High-Five!

This afternoon I went into Johnathan's room to get him up from his nap. He was in a really happy mood and was jumping up and down in his crib when he saw me walk in the room---too cute! I walked up to him, and he gave me a little playful shove in his excitement. I put up my hand and said "don't push your mommy" in a silly voice, and this is what he said to me. . ."high-five!" Wow! I walked closer, hand still up, and he smacked it with his own little "five" and said high-five again! Clear as day! This is the first time that he has said a new word all on his own, meaning that he didn't just hear me say it and then repeat it. I am so proud of him!!! His little vocabulary is expanding rapidly and includes the following:

1) Bo
2) Dada
3) All-done
4) Bye-Bye
5) Thank-you (Edited original post to add this one that I forgot! Thanks, Jamye!)
6) Ball
7) Hi
8) More
9) Agua
10) High-five

That's the order that he's said them in too. He will also say mama, but I'm not sure if he knows for sure that mama means me! Haha! I'd like to think that he knows, but won't write it down as a for sure quite yet!

Mealtime Meltdowns

Yesterday dawned bright and early, and as Johnathan played contently in his Pack-n-Play I prepared his breakfast...french toast, strawberry & banana chunks and yummy soy yogurt. When the food was all ready to eat, I went to get Monkey and carried him into the kitchen. On the way there, he saw his new football and I guess decided in his little head that it was time to play, and not time to eat...and then the meltdown came. I tried putting him into his chair, but he started throwing a major fit. A squirming like mad, throwing his head back fit! Aah!!! Once I got him into the chair he was really angry! I waited for a little while, until it seemed as if he had calmed down, and then I gave him his food...well, I guess he had just been giving me the silent treatment, because he was still angry, and as soon as the food was on the tray he picked it up in fist-fulls, and threw it all on the floor! I gave his little hand a pat and told him "no" and explained that we don't throw our food when we're angry...I'm not sure how much he can understand, but I have a feeling it is a lot more than he lets on! After a second "calming down" period I tried giving him more food...this time it got all mushed into his hair and then thrown on the floor! Where did my sweet little baby go??? After a couple more calm-down/fit cycles I eventually got him to eat a little, and then he got washed up and put down on the floor to play...and then what do you know, he was back to the sweet little gentle loving baby that I'd known. Phew, at least he got his fit out of the way for the day, and we could proceed with our routine in peace...or could we???

Johnathan's morning nap went well, and after he woke up, per our "schedule" we went to go eat lunch. I was so sure that lunch time would go smoothly, and had put the stresses over the morning meal out of my mind. Well, lunch did not go as I had hoped and I felt an extreme sense of deja vu as Johnathan threw another series of small tantrums! I had even made him one of his favorite lunches, and he still threw a fit! Can you believe it?!

I can now say that we are definitely in the discipline phase of parenting...but what is the most effective and loving way to discipline such a young child? Any good books that some of you been-there-done-that parents can recommend? I sort of know what I would like my parenting style to be, but don't know if it's proper to implement certain practices quite yet...I do believe in spankings, but would a baby understand that? For now I think I'll hold off on those, but I need some other ways that I can let Johnathan know what I expect of him, and what he is allowed/not allowed to do. *Sigh* I guess one of the keys is being consistent with whichever "practice" I use, and trying to stay calm and disciplining him in love and not in frustration.

Wow, I sure do have a renewed sense of thanks toward my own parents! Thank you for loving me enough to correct me when I was wrong, and for always letting me know how much you cared for me even through the disciplining years. I can remember y'all telling me "this hurts me more than it hurts you" and I always thought, "yeah, right!" Well, now I know! Love you guys!

He is Bilingual! Haha!!!

For several weeks now, whenever I am talking to Johnathan---usually asking him a question---I will ask the question in both English and in Spanish. My Spanish is extremely limited (but I hope to change that soon) so most of my questions are fairly short...such as "do you want some water?" or "quieres agua?" Well, today, all of my dual questions paid off! I asked Johnathan if he was thirsty and if he wanted some water/agua...and he said "agua!" He kept repeating the word agua over and over, and I was sooo proud of him! Now I know for sure that I need to keep this bilingual habit up, and hopefully before long we'll both be speaking in both languages!

