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."