Jonah's milestones

Jonah will be a year old in less than a month. Right now, I have barricaded the entrance to the living room with the hopes that it will contain him this time. So far, he has discovered how to get through three different barriers between the living room and the rest of our apartment. I set my baby down in the ultra-baby-proof living room, where all of his toys are, leave for a few moments to use the bathroom, and when I come back I find Jonah in the hallway. As I sit here peering over my monitor at the baby zooming around the room, I have to wonder "when did this happen?" It seems like Jonah's mobility came overnight!

I haven't been doing a very good job of blogging about Jonah's major milestones, so here is the rundown post for all of Jonah's developments in mobility!

Soon after we moved to Toledo, Jonah began to roll over. It was pretty sporadic and random at first, but soon after Thanksgiving, rolling was a regular occurance during tummy time


Jonah got to be pretty sufficient at rolling, and if he wanted to get somewhere, he put his mind to it and got there! He would use a combination of rolling and kind of inching along on his belly. By March, he was ready to show us his next milestone: sitting. The family was getting ready to go to Daryl and Dallin's birthday dinner. To put Jonah's shoes and socks on him, I propped him up on a toy, but he proceeded to sit up completely unassisted! Surprise Mommy! Happy Birthday Daddy!
He began to perfect his "army crawl" and became less reliant on rolling as a means of transportation. In May, just after Mother's Day, I went into Jonah's bedroom to check on him during nap. This is what I found:
Jonah, on his hands and knees. Throughout May, we encouraged him to move forward, but he would just collapse back into an army crawl. Then, in Mid-June, Daryl and I left Jonah with his grandparents overnight for the first time. When we had left, Jonah had been showing interest in crawling, but wasn't quite making it. When we returned, Jonah was able to crawl full-fledged.Early this month, he began to pull up onto furniture on his own. While he isn't cruising any distances yet, he has managed to get from the corner of the couch to the corner of the ottoman. He has also just recently learned how to get down from standing up.


All in all, it has been incredible to watch my little guy learn to get around. At the same time, he has definitely been keeping us on our toes in the baby-proofing department!

Peek-a-boo and signing

A fun thing happened to us this week. My last post, I shared that I wasn't thrilled with the pattern of fabric on our new carseat, but we got it at a closeout price. Well, the company that I ordered the carseat from was out of that pattern, so they let me choose any pattern that I wanted. So I still got my first pick for the closeout price! The seat just came this afternoon, and we will be installing it into the van first thing in the morning. We are leaving tomorrow to visit friends in Pennsilvania, and since it is the longest trip Jonah has made in the car, it will be nice to have the new seat for him.


Here are some fun videos from this week. Jonah has been signing "all done" very consistently. Daryl isn't impressed. He says that Jonah doesn't do the sign properly (your supposed to flip your hands back and forth) but I say for a nine month old, he's got it pretty good. In this video, we had just finished putting sunblock on to go outside. He's waving his hands in the beginning because he had to sit still to put the lotion on, but you can see when he stops randomly waving his hands and when he does the sign. This is exciting for me, that he is finally doing this!!! I've been signing with him since the day he was born.



And here is a video of Jonah goofing off after bathtime

Pancakes and kaspetties

Today we went to IHOP for brunch. We don't go there often, but we were making a trip to Babies' R Us to purchase Jonah's new carseat and a few other baby items, and IHOP is right across the street. We have come to a routine when eating out. I feed Jonah his purees after we order, while we wait for our meal to come, and then after our food comes Jonah gets puffs or other finger foods. We've been experimenting with different finger foods for Jonah. Today as he looked longingly at our plates of buttermilk pancakes, I gave in. Out went organic, out went whole grain, out went all of my health-nut-mommy rules. I tore up my pancake and gave it to my son. He loved it of course. He devoured each morsel laid in front of him, with huge smiles that melted the hearts of everyone eating around us.

We ended up not getting the carseat from Babies' R Us. They didn't have the model that I really wanted, and the models that they did have were at least $80 more expensive than what I've seen them go for online. I actually ended up buying a better carseat for $40 less than the least expensive one that we were considering from BRU. We were considering the Britax Marathon, which is a convertible carseat that extends rear facing to 35 lbs and forward facing to 65 pounds. I feel that it is extremely important to keep children riding rear-facing as long as possible, and then still in a five point harness as long as possible after that. Britax is by far the best built car seat sold in the US, and top notch in safety.

The car seat I actually bought online is a few models higher than the Marathon. Jonah will be riding pimped out in the Britax Boulevard. This car seat has safety measures to ensure as little movement as possible in either side collisions or front/back collisions. I wasn't too thrilled with the pattern of fabric that we got, but it was really cheap because the pattern has been discontinued. It matches the interior of the van, and was about $100 cheaper than current patterns, so it isn't so bad (just not my first choice.)
I also picked up some jarred baby food for Jonah. I've noticed that he can eat the textured baby foods that come from a jar, but he isn't doing so well with the textured foods that I make for him. I'm trying to get him used to different textures, but with the home made food, he gags until he throws up. So, I decided that the jarred foods might actually be better for introducing the textures. Tonight he tried spaghetti with cheese. There are a couple of new things in this meal- tomatoes and dairy. I had planned on starting yogurt tomorrow, so dairy isn't such a big deal. Tomatoes aren't that big either, since I was thinking about trying spaghetti with him soon anyway. I've found in my years of working at a nursery, that spaghetti is actually one of the best foods to start offering when beginning table food. If he has a reaction, we will wait a week, then try each separately. So far, it does not look like he will have food allergies. When he was a couple months old, he seemed to have a reaction to strawberries that were in medicine he was getting, but now berries don't seem to bother him.

It is just hard to believe that my little man is already eating pancakes ad kaspetties with cheese, and getting a big boy carseat. It seems like yesterday that he was kickin around in my belly, and I'm sure he'll be off to college by tomorrow.

A Legend Lives

I was outside, rearranging the seats in the minivan, when Daryl came and told me. "Frankie Manning is dead." Daryl doesn't sugar coat anything. He doesn't gently build up to bad news, hoping to soften any blows; it's just not his way. "Frankie Manning is dead. He died this morning."

I only met Frankie once, just about a year ago, and he was getting ready to celebrate his 95th birthday. His health was failing. Yet, I felt that I had just been told that a close relative had suddenly passed away. Frankie Manning was a legend. He had begun to become a fixture in everyone's minds; an immortal who would always be there. This man, this 95 year old man, who was born in Florida and grew up in Harlem; this retired postal worker, someone who had lived most of his life just trying to get by, became the inspiration for the song of thousands of Americans.

I could go into detail about the history of his life, but it is too easy to just google his name and find hundreds of tributes to him. I will only say this: Some people refer to him as "the original lindy hopper" but I think it would be more accurate to call him "THE lindy hopper." There is not a single move, not a single step, not a single turn that we do that was not touched or influenced by Frankie. We owe his legacy all that we are.