Fun at Papi & Nana's

When we were up in Dallas a couple of weeks ago Johnathan and I were able to spend some time with Baby J's Papi and Nana...Aaron's folks for those of you who don't know. We all had a great time, and of course lots of pictures were taken to capture the cuteness of everyone's favorite little Monkey! Here are some of my favorites:

Don't you just fall in love when you look into those big brown eyes?!!
My precious little angel!
What a cute little baby in the basket!
I LOVE this little face!
Me and my little Monkey-boy!
My favorite little dude!
What a cute little chubby-bubby-belly!
Johnathan and his Nana.
He LOVED pushing the toy basket around...too cute!
About to attempt to walk...(he started walking the day after this pic was taken!).
Just my size!
Staring up at his adoring Nana.
Playing piano with Papi.
I think that Johnathan might be a future Van Cliburn!!!

"Dropped Call"

Today, the phrase "dropped call" got a brand new meaning...

...Johnathan had just finished "making a stinky", and as soon as I smelled the lovely aroma I went to get a new diaper and wipes. Now, Johnathan doesn't like getting his diaper changed, not at all. He wriggles, twists and squirms, and I have to work really hard to keep him still enough to get all the gunk off his little bum. Also, I have on occasion been known to speak a little too loudly to try to keep him from going all over the place---I always feel bad when I do that, and usually end up asking Johnathan to forgive me when we're all done. Anyways, one of the things that works more often than not to keep Johnathan distracted while I'm changing his diaper is playing with my cell phone. He likes to open and close it, push the buttons and listen to the noise the keys make. So, today, before I wrestled him to the floor, I gave him my phone to play with. All was going well until Johnathan decided that the phone just wasn't that interesting anymore, and before I could stop him, he dropped it---right into his very stinky, very mushy dirty diaper! EEWWW! It was so disgusting, and as I plucked it out of the mess I knew that the cell phone playing days during the diaper changes were over. So over! I don't think that my poor phone will ever be the same, and you can bet that I won't hear the phrase *dropped call* without smiling a little from now on! :)

My Lil' Tot!

Johnathan is officially a walker! Although he will still crawl, depending on the circumstance or terrain, he now mainly prefers to walk to get to his destination. It is so incredibly adorable, and I have enjoyed so much watching the evolution if you will of his learning to walk. He is still a little wobbly on his feet, and is prone to fall down quite a bit, but he gets right up and starts again! Here is a picture that my dad took that captures some of Johnathan's first steps. I love how his little foot is up in the air...precious! Also, another thing that I love about this picture is Johnathan's hair. I was going to cut it when we were up in Dallas, but after thinking it over, I really couldn't bring myself to do it. I love how it curls up behind his ears when he gets a little sweaty, and I think that it makes him look still sort of like a baby...even though he is clearly growing up! We'll see when the shears make their appearance, but for now we'll keep his baby curls on his head where they belong!

Safe & Delicious!

Yesterday I went grocery shopping at Sun Harvest, our local health food store. My main purpose for going there was to try to find some new "safe" foods for Johnathan to eat. With his extreme milk allergy I have had to be very aware of what is going into his little mouth, and as a result we have stuck to a pretty routine diet with him. Lately though, I have had the desire to expand what he can eat, and so I figured that a trip to Sun Harvest was in order. After browsing the aisles I discovered so many things that he will be able to eat...and I bought a lot of them! My favorite finds were the cheese and yogurt that they offered---both made with soy! They had so many yummy looking soy based foods, and I'm sure that in time we'll be trying most of them. I went ahead and bought some soy ice cream too so that Aaron can watch Johnathan enjoy it just like I did when Gwenny bought it for Baby J. when we were up in Dallas.

Here are the pictures that I got of Miles and Johnathan enjoying their treat from Gwen. Sadly, our camera broke before I could take any more, so you don't get to see the boys with their ice cream mustaches and beards that they ended up having. Here they are though, enjoying the cold-and-sticky-sweet-goodness of soy:

Johnathan got his ice cream cone first, but he didn't quite know what to do with it...Miles was looking on thinking..."just let me at it, and I'll show you how!"

See Johnathan, this is how you eat it!
Oh, and Johnathan, when you lick all the ice cream down,
you eat the cone and then there's more ice cream inside!

You've Done it Right if the Rice is White!

Okay, I know that this might sound a little random, but I know the perfect way to figure out whether your kitchen floor is clean or not---sweep up cooked white rice (thrown on the floor by a baby, or yourself, it doesn't matter), and then tell me if it comes up into the dust pan white...or is it a little gray and dirty looking!

