At twenty-four weeks, Xander is: sleeping for longer stretches during the day and night (kicking the 30 to 45 minute nap up to the occasional 1 to 2 hour nap AND knocking out 7 to 8 hours straight at night…YES!!!) and starting to lunge forward instead of push backwards when he’s up on his knees (I think we have a crawler on our hands).
We had so much fun decorating for Christmas this year. We ended up doing something I thought we would never do…trading in a real tree for an artificial one. But, after Jonas yanked on a strand of loosely strung lights and pulled the whole good-smelling, needle-dropping mess on top of him, it was a done decision. We pretty much have no ornaments on the bottom half of the tree (the bottom half is decorated with toddler-proof ish ones), as he walks around with them all day long. His favorite ornament is a little book that he calls the “Lord Bible”. He reads from it every day and proclaims in a loud voice, “Lorly, Lorly, Lorly to God” (I recently figured out that “Lorly” is “Glory”).
Here’s a picture of Jonas with the inflatables that we put up in the front yard. He loves them and marvels at how they “sleep” during the day. When we were out walking before Thanksgiving, someone already had a huge inflatable Santa put up in their front yard. Jonas saw it, got really excited, and said, “It’s Noah!”.
We also had a lot of fun cracking out the rolling pin (I can’t say that I’ve done that since I used to help Mom make biscuits when I was a little girl) and cookie cutters to make sugar cookies and dough ornaments. Jonas painted the ornaments with watercolors and fingerpaints “all by self”.
At twenty-three weeks, Xander is: pretty much crawling backwards (getting his knees up underneath him, pushing with his arms, and scooching himself backwards); enjoying longer periods of awake time between naps; and trying out and loving his farm animal exersaucer.
At twenty-five months, Jonas is: really starting to express his feelings (my dear friend, Rebekah, and I started a cleaning day exchange where we take care of each other’s little ones for an hour or two once a week so we can clean…Jonas loves “Miss Ebekah” and her daughter Claire…we play with them a lot…Rebekah said he had a had a lot of fun playing but had a bout of missing me, which is a new thing for him, and puckered up…so I went to pick him up, and we talked about it in the car…I said, “Jonas, did you just miss Mommy, buddy?”…and he said, “JoJo crying want MaMa so bad Miss Ebekah hold you”); hitting an all-time high with whining and throwing; showing an interest in using the potty like a big boy; and having a blast playing with his new birthday toys.
Here’s a picture of Xander with my dear cousin Heather’s little girl, Annabella. You can tell by the look on his face that he was just fascinated with her. She came over to play with us one morning while Mommy and Daddy were working and had so much fun. Jonas is still talking about “Annabellabuh”.
In his twenty-second week, Xander is: having a blast rolling around on the floor from back to belly and from belly to back; eating two tablespoons of organic rice cereal in the mornings and in the evenings and loving it (this is probably THE most excited he gets during the day to the exception of bath time); tracking with a few new signs (eat, more, book, music, bath, and massage); enjoying his musical mobile; starting to wake every 5 to 6 hours at night (instead of every 3 to 4 hours)…yay!!!!; and discovering his first favorite toy (his orange and blue teething blanket)
At twenty-one weeks, Xander is: rolling over from his back to his belly (go, Xan-Man!); getting his knees up underneath him during tummy time (he’s actually been doing this for months now); rocking his bouncy seat with his fast and furious kicks; and (maybe) starting a return to sleeping for longer stretches during the day and at night.
Here are a few pictures of Jonas doing one of his favorite things…helping MaMa in the kitchen. We made some Lemon Poppyseed muffins for a quick snack and some Pilgrim Hat cookies to thank one of our sweet neighbors for her kindness. I love my little chef.
Because Jonas tends to get into toddler kinds of trouble when he’s bored, I have recently decided that it would behoove me and him to try to come up with a list of different and engaging things that he can do/we can do together…
So, I searched through all of the “activities” posts in the “toddlers” group of the online mommy discussion board that I’m a member of and found some great ideas to add to my list. My very favorite post BY FAR was a link to the blog of a former preschool teacher/current mom of a three year old:
http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/
I am now a HUGE fan and have been completely inspired. I have even rediscovered the lesson planning part of my brain. I am shamelessly copying the format she loosely follows with her son, which is to do a little bit of the following every day of the week for a week and then take a week off: a lesson (letter, number, shape, color, animal, etc.), table time and/or craft time (coloring, playing with play-doh, matching lids, fingerpainting, finding colorful pom-poms in rice, baking, etc.), a game and/or activity (working puzzles, reading books, playing with toys that reinforce the lesson, etc.), and outdoor time (a nature walk, a visit to the zoo, a trip to the dog park, playing in the sandbox, etc.). We have been having so much fun!!!
