Kalon loves to be carried by mommy, although unlike Jadon, you can also put him down from time to time. He also sleeps longer stretches at night - a good 4 to 5 hours once every night. Kalon sometimes does not seem to like to be carried by daddy. Not sure if daddy carries him differently, or smells different, or something else (sweaty Daddy arms in the summer is Julie's suspicion of the culprit). So far, daddy has found that the best way to carry Kalon is facing outward, not towards him.

Julie says that for the first few weeks after Kalon was born, while he was still full of hormones from her body, he smelled more like daddy - sort of a fragrant manly baby scent; Jadon as a newborn was almost totally odorless (like Julie). However, by the time Kalon was two months old, and had time to be purified by all of Julie's milk, he had become odorless, too, except for a sweet soft baby smell.

Kalon also still seems almost pure Irish at the age of 2 1/2 months (Blue eyes, lightish brown hair tinged with red, pale skin). We're almost sure his eyes will turn brown, and his hair will darken somewhat. Still, it's wonderful to notice how much alike, like substantially different, Jadon and Kalon are.

One thing in common between Kalon and his brother Jadon when he was a baby is that both are ferocious nursers. Kalon weighed over a pound less than Jadon at birth. But at his first 2 week check up, he weighed over 11 lbs, already catching up with his brother's record. At two months, Kalon weighed over 17 lbs, even a couple of ounces higher than his brother's record. Dr. Lewis no longer appears surprised to see our baby's weight and height were off the chart. Needless to say, it comes in our family. (Or thanks to mommy's rich secret formula:)

Jadon is "all grown up", and is delighted that we have promoted him from "young boy" to "big boy". The new benefits of being a big boy are that he gets his own bathroom, and has his own bedroom (although he has never really slept in it yet). He grinned from ear to hear when we told him he was getting his own bathroom, then asked if he had to share it with Kalon. We told him that, yes, when Kalon gets bigger he has to share it. Jadon didn't seem to mind too much, but told us which cabinets he will use, and which Kalon can use.

Jadon delights in eating his "gummy vitamins" and "gummy calcium" each night. Each night, he excitedly asks mommy "how many can I have; three, or four, or five, or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or ten?" Mommy answers with a number between 2 and 4. Jadon then tries to negotiate up, usually starting with "how about five?". Sometimes we give in a bit, and sometimes we hold our ground. He then runs upstairs, squeals with delight when daddy picks him up onto the bathroom counter, and excitedly holds out his hand. He savors the gummy vitamins with broad grins, usually making daddy sit on the far side of the room and watch him slowly eat the vitamins. When he first started taking them several weeks ago, he would line them up carefully on the counter, all facing the same way, and eat them one by one, but he no longer does this. Instead, he now likes to name his gummy calcium every night, then eat it slowly, while giggling at daddy's mock surprise that he is nibbling on "Ethan" or "Oswald" (two popular names he likes to use).

Jadon learns so quickly. His memory is amazing. He still remembers who had which Christmas lights eight months ago, what Annie (Tim's friend's daughter) told him about eating fruit from the trees over a year ago (when he was 18 months old), and can often tell you what an episode of his favorite cartoon (Little Bear, on Noggin) is about just by seeing the first few seconds. He learned the alphabet pretty well by last Christmas, by has taken to it with a vengeance lately, singing the alphabet song numerous times each day, along with an "What does the A say? eh and ah, what does the B say, bah, bah, bah,..." phonics song he learned recently. He is starting to be able to tell you what words start with what letter, although he is not always right.

He often says things that amaze or amuse us. Recent examples include:

• In the park, mommy called Jadon (and daddy) over to talk with some Chinese women. Julie called in Chinese, which Jadon understands and can speak. He pretended not to understand, turned to daddy and said "I don't speak Spanish"
• He seems to know the difference between present tense and past tense. When speaking with mommy and daddy the other day, we hear him correct himself "what are you doing...what were you doing?"
• Mommy was washing him in the tub a couple nights ago, and he said "those are my private parts", pointing in the right area. We're not unhappy that he picked that up, but don't know where he picked it up from.
• When we talked about going swimming in June, Jadon knew mommy had a bright orange bikini top, but didn't know what to call it, so he said "mommy, put on your bright red nipples!". Julie and Tim almost fell down laughing when he said this.
• When waking up from taking a nap in bed with mommy one afternoon (Kalon was sleeping in his crib on the other side of the bedroom), "where is that silly baby?"
• When he bumps into something or falls hard enough to cry, he will often say through his tears "don't worry, it will be Ooooooh kaaaaay"
• Walking upstairs to bed with mommy in late August, mommy said "you're a handsome boy". Jadon replied "are you handsome, too?". Mommy answered "no, I'm not handsome". Jadon paused a moment, then said "you are a good mother." Savoring the momemt, mommy repeated "you are a handsome boy", and Jadon replied "you are a nice mother"

He picks up words. He told daddy he wanted a big birthday party this year. Daddy asked if he could go to Jadon's birthday party. Jadon paused for a moment, then carefully said "ab-so-YOOT-yee" (absolutely). He also later told mommy the same thing.

