i think it means we’re teaching him self esteem

Jonah is figuring out some of his toys on a new level. Whereas many items were deemed merely good for chewing or banging on or with, now he’s starting to get how the shapes go into the matching holes on the shape sorting toys, and how to put the rings on his new stacking toy.

And when he completes one of these actions, he claps his hands and says “Yay! Yay-yuh!”

Because up to now, that’s what we’ve done and said when he does something impressive: “Yay Jonah!”

He’s also interacting with his stuffed animals in a new way. He takes them with him sometimes, out of the crib, from one room to another. And he nuzzles them. Literally nose-to-nose. “Kiss on the nose,” I say, and he does it again, and “Kiss on the nose” with our faces offered and he nose-to-noses with us too.

He has two giant stuffed dogs. I have liked to take the dogs and animate them as if they were puppets, making them jump around, nuzzle Jonah, and say “Woof Woof!”

So now Jonah grabs one or the other by the scruff of the neck (they’re twice his size) and shakes them up and down and says in-his-language “Wooure Wooure.”

He’s starting to get the hang of the word “More” in relation to food and meal times though he is also finding that if he points at what he wants, I’ll respond accordingly. He’d prefer to hold the “Boon” and “Bowol” himself, leading the kitchen to look like it snowed pureed spinach.

“Out” is one of his clearest words. Out of the chair, out of the bathtub. “Down” is also working for him. Let me get down to the floor, I have places to go, toys to manipulate and applaud myself for so doing.

I think he says “Done” now but it’s similar to “Down” so it’s a tough call — especially since he’s usually elevated when he’s eating. He seems to be waving his arms criss-cross, and wildly (like a manic umpire signaling “safe”) as another way to show me that meals are over. Which is not unlike one or two of the signs I have tried to teach him for “All done.” Though it is more like the same motion his hands make when he is done eating but still has access to the dregs of his meal which he likes to spread and fling horizontally off his high chair tray. Fore!

And in the diaper area: Jonah now will let us know when he’s ready to be changed. Quietly, with a meaningful look, he says, “Poop.” Meanwhile, he has not been interested in our EC antics lately. No “catches.”

Tonight when Scott and Jonah returned from a late afternoon trip to the park, the moon had risen early. A bright white crescent in a slate blue sky — very much like the moons in his books, which he usually calls “Sky” or rather “Sgai-yuh” since they’re almost always described as “the moon in the sky” and he is wont to simplify things.

Anyway, Scott reports that Jonah saw the crescent and said “Mooooon.”

His first real moon sighting.