Here are three pieces that we worked on this week: construction paper circles (Jonas liked to use the glue stick most of all, so he glued and I placed the circles), sticker pages (it cracked me up how he didn’t like any of the stickers to overlap), and a chocolate oat acorn (he loved helping squeeze the glue bottle, was all about eating the chocolate chips instead of placing them on the top of the acorn so I did that part, and had a blast dropping handfuls of oatmeal onto the bottom of the acorn and even onto the kitchen floor…oh well that’s what brooms are for, right?).
Petra loves to guard Xander…
In his twentieth week, Xander is: trying his darnedest to pull up to a sitting position and to roll over from his back to his belly; FINALLY learning how to fall asleep in the car (yay!!!); enjoying walks in the stroller; continuing to take a keen interest in Petra and all of her goings on; and laughing out loud at Jonas playing the harmonica.
I know it’s really more of a summer thing, but we hit up the dollar bin and found some sidewalk chalk and bubbles and have been having fun with them on these unseasonably (and thankfully) warm fall days we’ve been having lately…
So, Jonas has been outing lately with some good manners without prompting which has made my heart so happy. After throwing his banana smiley crackers in the car and seeing how upset it made DaDa, he said, “I’m sorry, DaDa”. I put some blueberries on his tray at breakfast a few mornings ago, and he said, “Thank you, MaMa”. When Xander sneezes, he says, “God bless you, Xan-Man”. And…music to my ears…I asked him to do something the other day, and he said, “Yes, ma’am”. Love it…go Jo-Jo!!!
At nineteen weeks, Xander is: launching headlong into teething; trying solid foods with a little bit of organic rice cereal (although he’s very enthusiastic about it, he’s not quite ready yet…so we’ll give it another go in a few more weeks); rocking his bouncy seat with his hearty kicks; really working on his attempts to roll over from his back to his belly; smiling every time MaMa lowers him into the bathtub for his bath; and playing games (it’s amazing…he puts his hand in MaMa’s mouth so she’ll play like she’s eating it, laughs out loud, pauses and smiles, and then does it again).
Pictures and comments to follow…
At twenty-four months, Jonas is: cracking us up with his sentence composition (I need some toys, I need some more, I love Josh too, Go playground now, DaDa funny, MaMa funny too, Make a mess, Xan-Man poo poo oh gosh so funny, I see baby tree, etc.); going up and down the stairs like an old pro; loving his big boy bed (he transitioned like a dream); throwing and jumping up a storm; learning the sounds that letters make; continuing to be very passionate about counting; enjoying working puzzles; loving singing songs like “ABC”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and “Wheels on the Bus” (and even champing out on a little bit of “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and “Once a Day”); getting into EVERYTHING; becoming frustrated when he can’t quite figure out how to do something that he has in mind to do; and starting to show a very strong preference for doing things “by self”.
In his eighteenth week, Xander is: playing with his hands and feet: blowing raspberries; and reaching for and successfully grabbing toys (he regularly pulls the musical toy on his bouncy seat arch).
At seventeen weeks, Xander is: holding on to his pacifier and his bottle; starting to develop a little bit of separation anxiety; waking up at the most inopportune times (i.e. three o’clock in the morning) to socialize; and cooing/talking himself to sleep while he’s being rocked.
We had a blast on Halloween as Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion. Jonas loved trick or treating with his sweet friends, Whitney (a Black Cat) and Ainsley (a Mermaid). Jonas wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the trick or treating and even had to be coached to not actually go into people’s houses, along with the standard manners training of not taking more than one piece of candy when a bowl of candy was offered and remembering to say thank you. We laughed at the accessory switcheroo as the Scarecrow quickly became the wielder of the Black Cat’s wand, and the Black Cat took a shine to carrying Dorothy’s basket with Toto.
