up to his ear like he is really talking.  I guess we must do that a lot.  :-)  He also loves the remote controls and the humidifiers, mostly for the buttons.  He has toys that have buttons too, of course, but I think he likes the remotes because he sees Mama and Daddy using it so much.  And finally, he all-time favorite object is whatever his big brother Jonah is playing with.  Doesn’t seem to matter what it is.  Jonah still has a thing or two to learn about sharing.  Usually when Elliott reaches for something, Jonah will say, “No, Elliott!” and then take his toy about two feet away, at which point Elliott will start crying.  We try to let him share, but our method is to say that Elliott can have a turn when he is done.  Like most three-year-olds, Jonah doesn’t usually hold onto a toy for very long.

Speaking of Jonah, he continues to have a great time at school.  He has a new best friend named Layne that he just loves.  Layne is a little older than Jonah (he just turned five) and is really good at reading, so hopefully some of that rubs off.  They really seem to get along well.  Chris and Jonah went to the Museum of Science and Industry over the President’s Day holiday with Layne and his parents and they had a great time.  There is also a little girl at school named Sienna (affectionately nicknamed Sisi) and apparently the three of them as known as the Three Musketeers.  At a recent kids birthday party, they were together quite a bit.  It’s a little odd to think that Jonah is now forming his own relationship with other people, but I guess that’s it’s all a part of getting older.

Jonah’s vocabulary is also expanding.  The other day our nanny mentioned her fiance had to work at night, and Jonah asked, “Is he nocturnal?”  Both the nanny and I were very impressed that a) he knew this more complicated word and b) he used it in the exact right context.  I know that they talked about nocturnal animals on the show Chuggington (his current favorite show), and it’s been in a few books we’ve read.  It’s nice to see that some of the vocab is sticking.  Chris also tries to get Jonah to do simple math problems here and there, like if he has three cookies and you take away one, he’ll ask, “So three minus one equals how many?”  Sometimes he knows the answer, but usually he just wants to eat his dessert and not fool around with math problems.

Last note on Elliott — he seems to be sleeping better.  Not sure if it’s some of the sleep training we’ve been doing (which is basically sending in Chris or letting him cry for a little while), but he’s eating really well, so we know he isn’t hungry at night any more.  If he goes to sleep around 8:30 or so, he’ll usually sleep until past 5, which is really good compared to where he was just a couple of months ago, still waking up a couple of times after putting him down.  Some days he’ll wake up, nurse for a bit and then fall asleep again until after 7, sometimes he’s just awake and that’s it.  But still, that’s way better than waking up at 2 and staying up til 4.

It’s hard to believe Elliott will be 10 months in a couple of weeks!  Right now he’s got a bit of an ear infection, so he’s on antibiotics, so hopefully that clears up soon.  Tomorrow we all go house hunting, and the kids get to spend the afternoon and Grandma and Grandpa Diehl’s house.