Christmas Kid Updates

Siblings
Juliet and Jonah are really starting to interact with each other.  This comes with its fair share of adorable moments and its fair share of torture.  Last night at dinner, we were playing a favorite game of Etsy's, that Matt introduced her to, "I Spy."  Jonah was playing along:
I spy... my little eye... OR
I spy... turquoise (turquoise, Jonah, really?)
He doesn't seem to have an actual item picked out, but he seems so pleased to be part of this family game.  He beams when it is his turn.  I can only imagine the feeling of inclusion, of being able to find his voice in our family.  So last night he spied something green and we guessed a few things and Juliet guessed "jungle" and Jonah said, "jungle!"  And then Juliet jumped down off her stool and started hopping around, imitating a monkey, and Jonah, without skipping a beat, started waving his arms frantically in the air and kicking his feet.  It was hysterical, our little monkeys, making a fun little game of chaos out of our dinnertime.

New traditions
We're playing another game introduced by Matt, called "Christmas lights" that the kids love.  It's basically looking for Christmas lights as we drive around and saying "Christmas lights!" when we see them.  Juliet will declare to the car, "we're playing Christmas lights now."
Matt and I are also working on getting our Advent Jesse Tree tradition started.  I have a book that has Bible stories for the 25 days leading up to Christmas with suggested ornaments.  We've made the first 8 ornaments out of clay and have been working through them, though not quite daily.  I was pleased to hear that Juliet said the second ornament, the apple with the snake wrapped around it that I made, was "beautiful."  (I wasn't home that night to hear it in person.)  I felt really good about that.
The other day, Juliet gave me a kiss on my forehead and seemed to say that when I thought of her or missed her I could think of the kiss.  It reminded me of when I used to kiss her little palms ages ago and say the same type of thing, that she should save them for when she needed them.

Jonah
Jonah likes having books read to him, often the same ones over and over.  He's very vocal about the things he wants.  He'll often try to steer us around by pushing our legs towards the next thing he wants us to do.  He likes the alphabet and surprised everyone by knowing the refrigerator letters at Gmom's.  The other day he was saying something I couldn't recognize, which he kept repeating earnestly, then he started steering me toward the kitchen.  And finally I got it - he wanted Vitamin D drops!
He's a great sleeper.  You can just lay him down awake when it's time and he'll lay there quietly, blinking his little eyes, and snuggle in to the blanket when you cover him up.  He's also really good at entertaining himself in bed too, so sometimes, especially during naps, we'll hear him talking to himself instead of sleeping for a while.
He likes walking himself to bed often instead of being taken there.  He will say, "down" or "walk" and then trot over to the pack-n-play himself.
He's got the cutest little voice.
He loves knowing and following the protocol these days.  He'll remind us to shut the doors, turn out the lights, wash our hands, and throw something in the trash when it's the next step.  I wonder if that is age-related or part of his temperament,
He knows what sounds all the trains make in the Trains Go book.

Juliet
Juliet is becoming a little girl, getting bigger and bigger all the time.  I am amazed, when we read her the advent stories, at her listening comprehension, how she can answer the questions about the story pretty accurately.
Matt has been teaching her Bible verses at bedtime and hearing her recite John 3:16 and others is adorable.  She is clearly very proud of her abilities and she beams with pride.
She's still "acrobatic" as she tells us and desperately wants to jump on the furniture.  She and Jonah made a game yesterday where they took turns standing on the Ottoman and falling on to a pillow on the sofa.  It was cute seeing them each take turns.  Jonah started it and Juliet said, "yes Jonah, let's do that!"
Juliet loves the song about rain being lemondrops and gumdrops.  She still likes the planets, but we talk about them a little less.  She loves owls and Ben.

Juliet just woke up and she is hungry!  So we're going to go eat.  Have a great day.

Washington D.C.
trip to the spy museum AND
the Freer Gallery




For Rachel's birthday we took a trip to
Washington. We stayed at the Helix hotel
which has a Pop-art type of theme. The highlight of the trip was the Freer gallery's
"Kiyochika, Master of the night" show.
It featured wood block prints of Tokoyo at the end of the 19th century. We also visited the museum of American art and the natural history
museum. The spy museum was interesting
if not overpriced (it cost us $47 for admission)
I don't think it was worth the money.

Pennypack Farm
at the Highlands

These pictures were taken on our most recent visit to the farm where we get our vegetables. It has been a really great family experience and the kids love it! The Highlands is an old mansion and formal garden. Apparently they host a 19th century fox hunt in the fall.

