Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

Jonah entertained himself at the airport terminal by making friends with every kid under the age of three.  We walked around the gates, Jonah flashing his "I'm cute" smile and waiting for response from the adult passengers or sitting down and helping himself to the toys of the younger flyers.  He even met a little boy from England!  It was nice to see so many families, especially since we had been the only ones on the way out.
Jonah enjoyed quite a potpourri of transportation on the trip.  We drove to the airport, took a plane, ferried over from the airport island, taxied to Aunt Ashley's house, took a bus downtown, rode the streetcar across town, strollered around the city, walked around the park and got carried - a lot.  Phew!  Good to be home!

Jonah's Day with Aunt Ashley and Uncle Leon

After all the adult activity of yesterday, it was nice to have a day full of activities for Jonah.  His Aunt Ashley and Uncle Leon brought us all out for brunch, where the waitress came over with board books and a train whistle to entertain Jonah.  He was mesmerized!  Then we visited the children's area of High Park.  They had a little petting zoo, where Jonah met llamas, a wallaby and some chickens.  We sat on a low wooden crate, Mommy, Jonah, a chicken and a bunny.  All just staring at each other.  After trying to figure out what was sitting next to him, Jonah gently reached out to pet its feathers.  Cute!  Next we visited the large castle playground!  We did all the things parents do to try to make their kid have fun - dragging Jonah across rubber bridges, through tunnels or on the swing.  Jonah's favorites were watching the big kids, tic-tac-toe (he and Daddy tied) and throwing bark chips.

I can't give a full account of Jonah's afternoon and evening, but we hear that he had a wonderful time with his aunt and uncle after Mommy and Daddy left for the wedding.  They took walks in the courtyard and to the park, made pasta for dinner, and watched Madagascar 3!  It was so nice for them all to spend time together without Mommy in the way.  ;-)

Toronto

Jonah was a great sport while we toured Toronto with Daddy's friends, visiting the historic distilleries, market hall and cathedral.  None were particularly baby-friendly places.  While waiting to meet up with some others, Jonah got out of the stroller for some exercise and walked around one of the city's many parks.  He found a table with built-in seats that swiveled a little bit, which made cruising from one to the next particularly challenging, but very fun!  We also met a little girl, who was feeding the pigeons.  She gave some of the seeds to Jonah.  He wasn't quite sure what was going on when Mommy helped fill his palm and release the food onto the ground, but he was soon surrounded by birds!  How fun!  Outside the market we let Jonah taste his first gelato - vanilla and chocolate lovers'.  Mommy just couldn't help sharing.  Naturally, Jonah kept wanting more and more!

We saw Uncle Leon's new office and he took us to a cute little Italian restaurant near his house for dinner.  The waiter and chef were completely confused by their little diner and came to ask (addressed to Uncle Leon) "whether the baby would like a ragu or butter sauce?"  (Mommy's answer: NEITHER!)  They eventually came out with linguini with sauteed spinach.  Not the most kid-friendly plate, but that was excusable compared with the litany of other mistakes: 1. Leon had to remind the waiter to bring my wine, 2.) I received the wrong dish, 3.) the dish I received was not thoroughly cooked, 4.) we had to ask for water, 5.) twice, 6.) water came back warm, 7.) and which dirty glass belonged to whom?, 8.) you forgot Leon's second glass of wine, 9.) replacement dish wasn't so great, 10.) no, we don't want a free dessert, we have a tired baby and need to get out of here before he erupts.

Late that evening, Jonah was up for a late-night drink when Aunt Ashley returned from London!  She brought Jonah a special Peter Rabbit stuffed animal and book with soft fur to touch.

Louis, Louis!

We packed up and flew off to Toronto to visit Aunt Ashley & Uncle Leon!  They were kind enough to host us for the long weekend and play with Jonah while Mommy and Daddy go to a boring-old wedding.  ;-)  Aunt Ashley was away on business until Friday night, but Uncle Leon gallantly stepped up to entertain the in-laws.

