Jonah is starting to play very well with his toys.  He has specific toys he likes most, and one of those is a monkey puppet that Gram and Gramps gave him not long ago.  He also thoroughly enjoys pulling toys out of his toy basket and then either putting them back in, or finding another container in which to place them.  He’s pretty silly.

I’m pretty sure Jonah will be walking any day now (I may have said that previously, but now I’m fairly certain of it).  He walks around tables and along cabinets routinely, and we’ve caught him standing on his own (no hands) on several occasions… for several seconds at a time.  I feel like it’s going to be all of a sudden… like tomorrow night, he’ll just decide it’s his night to start walking, and the next day he’ll be running.  We’ll see!

As far as health and wellness goes, the poor boy has had his first real cold.  It started quite awhile ago, lasted for two weeks, seemed to almost go away, then come back, and now he just has a lingering cough.  He’s been a champ through it all though.  He’s been sleeping through the night… sometimes.  Otherwise he usually only wakes up once, so that’s been nice.  He’s eating very well… sometimes I feel like he eats more than I do.  He’s started eating breakfast, so that brings him up to a solid three meals a day!  The milk consumption, as a result, has definitely started to decrease.  The boy will need a haircut soon… he has a nice little mohawk, and the hair in the back of his head is very long.  Maybe by his first birthday we’ll get it done.

No real words yet other than “hi” and “dada” which I actually think has been used to address me at times instead of just babble!  Lastly, Jonah got to experience his first snow today!  It’s been snowing most of the day, and he seems pretty intrigued about the sudden change in appearances of the surroundings he’s used to seeing.  Here’s his week 46 photo, and I hope to be on time next week and stay caught up!

The boy eats just about as much solid food as I do these days.  An example of a normal meal for him would be the following: half an avocado, half a banana, a handful of green beans, and maybe 1/4 cup of chili.  And we’ve started feeding him two meals a day pretty consistently.  His sitter says he’s drinking less milk during the day as well, but that hasn’t been the case at night when he’s home with us.

Jonah didn’t do so well as we were traveling over the holidays.  He had many nights where he just screamed and didn’t sleep well at all, and his moods were fairly cranky… he was pretty hard to please.  Earlier this week, he had a fever and seemed really uncomfortable, so we think he’s cutting more teeth (to add to his current count of eight).  All of that has subsided, however, and he’s been just peachy the last few days… in a great mood and sleeping well.  He had his nine-month appointment this week and, as always, passed with flying colors.  He weighed in at 22 pounds even and was 29 inches long, so he’s evened out a little… probably because he’s so much more active now.

I think that about does it.  I’ll try to get back in the groove and update you every week again.  Here’s the latest photo… crazy how Freddy keeps shrinking!!  Take a look at this photo compared to THIS ONE from Week 4!

Make no mistake, Jonah is still by far the cutest baby alive and wins our hearts every single day.  It’s just that… well, he has to work a little harder to win our hearts these days.  Things are definitely exciting, and it’s amazing to watch how quickly he’s developing.  On December 17th, we discovered that, all of a sudden, Jonah can pull himself up in the crib and walk around holding onto the rail.  It was a frightening revelation that definitely changed the game a bit.  Since then, if there’s something he can reach with which to pull himself up, he’ll head straight for it, pull himself up, and be just about the proudest person you’ve ever seen.  It’s cute.  The downside is, of course, that we can’t take our eye off him for more than 2 seconds, lest we develop a sudden desire to live in a house full of mangled mementos, torn-up treasures, and broken babies.

Jonah has continued to steadily improve with his eating.  Whereas before, much of his meal would end up in his chair or on the floor, these days he throws down the food with great fervor and surgical precision, leaving only a few wayward pieces here and there.  He’s still eating much of the same… sweet potatoes, green beans, bananas, carrots, etc.  New foods we’ve given him lately include eggs, salmon, chicken, and applesauce.  He seems to love it all!

Jonah now knows several “tricks.”  You know about the clapping and touchdown… he also waves and says “hi!”  Well, really it’s more of a “haaaaa!”  I think he likes being around a bunch of people because when he is, he gets very excited and often just starts clapping or doing touchdown.

Sleeping… hmm, sleeping has been interesting.  He’s very unpredictable.  He might have a great night where he just wakes up once and goes right back to sleep.  Or he might have a night where he wakes up 38 times and screams for 20 minutes before going back to sleep.  This is very un-Jonahly.  When he’s tired, he doesn’t really give us much warning or show signs of being so… unless you count the screaming.  There’s lots of that.

Anyway, that’s all for now.  To summarize, we were caught a little off-guard by this little “phase” Jonah is going through.  We know we’ve had it easy until now, and we’re starting to understand a little bit what it’s like to have less sleep than we’re used to.  But he’s still our amazing, smart, perfect little boy… as you can see here: