Jonathan Update - 8 Months Old

Things Jonathan loves to do these days...

• Read... have us read to him that is. He tolerates picture books but loves to listen to whatever Michael or I happen to be reading. (I LOVE cuddling up with him as we read several times a day.)
• Looking at the picture of Jesus in the front of his Book of Mormon. He will be crying and will stop and smile when we show him the picture of Jesus.
• Pull my hair. He gets in trouble but he still just pulls away.
• Scream! He especially loves to scream in my ear. While reading I will look over and smile at him, we giggle and then I turn my head back to start reading again just as he turns his head and screams in my ear.
• Eat. He can kind of feed himself his puff snacks. He gets it in his fist, hand moves to his mouth, sometimes he can figure out how to get it from his fist to his mouth, but most times he finds his thumb and forgets all about his snack. (This entertains us for hours.)
• Sit up and softly fall over. He no longer needs a pillow to cushion his fall. He can push himself back up sometimes but usually wants to be down once he's down.
• Crawl... kind of. He can get around and is getting much faster but still hasn't figured out a crawling stance. I wouldn't call what he does an army crawl as much as I would call it the earth worm.
• Grow teeth from 2 to 5 (almost 6).
• Sleep... he is a kid after my own heart. He wakes up at about 7:00 and an hour or so later he is down again for his first nap. In the afternoon he takes another short nap. He needs another nap by about 5:00 until we wake him up at about 7:00. Then in bed at around 8:30 for the night where he makes a token scream or cry, but then usually goes right to sleep.
• Being outside. We are excited for our first sledding experience with him.
• Bounce. My sister-in-law brought up a jumper contraption for him and he goes crazy!
• Play with dad! He loves when his dad comes home from work each day.
• Spit. Sometimes he spits when he's angry... also when he is happy, bored, and content. His new favorite trick is to show me how he can spit while he is eating... not my favorite trick he has.
• Wearing his next stage of clothes. We just moved up to the 12 to 18 month stage, what a big kid.
• Smiling. He is such a happy kid and will smile at anyone who talks to him.
• Playing with Dad's pen. He loves to pull it out of Dad's shirt pocket, stick it in his mouth, and drop it.
• Chew on shirt tassels and zippers. Whenever I wear a sweatshirt or anything with a zipper it goes right in his mouth. I figure, at least it keeps him entertained.
• Put his head all the way back. If he's laying on my lap he will shove his head in between my knees so that he can look at the world with an upside down perspective. (He also does this while sitting up but it's for a better view of the ceiling.)
• Being a BYU fan. GO COUGARS!!!
• Take off his socks. I feel like I am taking his sock out of his mouth and putting them back on his feet all day long.

Things Jonathan does not like too much...

• Finishing his bottle... you would think he was starving to death by the crying that ensues after finishing a bottle.
• Being left too long to play by himself. (By too long I mean anything over 10 min most of the time.)
• Making snow angels. He did an awesome job but he was very unhappy.
• Putting on his snow gear. He loves being outside but doesn't understand why he has to put on so many clothes to get there these days.
• Rolling off the bed. This seems like it would be a given to most parents but it still took us three times of rolling off to realize he is done taking naps on the bed. (I think changes are much harder on parents than they are on kids.)
• Having what little hair he does have combed in a butt part like his dad used to have.