Jonah enjoyed seeing Louis, the French bulldog.  They both enjoyed played together, in their own similar, but strange ways.  Jonah and Louis are about the same size, but Louis is all muscle and twice Jonah's weight.  Both would watch one another carefully, and follow if the other was doing something of interest.  Jonah liked all of Louis things (splashing in his water dish, chewing his antler, etc.) and Louis enjoyed all of Jonah's things (stealing his toys and food).  Jonah walked around holding two hands and Louis would come up and lick him in the face!  Poor kid didn't have a free hand to defend himself, but he didn't seem to mind.

Cousin Addison's Baptism

10 Months

Jonah is making huge strides, figuratively and literally speaking.  He will stand and reach up with both hands for fingers to help him walk, and then run through the house as fast as he can manage.  He always goes in a straight line, then stops and turns on a dime with military precision, sometimes doing an about face.  He gets nervous when only holding one hand and inevitably down he goes.

Jonah is making many heterosyllabic sounds.  We are working on signs, and so far he's mimicked "more", which is a favorite, since it is so easy to do and has immediate reward.  "All done" and "hungry" are much more advanced.  We're not pushing so hard on this (nor am I consistent in teaching) so I'm not sure if it will take off.

Jonah loves to be the center of attention.  He will clap his hands, make silly grins, or anything that gets him attention and smiles.  He is a little shy on entering a new place or with new people, but he seems to warm up pretty quickly and gets into his groove of doing his own thing.

Jonah is very interested in checking everything out and figuring out how it works.  He is very persistent with a new toy, to see what every button, knob or spinner does.  He is especially interested in knobs, like those on the cabinets, drawers, etc. He will spin and play with the knob with little interest in actually opening the door or drawer.

Jonah will eat anything except baby food.  If it is pureed and spoon-fed, forget it.  If we eat it, and he can feed himself, he's game.  So that there would be food for Mommy, today we ordered him his first kids' meal!  He got his very own plate of penne and two big meatballs.  Jonah eats so much at meals that his milk intake is down to 4oz. bottles twice during the day between breastfeeding in the morning and at bedtime.

Bump Bump BUMP!

Jonah has been pretty clumsy in getting around.  Granted, he hasn't had as much practice as most of us.  Crawling, standing and cruising are all pretty new.  So it isn't surprising that he frequently falls... on his head.  He seems to have gotten a new bump every day this week.

Yesterday, while Jonah was home with Daddy with a sick tummy, Daddy called Mommy to deliver my "incident notice".  It wasn't until I got home that I realized why he went out of his way to warn me - Jonah had a huge, nasty mark on his forehead!  I guess Daddy was a little worried he would be in trouble.  I understand how heart-wrenching it is to be within an arm's reach and not be able to prevent the boo-boo.  Just Tuesday he dropped a toy into the tub and fell head-first climbing in after it.  Although, you couldn't even see that bump or the one Jonah got with Mommy today next to yesterday's giant gash!  All three in a row on his forehead.  It's a little embarrassing to go out in public with a child who looks neglected.

103.8

I wish that number was the channel of Jonah's radio show, but it was his temperature Wednesday night through Friday.  Infant acetaminophen brought it down to a mild 102 for about 3 1/2 hours at a time, but there was always a spike between doses.  Last Friday, school had emailed home a notice that they had a "confirmed case of hand, foot and mouth disease."  Great.  Daddy and I had talked about keeping Jonah home on Monday, but where does that end?  The next kid gets sick and the room is now a hazard area for another week, etc.  So instead, Jonah stayed home on Thursday with Mommy and a temperature of 103.8.

