Austin
Austin lost his first tooth last night! Amy and I were prepping dinner when Austin walks in with a worried look...the gum around his loosest tooth was bleeding, though it didn't hurt. After getting the bleeding slowed down I looked at the tooth and it was just barely hanging on. I declared it was coming out. Long story short, after about 15 minutes of trying to come to an agreement on how to take it out, Austin simply reached a fingernail underneath the front edge and pulled it out. No pain, not much blood, but a very surprised face. And once he figured out what he'd done he was very excited. :) He got ice cream as a special celebratory dessert, and last night the tooth fairy left him a very special Eisenhower dollar (the tooth fairy chose this coin because Austin's never seen one before, and thought he'd like the size and the design).
More tooth photos here
School-wise, Austin's reading and writing improves all the time. He can now read entire pages of simple books to me, and can work through many words in just a few tries. He doesn't always store what the word is, but that comes with time. He's getting way more confident with it and even parses 2-letter sounds (sh, ch, th and so forth) without a problem. His writing is progressing very well too, and sometimes he'll even attempt new words on his own. He's also practicing writing his numbers; this is going okay, although he still does about half of them backwards. I suspect this is due as much to his lefthandedness as anything.
Austin's speech is improving tremendously--he doesn't start-and-stop much at all anymore, and he's also pronouncing sounds correctly almost all the time. I'm very impressed with how quickly his speech problems were cleared up.
He still loves to draw and will make you a picture at the drop of a hat. He also loves to make cards for people, especially "feel better" (get well soon) cards.
Jonas
Jonas is your typical 2-year old and can be so challenging--very headstrong and willful and stubborn. But he's starting to control his temper better and his protests are getting shorter. Now if we could only breaking him of 3 annoying habits: pulling a chair up to the counter anytime someone is preparing food; making a dash to the fridge/pantry whenever it's opened; and waking up in the middle of the night for no reason. At least he's sleeping in in the morning a little bit later, although this may be temporary--he was sleeping till 7am or later over the Christmas break, and I'm hoping his body got used to it and now needs those extra Z's. It's certainly better than him awaking at 5am every morning and watching cartoons on our bedroom floor while Amy gets dressed.
All that being said, he is still an extremely intelligent child. His speech and communication gets more and more complex every week, it seems. Just since mid-December I've noticed a very distinct "upgrade" to the way he communicates and speaks. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head.
As part of that improvement he's started transitioning into the "why?" stage. It hasn't gotten to the point where he's asking 35 "why?" questions in a row, but that day is coming. :) Another sign of his increasing ability is that he asks other questions repeatedly now. That can get pretty tiring, but I try to remember that he's practicing not just comprehension, but how to say the words themselves. So when he asks me 50 times (no exaggeration) where the moon is, I have to exercise some patience. He loves to ask "where? where? where? where? where? where? where?", especially if someone leaves the room. "Where mommy? where mommy? where mommy?" It doesn't really matter if you give him the right answer or not, he'll keep asking it until he's satisfied.
Probably best of all is that Jonas gets along much better with Devon now. They even make each other laugh on a daily basis. Jonas can still be pretty mischevious with Devon, knocking him down or yanking his hands off something when Devon's trying to pull up, or yelling in the car while Devon's napping. Yesterday he even tried to pick Devon up by grabbing the back of his shirt and pulling upwards! But overall they get along a lot more peacefully, and safely. I don't feel like I'm putting Devon in danger anymore by leaving him in the room alone with Jonas for 5 seconds.
Devon
Devon had his 9-month checkup earlier this week. I don't remember the measurements themselves (I want to say 20 pounds, 29 inches; not sure if that's right) but I know he gained 2 pounds and 2 inches. Amy said he's in about the 50th percentile for weight and around 90th for height.
He's pulling up all the time and is starting to cruise more regularly now. He'll also let go occasionally, as often by accident as not; he can't stand for more than a second or two normally but every once in a while he'll figure out how to stabilize himself.
He's also changed his sleep patterns lately, going to bed much later than usual--as late as 7:30--and then waking up around 10pm for 20 minutes or so. Thankfully that's almost always the last time he's up. And we think his upper 2 teeth are trying to break through. The gums are very swollen and I thought I saw one parting a few days ago, but haven't seen it since. Hopefully he's indeed teething and they'll come through soon because he's been kind of grumpy the past several weeks.
With teeth comes people food, of course! Devon's trying everything now including chicken, bacon, pork loin, even hamburger. He likes mashed potatoes and rice, and will eat pretty much any fruit you put in front of him. He appropriated nearly an entire apple from Jonas last night and went to town on it while we went to dinner, shaving off little bits and pieces of the apple with his only 2 (bottom) teeth. He ate nearly half of the apple doing that! It was amazing. He was going to town on that thing.
Devon is learning 2-way communication. He loves to wave both spontaneously and on demand; he also occasionally waves in context (going to bed, leaving the house, etc). He knows a couple different ways to wave, though only Austin can get him to wave using his whole arm (versus flexing his fingers in and out). He will parrot the noises you make if he can--raspberries, ba-ba-ba, tongue-clicking, etc. He thinks it's really funny. And he's even trying to talk now--he tries to say "uh-oh" especially if you say it. It usually just comes out "uh!" but it's definitely not random.
As mentioned above, he and Jonas get along a lot better now and Devon loves being entertained by Jonas. And of course he and Austin get along famously as always. That may change once Devon's on his feet and following everyone around, but for now he and Austin are still best buds.
December photos and possibly videos, including Christmas pics, will be up just as soon as I can get to 'em (hopefully this weekend?). I know I'm behind in doing them but things have been crazy since the New Year.
Speaking of New Year, happy 2010 to everyone who reads this! I hope it's your best year ever.
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