Chez San

Doughy, not ideal.

2012-01-16T15:47:00.008-06:00

I'm back, with a plate of donuts. I wish you could eat them. Yes, I realize that they don't look like donuts, quite, but they're tasty! A couple nights ago, during story time, Jonah asked what the word "ideal" means. My years of liberal arts schooling came to mind, but I didn't feel like getting into philosophy, exactly, with my 5 year old at 8 p.m. We answered him with, "The best that it can be." Well, these are not ideal donuts, as far as appearances go. And some were still doughy in the middle (which was actually kind of yummy), so I can't even claim that the inside was ideal. But I've now gotten "doughnut-making" out of my system, so that's ideal.

On this cloudy, dreary Monday, on which three of the four of us at home right now have the sniffles, and the other is a 5 year-old boy who would probably rather be at school, I needed a project. Between the prep, the frying, the consuming (which would be ongoing, except that I’m experimenting with freezing these) and the cleaning, donut-making has consumed a fair chunk of my day. Clean-up shouldn’t have been such a pain, but I guess that sometimes even when you follow directions, things can still turn out a little messy. (Is that a life-lesson in tasty, doughy disguise? I will let you judge for yourself.)

The recipe is from King Arthur’s “Whole Grain Baking,” so I’m allowed to say that these donuts are, if not quite healthy, less bad than they could be. The mixture of oat flour (i.e., finely ground oats), whole wheat flour and bread flour is not too sweet; the cinnamon sugar mixture added the perfect complement to the crunchy exterior. I’m not such a fan of the powdered sugar, which was a concession to my eldest son -- I think I didn’t wait long enough to roll the donuts in the sugar, so the powder is still moist and sticky. Though, now that I write that, I realize that I can try to pass that off as the frosting that the boys have been wanting, just like Dunkin’ Donuts fried dough. I wonder if they’ll be convinced...

Chicago wildlife

2011-06-07T22:16:00.008-05:00

Betcha can't guess where we were? I mean, it's not like Iohan is wearing a sign on his head or anything! Oh, wait...

Yup, the Field Museum! In November, our family bought a membership to the Field Museum as an early Christmas gift. It has been worth every dollar. I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to run out of things to see there. As much as I sometimes wish that we lived in the suburbs with a largish yard, or in the country, with chickens and a stream in the backyard, many times I am just very, very thankful that for at least a portion of our lives we live where we are in easy reach of some of the nation's premiere museums. Urban living definitely has its benefits.

Little critters in the woodland.

My three little beasties, in the nest.

And out in the wild.

Roaming the city hills.

Claiming the hilltops, and nimbly trotting along.

Another setting to be climbed and conquered, though defended by many other little tikes.

I've been surmounted.

Little beasties need their water, too.

And off we go again!

Poser

2011-03-21T22:19:00.004-05:00

This child is workin' the camera, showing off all his different looks. All cute, of course.

Sweet Saturday

2011-03-21T21:55:00.002-05:00

My own little piece of sweet candy.

Every year for the past three, my mom has had the hankerin' to come down to Chicago to visit around the first weekend in February. This weekend just happens to coincide with "Sweet Saturdays" at the Garfield Park Conservatory, a program that shows kids (and adults, too, I guess) some foods that are harvested from plants -- cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, chocolate. We get free samples, and the climate is warm and a little humid, which is a real treat midwinter!

The boys remembered this pond from last year, with its magical yellow (glass) "lily pads." These lily pads are art that I can get behind.

In the cafe area of the Conservatory, a local band called Tarima Son was playing some sort of Latin music. I wish that I could be more specific, but there are so many styles of Latino music that I'm not going to pretend that I can keep them all straight! The music got Jonah a-dancin' and Iohan a-starin'. He was what they call "agape"; it was so sweet. Eventually he danced, which at 15 months was little more than several deep knee bends. Can you see it at right?

Iohan enjoyed his first hot dog at the Conservatory. And when I say "enjoyed," I mean enjoyed; he ate the whole thing. Way to go, Fat Man! (Many of Io-Io's nicknames refer to his girth, or to his spherical form.)

Blizzard of 2011

2011-02-12T15:16:00.005-06:00

For once the newcasters' dramatic pronouncements weren't misplaced: The snow and winds began at about 2:30 pm and didn't stop until late the next morning. To amp up the excitement, I told the boys numerous times in a dramatic voice, "Boys! This could be the biggest storm of your LIVES!" Which Gabe would usually follow up with, "I sure hope not!" Yes, husband, I too want the boys to live long and fruitful lives, but since this was in fact the third biggest storm in Chicago's recorded history, it could in fact be the biggest they'll ever see. We ended up with just over 20 inches of "global warming" (as my favorite conservative political site calls it) dumped on us. I negotiated a slight break on our rent with our landlord, so I headed out as soon as the snow stopped to get to work. (The landlord was nice enough to pay me a little extra for taking care of the snow from this storm -- woohoo!)

The view from our back door. I've removed the top layer of snow, but you can see from the sunken footprints how much more I have to go.

With the winds, the snow drifted quite a bit. It was probably 3 feet high or so by our side fence.

Our lightweight little boys sank down only thru the top layer of snow. Otherwise, they'd be struggling thru chest-high powder, "Little House on the Prairie"-style.

The boys helping -- or should I say, "helping," since we all know what a help preschoolers can be -- our neighbor clear her front walk.

