"Clap your hands!"

Jayden is growing up more and more.  It's just amazing what he can understand.  He understands when I tell him to clap his hands.  I say "clap your hands," he pauses for a minute or so and then claps his hands!  It's so great.  And he understands when we say "no," and he often knows when he's doing something he's not really supposed to do.

He also has started using Jasmine as his walking toy.  Not the most stable or reliable walking toy, but really hilarious for Carmen and me to watch.  This is the best I could get:

Jayden also decided on Monday that he wanted to try feeding himself.  It was hilarious.  I was spooning food to him like normal and he reached for the spoon and got irritated at me.  He tried to scoop with the spoon but couldn't figure out how to get anything on the spoon.  He allowed me to help him get the food on the spoon and then keep the spoon steady until it got to his mouth.  Eventually, though, he got tired of that and decided he could do it all himself (which he couldn't).  But he tried.  So then he held the spoon in one hand and picked up the food with his other hand.  Here's the series of photos:

Last Saturday we went to dinner with a bunch of Carmen's friends from college - all of whom have at least two babies.  There were 7 kids under the age of 6, including three under the age of 2.  It was pretty hilarious.  I think because of daycare Jayden actually wasn't fazed.  One of the four year olds was not so excited about Jayden touching his toys and Jayden was fine.  He just kept doing what he was doing.  It was actually really interesting to watch. I didn't get too many pictures, but here's one:

Finally, a few more pictures from Monday:

We're trying to discourage the whole going down the stairs forward thing.  We're partially successful.  But I think the slipping and rolling over a couple times has been more effective in deterring this behavior.  

Jayden loves playing with these two mini loaf pans.  He takes them apart, puts them back together, takes them apart again.  It's a great game.  And not at all repetitive...

Jayden gets VERY upset when Jasmine gets to go outside  without him.  He stands by the door with his hand on the door handle trying to open it.  I have to be very careful about locking the door, otherwise he really can open it.  It's amazing.  And pretty cute to watch the two of them stare at each other.