Welcome Photographer Daddy!

I'm inviting a new blogger to this page.  Matt has always been the photographer of our family so, to round our this record of our kids and family, he'll be hopefully posting some pictures around the way.  We have some great ones from a farm share we joined this year called Pennypack and some goofy ones from a recent trip to D.C.  Welcome Matt!

You say a Nonah, I say a Jonah.

Happy Birthday Jonah!  Well, sort of.

It has been a long time since I wrote.  2 kids + full-time work = not enough time to do much of anything else. But this was a special occasion that I want to remember.  Today we demoed a new birthday idea for Jonah. The last day in July we had a special "Christmas in July" party celebrating Jonah's Christmas birthday.  I planned a few winter-inspired activities, Matt and I made a huge batch of "snow" white playdough, and we listened to Christmas music.  But the absolute best part of the party was seeing Jonah's face when we sang Happy Birthday to him.  It was the face of a child with his love meter full, with pride and joy at all eyes on him, loving on him.  It makes me wonder how often we actually stop and focus all our attention on Jonah, as the second-born.  With life so busy, how often do we pause, give him our undivided attention and say, "you are special."  And he came alive; He looked around, he grinned so big he beamed.   It was worth it.  All the planning, all the orchestrating, to make that moment for Jonah.  I hope he will always know somewhere in his core being, even if he doesn't actively recall it, that he was special to us all as himself.  I hope we can give him that feeling over and over and it will sink in.  Isn't that what all parents want?

What Jonah is in to now:

He likes singing "a, b, c, d" but he never gets past "d."  He notices that this song is related to letters and will start singing that when he sees letters, such as the sign for CVS.

He has always had really remarkable "ka" sounds.  So where Juliet's "milk" was always "mit" as a toddler, Jonah's is a highly-emphasized "mil-K."  The same goes for "boo-K."

Jonah says mama and dada, which is super sweet.

He understands things you say to him.  If you say "bath," he will repeat "bath" and go running in to the bathroom.  If you ask, "diaper?" he will point at his or go with you to get one.  I love when I place one on the floor and he tries to figure out how to lay down on it.  He always ends up with his head facing me!  The first time he did that I was completely impressed; I didn't realize how much he was picking up about "how we do things."  It makes me laugh that we used to be so heavily dependent on a changing table for Juliet and now I can't imagine going to a changing table each time.  We don't use it at all.  But it's a different house we're in.

Jonah loves these applesauce pouches that we call AppleBerries.  Matt usually gets them for Jonah from Wawa and so now, when Jonah sees a Wawa, even driving by, he declares "Ap-pull!"  or "Ap-pull-B!"

My other special memory of Jonah is when I get home from work.  He comes toddling over to me right away and I crouch down and he gives me the sweetest little hug.  I can't explain the joy at his little arms and hands reaching out for me, wrapping around my arm.  It is lovely.

You know how little we emphasize using utensils with our kids, but Jonah had other plans.  One day, as Matt was making food, Jonah realized that a fork was within his grasp.  He reached out and took it and proceeded to use it on his dinner!  We never showed him that overtly.  But he is always our observer, watching and taking in even the minute details.  He loves the detail, and will tend to focus on the screws on toys.  He also loves seeing what buttons do; it's like you can watch his brain working in real time to make a complete picture of "how this works."

He also likes cleaning.  Yes, you spray his high chair and give him a paper towel, and he will rub and rub.  He does the same thing on the floor.  He'll be sad if you take away the cleaner (vinegar) or towel.

He calls himself "No-nah;" he can't quite get the "J" for Jonah.  So, as seems to be our custom, our kids are choosing their own nicknames, and Jonah gets called "Nonah" more and more.  I secretly love it because it reminds me of Nola, a girl's name that I decided I loved for it's similarity to Magnolia.  Thanks Jonah!  =)

News from the 3+ Crowd

Matt and I been planning separate times for Juliet and for Jonah, either one-on-one with each parent or one at a grandparents' house and one with Matt and I.  We took Juliet to a carnival and she was fearless!  It was incredible.  She was probably less scared of the rides then Matt and I; she even pointed at the Gravitron up in the air and wanted to go on it!  (We didn't.)  Her favorite ride by far was a spaceship where one of the spaceships started low, went up high, and then went up and down.  Super cute.