After two days (and before the weekend), I finally called the doctor's office to get a professional opinion.  I was probably the most calm first-time Mom to call: "my son has a fever... I'm not worried, but I wanted your opinion if we should come in..."  The nurse didn't seem any more concerned than I was, so we were told to wait another day and add ibuprofen to his medication to keep the fever down.  His fever seemed to break Friday night (or was it the ibuprofen?), then rose to the 102s on Saturday.  This brings us to the grey area of a.) not really worried since the fever is down but b.) well into day 3 of fever.  We stuck with our gut, to keep him home, cool, rested and hydrated.  The medical professionals couldn't do much for a virus anyway.

Jonah handled it pretty well.  I took it as a good sign that he was still able to fuss and eat, but mostly he just wanted to be held.  Mommy selfishly enjoyed almost 4 days of snuggling and cuddle naps.  As he recovered a little, he was still too lethargic to play but got a little bored of books.  Mommy downloaded the PBS Kids app and let him watch videos!  (To those moms who pledge off TV entirely, don't judge!)  I don't want this to become habit, but it was a good distraction for a sick kid.  He liked to touch the screen and would jump to the next episode, so we never saw more than 3 min. of any one thing.

I'm not really up on my toddler television programming, but was pleased to see an animated Mr. Roger's spin-off, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood".  At first it seemed weird that Daniel, who lives in the world of make-believe, goes into his own dreamlike visions of make-believe... but admittedly, an animated kitten playing is less weird than a grown man with a model train running through his house.  For another show, someone came up with the idea to combine little boys' two most favorite things ever: "Dinosaur Train"!  I can imagine that was the extent of the sales pitch before it went on the air.

Jonah is back to normal temperature (though not completely himself) and I think he'll be back to school tomorrow.  No sign of sores on his hands, feet or mouth, so maybe we escaped that discomfort...

Playgroup at the Park

I like the photo sequence here:

Jonah is playing with a little girl his age:

They stop for the photo op:

Big brother comes along to play, even better photo op:

 Big brother throws sand at everyone while Moms are busy taking pictures:

Badah Badah!

Daddy recently learned that the step right before talking is babble that includes different syllables. Jonah's been trying to mix things up a bit and we've heard a few strings that fit this description!  "Da-da-ga" is his favorite.

Jonah's also gotten pretty good at parroting sounds and does a pretty good "up", "book" and "dada". It makes me wonder when parents decide that a sound is baby's first word along the continuum of practice noises?

Jonah's favorite song right now is "Ba Dah Ba Dah".  We heard it once on our Jonah Radio Pandora station, and now Mommy can't get it out of her head!  Jonah perks right up (even mid-fuss) and starts singing and dancing along!  Soooo cute!
Except that Mommy doesn't really know how it goes beyond the four notes of the title, so I make it up as I go.  It drives Daddy nuts!  He even played a YouTube video with the "correct" version of the song (apparently "Mahna Mahna" - WARNING: highly contagious!), which features a Muppet doing scat, with two background singer Muppets staring at him for deviating from the script.  I can relate.  :-)

Advanced Crawling

We thought that with Jonah's love of walking, he would be unmotivated to perfect his army crawl, which achieves his goal of motoring around the house. Well, today he surprised us with a full-fledged crawl up on hands and knees! Totally out of the blue. It was a little awkward (i.e. cute), and didn't last long, but he made a couple short attempts throughout the day. Go Jonah! Crawling like the big boys!

Running Injury

It's pretty early in my career, but I have already sustained a running injury, which a quick Google search refers to as "dreaded ToFP" (top of foot pain).  It's quite possibly the stupidest running injury possible.  I'd expect a sore hammie or bum knee, but why is the top of my foot complaining?  I guess 6 miles twice in the week was more than it was willing to take.  Strange that it doesn't hurt at all while we're out, but 12 hours or so later, it is quite acute and even demanded icing.
Not wanting this to turn this repetitive injury into a permanent injury, we're going to lay off for a while.  Sad.  I'm really hoping a new pair of running shoes (to replace my old cross-trainers) will be sufficient to solve the problem!

