Kiddo milestones, December version

Awaaaay we go.

Austin
Austin's got 2 adult teeth breaking the gum now. The left bottom (well, i guess that'd be right bottom for him...it's left bottom to me) incisor is about halfway up, and the right bottom incisor has just broken through in the past few days. Strangely, no baby teeth have fallen out! Though his left bottom one is really loose (not to mention badly displaced now...it's been pushed out and over so it's really crooked compared to before) and I could probably yank it out if I tried hard. No need to traumatize the poor boy, though, so I'll just let it do its own thing.

He is really into drawing now, loves to do it every day and seems to improve all the time. I continue to be amazed at how detailed his pictures are. He declared the other night that "I'm an artist". I had to suppress a chuckle. But I'm also irrationally worried now that I've been praising him too much about it and leading him to believe he's unusually talented. Hard to say. I like that he believes in himself but I don't want to give him a false sense of pride, y'know? And I really have no baseline to go by, since I don't really know what level of talent/detail a 5-year old should be drawing at. But to me it really does look like he's got an eye for art and detail. Has a great memory for it, too. So I continue to encourage him.

Austin's reading skills continue to improve. He can read whole sentences at times now, recognizes many words (I've lost count of how many), and can sound out many more. He's beginning to get concepts like silent "e" and digraphs (sh, ch, th) which increases his word recognition. And he can also write entire sentences from memory--often they're sentences they learned by rote in class, but sometimes he gets creative too. He's written sentences such as "We can go to your cat" and "you can look at the dog". I'm so impressed!

Jonas
Whoo. Jonas is still a force of nature. He has the terrible twos like nothing we've ever seen. He's stubborn, headstrong, and has a hair-trigger temper. He doesn't understand the relationship betweeen bad behavior and punishment yet, either, so disciplining him is incredibly difficult (and not particularly effective). But when he's in a good mood he's just as joyful and happy as any child I've ever seen. He's going to be the source of many sleepless nights when he's a teen, I suspect. :) Of course, he's the source of many sleepless nights as a 2-year old--still. We continue to have issues with him getting up too early, as well as getting to bed on time. Last Friday night/Saturday morning, for instance, he went to bed around 7:45 but was awake at 1am, 1:30, 2am, 2:45, and 3:30. Wasn't crying or upset, just coming to our door and repeating "mama! mama!" until someone got up and rocked him back to sleep. At 3:30, after Amy unsuccessfully tried to get him to sleep in the bed between us, I finally gave up and took him to the couch to sleep next to me. He (and I) both slept fitfully, though he did finally stay asleep...until 5:40, that is, when he was up for good. I was probably awake 80% of the time between 1am and 6:30 that morning. Not fun at all.

To help counter the sleep problems, we're weaning Jonas off naps for good. It's been kind of a rough transition, especially at night when he gets so grumpy...but he doesn't fight us about bedtime anymore, and he does sleep through the night more. And though he still gets up on or before 6am most mornings, it's a lot closer to 6am than it used to be.


Devon
Devon is crawling like a champ now. He picks up speed every day, and has learned that he can follow us from room to room--so we have to be careful/mindful of his location at all times. Of course with crawling comes the inevitable "pick up everything on the floor and put it in my mouth phase" so we're constantly fishing stuff out of his mouth...hard to keep the floor clean with 2 other younguns running around constantly with play-doh, chips, toys, etc.

In addition to crawling, he wants to stand up and walk so bad. He is pulling up on everything/everyone, all the time. Yesterday I noticed he was standing fully erect now too, and putting more weight on his feet and less on his arms. I've even seen him let go several times. Of course he doesn't quite have the balance, and has landed on his butt a lot; but he's very eager to figure out how to center his weight above himself. And he's getting it much more rapidly than I was expecting. Of course, Austin was taking steps by his 1st birthday (Jonas was a few months later), so I guess Devon's also on course to be taking steps by March if not before.

UPDATE: Devon stood up by himself yesterday! He was pulling up on my leg, then all of a sudden got a concentrated/inspired look on his face and just...pushed up and off. He stood free for a 3-count before losing his balance! Go Devon!

Devon's also started making complex facial expressions, which is just to-die-for cute. He has this one face where he wrinkles up his nose and smiles/snorts...it's only a momentary look so we haven't caught it on camera yet, but it's adorable to the point of overload.

He's very interested in sounds now...he'll stare at your mouth for as long as you're making sounds he wants to imitate (ma-ma, ba-ba, da-da, clicks, etc). Sometimes he'll try to copy, but not very often. His favorite sound is, well, impossible to describe in English but it's roughly "ghhhhhhheee!" (think of a sound roughly halfway between Ernie's laugh and Roscoe P. Coltrane). It's his primary sound of communication and he makes it all the time (especially to express happiness)--to us, to himself, and to the cat! His other major sound is growling, which is absolutely hilarious. And he gets tickled when we growl back too. He growls most often when he's eating or around food, which I haven't quite figured out yet.

Still no upper teeth, though I can kind of see his gums swelling out so I suspect it won't be long now before we start seeing white pressure spots appear.

OH - I should mention that the constant spitting up is no more! He hardly ever throws up now. There are days when we still have exceptions, but by and large he is barf-free. He also loves to try new foods now and will eat anything you put in front of him....bananas, meatballs, pasta, etc. We give him whatever he can mash up with his gums (he's only got 2 teeth, after all) and/or isn't overly processed.

Overall Devon's a great baby and is in his super-sweet, super-adorable phase. He's a lot of fun and gets along great with both big brothers now (and vice-versa).

That's all for now!

November 2009 photos are up! Featuring our trip to the fair, Devon crawling and pulling up on stuff, the kids being generally cute/wacky, and our first Thanksgiving at home. Enjoy!