Big baby at the park

When Manny was a baby, Jonah would say that he had "giggled Manny" whenever he made Manny laugh. Here he is, giggling Iohan. Have I

mentioned yet how much he loves his baby brother? A LOT!

Somewhere under that hair, I think, is my son.

Iohan's been into licking lately. Or, snake-like, testing the air with his tongue.

I'm not quite sure what this look means, but it's pretty sweet.

Month 3

As much as you might like seeing pictures of the two older boys (lots of new ones below!), I'm sure that everybody wants to see pictures of "the baby," as I often call him. (I'm trying to keep him as little as possible for as long as possible!) The top photo was taken almost a month ago, and the last just last week.

Jonah often calls Iohan "Bluey," for his blue eyes. "Hey there, little Bluey, how are you, you cute little guy?" When I told Jonah that Jonah himself was born with blue eyes, but that they changed within a day, Jonah said, "Well, I just think that Iohan's eyes should stay blue forever."

This boy knows how to enjoy life. He looks like he's about to explode from happiness.

Jonah loves, loves, LOVES Iohan. I think that he wishes that he were big enough to change Io-Io's diaper, to bathe him, to carry him around. I sometimes wish that, too, sweet Jonah.

All I can see in this photo is the ears. Which doesn't make the photo any less cute, of course.

Little snow men

Snowman

My general parenting style is to let (or "make," depending on the situation) my kids play by themselves. It's good for them, and I've got dinner to cook! Sometimes, though, I'll sit down at the train table, or get out the paints, or put on my boots and build a snowman. February 23 was just one of those times.

After being nice to the snowman for a little while, the boys decided that enough was enough.

RIP, Snowy.

Shenanigans

A couple weeks ago, I made a "real" snowman with the boys, complete with carrot nose. In the days after we built it, Jonah has frequently requested a "snowman-nose carrot," i.e. a long carrot as opposed to baby-cut. When he was in a defiant mood a few days ago, Jonah was threatened with the loss of dessert; he didn't obey and so promptly lost his dessert. That night after dinner, as I knew would happen, Jonah complained to me that he was "still just a little more hungry." "Too bad, son," I told him. "You lost your dessert." Undetered, Jonah went to the refrigerator and helped himself to -- can you guess? -- a snowman nose carrot. He washed it off in the sink, perched on his chair and munched on it happily while Manny and I finished dinner. As I asked my husband later that night, after he returned home: What's a mother to do? Jonah was essentially eating dessert, since the carrot was an after-dinner treat, but, for heaven's sake, it was a CARROT. Why would I want to stop him from eating a vegetable? If Jonah's rebellions consist of borderline-naughty carrot-eating, well, I should just count my blessings and move on.

Another day, Jonah was resisting taking a nap, though it was obvious to me that he was tired. He came out of his room for about the third time since beginning his quiet time an hour before, unbidden. My hands busy with a kitchen task, I told him firmly that he needed to go back into his room. Pouting and whining, he did, leaving the door open and then returning to close it about a minute later. I washed my hands and opened his door, assuming that he was playing and needed to be reminded to go to sleep. To my surprise, the child was lying on his bed, blanket pulled up over him. While I was happy to see this, Jonah was not happy to see me. "No, no, no, you can't come in here!" he shouted crabbily. "Go out!" Usually I correct Jonah's tone and words when he talks like this. This time, though, after a second's hesitation, I simply turned around and closed the door behind me, shaking my head. If he was actually trying to nap, why should I disturb him? I didn't hear another noise from Jonah until he emerged from his room a couple hours later. He won that one, but so did I.

Danger!(?)

I've entered a new stage of parenting, which I think of loosely as "the danger age." Not that my children are in any imminent danger, but as they grow more independent of me and my husband and begin to pursue their own interests, they will come in contact with more danger. Or, I should say, potential danger.

The picture above is case-in-point. Manny looks down on his brother, who is playing outside by himself. Yes, at age three-and-a-half, in the big city, while I'm two storeys away. While this winter hasn't been as rough as I had anticipated that it might be, veritably trapped inside because we've got a newborn and a borderline asthmatic (not to mention the thirty minutes of bundling that stand between indoor and outdoor play here in the Midwest), it has still been long and, well, less than spectacular. (Really, though, it could've been much worse, I realize that!) Two young boys' energy threatening to explode the walls of a city apartment have made me thankful for any moments that shift that energy to another location. Because he's now nearing four and is much more capable of imaginative play (not to mention that he's become fascinated with eating snow), Jonah has come to love playing outside in the snow; he rarely wants to come inside. Manny, on the other hand, often doesn't care to play outside, which not infrequently presents me with a dilemma: Force Manny to play outside? (And what about Iohan?) Forbid Jonah to go out? My solution has been to send Jonah outside all by himself.

Coming to this point has actually been somewhat difficult. If you'd told me at the beginning of the winter that soon I'd be letting Jonah play outside with only intermittent attention, I don't know that I'd have believed you. We live in one of the nations's largest cities, where we only minimally know our neighbors and where it seems that there's an overwhelming concentration of weirdos. We live close to the intersection of a major east-west street and a busy sidestreet. While neither of my boys shows much inclination to wander, the urge could strike at any moment; very few of our neighbors would know where this random child on the sidewalk belongs. I know all of this, and the possibility of just one of these things "happening"... well, it makes me break into a sweat to even let my mind start in that direction.

At the same time, I consider other "things that could happen": Any car ride could result in a car accident, perhaps fatal. There are weirdos on the buses and trains all the time, not to mention random gun violence. While standing two feet away from me, my children could suddenly decide that the street or the tracks look like a fun place to play, or they might lean out a little too far while checking to see if the bus or train is on its way. Our own home is potentially dangerous; I've seen statistics before about how often kids are injured in their own homes in those few seconds that parents turn their backs, and they are frightening.

"The danger age" has now begun, and with it begins the weighing of "what could happen" with what my kids will gain from having some freedom (and, frankly, what I will gain from having a break). As I said above, Jonah shows no propensity to wander, and we live in one of the safest and more well-to-do neigborhoods in the city, right by a church and a school. He loves to play outside and he's proud of what he can accomplish by himself, digging in the snow or rolling snowballs. I've given Jonah the age-appropriate rules of safety and "stranger danger": Don't leave the yard; talking to a neighbor is fine, but don't go by the gate; never leave the yard with anybody besides Mama; and scream, scream, scream if anyone tries to take you (though I wonder if this last one is too scare-inducing).

In conversation with my husband, I've come to realize that I tend to assume that danger is not present unless I see actual signs of it. There is certainly a risk of becoming too lax in this view, and I've realized that I need to temper it with appropriate caution. At the same time, I can't bring myself (nor do I desire) to see danger around every corner, or to assume that my kids will be hurt or injured as soon as I look the other way. Living for two decades with a fairly adventurous father has given me a more exploratory, try-it-and-see, do-it-yourself mentality than seems prevalent in today's near-hysterical parenting world (at least the one that the media presents). I can't keep my children small forever; I can't be with them every moment of every day; I want to give them the tools and the experience to do things by and for themselves. Don't think, though, that I don't say a prayer every time I drop Jonah off in the back yard and head back up the stairs.

(Incidentally, when summer arrives, there is no way that I will leave the kids alone in the backyard with their kiddie pool. I'm far more scared of 3 inches of water than I am some alone time in a snowy yard.)