Beach Day!

Jonah and Mommy spent the morning at a lake right in town.  I was so happy to find a spot under the shady trees!  Jonah didn't care too much for the sand (and didn't put it in his mouth, which was fine by me!)  He did love the water.

We walked down to the water's edge, where he stopped to gaze out into the largest body of water he's encountered close up.  I thought he might be scared, but after only a minute of consideration, he plowed right in... and kept going all the way up to his waist!  There, the water was high enough to splash with his hands.

We also went out swimming where the water was deeper.  There, Jonah flew up out of the water and splashed down over and over, until Mommy's arms hurt.  We would take a break and float, but Jonah doesn't like being on his back like he did at 3mo. old.  So we swam on his tummy and splashed from my hip.  He would push away from me to indicate that he wanted to go up and splash again.  :-)

There are many little fishies in the lake, which must be very used to swimmers.  They swam right near us!  Mommy followed some of the fish to point them out, but Jonah wasn't very interested.  One fish got aggressive on me and gave me a kiss (felt more like being struck by a pebble)!  They were far less cute after that.

Independence Day!

We enjoyed a pretty low-key 4th of July cookout in our cousins' yard, where everyone sat outside in the oppressive heat (instead of the indoor AC) because that's what you do on the 4th!  Jonah got to keep cool and splash in the pool with his cousins.  Kham had gotten the grand-kahuna of kiddie pools, complete with a spray and waterslide!  Jonah was extremely timid at first, and I spent half an hour baking in the sun while holding him so he could stand and lean over to splash.  I think he found the water was too cold (freshly filled from the hose) and deep (probably 6"), so he refused to sit.  Cleverly, he climbed on the pool edge enough times to drain out half the water.  By that time it had also warmed enough that he could sit and splash in warm, shallow comfort.

Ferberizing

After the pediatrician and Daddy teamed up against me and Jonah, we decided to try to stop the midnight snack habit.  So instead of me getting up to quietly feed Jonah for 20 minutes and go back to sleep, we've both been kept awake for over 2 hours for a couple nights with a screaming, hungry baby.  We held, rubbed, sang to, and walked him around to try and calm him.  It's exhausting.  It took him an hour or so to get desperate enough to accept water instead of milk, and then another hour to give up entirely.  It's heartbreaking!
Finally, after consulting another mother at work, I found that the best thing for Jonah is to NOT go visit him when he fusses.  He went back to sleep within 30 minutes that night.  And now, the midnight cries have completely ceased.

10k

A few weeks ago, while I was envying the Bob users, but unwilling to pay what would likely amount to $30/run with my infrequent use, I scored an old jogger for a whopping $9. At least I could try and see if it would improve our jogging experience. It's a InStep 10k, probably 10 years old. So far, it has been a huge improvement on my end!

1. It has large, 16" pneumatic rubber tires, so we can take cracks and bumps in the sidewalk without fearing a sudden stop (but no suspension for Jonah)
2. More stable for running and we can even ride a rough terrain or one side up on a soft curb without tipping over
3. Far less friction to push

The downsides:

1. Fixed front wheel (it pops a wheelie pretty easily, but turning is still a pain)
2. Huge size (not very easy to fold/pack)
3. The seatbelt is designed for a 7-year old rider
4. The canopy is useless in the low morning sun

I see why people end up with so many strollers! Our B-Agile is good at a lot of things (and we use it for everything else), and it seems inevitable that we will eventually get an umbrella stroller for easy trips. :-)

Jonah and I have been enjoying our run/naps in the morning on our days home from work/school. We had a cool morning this week and made a record 6-miler! It's been slow progress since April, but we have gone from 3mi of mostly walking to 6mi mostly jogging. Considering my lack of commitment (we're fair-weather runners), I'm pretty proud. I've been staring at the 10k on the stroller canopy, and feel like we've finally met the design intent!