For a while, the clear favorite was the rocking horse gifted to him by his Aunt Ellie. It's a wooden rocking horse that Ellie took the time to handpaint herself (thank you Ellie!). In its heyday Jonah loved nothing better than to pull it out, mount up (a process which, since his legs are a bit short, involved a hair-raising stand-on-the-saddle maneuver in order to get his legs straddling the seat), and rock away with compelte abandon. And all the while, he'd be shouting "be-la-be-la-be!" -- which is apparently baby-speak for "giddyup!" The most notable thing however (Ellie, are you still listening?) is that the rocking horse seems to have received less-than-thorough scrutiny from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and every time Jonah rocks away with abandon, he comes within a hair's breadth of completely flipping over backwards. Part of the issue is that when I say he rocks with abandon, I really mean it: he's like a drunken 17 month old cowboy, riding the mechanical bull down at the local bar. The other part of the issue is probably that Ellie and the rocking horse come from Canada and (no doubt due to their inefficient socialist form of government) they have fewer personal injury lawyers.
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Ride em' drunken cowboy!
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Another recurring favorite is the ride-on scooter gifted to him by Bleema and Richard. It has waxed and waned in fashion, but recently Jonah has discovered that his legs are now long enough that he can push himself along under his own power. (Before he could get on the scooter, but then was stuck with beeseching us to push him around.)
And then there's also the noise-making toys. Try as we might to interest Jonah in vegan organic wooden blocks and other similar politically-correct playthings, there's nothing he finds quite as delightful as a noisy plastic battery-operated gadget. If I could find a way to put the sound files up on this blog, I surely would, as it pains me to know that you're all missing out on experiencing this precious slice of childhood.
Anyway, if I can't share the sounds of childhood, at least enjoy a few more pictures:
