Feb. 1 - Jonathan's ABCs

Today I'm home with a somewhat-sick little guy. As usual, Jonathan isn't acting very sick, but his body is giving us some clear signs -- particularly with his diapers. Yuck. I think he was looking forward to going back to Carol's house, but I don't imagine the other kids (or their parents) would appreciate the spread of germs.

He seemed to do pretty well there last week, though. He didn't cry at all when Chris dropped him off the first day. I called Carol once I got to Rochester to see whether he had a meltdown after Chris left, but she said she just asked him if he wanted to find the toys, and he went around the corner from the entry and said, "There they are!" Apparently he did cry a little when he woke up from his nap Monday, and he cried when Chris left on Tuesday, but with a little cuddling, he was good to go both times. And he wasn't distressed when Chris came to pick him up -- like he was when I got him from Mayo's Backup Child Care Center when he spent a week and a half there last summer.

Jonathan was all giggles Monday night, which was a good indicator that he had a fun day with the other kids. I asked him if he enjoyed playing with his friends: Nevea, Taylor, Noah, Natalie, Sydney, Trey, and Nicolas. He smiled with his eyes brightening and said, "Friends. Again!" Hopefully he'll be in better shape to go back tomorrow.

He seems to be figuring out his colors now, and I wonder whether that's related to some of the activities at Carol's. He's known the signs for colors for a while (and will sing the Colors of the Rainbow song from Signing Time whenever he sees a rainbow in one of his books), but if you were to ask him what color something was, he'd just throw out a guess.

Last week, however, he dumped out a bag of plastic balls, picked one up and correctly identified it as being blue. The next day, he pointed to his foam Cars chair and said, "Red car." Since then, he's pretty much covered the other colors as well. But displaying this ability has to be on his terms. If he feels like it, he'll tell you what color something is, but if you ask him, he'll still usually just toss out a name, like he doesn't want to bother thinking about it.

Jonathan is much more cooperative with identifying letters, though, and got a kick out of showing Grandma and Grandpa Rossing how he can complete his alphabet puzzle when they came to visit yesterday. I'm not sure exactly when he figured out his ABCs. He's been saying "M for Mommy" and "T for TyTy" for a while, but the rest of the letters seem to have come all at once.



When Jonathan was almost 17 months, I found him pointing at different Mickeys on a diaper box in his room, and then point to the number 3 and said "ess." Granted, a 3 is not an S, but it's similar in shape. That was the first time I witnessed him identify what he thought was a letter.

I'd read that kids can distinguish the differences between colors and the shapes of letters around 18 months, so once we saw him express that awareness, we tried to make more of an effort to expose him to letters and words. And he'd get excited, squealing, "A, B!" when Rachel signed the alphabet at the end of Signing Time: Leah's Farm. So then we tried the Signing Time movie that's dedicated to the alphabet, and that's been a hit -- as has the Blue's Clues alphabet movie.

We've tried flash cards, too, but he's more attentive to the objects than letters being represented with those. He loves the foam letters he gets to play with in the tub, though, and will pull out his alphabet puzzle pretty frequently. Those are probably more interesting because he can grab each letter, stick his fingers in the holes and bite down on the foam ones -- unless Mom or Dad catches him and tells him not to eat it. Then he'll reply, "Don't eat it," and fling it away.

It's so fascinating watching him learn new things. People describe children's brains as being sponges at this age, and I can certainly see why.

I sure would have liked to watch Garrett grow and learn, too. Although after everything he'd been through -- with the lack of oxygen from his initial heart failure, the "instrumentation" in his brain with his first two procedures, and the bleeding following his final treatment -- it wouldn't have come as easily for him. And wth what his brain suffered as the end neared, I really worried about what quality of life he'd be left with. He might never learn his colors or ABCs. Would he even be able to talk? I guess I'm not an expert on the capabilities that remain with varying degrees of brain damage, but even if Garrett had made it, I still would have felt he'd been greatly cheated.

As it is, we'll never get to cheer on Garrett reaching various milestones. But we have Jonathan, and we'll celebrate his accomplishments. And hopefully we'll have another baby some day to nurture and praise -- to usher through infancy and childhood as parents are supposed to.