temper tantrums

This past week has been one of many changes for little Jonas. I would have to say the biggest and lamest change is that he has discovered his ability to throw temper tantrums. Apparently, he inherited the "Barnhardt Stubbornness" which makes him continue to pitch a fit for very, very, long times. little stinker! The only thing that seems to really upset him, though, is not getting to go outside. It has been raining for days here, and I admit, I did take Jonas out in the pouring rain to calm him down. It was like, 55 degrees and he was a very happy boy playing in the water. Sigh... we're gonna need to nip this in the bud.

Besides throwing tantrums, Jonas is showing some clear signs of understanding us much more. For example, he can now correctly identify noses, ears, feet, hair and mouth. I haven't been trying to teach these to him (well, maybe feet... we play "stinky feet" a lot...) but yesterday morning I asked him where all of these body parts were and he pointed to them all without hesitation. Maybe grandma is working on it? I dunno...hmm...

He is also figuring out what things are for more. He has known how to brush his hair and use a phone for a while, but this week he has started wiping his mouth off (thanks Grandma!) and using the eraser (I have a big dry erase board. I guess he has seen me erasing things on it because he grabbed the eraser off my desk, walked over and started erasing.. he clearly knew what to do). I think it's pretty cool to see this happening. I guess talking is next, instead of a couple of sylables. He sometimes says "wa da?" (like "what's that?") and "dah" for dog, but that's about it outside of his regular "ma" "pah" "bah" and "fah" sylables.

This past wednesday at the library reading group, Jonas did something that made me laugh. The group sings a few songs that use shakers, so all the kids get to pick out a shaker from this huge variety. They have shakers shaped like eggs, maracas, fruit and vegetables, dinosaurs, and even tambourines. Jonas stood over the box surveying his choices until the guy leading asked him to pick. He then put a finger to his lip, bent over and picked up a mallet for a tamborine... not even a shaker! It was about 6 inches long and had a little hard plastic head. He was so proud of himself, and he walked around with his mallet shaking it like he was something special. Finally one of the other parents showed him what it was for (hitting the tamborines) and he walked around the room to all the kids with tamborines and hit their tamborines. Ahh, I giggled at him, he's silly!

So in a little while we are going to Brooklyn's 5th birthday party. Brooklyn is one of the children of the people in our cell, so we thought it would be fun to go. It's at Chuck E Cheese's, so I am hoping Jonas will have a big time in the ball pit, at the least. Yeah, this should be fun, I haven't been to chuck e cheese's since I was about 10. It will be interesting to see how it has changed.

Ok, I guess that's all for now!