Food Negotiations

In the past month, Jonah has grown feistier about food. Michele has become an expert negotiator when it comes to getting Jonah to eat his dinner. Tonight was a great and surprising example.

We had a tasty stew tonight, with lentils, greens, potatoes, ham, carrots. Lentils and ham are usually within what Jonah will eat. Sometimes greens and potatoes. Nothing doing tonight. He wouldn't even touch bread. As Michele and I finished eating, we let him get up, we wiped him down, and he went to play.

Then the doorbell rang. Our neighbor appeared offering us fresh-off-the-tree persimmons. Yes, persimmons. I have never bought a persimmon in my life, nor have I prepared one at home. Jonah likes fruit, so we decided to give it a shot.

He gobbled up the first four or five pieces before Michele and I realized we had a new bargaining tool. Soon, a bite of ham got Jonah a bite of persimmon. A swallow of lentils plus a chunk of potato got him the next persimmon piece. I felt kind of guilty. If I'm going to offer my kid a treat in exchange for him eating dinner, shouldn't the treat at least be mildly unhealthy?

I guess not. Over the next fifteen minutes, Jonah ate a plate of stew chunks and almost half a persimmon. He didn't even ask for dessert.

First Day of School

Last Thursday, Jonah went to his first day of school by himself. Let me clarify -- Michele and I dropped him off at school and left, for the first time in Jonah's 27+ months of life. Jonah did great.

The night before, I had attended a discussion on transitions and separation that was put on by the preschool. Before this, I hadn't really thought that Jonah's starting school would impact me. The talk, however, filled me with a low level of dread. Would my kid be one of the three per year who has to be "handed off" to a teacher while mom and dad sneak out the door? Would Jonah have a meltdown in the parking lot? Was I prepared for this? How, really, would Michele take it?



To start with, Jonah rocked. We walked into his classroom just before 9 and he headed straight for the toy fire engines. He barely noticed when we left, barely felt the kisses we plunked on his head because he was too busy to look up from playing. When Michele returned a few hours later, she had to convince him to leave the playground. No ill effects, whatsoever.

Michele held up better than I expected. A few tears, but that was it. She was the brave one that day.

I'm still thinking about it. As uneventful as it may have been, this seems like a big transition. I have no doubt that it is the right thing for all of us. Jonah will learn from different adults -- and kids. His immune system will get a chance to buff up. Michele will have some free time, which she truly deserves. I'm the only one whose life doesn't directly change. This makes me sad, in a funny way, because I feel kind of left out. I guess that's what happens to dads sometimes.

(Couldn't resist the video. Jonah sings the "Hello Song" from Music Together. See if you can catch "Hello to my silliness" in the second part.)

Learning About Consequences

The three of us often go for walks after dinner. Jonah explores, touching things, smelling things, picking things up. Last weekend, he started grasping the handles of car doors when we would pass by. Both Michele and I thought this was a bad idea. "Those cars don't belong to us," we told him. There wasn't anything really bad about Jonah doing this. We both instinctively didn't like it, though, and told him not to do it.

After multiple rounds of car-touching-and-mom-or-dad-saying-no, I finally stopped him and told him that if he touched another car we would go straight home. He said he understood: "Touch car go straight home." He seemed to forget about touching cars until we crossed the street. Then, he grabbed the handle of a blue pick-up.

True to my word, I lifted him up and started walking back home. Two and a half blocks. Jonah wailed, "No go home. Down." Tears ran down his face as he squirmed and bucked in my arms. It was very difficult for both of us, and every step I asked myself if I was doing the right thing.

We got home and I put him down. He was still crying, "No! No go home," and flailing his arms angrily. After a few minutes he stopped and we hugged him. Michele and I asked together if he understood why we came home. He did: "Touch blue truck." Crisis over, the rest of the night went smoothly.

Monday night came around and we walked again. We reminded him what happened last time. Every time he came near a car, Michele and I both held our breath. It felt like he was taunting us. All was fine until, about five houses away from home, he very purposefully smacked the taillight of a car. I swooped him up. "No go home!" he cried, but he didn't squirm quite as much as the previous night.

