Johann is walking! (and we are very easily impressed)

(Johann and Dan have gone on a long Saturday afternoon walk to the lake. I've been trying to work on my dissertation, but I've ran out of paper, so I'm shamelessly taking advantage of this opportunity to write and post some videos.)

There is no doubt that Johann has always been a bright little kid. That said, I have to say that ever since we enrolled him (and us) in his first early childhood education class the kid has been developing in leaps and bounds.

Dan and I have tried to expose him to all sorts of stimulating experiences. However, living in northern Minnesota with these brutal winters (last year there was nonstop snow on the ground from late November through April), the opportunities to get out and about with a baby in the winter are limited. Well this late summer, when I realized winter was fast approaching, I knew I had to go the extra mile and commit ourselves to participating in activities that would require us to get out of the house and into the brutal cold and socializing with others. I'm not a big fan of the intense cold, so I knew we had to commit to this class or we would end up secluding ourselves without getting outdoors for days at a time like we did last winter. So I enrolled our family in early childhood education and family education class (ECFE) in September and we're just now finishing the second month.

Well, since we started the ECFE class Johann has started talking, learning to share (and hit), play, walk, and all sorts of other new things I can't think of at the moment. It is amazing how fast all this happened. Surely these milestones would have occurred whether or not we were involved in ECFE. However, the rate at which he has progressed, immediately upon starting, has led me to believe that ECFE has been a big part of his recent developmental strides. Even better than his developmental progress, though, I think the best part about starting ECFE classes is watching him play with other kids his age (this class is geared to children between the ages of 6 months and 1 year upon starting).

Johann is starting to develop "friendships" with the other kids in his class. There's this one boy who is a few months older, named Jack. Johann seems to look up to him and I don't blame him, the kid is really cool and a sweetie. Both his parents show up for class and they are really interesting and fun, so I can see where he gets his charming personality. Then there's Evan who is about one month younger than Johann. Evan and Johannn have a bit of a contentious relationship. They hit each other a little too frequently, and I'm dismayed to say that Johann is often the aggressor. That said, you can tell they really dig each other and are interested in each others' activities. Then there's Samuel. I think he's now going on 7 months, but he is really really small. He isn't a premie, just a small kid and he's just now learning to really crawl, sit up, and stuff like that. I have to keep a close eye on Johann when he's near Samuel because Johann has a tendency to just barrel through people and he could do damage.

Then, there's the girls. Maddie is a sweetheart and likes to stick by herself and her mama. She doesn't really socialize much, so Johann and her haven't really gotten to know each other. She's really cute, though, and always wearing an adorable new outfit. Allie is another girl and she is a few months older than Johann. She is so pretty and reminds me, a lot, of my niece and Johann's cousin, Neva. Allie's been busily teaching Johann how to sit and climb on chairs. Then there's Dahlia who is a new classmate. She's about 11 months old and just started class last week, so she's still pretty tentative and hangs back with her mama. Johann and her met at the park a few weeks ago when they were swinging. I told her mama about the ECFE class and they showed up the next week! Anyhow, these are Johann's classmates and he pretty much digs them all and they are so much fun to watch as they crawl and walk around playing, sharing, and generally hamming it up.

One of my favorite parts of the class, though, is learning from Johann's very first teacher, Sarah, and Sarah's teaching assistant, Tracy. These are two lovely women who have lots and lots of parenting and teaching experience. Without my family nearby I feel like Dan and I are kind of on our own struggling to learn all these day-to-day parenting skills that college and graduate school neglect for some reason ;) So, I can't even tell you how much I appreciate them. They've already taught me so much. Like how to encourage Johann to sleep (who would have thought this would be such a challenge??? certainly not me), eating, playing, playing gently, not hitting, and stuff like that. Johann loves to sit in Sarah's lap and tug on her excellent necklace while smiling at her and hugging her. He also loves to spend time with Tracy, who is the mother of three boys. She knows exactly how to get him to laugh uncontrollably by holding him up in the air just-so. He has really hit it off with these two women. It is so cute to watch.

Anyhow, I've included two videos that show off some of Johann's new skills. I'm so proud of the kid and hopefully you can sense the joy that he brings us. Leave comments! Let us know what you think! We love you.



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and, just because,