Mind like a steel trap (and fingers too.)

Jonathan's shown us two outstanding feats of memory recently. The first one thwarted a little joke Chris was hoping to play on him. Chris finally found the missing puzzle piece to Jonathan's transportation-themed puzzle! It's been missing for several months. Jonathan's moved on to bigger puzzles (this one only has a measly twelve pieces) but he still holds it in great affection. So when Chris found the missing piece, he called Jonathan over to do the "schoolbus puzzle." Chris broke the puzzle up and carefully mixed in the recovered piece without showing it to Jonathan. He thought it would be a nice surprise when Jonathan completed it and all twelve pieces were there. Jonathan's too wily for Chris, though. He picked up the piece right away and said "Missing piece!" without even having started the puzzle.

We continue to read to Jonathan throughout the day, and his bedtime routine of three books never varies. "Olivia and the Missing Toy" has been in heavy rotation recently. I noticed last week that Jonathan has been speaking the words along with me under my breath as I read. He was always a half-step behind, however, so I figured he was just repeating after me.

Bedtime is full-on "Jonathan do it!" time - he gets his stepstool, brushes his teeth, and closes the door "slowly and quietly, Mommy!" So when Jonathan went to the bookcase and picked out "Olivia" - again - I asked him if he wanted to read it to me. He said "Yeah?" and held out the book for me to begin. I gave it back to him and asked "Jonathan do it?" He lit up and sat down next to me. I recited the first line: "One day, Olivia was riding . . . a camel. . . in. . . " and he chimed in "Egypt!" And we were off. Jonathan turned every page and recited most of the book from memory. He dropped out the prepositions and some of the details, but his level of recall was amazing. He was so proud of himself and I was flabbergasted. We went downstairs so he could read to Chris and Alex, who were equally impressed.

He's all set to read to his nanny this morning. Jonathan's needing the extra attention because Alex is now staying at home with Jonathan and Cara. Daycare was okay, but there were too many germs and it was getting hard to hear him cough and wheeze the whole time. We've got three carseats in the nanny's car - Alex in the middle, rear facing, with Jonathan and Cara on either side. Yesterday they went for an inaugural outing and Jonathan scratched Alex in the chin. The nanny gave him a talking-to and made sure he had a soft toy to play with on the ride home. Jonathan asked me hopefully last night "Alex go to daycare tomorrow?" But Alex is wily in his own right - he's going to get Jonathan two more "Olivia" books in an attempt to win him over to this new arrangement.

Two month checkup stats: Alex weighed in at 14 pounds, 9 ounces, moving up to the 90th percentile. He's 24 inches long, which makes him 80th percentile for height. Can we make some linebackers or what?