Timber

Boy, so many stories, so little time the last few weeks to write about them.

Last Sunday, Jonathan learned how to play timber at Rob and Karen's house. He would stand on the top of the back of the couch and then fall and crash onto the couch seat. That was such fun. Then he would jump up and grab my thumbs and I'd lift him back up onto the back of the couch and he'd do it again. Then he learned that he could fling himself down and it was more fun.

Today he enjoyed the same game on the bed and when sitting in my lap. If you stand him up and yell Timber and then give him a little push, he happily falls over, bounces up and wants to try it again. Hope he doesn't decide to play timber by himself, but seeing as he isn't saying words very clearly at the moment, he won't be able to give himself the verbal trigger so that's good for now.

Drinking Problem

We had a bit of a rain storm the other night that dropped at least 1/2". The next day I was breaking up old pallets in an attempt to clean up the place a bit and Gayla was taking a nap. Jonathan was awake having napped earlier so I took him out with me.

A month or two before, the infamous NNU dump had a metal cart with a deck about 2 feet off the ground surrounded by a 8" railing and wheels to boot. I took it home and it works well for moving rear-ends around and also as a little play area for Jonathan. I placed him in it with a few metal parts to play with while I broke up the pallets.

After about 30 minutes or so he got a little fussy just as I was breaking up the 2nd pallet so I gave him some rocks and some more metal parts. There were a few 55 gallon barrels nearby so I showed him that he could whack them with the metal parts to make a nice noise. He really enjoyed it and that kept him quiet through the 3rd pallet. Towards the end of the 3rd pallet I heard a sucking, slurping noise and I looked over and Jonathan had grabbed the top lip of one of the barrels and by stretching as far as he could was able to drink the rain-water that had collected in the top. This caused me a bit of concern so I picked him up and said, "You know if you're thirsty, perhaps you could ask for a drink of water." I took him inside and provided him with a nice plastic glass of water and the little turkey wouldn't drink any of it. Now that he's had barrel water, he's not so interested in the boring stuff.

First Steps

The small child has taken a few steps. His favorite is the side-step while facing furniture so he can keep from falling if needed. It's pretty interesting to see him trying something new.

He's also been eating the occasional apple. He eats a piece and chews a bit and then spits out the skin, then takes another bite and so on. After a bit he's sitting on the floor surrounded by apple skin bits.