G & J

Since it was cold and gloomy again today, the kids and I had a lot of "together" time. I find it interesting how different my two kids are. And since I spent the whole day indoors with my rug rats, I had ample time to experience their differences. At Jonah's age, Genna had (and still does have) a pretty short attention span. If she played with the same toy for 15 consecutive minutes, we thought it was a miracle toy. Jonah, on the other hand can spend an hour easily playing with his trains, pushing them around and over things. Genna has an insatiable appetite for books. We read dozens of books to her daily and she would still ask for more. Of course books were the one thing between Genna and bedtime, so that may be part of the reason she could never get enough books. Jonah will tolerate about two or three books and then he prefers to line them up and roll his trains over them.

Genna needs continual participation from others, mostly me. At the community center playspace today, I could not be more than 18 inches away from her. I had to pretend I was a mailman, then I had to set up a balance beam for her, then I had to pretend I was a mommy (as if I'm not), then I had to pretend we were at a restaurant. Jonah ran ahead of me into the playspace and never looked back. He was in and out of toddler cars, up on slides, found the trainset, found the car ramp, found a couple of cute toddlers to play peek-a-boo with, and never missed me at all - except for when he got his foot stuck in a car and I had to help him get it out.

Genna has a much higher energy level. She was walking to the tot-lot by age two. Jonah walks a half a block and then wants to be picked up and carried. Genna was walking at 13 months. Jonah didn't crawl until he was at least 14 months old. On the other hand, we kept the baby gates on the stairs for Genna until she was almost two and a half. Jonah was doing stairs by himself at 21 months (perhaps that discrepancy was partially due to overprotective first-time parents). Genna loves to jump on her trampoline. Jonah loves to look under it while she's jumping. Genna has never been interested in food and there were days she'd survive on a cup of milk and a raisin. Jonah requires a banana to hold him over while I'm making breakfast; he'll finish his french toast and be screaming for more before the second batch is even finished on the griddle.

Genna reading Go, Dogs, Go. She has almost every page memorized; and there's 64 pages to that book.

I love how she reads the book to me and then holds it up so I can see the pictures.

Genna politely holding the book so Jonah can roll his truck over it.

Genna practicing her gymnastics dismount pose. Jonah wondering why anyone would want to do all that running and jumping around when there's snacks to eat and trains to push.