I'm two months old, smiling, and conversations with Blue Dog

RJ sleeps his fair share of the average for his age which is around 16.5 hours. Some days it is less, other days more, but so far not more than four or five hours consecutively. But what does he do in the time that he's awake (and not eating)?

He has his mobile with the interesting zebra. He seems to enjoy swinging in his, well, swing that Grandma D got him which also has a mobile that has bouncing leaves.

At this stage there are two things RJ is working on:

- language/social development
- motor control

So, to that end some things that we do to foster his development are:

- provide a running commentary on what we're doing.
- ask questions such as; "Who's the best football team around?" then give RJ a chance to coo and then say, "yes, that's right, the Steelers!"
- read aloud, right now RJ is learning about character animation and developmental psychology in addition to the wacky world of Dr. Suess and other children's book authors
- sing; Lance claims that "The Humpty Dance" seems to be a favorite so far followed by my made-up "Go to sleep little RJ go to sleep" song

It seems to be working. RJ is two months old and he's doing more cool stuff by the day. My personal favorites are his cooing and the smiling, which he's been doing for that last couple of weeks. I finally captured these on the camera to share.And for those of you who are thinking, but hey, I can't HEAR him coo in this images, click on the smiley picture below and you'll be linked to more pictures of RJ and a video of him cooing. One other thing that he's been doing is not only "talking" and smiling at people like momma and daddy, but also to his toys that have faces. For example, he had quite the conversation with Blue Dog while I was folding his laundry the other day and even reached out to touch Blue Dog (on purpose)! This is the first time I've noticed an actual controlled reach for something other than my nipples (yes, he finds it necessary to grab and squeeze them prior to eating), so kudos to Aunt Amy and Uncle Luke for picking the toy that he specifically reached for. Of course my picture only got his touching Blue Dog, and not all the cute expressions and exclamations, but I'll be better about snapping pictures next time. He also enjoys "talking" to Stuffed Monkey and the rainforest creatures on his bouncer and swing and play mat.