Jadon is a voracious reader lately. He loves to bring mommy or daddy a big pile of books (10-15) and have you read them to him. Mommy has been taking him to the library every week lately, to pick up a few books. This has been really good in widening the range of books he sees. He's found some favorites, and can often recite them with you (or by himself) by the time the book goes back the next week. His best example of this so far has been the alphabet-oriented book called "Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom" which he recited from memory so much after we returned it that we got it again the next week.

Jadon also makes us laugh because he remembers the books' authors, too (we often tell him the authors' names). Daddy was reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom today, and left off the "Jr." at the end of the author's name. Jadon caught that and corrected daddy. He also sometimes brings up the topic of books he had from the library a few weeks ago. "Do you remember 'Something Wonderful' by Jenny Nimmo. Do you remember that book?" or "do you remember 'One Summer Night' by Hazel Hutchins?". We are amazed and amused that he remembers the authors.

Some of his other favorite books are: "Dr Seuss' Sleep book" (Which he can recitre entire pages from), "Dr Seuss' Fox In Socks", "Dr Seuss' One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish", his series of alphabet books,Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, "Something Wonderful" by Jenny Nimmo.

He's also started to put together puzzles. He's quite good at the simple puzzles with 4 or 5 pieces, and has recently been pretty successful with 25-30 piece puzzles with a bit of guidance from daddy.

If you ask him a question about why he did or said something, and he does not have a good answer, he has a couple unusual stock replies. Previously, it was "Because I'm a magician" when he wanted you to leave him alone and not stop him from doing something. Currently, it's "because it's Valentine's Day!".

He's an emotionally sensitive boy, and we try to be a bit careful, but don't want to be totally easygoing, since the world will not always be that way. If he senses you might be unhappy with him, he will ask "Daddy, are you happy or sad?" He also hates being sent to his room for a timeout. He's only had two or three of them in his lifetime (all of them soon after Kalon came home, for biting or otherwise being rough to Kalon. Each timeout lasted only 3-5 minutes). If he thinks he's done something wrong, he sheepishly asks "timeout?", with sad eyes. So far the answer has invariably been "no, you didn't do anything wrong" or "no, you didn't know you weren't supposed to do that, so it's OK, we just want you to learn".

He can now have almost reasonable phone conversations, and sometimes loves to pick up his plastic phone and have a pretend conversation with daddy. He also loves it when daddy takes out his cell phone at home and goes to another room, so daddy and Jadon can have a pretend phone call. Jadon is also getting better on real phone calls. He now can interact pretty well, although he still thinks that the person on the other end can see what he sees ("look at this, daddy!"). He also occasionally just puts the phone down when he's done, without saying goodby and without hanging up. He's getting better aobut this, and daddy now often hears him asking mommy "which button do I push, the red one or the green one?" when it's time to hang up.

For a while in May and June, each night daddy would come home from work, Jadon would meet him at the door, run over with a huge grin, give daddy a huge hug and excliam "I missed you very so much!". Daddy delighted in this, and would give Jadon a hug hug, saying "I missed you very so much, too!". Now, Jadon is still happy to see daddy, but doesn't run over with that enthusiasm and big hug anymore. How quickly children grow, and how much daddy misses that.

Since Kalon was born, the entire family has been going out more than we did before he was born. We find this surprising and interesting, since when Jadon was born, we cocooned for a number of months, and we certainly have less available energy now than when we had just one child. We think the reason is that with so much more to do with the children, we simply need the distraction and change of pace that getting out of the house provides. So, we go out to dinner once every couple weeks, go shopping, visit friends, and go swinning at the YMCA every Sunday morning. That's another thing that's different this time. When Jadon was born, we did not leave him for the first year or more. With Kalon, we're willing to leave him in baby care at the YMCA for an hour while we swim. We think it's because we're more relaxed parents this time around.

Jadon is learning to swim but, like an many things, he is "Mr. Cautious". He was fairly uninhibited the first week or two, then got more cautious, but is slowly getting better. For the past couple weeks, we've been able to take him from one end of the pool to the other several times, while we hold onto his armpits and he kicks if he wants to keep moving. We also try to get him to move his arms, but he's still getting the hang (quite well this past week) first of kicking, then kicking without making big splashes .This is how we're teaching him to swim.

He also goes to Gymnastics class on Saturday mornings. During the class, everybody gets to jump in the foam pit (essentialy an in-ground swimming pool filled with 8" cubes of foam, for practicing vaults wiithout getting injured) for 15 minutes or so. The most aggressive kids in the class jump with abandon from quite high places (6 feet high), many of the kids happily jump at least from low places, but Jadon will jump from the low places (1-2 feet high) some weeks, and some weeks demands to sit down on the edge of the foam pit and slowly scoot into it. As long as he's having fun, we don't want to push him too hard, but do want him to slowly overcome his caution in areas where he is overly cautious.

Having two children is definitely a lot of work, but not as tiring as we had thought it might. We're having such a wonderful time, we don't mind a bit!!! However, we are seriously thinking that two is probably enough for us.