194 P

Jonas has been busy working his waste management system. We had done a lot of work way back in June....but his parents dropped the ball and had to restart the training. Its been about 3 weeks and things are going well. Jonas is outrageously bribed to produce urine.

1. He receives a penny for every time he pees in the toilet, but has any wetness in his underwear.
2. He receives a nickel or dime for every time he pees in the toilet and has a dry pair of undies.
3. The pee-money than gets immediately put into a jellybean coin-slot operated bank contraption.
4. The carousel jellybean bank is operated and 2-4 jellybeans pop out for every pee.
5. After a day of complete dryness he earns a letter that is placed on the calendar.
6. After three days of complete dryness Jonas can pick from one of 3 prizes. He went shopping at the toy store and pre-purchased his toys which are placed up high out of his reach.
7. The money collected in the bank can be used for any purpose.

These are the basics. Its going well. He had already mastered the solid materials for almost 6 months so we just had to work on the liquid portion of the waste management. The first couple of weeks brought 194 pee events. The proportion of nickels and dimes to pennies has skyrocketed as the penny reward is a very rare event.

Pumpkin Patches

Niles and Jonas teamed up to pick the perfect pumpkins from the patch. At this point we have 10 perfect pumpkins and a bunch of gourds and mini-pumpkins. We spent some time at the Vermont Valley Farm and at the Voss farm. Jonas got a chance to play with some kids including Max, pick some more pumpkins, go on a hay-ride, and take an ATV out in the country with his dad. Niles also had some funny hair styles after his pumpkin hat was removed and Jonas can be seen picking his nose in time-out while Niles was working on standing up with his mom.

Niles's first eats

Niles's first eats was a success. It helped that Jonas was an excellent rice cereal delivery-boy. You can see Jonas's mirror neurons working as every spoonful that he delivered for Niles to eat resulted in an air-bite for Jonas. Niles seemed pretty excited about all the solid food moving down his gullet.

Jonas also got a chance to meet Grandma Sue's kitten Ariel. Jonas and Ariel have hit it off well by all reports. The usual autumn preparation events have filled the house: more snuggling, trying winter hats, running through leaves, talking about the pumpkin patch, and finding places for all the glow-in-the dark Halloween decorations.

Wow

It's only been a couple of weeks since Jonas's birthday, and we have managed to pile on hundreds of pictures and videos which are amazing.....but have created a digital pile-up and so we are just pulling a few pics. Jonas had a great few birthday parties, he really loved all the people and thoughtful gifts. Niles has been on sleep-training boot camp. He has been having varied success with that, but he is been quite silly during his happy awake hours. He seems to have taken a liking to Greta.

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Jonas...about 5 minutes old.


Birthday time. Happy Birthday Jonas. A few pictures in a slide show of some of the crazy growing up that kids tend to do way to fast. Happy Birthday.

Super Jammer

That's entertainment. Jonas continues to be the best toy that Niles could ever want. Jonas really enjoys making Niles smile and giggle. Jonas was playing and singing his version of "Get that Train Through" to Niles. This song has many variations and seems to be able to be sung along with almost any tune.

Bay Beach Almost 3

It seems crazy to think how fast time flies....Jonas will be 3 in a couple of weeks and Niles is growing like a weed being feed by vermicompost and extra carbon dioxide. We got a chance to cut the ribbon for the opening of the new children's museum...the museum is the most ridiculous place I've seen that is setup for kids in my life, see some big ships with Grandpa in Green Bay, and do up Bay Beach for the second time this summer. Niles has been having a bit of issues sleeping lately and Jonas faceplanted his head into the pavement and messed up his jaw, face, and teeth and bit through his tongue today.

Snap Dance

About a month ago Jonas and Dominic put together an interesting dance routine. They had 4th of July props, 4 boxes of 'snaps'. It was a pretty good impromptu dance.