Tonight we went for a walk again. Jonah was very cautious. He likes to walk along the line that divides the curb from the sidewalk, but every time he walked near a car he held his arm close to his body. Even when he walked next to a car that was parked very close to the curb, he made a point of not touching it. There were some close spots. "Point at car," said Jonah, as he wiggled his finger near a car door. But this was not teasing. I think he was making it clear that he knew what was okay. We made it home with no incidents.

I don't consider myself especially good at setting boundaries, but I think this was a success. Jonah learned that there are consequences to his actions. He learned that he should do what mom and dad say or he might not like the results. He learned that we will do what we say we will. I don't think he learned about other people's property, but that's a much harder, abstract concept. Part of me feels petty for making an example out of something as small as touching car door handles. It felt heavy-handed and controlling. That said, we generally use good judgement in what we "no" him about, and it seems like a good thing that he is learning to respond.

Too Smart, Too Fast

I write a lot about how amazed I am with Jonah's speech and mental development. Another great example occurred last night, when we were finishing up dinner.

Michele: Would you like some fruit, Jonah? What kind of fruit? Orange? Grapes?

Jonah (deadpan): Cookie fruit. (laughs)

He is developing so quickly. I look back at my blog posts and see how far he has come in less than a year. This turns out to be a challenge, though, with school. Jonah started preschool early last year. While we were researching schools in January, one of them had an opening in its 2-year old class and invited Jonah to join even though he wasn't two yet (and is actually about 4 months behind the age cutoff for the class). It turned out that he was at least 6 months younger than the other kids in the class. Mentally and verbally, he was pretty close to -- and even ahead of -- some of the other kids. Socially and physically, though, there was a clear difference.

For next year, we, in discussion with his teacher, have decided that he's not ready to move on to the next class. He hasn't started school yet, but we're already questioning the decision. While Michele and I know that his peers who are moving on are a lot more mature and able to handle themselves better, we worry that being in the younger class will slow down his development. Most of the kids in the younger class are considerably younger (6 months or more). As Michele puts it, how can we place our son with kids who are just saying "Mama" while he says "I'm hydrating" while drinking from his Nalgene?

As I reflect, waiting to move him up may not be a bad thing. I think Jonah got off to a fast start with his language skills, but his other developmental areas haven't caught up yet. Having these things out of sync might not be good. Maybe he -- and we -- will be better off if he spends some more time learning how to play with other kids and cooperate with adults.

25 Months

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I've been pretty lazy about updating this blog. So, a quick update:

Jonah turned two at the end of May. We had a birthday party that most of our family -- coming in from Southern California and North Carolina -- attended. It was great to have them here. Jonah chose construction equipment as a theme (see the photo of the cake that his mom and Nana made). Jonah was definitely aware of the party and he understood that this was for him -- very different from his first birthday.

Jonah will repeat anything we say and use the words in sentences. He absorbs everything and uses it in creative ways. A few days ago, for example

Jonah (smirking): Butterflies eat butter.
Michele: And what do horseflies eat?
Jonah: Horses.

In fact, he just came up to me and I showed him a preview of this blog. I asked him what the picture was and he said, "a birthday party". "Whose birthday party?" I asked. "Jonah's".

He still hasn't got his personal pronouns straight. He uses "you" in place of "I". Makes sense, since we always refer to him as "you".

Lastly, he is incredibly cute. See his renditions of "Kookabura" and "Two Little Kitty Cats", both from his Music Together class.

Stitches

Today was probably Jonah's most traumatic day in his 25+ months of life. He slipped and smashed his chin, cutting it open. There was blood in his mouth (it turned out he also bit his tongue), down his neck, on his shirt, on me. The blood stopped fairly quickly, but we took him to the doctor's office and ended up getting seven stitches -- two internal and five external. This all happened just before nap time, and Jonah was not happy.

The two hours at the doctor's office were pretty hard. Jonah is a tough kid, and he was up and about afterwards wearing his backpack and marching back to the car. He is a squirmer, though. The doctor said she has handled worse, but we came close to heading to the ER to knock him out.

