Enjoying a great meal that Jonathan treated us to last night
John Harrison and I went out to play on the green space at the condo yesterday while David and Jonathan watched the NBA playoff game. Considering the sad defeat experienced by the Celtics, I think that John Harrison and I had a better time than David and Jonathan did.
Having fun riding on Mom's back
Tuckered out...no, John Harrison is not sleeping on the floor---he is just taking a minute to recoup so he has energy to run around some more even though he is exhausted :)
Here are some random thoughts about John Harrison recently---
It is so fun seeing John Harrison develop, grow, and learn new skills. His latest venture is climbing onto furniture.....in the near future (tomorrow), I see us helping John Harrison learn to sit (not stand) while on a chair or a couch.
John Harrison's vocabulary consists of the following words: baba (he also will sometimes say "bottle"), mama, dada, more, bear, bird (he can identify both birds and bears), bye bye, dada getcha, tiss (kiss), shake it (David taught him this one---he loves it when we take a plastic container full of Cheerios, etc. and say "shake it" as we shake the container up and down), bath; to give John Harrison credit, he has said the word "baby" once while looking at a baby. Starting a while ago, I tried to teach John Harrison basic sign language---he used several of the signs for a while, then started actually saying some of the words. He never quite learned the sign for "all done" and instead, he waves his arms up and down when he is "all done" eating. He knows the sign for milk and when he wants his bottle, he will start out saying "baba" in a really sweet voice, then progressively get louder and more emphatic, and also throw in the "milk" sign to let us know he is serious in his request. Often while he is happily drinking his bottle, he will do the "milk" sign....I'm not sure if he is just content or if he is letting us know that he has a good thing and to keep it coming.
By far, John Harrison's most frequently used word is "baba." He is very attached to his baba. Although he only gets water during the day, he doesn't ever want the baba to get too far away. He cherishes his nighttime and morning milk bottles and I imagine that weaning from the botle will be a painful process for everyone.....weaning from breastfeeding was quite challenging, but we made it through, so hopefully phasing out the nighttime and morning bottles won't be any worse.
John Harrison is not really attached to any physical object other than his "baba." When he got really sick last summer, John Harrison detached himself from his pacifier. Although we have tried to help him attach to a stuffed animal, he has not consistently shown an attachment to one particular animal. I think that I should keep trying to find a toy or stuffed animal that he will attach to....I think that transitioning to new environments when we travel would be much easier if he had a favorite stuffed animal to travel and sleep with.
This evening John Harrison looked onto our balcony and saw a bird---he immediately said "bird" and waved bye-bye when the bird flew off. Also, there was a dead baby bird on our balcony---he recognized the animal as a "bird" and waved at it. I told John Harrison about how Jesus cares for each bird and how even more so he provides for, cares for, and loves us. I look forward to when John Harrison will begin to understand about Jesus' love and care for him.
sounds like john harrison is a super fun little boy!! i love the baby signs. they are so much fun. my kids both still do them if they aren't getting a fast enough response from me. "more" has definitely been a fave of luther's and "please" for pearl. i weaned both of my kids straight to sippy cups instead of a bottle, but they seem just as attached to them as kids get to a bottle. they both sleep with one(with water in it) and keep them close at hand all day. somehow that is the only thing either one of them is attached too as well.
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