Jonah Bear the Toddler

Yup, it is official, Jonah is a toddler.  While we were in Mattole toward the end of July Jonah really started to try out his walking skills.  He was successful a few days later... pretty much at his 14 month anniversary.  Unfortunately for us, Jonah seems to want to completely skip walking and go straight to running.  He doesn't quite have the agility for running, yet, but he doesn't seem to care... and he doesn't seem to mind the bruises.

I've really enjoyed the time I've had with Jonah this summer.  He is a completely different kid now from the one I had before the summer holiday.  It always amazes me how so much can change in a two months.  I guess before it was Jonah the Baby and now I have Jonah the Toddler.

Jonah the Toddler loves to wear his jacket.  If he finds it laying around he will drag it over to you and insist that you put it on him.  Then he goes on his merry way.  Even when the jackets are hung up he will tug on them until he can get them down or point, grunt, and scream at you until you get it down for him.  He always has like to be cuddled up.  I just don't think that he will find his jacket at comfortable when we get back down to the Southern California heat.

Jonah the Toddler always says cheese to the camera.  Always.  The funny thing about this is that it doesn't matter if you are holding the camera or not.  If he sees the camera on the table he looks at it, smiles, and says, "cheeeeeeeeese."  He will even smile and cheese at items that just resemble camera.  It cracks me up every time.

Jonah the Toddle LOVES and I mean LOVES his blankey.  I am not sure where this obsession came from, but one day he was pulling his blanket out of his crib and dragging it everywhere.  If it was up to him he would have it with him outside, in his highchair, in the bath, when we are out.... However, we make sure that blankey spends most of the time staying clean in his crib.  He does put it in Cairo's grocery cart and push it around the house once in a while and we do let him cuddle up with it when he's reading or tired, but we don't want him to become too dependent on it for soothing.

Jonah the Toddler loves to read.  Twitch, twitch.  In fact, Jonah chases Erik and I all over the house, waving a book in one hand, blanket in the other, screaming "BOOK, BOOK!"  You may ask, "why are you running from him?"  Well, after you've read the same book to him 50 times in one hour, you may run away, too.  He is very persistent.  There are three books that he is currently in love with.  Two of these books are four pages long with little dialogue and the third book is a first garden word book with things like the word snail and a picture of a snail.  I memorized these books by the second time through, and began to come up with new dialogue by the tenth time.  Yet, he brings them back time and time again.  Did I mention that he is persistent?  I will read the book and throw it to the other side of the room just to try and get a break from reading it again.  He calmly goes over gets the book and brings it back, once again waving it in the air while screaming, "BOOK!"  I've tried to get him into other books, but he just pushed them away and pushes his favorites back at us.  Sometimes we run into the problem of him wanting us to read him all three books at the same time.  I think he kind of misses the concept of reading.  At times he is so persistent that I have to sit there with all three books open and move continuously from one book to the other.  Right now I think one book is hidden under the rug, the other is under the chair cushion, and the third is on the table.  Maybe out-of-sight, out-of-mind will work.

Jonah the Toddler loves to talk!  Over the past week it seems that each day he is getting more words.  For a while now he has done a pretty good job at repeating sounds that we make, but now it really starting to use words.  Some of his words, like banana, are ones that only we would recognize, but others are very clear, like his new word monkey.  His vocabulary includes Daddy, Mama, Doggy, banky (blankey), ba (ball), book, rock, bye, walk-walk, cheese, duck, rafffsss (giraffe), monkey, banana, milk, water, ze-ba (not super clear, but it's zebra), this, yeah-yeah, that, and thank you (by pitch change). My favorite thing is the way he says Daddy.  It isn't just said calmly, but he always squeals it in a high-pitched, very excited voice.  My seconds favorite is the way he says giraffe.  It reminds me of the word brass but pronounced with an almost (but not completely) silent b and the s at the end is a mix between an s and an f.