Earlier today I was in cleaning mode...I'm almost always in cleaning mode, but today was different. With Johnathan's newly acquired two-legged mobility, I figured that it was time to broaden his horizons with a new baby-safe zone. Up until now I've really only let him roam on his own (with supervision of course) in the living room. All other areas (aside from his bedroom) have been off limits when it comes to being on the floor. Well, today that all changed, and the kitchen became a new safe(er) zone for Johnathan to play. I'm still working on getting all "my" cabinets baby-proofed, but it'll happen soon!

Yesterday I made Johnathan his own little cabinet, and supplied it with child sized pans, bowls, tins and rolling pins. I figured that if he is going to play in the kitchen, he might as well have something that he is allowed to "get into" and some items that will encourage creative play at the same time. Johnathan's little cupboard now sits right next to the fridge, and when I'm in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, he is able to play right there with me! It's so adorable, and I just love that he has his own little special place to keep his things. Too cute!

Anyways, back to today, and to my cleaning tip! With the knowledge that our kitchen floors were going to be a place that Johnathan was going to spending a bit more time toddling and crawling around on, I wanted to make sure that they were in tip-top shape, squeaky clean and the type of surface that you could eat off of...'cause, let's face it, when a baby sees something on the floor, it almost always goes into his mouth! I'm not advocating letting your child eat off of the floor, but if it's bound to happen at some time, the least you can do is make sure the floor is clean! This morning I vacuumed, swept, wiped and mopped the floor, and I was pretty sure that I had done a good job of it too. Well, this afternoon I proved myself right! I had made some rice to go along with our evening meal and decided to give a little to Johnathan to see if he liked it. He did, but in the process of enjoying it some ended up on the floor...perfect! Time to test my cleanliness!!! After he was all finished, I went to grab the broom and sweep up those bright white grains of rice, and you know what?---they came up clean as a whistle! Woohoo! Now I know that my floors are clean! Course I'll have to keep on mopping them pretty often to keep 'em that way, but I feel good right now knowing that Baby J. has a clean place to play! Who knew that rice was good for something more than just eating and throwing at people after weddings!

(NOTE: I didn't eat the rice off the floor, although I'm sure I could have!).

Absence Explained

Wow, it's been about 3 weeks since I last posted! That might just be a record! We sure have been busy these past weeks, especially the last week and a half. We just returned Monday afternoon from a 10 day trip back up to Big D, and like I have said before, Dorothy was right, there is no place quite like home. Johnathan and I had a wonderful time visiting our family, and I thought I'd recap our trip here for those of you interested (and for those of you who are uninterested...well, too bad!). I want to document a few of Johnathan's "firsts", so if you just want to read those, then scroll thru the bold print!:

Thursday, May 7th: Drove to pick up Grandma Evelyn who was going up to Grand Prairie so that she could catch a ride to David's (Aaron's brother) graduation the following weekend. We picked her up so that she could stay with us and be able to leave with us bright and early Friday morning. Johnathan took his first steps all by himself...and Aaron was the first one to see him do it! Yay!

Friday, May 8th: I only got about 3 hours total of sleep (thanks to Johnathan getting his bottom, second from the middle tooth on the left side...his left lateral incisor I believe). This left him, haha, get it, "left him", quite crabby, and so I got only 3 hours or so of sleep altogether! Yikes! We started off on our "road trip", not quite so bright and early, but we were off nonetheless. After an uneventful trip (with lots of prayer and caffeine to make it up without falling asleep), we dropped Grandma Evelyn off in G.P., and then we headed to Gail's house to work on a "secret project" that was set to be revealed on Monday...more on that later! Friday evening (late-ish) we got to our final destination...Grammy and Grandpa's house! Yay!

Saturday, May 9th: Went with Gwenny and Miles to Gail's house to continue some work on our little secret. Saturday evening Gwenny and I went to Greta's performance of Oklahoma the Musical...and boy, was it fantastic!!! I really was amazing, and I had a great time...shoeless and all! Inside story, no time to explain here!

Sunday, May 10th: Happy Mother's Day to Me---and all you other wonderful mothers out there!!! I was able to spend some time with my own dear mother, and I felt loved beyond measure from the little guy who makes each of my days a huge ball of joy!

