One for me, one for you

I think Cotton has finally gotten used to the interloper who has completely disrupted his Utopian lifestyle. I think he's realized they have a symbiotic relationship from which he has the better side. No, he doesn't get walked as much as he used to and he doesn't get my lap nearly as much as he wants, but he does get all the crumbs and sticky fingers he can lick. Jonah loves to share his food with the little beggar and laughs every time Cotton tickles his fingers. Jonah won't eat hardly any baby food (applesauce, yogurt and sweet potatoes only) but loves real food. Yet only to chew. For some reason he has an aversion to swallowing. He's like Anton Ego on Ratatouille, " I don't LIKE food. I LOVE it. If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW." So most of it gets chewed, spit back out and then dropped on the floor for Cotton. It drives me crazy because 1) he's not getting anything in his stomach so how do we ween him off bottles? and 2) he makes SUCH a mess. But Cotton's been putting on weight and doesn't seem to mind in the least.























One thing Jonah will eat and swallow is yes...dog food. I do NOT know what it is but this kid lives for that bowl of kibble. We keep it up as much as possible but the dog has to eat sometime and Jonah makes a bee line straight for the bowl and shovels it in by the handful. And then I have to be the one to go digging around to make sure it all gets out of his mouth. Can we say yuck? It will be nice when Jonah realizes that spaghetti really is better than Kibbles and Bits. Aaron calls this picture "One For Me, One For You."
(No dog food was eaten this particular time, in case you were worried. And not for Jonah's lack of trying.)

One thing Jonah gets out of this relationship is great laughs. Cotton just cracks him up! Anytime the dog has his "puppy freakout" running around and barking, Jonah squeals with laughter. Cotton provides endless entertainment. He loves to pull the dog's hair and stick his fingers in his mouth, and Cotton is surprisingly quite tolerant. I think he realizes where most of his snack comes from and literally doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him.

One thing I noticed very early on is that Cotton is very aware of Jonah and treats him differently. The dog loves to play tug of war and fetch. Whenever he can, he brings his toy over for me to grab and we play a game of who can get it the quickest, sometimes my fingers being the thing grabbed by his teeth. But if ever Jonah would grab it first, he never once grabbed the toy from him. He will just let it go and allow Jonah to have it.

This last month Jonah has been saying a few words, like "mama" and "dada" very regularly and to the right people. Just this week he has started saying "gog" and "goggie" at times that could only be toward Cotton. Of course in this video I found the camera after 10 minutes of laughing and just got the tail end of their playing.





The other day I was trying to clean but Jonah would not let go of my legs and stop squealing. Makes it a little difficult to vacuum. So I buckled him in his high chair and let him play the piano. Thirty minutes later he was still playing...





Jonah turns one next month if anyone can believe it! This year has gone by way too fast but we are loving the open mouth kisses, his chuckles when you read him a book, squealing his head off when wrestling with Lucas and this one not so much, but his new found love of grinding his teeth. He is such a brilliant addition to our family. And it's taken some time, but I don't think even the dog would disagree.