Jonah {Winter 2014}

Size: Still in all 3T clothes, shoes are a size 8-8.5 (just depends on the shoe). I think he probably weighs about 34lbs now and is maybe (??) 40" tall now. For the most part, he's a lean-looking kid, but he's pretty solid!

Potty Training: In the month of December, Jonah began to really get the hang of sleeping through his nap and staying dry. Unfortunately, we had major regressions in January coinciding with his transition in classroom. In February, he has managed to get back on track and hasn't had too many accidents. In fact, he's been observed to say nothing to us, and just casually walk to the bathroom and go, never uttering a word. He's pretty much sleeping through naptime dry again.

December:

Favorite sayings/words: "My tummy will hurt if I eat all that [food item]"; he likes to call his hands "manos" and fingers "dedos".

Funnies: Jonah has gotten into a phase recently where he wants to give more than one bedtime kiss. He'll give one kiss, then say "no, I want two...[kiss]...now three [kiss], now four, etc.". It's very sweet! The other night, he went up to seventeen then said "now, in Spanish!!". I laughed and said okay, so he started off "Domingo, lunes, martes..." Haha, he started saying the days of the week in Spanish instead of counting! A couple days before Christmas, I was telling him about the plans for the next couple of days and when I asked him if he knew what was the day after Christmas Eve, he got all excited and said "Christmas!". And so I asked him what was special about Christmas (we had been reading all kinds of books about the meaning of Christmas, talking through the lyrics to Christmas songs, etc.) and he got quiet, then a big smile crept across his face and he said "we'll get snowflakes! And celebrate snow!!". Oops. I guess somewhere in the Christmas message he got the part about it snowing. I broke his little heart when I told him it wasn't going to snow where we were on Christmas.

Observations: Still left-handed. He has really taken an interest in... cooking!! Jonah absolutely loves when I ask him to help me cook/bake/make something in the kitchen. I can undoubtedly hand him an ear of corn and ask him to shuck it. He loves to crack open eggs, use the whisk, dump in ingredients into a bowl, etc. I've even let him wield a (not very sharp) knife to cut up vegetables.

January:

Favorite sayings/words: "that's hilarious", He loves to answer the "What day is it?" and makes this funny face as he says "HUMP DAY"!, calls Nolan "Noley-kins" in casual conversation; Jonah has memorized our dinner blessing/grace and does a great job every night of saying it

Funnies: truth be told... I lost track of them and can't remember any! Of course there were, he's a precocious little 3-year-old!

Observations: This month he learned to ride his new bike with training wheels! He still needs a push every now and then up a hill to get going and I find myself holding my breath when he starts going down hill, but he does know how to work the brakes. He moved up to the next class both at school (3-B) and at church (3 yr old room). Transitioning at school has been a disaster--he hated school for a couple weeks and would cry when we dropped him off, requesting to go back to his old class. In conjunction with this, we have seen a significant regression in pottying. For the past month, he's had an accident at school almost every day and at home (and some days multiple accidents). Unlike the school transition, he loves his new classroom at church! And he's coming home telling us bible stories! :)

February:

Favorite sayings/words: "What is going on?!"; "because I just did" is his regular answer to the question "why did you do that?"; still says a "henaronus" when he refers to a hippo or rhino for some reason even though he can identify them both perfectly by picture; somehow he has totally screwed up the pronunciation of "purple"--He used to say "per-pull" (normal) and now he has changed it to "pip-pull" and it drives me crazy; Nolan loves VeggieTales these days and Jonah will sing the theme song for him at times. :)

Funnies: We were driving down the road and passed a new Buffalo's restaurant location. It had a large fake buffalo parked out by the road and naturally, it caught Jonah's attention. He states "Mommy, I saw a bison!! Not two, just one." I asked him how he knew it was a bison and not a buffalo. His reply "Mommy! It's spanish!!" Hahaha, oh boy.

Observations: Early this month, Jonah has been able to write his name! I was able to coax him into signing his name on all his Valentine's cards. Shocked to know he's still writing with his left hand?? Yep, me too. I totally thought he would grow out of it, but now he's three and still throwing and writing left-handed. Guess he'll stay that way?? His "j's" don't always look like a fully formed J but his o's, n's, and h's are all pretty good. The only issue he's consistently running into right now is remembering to put (and write) an "a" in there! I have seen him start to eat right-handed some so maybe there's still a little experimentation going on. Jonah still has trouble catching a ball with his hands, but is pretty awesome at kicking a soccer ball and even hitting a ball off a tee (left-handed). I guess we'll see how his athletic skills progress now that the weather is getting warmer! Since Jonah has moved up in class at church, he has started to talk more about Jesus and God. It makes my heart so happy to hear him talking about this at such a young age!

Here's to a fun spring ahead!