You might wonder how one puts stitches in a two-year-old. Wrap him up in a sheet like a burrito, shoulders to knees, so he can't move his arms. Nurse holds his head, dad holds his body and legs, mom tries to keep his attention, and doctor does her work. Jonah really does not like being constrained, as Michele and I know. He was very, very scared and very, very brave.

From my vantage point, I had a perfect view of the stitching. It was a much deeper cut than any of us thought at first. I looked into my son's wound, his flesh. It was dark inside, a little hole in my child's face.

It should heal pretty well. We need to keep it mostly covered with waterproof band-aids for five days, when the stitches should be dissolved. The doctor said we can reduce scarring by massaging in vitamin E and keeping the area out of the sun after the scab goes away. Fortunately, the cut is under his chin and a bit back. Most people will never see it, but I'll know it is there.

Toddler Talk

Now that we have a new digital camera, I'll be uploading clips of Jonah to Google Video. This one shows some great talking.



At 21 months, Jonah's speech is amazing. A few days ago, for example, he told Michele "Daddy car dirty has bird poo". And yes, he was right. He continues to repeat pretty much anything we say, but he's clearly doing more than mimicking. A few other interesting developmental tidbits:

- He can say his numbers one through nine. He understands the meaning of "two" and "four" (he usually gets either two or four cookies with dinner), but he doesn't understand counting yet. As an example, while he knows that "three" comes after "two", he doesn't get that when you start with two cards and add one more you would call this "three".

- Jonah has a few letters that he still has trouble saying. "Like" is "wike". "Snake" is "thnake". "Bath" is "baff".

- We think he has just started gaining consciousness of dreams. He told Michele last week, "Good night, firefly. See you later." We've traced this to the Dragon Tales cartoon he sometimes watches on PBS. However, he has now told us that he's seen Firefly at night. Last night, he was afraid to go to sleep because of the firefly. I explained what dreams were and told him that sometimes we have to be brave, but in the end he wouldn’t go to sleep until we plugged in a brighter night light. I remember wanting a night light when I was scared to go to sleep as a kid. I guess it works for Jonah, too.

Pacifier

President's Day weekend was a triumph of child adaptability. Michele and I have been discussing for over a year whether and how to remove the semi-permanently glued pacifier from Jonah's face. Before this past weekend, a "pa-fa-ah" was in his mouth at all times except for meals, baths, and leaving the house (although we sometimes made exceptions to the latter).

We've gone back and forth on pulling the plug --

Pros:
- We didn't like him talking with it in his mouth.
- We were irked by his dependence on it.
- We rarely see other kids using them.
- The doctor said we should.

Cons:
- Risk of Jonah needing years of therapy after we brutally remove his self-soothing device.
- We're strong, independent parents. Who cares that we're irked, that other kids don't use them, or that the doctor said we should take it away?

We reasoned, at times, that he'd give it up when he's ready. This was pure, wimpy, rationalization. In the end, we decided that it'll only get harder as time goes on. So, we took the plunge.

How? On Saturday morning, before we took him out of his crib, we first explained the plan to him. We then told him that he had to put his pacifier in a special place of his choosing -- this ended up being a plastic cup with a picture of a cat on it -- if he wanted us to take him out of his crib. It was a total, yet unintentional, bad cop-good cop between Michele and I (I got to be the good cop for once). When he finally handed it to me to put in the cup, it was one of the bravest things I've seen him do. The three of us danced around yelling "Bravo"!

Waking hours brought three pacifier-related temper tantrums, complete with tears and kicking around on the floor. As agreed, we gave it back to him in his crib for naps and night time.

Sunday and Monday were easier. The morning bravo dances helped. He made fewer, less fervent requests throughout the days.

On Tuesday morning I got a voicemail from Michele. Jonah woke up, handed her his pacifier, and said "put pa-fa-ah in kitty cup".

Kids are awesome!

Manamana

Jonah and I frequently scan Google Video and YouTube for cool clips. We started out with movie trailers ("Cars", "Happy Feet") and moved to animation videos. Today we found this one from Sesame Street. It's as old as I am, but Jonah laughs at it. As I write this, we've watched it about six times in a row:

Google Video: Manamana
Jonah: "Again, again."
Google Video: Manamana
Jonah: "Again, again."
etc.