February: Month 20!

This month of February propelled Judah into a huge growth spurt both physically and developmentally. Judah has gotten taller. He talks more, carrying on real conversations and saying sentences. He socially interacts more with his peers. He is on the verge of expressing himself through his own opinions and abilities. Overall, Judah seems more like what you would expect from a toddler.
Judah's has really started playing in his own right with his ideas of play. He likes to set up his farm animals, lining them up by the barn and the fence. His particularities are even more evident in the way he colors. He likes mommy to take the paper off the crayons. He still enjoys coloring shapes, especially drawing shapes which he can do on his own now. Then he is seen hitting and hurling his balloons across the room.


With the start of his Kinder Musik Class, Judah's interest in instruments and rhythm has evolved more prevalently. Most days, you will find him drumming or banging on his xylophone to his own beat or to the beat of a song. Beyond his instruments, every household item becomes a drum or a drumstick. He comes home repeating the games and rhymes often learned at class even to point of doing it loud and quiet. He moves his shakers up high and down low. He dances and hops around the living room as Tim and I join him for family dancing in the evenings. He often displays his slow moves and his fancy footwork. Even when he runs, he runs with a hop, twisting his body at the waist. We even took him to church early one morning to watch Tim warm up with the band for worship. Tim also showed him his guitar one day and since we have gotten it out practically everyday to "pick" at it and find the high and low notes.


Mid way through the month (Feb 18), Judah started saying "oh fun" and "hooray" for anything he thought was exciting such as foamy soap in the bathtub. He repeats everything he hears. Sometimes he pronounces words Canadian style with an "a" sound behind each word. He ended the month by chatting up a storm using three syllable words like "already," "umbrella," and "cinnamon." In his conversation, Judah even exhibits silly antics like shrugging his shoulders when you ask something or running away from getting dressed so you have to chase him. And he continues to wow us by knowing all his colors, numbers to 20, and his shapes.

Judah hit another noticeable growth spurt this month. The sleeves on his 12 month shirts are finally getting short and the legs on the pants are turning into knickers. He now wears closer to 18 month clothes even though the lanky boy only weighs 21 pounds. Being taller has allowed him to sit at the table more often for meals and to do crafts. He can also reach more things. He did move up a shoe size with his size 5 Velcro, blue tennis shoes. He also got his fourth haircut with a buzz cut making him look like a little Tim walking around. While we thankfully have avoided more illnesses, Judah has had a cough that seems to hang around.


Judah celebrated his second valentines day in several ways this month. Judah helped bake some valentines cookies by punching out the hearts and putting them on the pan. We then finger painted for the first time with our neighbor Zach using blue, washable tempera pain. Judah stood up to the table on the chair and made shapes with potato art. Then he immersed his hands to make finger and hand prints. We ate some more valentine cookies. After nap time, we delivered some valentines and cookies to our friends to finish celebrating the holiday.


We also did a number of activities this month to help pass the Winter blues. Believe it or not, one day it was 65 degrees (Feb 17) that we took a flashlight walk after dark. Judah carried around his little flashlight and walked beside dad. Then he thought he would walk in the light of the circle. This also about the time we started seeing Robins around the yard.

On another really nice day, we went to the Des Moines Botanical Center with cousins Caleb, Hannah, Isaac, and Jonathan. Going in the morning, we enjoyed our time walking around the garden watching the fish and smelling the flowers. We stopped for a picnic lunch and then finished our tour of the rainbow theme before heading outside to walk along the river walk.


Other days are filled with play group, music class, going to the library for story time, or hanging out with the neighbors. Mondays, we still have some friends over to play and chat. Wednesday mornings we enjoy music class followed by errands. And on Fridays, we visit the library for story hour and to check out new books. In between most often in the afternoons, we visit the neighbor friends to play outdoors or invite them over for dinner.


Later this month as the weather turned cold again, Judah and I made a trip up north to spend a few days with Nana Joyce and Uncle Charlie. Since my dad was gone overseas, Judah and I helped my mom clean and sort our old toys. Judah especially had fun playing ball and making faces at the table with his Uncle Charlie. Daddy came up for the weekend in time for us to go to cousin Jacob's birthday party at the farm.



This month, Tim and I started Financial Peace University at our church on Monday nights while Judah spends the evening with the neighbors. We also celebrated Valentines Day by going to a Married Life Live event at the church the Friday before Valentines Day. I spent a few days this month working on my crafts. My friend Sarah came over to quilt with me and I was able to start on my quilt by cutting out the t-shirt squares. Another day, I took time to work on Judah's baby book, making some more progress toward completing it.

We were saddened this month when my old 1997 silver Dodge Stratus officially died. This put us down to the challenge of a one car lifestyle. The end of February was the most challenging and the busiest thus far. One day started by getting ready in the morning to take daddy to work before 8:00am just so we could have the car for the day. After dropping off daddy, Judah and I went to music class. From there we had to drive across town for a dentist appointment. This brought us up to lunch where we doubled up grocery shopping and lunch at the local grocery store deli. We managed to make it over to the church for two meetings back-to-back. Finally, Judah fell asleep for a late nap on the way home. I hurried to make a dinner for a friend and when Judah woke up, we got back in the car to run it over to their house.