Compare and Contrast: What We Do

 

Evan loves to roll balls around on the floor and chase them.  Kinda reminds me of a dog we once had...

But Evan's cuter.  And doesn't dig holes in the yard.  Yet.

You should see the holes Jonah's got going right now...

Or sometimes Evan will find some other toy to push around and will follow it all over the floor. Like cars.  He drives cars!

I could never get Jonah to do this.  I would roll a ball, and he'd watch it go away, then look at me like, "Yeah, so?"

Jonah, by contrast, at Evan's age, would sit in my lap to look at books for as long as I would keep reading them.

Now he still reads pretty much non-stop.  I still read to him, and now we can read books that I can enjoy, too!  (Ever read the Little Britches  series?  Fantastic!) It used to be a matter of reading the same books overandoverandoverandover every dayafterdayafterday.  Now, we can share our mutual love of reading and discover new books together that we both can't tear ourselves away from.

And I am just so glad that he can read so well to himself, now, too.  It really lightens my load for feeding his hungry little mind.  He recently discovered the concept of a "joke" and he's always telling and making up new... and old... jokes. I found him this book:

The Usborne Book of Jokes, which is just packed with kid-appropriate riddles, knock-knock, and every other sort of joke you could think of.  Except... he probably doesn't get 99% of them.

"What's a cat's favorite breakfast?"
"Mice crispies!"

He gets that.  But:

"What do you call a ship that cries as it goes across the sea?"
"An em-ocean liner!"

Not so much.  But it makes for good vocabulary lessons!

Evan is interested in opening, closing, turning a couple pages, and 17 seconds later, he's done. 

He's also beginning to get over his deathly fear of water.  He actually voluntarily played in a few inches of water the other day at a friend's swimming pond.  I can also bathe him in the bathroom sink without terrified screaming.

Jonah swims like a fish these days, but prefers to have appropriate safety measure applied.

Yes, that's a Barbie life-vest.  Safety over fashion, you know.  He's very comfortable in his masculinity.

Jonah chatters my ear off and has a seemingly endless supply of questions.  Oh, they get so bizarre.  I should write some down to share...

Lately, Evan is always "telling" me things, too.  He's also waving to every car and buggy that drives by, and getting all excited when he sees a tractor, or even better, DADDY. 

And now that I think about it, ditto Jonah, but add airplanes to the excitement.

And boy howdy, do these kids love to eat.  Evan starts into a full-on temper tantrum when I start scraping the last bite from his bowl, no matter how much he's had to eat already.  He eats a lot.  A lot, a lot. 

When I really need to entertain him, a spoon-full of refried beans keeps him busy for a little while.

Followed by another spoon-full.

And another.

And...

Jonah still asks all the time when the next meal/snack is coming.  But he's also getting more into helping Evan, too.  Today he taught Evan how to drink from a straw! Score!  He's learning to be a patient and generous big brother.

It's just so endlessly entertaining to me to observe how different --and yet, sometimes, alike-- these two are!