Jonah Nicholas, 40 Months, and Tessa Rose, 14 Months

It's been a very exciting month in the Goodman household!

 Growth: Again, the kiddos keep getting bigger and bigger. Jonah weighs in at 31# and Tessa 25#.

Look how close these two look in size when sitting! (and if  he keeps feeding her like this, she'll catch up faster

Personality: Tessa remains a little ham. She loves people and will do whatever it takes to get someone's attention when she sets her mind to it, be that high-pitched squealing or flipping upside down. She loves feeding people and will not give up until they take food from her (including Mimi taking a cucumber at Dewey's!!). She loves doing dips, swinging, playing, and being all-around silly. And hats. She has a thing for hats. As for Jonah, he's still as funny as ever. He really loves entertaining Tessa and playing with her. He takes all of the games and rhymes we do with them and does them with her (criss-cross applesauce, noble duke of York, washing machine). Sometimes he still cannot control himself well enough and gets a little too rough and needs a time-out. He is very, very silly and has a fantastic imagination. He asked Lindsay to say, "Stedios, edios, edea, and lemonedea" out of the blue (probably since we ask him to say silly things like "coccioidomycosis").

Jonah lovingly patting Alton on the stairs

Tessa playing peek-a-boo with Alton

Feeding Daddy

Jonah and Mommy on rocking horses

Sensory play with these cuties

Jonah actually offered up Ducky for Tessa to play with. Wow, Jonah!

Silly play with Allie Ecker

Tessa loves playing with blocks, cars, and balls most of all.

Some kitchen play at Mimi and Poppy's. Cutest little waitress!

Enjoying the grass at Mimi and Poppy's

Water and a hair accessory...her happy place.

Two of Tessa's faves, swing and a hat

Such a special treat to eat at the picnic table with Darby

Tessa trying on Jonah's jet pack, which  he made

Jonah loves pushing Tessa in the stroller. She has started using this bigger girl  setup in the stroller

This is most often how we take our walks these days

Raincoats!

Rockin' baby

Tessa still comes to work with Mommy once per week. She looks like she's getting the hang of it!

Tessa has really found her footing on the playground!

The game of dump all the toys out. Classic.  Thankfully Jonah likes to put them in.

A moment amidst some imaginative play Jonah was taking us along on

She still loves eating and playing with mulch on the playground. Cmon girl, cut that out.

Sand box!

Art play at home

Wearing Poppy's smock from when he was a child

Jonah taught Tessa how to blow a dandelion on a fall walk

These kids love their Daddy!

Sleep: Tessa is phasing out the morning nap, taking it only very briefly and occasionally in the car. Their sleep schedules have been more-or-less the same, generally from 9PM-7AM, then 2-4PM for nap.

Tessa has learned how to put her own laundry in the chute before bath

Clean little bunny!

Morning book time with Daddy

These two can't WAIT to see each other every morning

This beauty, as she wakes

Eating: Tessa still eats it all. . . except for that whole vegetarian thing :) She's getting somewhat neater with finger foods and is working on using utensils; she still needs some practice to get the hang of it, and that's putting it lightly. She's also getting better at using a cup with and without a straw, getting more of what she's drinking down than she has in the past. Jonah has had a couple of remarkable meals where he's gone several minutes consistently eating without talking, but more often than not, recent meals have been ripe with struggles to get him to keep eating rather than asking questions, singing songs, or just drinking milk. He has discovered gummy fruit snacks and wants them pretty much every day after nap during TV time, with the bag opened on the side (not the top, bottom, middle ... the side). He is also a huge fan of mini bell peppers, "chicken" nuggets, and condiments on the side.  Jonah continues to be very interested in cooking and baking. His favorite things to do in the kitchen these days are pouring oatmeal into the pot of water, measuring dry ingredients, cracking eggs (as long as there's a napkin handy to wipe his hands) and all aspects of baking challah.  We take these guys out to restaurants at least once per week and believe that it's important for them to learn the etiquette. Jonah has been asking a lot for Logan's and Red Robin.

