Sweet Jonah is 3 1/2

I say sweet Jonah because he is just that. Sweet. He really is. His soul is so wise and he is my thinker and my sensitive one. He thinks about a lot of things. I see him thinking sometimes and I ask "what are you thinking of Jonah?" His usual reply is something about animals. Like the other night I asked and he said "my puppets from the utah desert. mema and papa got them for me." he loves those puppets. He kisses them and tells them goodnight and puts them to bed in the table drawer in the living room. He made me cut the whiskers off the jack rabbit because he didn't like them and said that jack rabbits don't have whiskers. A bin of play animals can keep him busy for hours. He lines them up and talks about each one and where they live..the forest, desert, ocean, farm...He talks for them and makes them talk to each other. He asks every morning if we can go to Sea World. He thinks its a trip we can just hop in the car and go to. I explained that we need to plan this kind of trip and it costs a lot of money so we have to save and take a plane there. He does understand which helps with his pleas but he still asks daily. He is very loved at school. He teachers rave about his behavior most days and they always say "he is such a sweet boy and such a good helper to us" He tells Mrs Beth that she is beautiful and sits close to Lucy any chance he gets. His speech gets better daily. He'll say something like "water and watermelon..hey that rhymes!" He doesn't get rhyming yet but realizes the same words are used a lot of different ways. He asks me questions all the time. He asked us why we went to church. He said "why do we go there" and without missing a beat Justin said "To learn about God" I was thinking of this elaborate way to explain why we go and Justin said it so simply. Jonah was happy with his answer. He is such a little man. He tells me all the time that we don't need something I've put in the shopping cart. He says "but we already have a pizza cutter..I like the old one better. We can still use the old one" He sounds so much like his Dad it's scary.

He is very generous with his compliments. He always notices when I change toe nail colors and likes when I leave my finger nails clear but says color on my toes is ok. He tells me that I am pretty even when I know I don't look it. He tells his Dad "I'm your best friend Daddy" I'm rarely his best but I get the title sometimes and feel so special. He adores his baby sister and calls her sissy pie. He kisses her feet and tells her how much he loves her pink nails. He loves to wake her from naps and wants to hug on her and says "I just love my sissy pie...she's a sweet baby" He reminds me to put a bow in her hair too. He doesn't always think she's the bees knees though. There are a lot of times they fight over the same toy and he gets so frustrated when she messes up something he's been working on. He wants to do what she does and vice versa. If I do something silly with sis, I have to do it the same way with him too. Their mainly buds though and talk and make each other laugh and it makes my heart happy.

He calls Dakota "dee dee or dee dee pie" He likes putting "pie" on the ends of names and does it when he baby talks or is being sweet. He tells me all the time that he doesn't want to grow up and wants to stay little like sissy. That's also why he wants to keep his toddler bed (converted from a crib) because it's small like his sister's. Really it's fine with me. We save money on a bed and I get to keep my little guy little for a while longer.

He hasn't had a bedtime accident in 2 weeks so I think we are going to try a night without a pull up and see what happens. We are so proud of him. He's really clean in the bathroom too, rarely a stream that goes array. I appreciate this more than he knows.

He is so smart. He is counting to 30 only missing a number or two depending on how fast he is going. He knows triangles have three sides, squares have four, pentagons have five and octagons have eight. I think he even understands the prefix of these words like tri means three and oct means eight because an octopus has eight legs so oct means eight. He uses associations already. He is so smart with math stuff. He asks me to play math games like if he had 5 gummy worms and he ate one how many would he have left. Then we say 5-1=4.  We continue this until we have 0 gummy worms left. We talk about stuff all the time and I especially love driving home from school with him. It's just me and him most of the time and he tells me everything they did, what he ate, if they played outside or if they are still doing construction and if Lucy was there today. He loves Lucy. She's "his best" They are always together when I pick him up and they say bye to each other at least 5 times as we're walking away they are still saying bye :) The teachers all know they are best friends and always tell me how cute they are together.

Lucy and Jonah - Mother's Day Out 2014
Jonah was still sleeping when I picked him up so he was groggy for the picture. What I wish I would have gotten on video was what Lucy said when I asked her if she wanted to take a picture with Jonah...She said "YES! Jonah and I are meant to be together." Say Wha?????  

I love hearing him talk. I have waited so long to talk with my son and now he never stops. When he's excited things are hard to understand and I ask him to slow down and repeat. He always does better the second time. He is such a chatterbox and is still talking to me as I close the door at bed time. He says "Good night Mommy I love you. I love you Mommy, Good night see you in the morning. Good night sugar pie" Justin and I read 2 or 3 books each to him and sis in his room then we split and I take one and Justin gets the other. We let the kids pick usually and then I sing him two songs and tell one story then we say our prayers and he tells me what he's most thankful for that day. It's different every night and I am always anxious to hear what it is. One time he said "picking crusty boogers out of my nose" That is what he was the most thankful for all day long. Last night he said "spending time with you mommy" Bless his sweet heart.

Found him in JK room playing with baby dolls and stacking them into tall towers

He loves Thursdays with his Mema and Papa and starts asking for Thursday on Monday. He tells me "No, today is Thursday. Time for gymnastics." He knows his whole schedule and what we do on each day. He is also understanding months and the different holidays are in different months and that on his birthday in November he will be 4. I don't know maybe it's completely common for kids this age to know these things but just seems like lately he is just getting it. Like a light bulb went off or something. He is understanding things that he never has before and it's been really fun explaining and teaching him things. That's one thing about kids..they listen. You can bullshit an adult..they are rarely really thinking about what you're talking about but not a kid. They really listen. And I've noticed this more than ever as his speech has developed.

He loves his "Uncle Gake" very much and loves when he comes over to babysit. Justin and I come home from our date and walk in to my big brother holding both babies in his arms and reading them one of the books from the tall stack that is laying next to them. He tells us they've been running back and forth from their bedrooms picking their favorites.

We passed by a cemetery the other day driving and Jonah said "oh wow. look at the beautiful garden!" Only the innocent eyes of a child would pass a cemetery and think it was a garden. I did not correct him.

I am so thankful that I get to spend every day listening to him discover the world. I absolutely love our conversations and hearing about this crazy world through the eyes of my three year old. He sees things I don't and shows me the rhinoceros on the propane bottle that he spotted 10 feet away. He tip toes and whispers when he knows his sister is asleep and always asks us to snuggle him when he climbs into bed with us every night around 2am. We don't mind our little visitor..he just crawls right in the middle, gets snuggled and goes back to sleep. I don't even hear him come in half the time and I wake up and there is my boy curled up in his Daddy's arms. He is pretty amazing and we are so proud of him and the little boy is growing into.