Monday, May 11th: Okay, so here's the deal with the secret project---for weeks my dad, siblings and myself had been planning a special night to honor my mother for all her many years of dedicating herself to teaching us. 23 years y'all! Wow! We reserved a special table at Olive Garden where we were going to celebrate our night with our teacher! The siblings were going to have a "game night" at Gwen's, and Mom was expecting a "date night" with Dad on Monday...what she didn't know was that the plans were set in motion as we all schemed to get dressed up and ready to meet her and Dad at the restaurant. We all pitched in and made a totally fantastic scrapbook, full of memories from our school days. Long story short, Mom was totally surprised, the night was perfect, and the scrapbook gift was a blessing to Mom and us too! It was awesome...and she was totally surprised! PERFECT!!! We love you, MOM!!!

Tuesday, May 12th: Just hung out at Mom and Dad's, and made a couple of t-shirts...they are pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

Wednesday, May 13th: Made some t-shirts for the boys---Miles' says "Stink Happens" and has a little skunk on it, and Johnathan's says "Monkey Business" with a cute little monkey on it. Miles and Johnathan became quite good buddies over the course of our week+ there, and it was a joy to watch them actually play together! Miles is such a sweetie, and has so many cute little antics. Another first for all you bold-print readers - Johnathan had his first ice cream cone!!! Gwenny found some soy ice cream, and Johnny loved it to the max! Thanks, Auntie Gwen!

Thursday, May 14th: Johnathan visited his Nana, Papi, two great-grandmas, Celia and Evelyn & his great-aunt, Karen! We were able to go to Grand Prairie for dinner, and spent some time hanging out with Aaron's family. Johnathan had a great time with his adoring grand parents, and I had fun too! Oh, and Thursday was the day that I first heard Johnathan saying "thank you" quite distinctly. His little vocabulary is growing!

Friday, May 15th: Happy Birthday, Gloria!!! We celebrated Gloey's b-day in the morning, and that evening we went over to Gwen's and Matt's for a real sibling get together...all the scheming for our "siblings night" on Monday made us want to do it for real. So we did, and it was a blast! Johnathan was a bit crabby as the night wore on, so I tried to put him down for a nap...that didn't go over well, so I got him up, fed him some Sour Patch Kids...I know, bad Mommy, but the cute little face he made while eating them was priceless...and, after enjoying the sweet goodness, lo and behold, he started to walk!!! Yep, Johnathan began walking while hopped up on sugar! He stayed up until almost 1 o'clock and had the time of his life! Haha!!!

Saturday, May 16th: Happy Graduation, Glenna!!! Happy Graduation, David!!! We went to Geenzne's graduation, and were so proud of her as she walked across the stage, a high school graduate!!! Uncle David was in our thoughts Saturday as he graduated from Sam Houston State University. Yay David!!! That evening we all celebrated with Glenna, enjoying a graduation dinner at my folk's, and after some encouragement from his uncle Gaffin, Johnathan continued to walk...25 continuous steps was the record that he set!

Sunday, May 17th: Heard Johnathan saying "ball" when he saw the volleyball out in the garage at my folk's! Yay, Monkey! Way to go!!! Celebrated Gloria's (belated) birthday with a family lunch. It's a "tradition" in our family to celebrate birthdays multiple times if you're able to! Fun stuff, and just another excuse to get everyone together! That afternoon, after packing everything up, we headed to Johnathan's Tia & Tio's. We wanted to congratulate David on graduating, and we needed to pick up Grandma Evelyn who had stayed over after the graduation. Plus, I'm always ready for an excuse to see my sweet heart of a niece, Ava!!! We had fun hanging out with all of them, and enjoyed watching Johnathan and Ava interact with each other. Ava is such a cutie pie, and she is brilliant too! She talks really well, is obedient and just all around adorable! We love you, sweet Ava Joy!

Monday, May 18th: Yay! The day we get to see Aaron/Daddy again! We left David and Kayla's, dropped Grandma off on our way back, and arrived home safe and sound by 2:15 in the afternoon. It was wonderful to see Aaron after our absence, and Johnathan was more than happy to be out of his car seat...he did fantastic on our drive, and I was very thankful that he was such a trooper! I love you, sweet boy!

Anyways, that's our little trip in a nutshell...quite a big nutshell, anyways...lots more happened, of course, but I just don't have enough time (or patience) to be able to write it all down! Love y'all!