He still likes feeding Tessa. Win-win for both.

One night, while Daddy and Tessa went grocery shopping, Mommy and Jonah had a baking date.  We baked zucchini bread and zucchini oatmeal cookies. As usual, he had more fun making them than eating them, but did try a bit.

Jonah and Daddy sharing a green bean

One night, we made Mexican food for dinner, listened to Mexican music, showed Jonah Mexico on the map, and taught him a bit of spanish.  

We LOVE our CSA delivery each Friday. Jonah delights in opening the cooler to find these goodies!

First crack at the yogurt via spoon

Both kids love watching the pizza being made at Dewey's

"Are you saying there's a banana string on my face?"

Out to lunch with Alana on her day off!

Another yogurt mess!

Jonah loves to butter his bread in a restaurant! (and we let this skinny dude do it!)

Milestones: She's off! Our lady is officially a walker! It started with taking 2-3 steps towards Mommy and Daddy, then Jonah, and within a week she was walking laps around the house. It was during a morning at Piccadilly play cafe that she really cut out the crawling and walked all over the place.  She still has a pretty broad-based gait, but she can keep going reliably for some time. It's so cute! She's squarely up to 16 teeth. She says mama, dada, bye, hi, and hat. She has learned to throw. Jonah is really starting to get the general concept of reading. He will look at a string of letters and make their sounds, and if it's a word that is pretty much spelled phonetically he can often identify it! We are teaching him but really not pushing.  He's improving his counting skills and is good at one-to-one correspondence as well. We still need to work on getting him into the teens.

Walking to Jonah

Walking to the camera

Sitting and paying attention for a whole story time at the libary

Piccadilly play

Events:
Brooke and her sweet little Henry came to visit and to celebrate Ben's first birthday.  They got to come over to play and the kids loved having them! Jonah had fun at Ben's party and gave him goggles and a hug.

"Hey, Henry. Lets eat toys together!"

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit. Jonah loved pulling their luggage up the driveway, making french toast, reading in their bed, and playing. We also visited the Franklin Park Conservatory to see the butterfly exhibit while they're still there.

Working together to walk like a caterpillar

The kids also took a trip to the FPC with Mommy

The buckeyes are back, and the kids always dress the part! Here are some of their looks:

The kids loved their friend Vivienne's second birthday party. Tessa made a beautiful butterfly. What a cute favor!

We always love the Greek Festival. Jonah, who always loves any sort of show, enjoyed watching the Greek dancing very much. Tessa, of course, ate all the Greek food. Jonah most liked the salad, which has been his thing recently.  We went inside the beautiful cathedral, which has a very detailed, gorgeous depiction of Jesus at the center of the dome, with his deciples around him. In a quiet moment, Jonah being the old soul that he is, looks up and quietly states "I love that person." What a genuine and innocent reaction to the work of the artists who created their image of God.  We just hugged him and said "yes, many people do." Not what most Jews would expect to hear out of their little guy, but knowing no context whatsoever for where we were, what a cool reaction?!

COSI closes for 3 weeks in September, so we squeezed in a visit before that happened.

At Bexley's Labor Day Block party, there was tons to do but not much time to do it in since the kids slept late and it ended fairly early. Nonetheless, we squeezed in some trucks, slides, and a very last dip in the pool. In fact, the pool closed at 7, but they blew the whistles to have the kids get out at 6:45, just as we were arriving.  Since Jonah and Tessa are so small and would be accompanied by adults, they were allowed in, and they got to be the very last kids in the pool, which is just about fitting for Jonah, who took a while to come around to the pool, then loved it.

We are happy that our friends the Rubins are back and enjoyed a morning of Boker Tov group at Tifereth followed by food truck lunch and play at the Columbus Commons, which Jonah now calls the Colummons.

We missed Mimi and Poppy while they vacationed in Michigan, but were happy to have them home and thankful they brought everyone something special.  Mimi joined us at Schiller Park and lunch at Easy Street Cafe.