Out of the Often-Noisy Planet

Juliet is coming out of an obsession with planets.  It started out innocently enough, with a why question, "Mommy, what's below the snow?"  And it went Snow>Grass>Dirt>Rock (I needed Matt's input on that)> Magma> Rock>Dirt>Grass (maybe)>Snow>Sky>Space.  And then, "what is space?!" And the rest is history.  There was actually a moment where I realized that Juliet had, quite naturally, come to the conclusion that those space-going vehicles, rockets, had to actually take off through the center of the earth and out the other side.  Opps!  Not long after her interest developed, people started being assigned planets.  I'm Mercury (I was briefly Neptune at first) and Matt is Saturn.  At first Jonah was Mars and Juliet referred to him as "rocky red planet" or "rocky red" for short.  At that time Juliet was Venus and she was pleased to tell people they were rocky planets with volcanoes.  (Wait, is that true?)  Then she developed a fascination with Uranus and Juliet and Jonah both became Uranus.  That's where we are now.  AUNT LAUREN WAS ORIGINALLY PLUTO.  She was not happy about that since Pluto is a wanna-be planet.  But now it is here in print.  She and Juliet had a discussion about that and agreed to make her Venus which is her current status.  So, in short:

The Sun - Abigail

Mercury - Mommy

Venus - Aunt Lauren

Earth - Feisser

Mars - ?  No one?

Jupiter - Akira

Saturn - Matt

Uranus - Aunt Beth (who was also not very happy about that... do you like to tease your aunts, Juliet?), Juliet, Jonah

Neptune - Ben

Juliet has a puzzle that combines her love of planets and her love of puzzles.  One time Aunt Lauren was visiting and she spent some time working with Juliet on her 100-piece planet puzzle from Aunt Beth.  As they got close to completion, Juliet named the planets, reversing Uranus and Neptune (saying them in the right order, but pointing at the other planet because she is convinced that Uranus should be the blue one and they are close together so the order isn't obvious).  Lauren corrected her.  Juliet disagreed and corrected her.  Lauren disagreed.  This went on a few times and neither party was backing down.  So Juliet looked squarely at Lauren and matter-of-factly said, "you can go play downstairs now," essentially banning her for her disagreement.  Laur and I had a laugh about that and the banishment was not enforced.  But it is a little slice of the sass and cleverness that Juliet pulls out from time to time.

What Juliet is in to now:

Her favorite color is now red.  She knows mine is turquoise and asks me if I like every turquoise thing we come across.

She wants to get in on group hugs.  Matt and I will be hugging and suddenly I'll feel little hands on my leg and Etsy is just easing her way in to the middle of the hug.  I remember group hugs from my childhood and it makes me happy.

She is currently often saying "dop" (think "top") or "doppa."  Sometimes Jonah says it too.

She has a toy laptop that seems to be teaching her British pronunciations and the joy of silly sentences.  She likes saying "Bad [noun]" and making a game of it where we go back and forth thinking of the silliest things we can.  I don't know what the staying power of that game will be.
She tried some gymnastics classes and loved them.  She was engaged, listened well, and was fearless, which is not surprising.  I felt she needed an outlet for her desire to climb and hang on everything.  I think we will be signing her up for it shortly.

She also has a very sweet, helpful side.  She often refers to me as "good mudder!" even when I don't think I've done anything particularly remarkable.  She also sometimes calls me "my little mudder" which I think is a nod to when I call her "my little one."  The other day I was getting my breakfast nutribullet (green shake) ready and I told her I wanted to put cherries in it, but I would have to cut them off the pit and that took too much time.  While I was washing and cutting the remaining fruit and vegetables, she went to the fridge, got out a cherry and bit it in half for me, removing the pit.  She presented me with the manually-pitted cherry "for your nutribullet."  It was incredibly sweet.  She is often very conscientious of my needs.  I hope this is something okay and not something strange I've cultivated either by seeming fragile/needy or over-praising it. Motherhood is an ever-tenuous position, isn't it?  Is what you are doing right?  Wrong?  Are you helping your kids?  Setting them up for success, for confidence, for loving themselves?  I do the best I can, I learn from others (thank you for psychology and creative moms), I try to think about the long-range lessons from my short range goals, and love them, and pray, and work on myself.  This has been a whole new season for Matt and I, and, in turn, I hope a whole new season for my kids and our family.

On to the next chapter, for our marriage, for our family, for our future, the one we have entitled "Hope."