Developing

Cairo and Jonah are growing and developing by leaps and bounds.  Each day one of them seems to surprise me with something new and wonderful.

Cairo's small motor skills are getting much better.  She holds pens and pencils like a big girl now and instead of making large sweeping scribble marks, she does little intricate marks that mimic writing.  She has also been practicing coloring with-in lines, doing simple mazes, and writing the letter C.  We are also working on spelling her name and we need to work on this a bit more.  Typically, she ends up spelling it C-O-M-U.  Well, at least she's starting on the right letter.  Cairo's strongest area, aside, from her large vocabulary, is her number sense.  She does a great time counting and doing simple addition and subtraction (thanks to her Highlights Magazine!).

Cairo is a talker.  She will talk and talk and talk and talk.  In fact, over Mother's Day weekend, she talked for the ENTIRE three hour drive home.  She wasn't talking to us the whole time (thank goodness!), she was talking to her toys.  She has a great imagination and through her dialogue you can almost picture how her toys come alive and the world she creates for them.  I find it especially entertaining when I hear her repeat the same comments to her toys that we say to her. 

Jonah Bear is also making some big changes.  Though he still isn't really crawling properly (he's still doing the same army crawl he started in January), Jonah is starting to move around better.  For the last month or so he has been pulling himself up to the standing position, using any thing he can grab onto.  He is pretty proud of himself.  I think he likes being a big boy.

Just like Cairo, Jonah's first real word was "dog-dog," followed by "hi/bye," "da-da," and "this."  His "this" is always accompanied with a pointing finger.  When he wants something he is very persistent.  For example, when he sees something he wants to eat (his most favorite activity) he points to what he wants and repeats with increasing loudness and intensity "this" (sounds like "dis") until he gets what he wants or falls into a tantrum because he doesn't get it.  His whole pointing finger and saying "this" was cute for about two days, but it has gotten old real fast.

Jonah is very assertive, which works well when he is the smallest one competing with the older and bigger Cairo and Xander.  If he wants to play with a toy he has to keep the wolves at bay.  He jumps right in and plays rough with the big kids, he's not afraid to go after what he wants and hold on tight, and will scream when he doesn't get his way.  I have no fear that he will hold his own.

Jonah's motor skills are getting better, too.  He is able to stack things, insert items into openings and holes, hold a pen and scribble, and feed himself all types of slippery, squishy foods.  He's getting pretty good at banging things together and making loud noises.

Jonah's great passion is food.  He LOVES to eat.  He wakes up and eats breakfast right away- 2 eggs, fruit, and waffles.  Then when Xander gets here, Jonah has his second breakfast.  A while later he has lunch, snack, and then dinner.  This may not sound too bad, but in one seating Jonah can eat more than Cairo and Xander combined.  In fact, sometimes he eats more than I do!  Erik and I have come to the conclusion that he must have a hollow leg.  Lord help you if his tray goes empty.  He will give you an ear full!  Oh, and good luck trying to keep food on his tray.   That boy can scarf food down faster than one would think is humanly possible.  I try to spread his food around as much as possible on his tray in an attempt to keep him from stuffing too much in his mouth at a time.  Thus far, we do not have a picky eater.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't change.

If he hadn't fallen asleep, he would have eaten all of that.