We are slowly figuring out how to efficiently change Jonny’s diaper so it doesn’t take nearly as long. The cast is an inconvenience, but he has gotten used to it.

This week has been a week of learning for Jonny. He has learned how to hold a ‘cooing conversation’. If you ‘coo’ at him, he will ‘coo’ back in turn and he will go back and forth with you as long his mood allows.

He has found his hands and learned how to soothe himself by sucking on his fingers. Oh, and not only his fingers, he tries to shove his entire hand into his mouth. It makes it hard to tell when he is really hungry because he does it all the time whether he wants food or not and has given us a constant false impression that he is famished. Which brings us to our next accomplishment of the week.

He has defeated the ‘haberman’ bottle he uses to feed. When he was born, the doctors said he would never be able to breast feed because he could not seal off his airway to suck thanks to the cleft in his palate (the analogy they used was like sucking soda through a straw with a hole in it). So we have been using a special bottle which essentially squirts the milk into his mouth as he attempts to suck it out.

Well, this week he figured out how to suck all on his own without us having to squirt it in his mouth. Not only that, he is so efficient at it, if we even try to help him out by squirting it, he nearly gags and gives us an angry look.

Last night my parents watched him for a few hours so Mama and I could enjoy a nice evening out and apparently Jonny went ahead and ‘fed himself’ for Grammy and Papa. Not only was he sucking on his own, he was holding the bottle with 2 hands without help as he did it. He hasn’t even figured out the ‘grabbing small things with 1 hand’ thing and he’s holding his bottle with 2 hands, while eating.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he is talking without issue by the time his cleft palate surgery comes along and the doctors have to forgo it all together. This kid is a world beater already!