Jonah and his "removement branch." I think that it removed the snow? Or something? It ended up being an eye hazard and right now resides in our front yard.

Manny pulled his weight ("lifted his snow"?) with his little bucket.

Iohan stayed inside with Gabriel and watched the fun from his new perch, cackling all the time.

Gifts, part 2

2011-02-12T14:27:00.002-06:00

My maternal grandma's table at the holidays often featured her apple plates and her milk glass. As she and my grandpa are beginning to pack up to move from their house into a senior community, she's been kind enough to give me some of her lovely milk glass. There's just something so rich about the opaque white glass that I love. And the design of the bowl below is beautiful -- almost like lace, but with a bit more heft.

Maybe a part of the reason I love the white is that it's perfect for holidays: Pure white suitable for Pascha (Easter), and snow white for New Years, or, as below, for Christmas. Look how nice it is in our Christmas 2010 Christmas spread!

Thank you, Grandma!

Gifts, part 1

2011-02-08T09:13:00.006-06:00

For my 30th birthday, my aunt Linda gave me a gingerbread house. Perhaps not the first thing on a 30 year old's birthday wish list, but for me this was perfect. One of my many fond childhood memories is of working on the annual gingerbread house at Linda's house with my sister and our two cousins. In fact, when I think of my aunt and uncle's old house on Powers street, the gingerbread house pops into my head about 50% of the time -- it made that much of an impression. This gift came at an especially perfect time because just a week prior, Jonah had seen a gingerbread house at a store and asked if we could have one. Yes!!

The fantasy...

...the reality. Not too shabby!

The boys attempted to cover their gingerbread man and snowman with colored fondant. Well, what I should say, is that they attempted to *nicely* cover the gingerbread man and the snowman with fondant; you can see that the little figures are definitely covered.

Aunt Linda's note said that, at age 30 and with two young kids and a husband, she wanted to start some of her own family's traditions, and the gingerbread house was one of them. This tradition was shared with many of us outside of her immediate family and has become a treasured memory. I hope to add the house of yum to my own family's traditions so that my own kids might someday look back and remember not just the house, but also the love surrounding it.

On gardening and malaise.

2010-11-17T22:33:00.004-06:00

Happier days.

Today I went out back and pulled up all the frost-deadened plants that once constituted a live garden. The peppers came up easily, as did the broccoli and cucumber. The tomatoes were more resistant. Wrapped and dried around their cages as they were, I had to break them apart before pulling both cage and roots from the ground. Small green cherry tomatoes and big, fat should-be-yellow heirlooms broke off the vines and rolled about on the cement patio. Jonah, in Tyrannosaurus rex rainboots, smashed a few underfoot, until I suggested that he and Manny set them aside for the neighborhood “Robber Squirrel,” as the boys have come to call him. They set about this task with gusto, making a pyramid of immature fruit to feed any creatures that might be interested.

Tearing my garden out was a mournful task, made worse by the fact that I procrastinated my way through the warm fall and was now forced to uproot on a gray, rain-spitting afternoon. I couldn’t help but feel guilty as I trashed the sad, dry skeletons and squashed their miscarried fruits under my feet. I failed my garden this summer, and looking at the plants’ remains was a pinch to my conscience. My zucchini plant was a fatality of midsummer frustration: I tore it out because it was five feet long and two feet high and producing absolutely zero zucchinis. While the yellow pepper plant gave us a dozen or so peppers, the mini red pepper plant was unfortunately located in its shadow and barely had a chance to show us what she could do. The cucumber vine was likewise buried under a jungle of zucchini and broccoli; it did do marginally better when I put a cage around it and took its long arms off the ground, but it never flourished. The onions didn’t grow larger than my fingernail; the peas were eaten by some rodent or another. And the tomato plants! The tomato plants! My poor tomato plants grew completely, completely out of control: They invaded one another’s cages; they knocked down their own cages in a fit of exuberant growth; they wouldn’t let anyone pass on the sidewalk without insisting on being trampled, they’d spread so far out of the garden. And I can’t tell you the number of once-beautiful yellow heirloom tomatoes that I found under a tangle of vines, rotten, a day or several past the point of human consumption.

Each time that I found a rotten tomato, though, or looked in vain for a zucchini squash, I knew that this garden was a disaster of my own making. I began this garden with a burst of enthusiasm. I envisioned the succulent and tasty harvest that would save me a few trips down the produce aisle during the summer months. I imagined getting my hands dirty, and my boys’ hands dirty, as we pulled weeds on summer mornings. I thought of keeping a journal, with details about the plants’ relative locations and output. I failed on almost every count. While I didn’t have to buy quite as much produce this summer, the garden vegetables were more a supplement than a replacement to our normal veggie intake. If I made it outside in the garden to weed (which was rare), I was generally too impatient with the boys to teach them the difference between friendly and enemy plants. The gardening journal is gathering dust in our buffet as I write, unsoiled by my schemes. And I never got it together enough to find out the basics of garden care after I put the plants in the ground. I know that ornamental flowers need to be trimmed back to encourage them to produce more, and I hear that it’s the same with vegetables; my tendency toward laziness, though, got in the way of me asking a gardener or performing basic research with book or internet. The work of uprooting today made me feel like Cain, but with vegetable blood crying out from the ground.

The garden, of course, is but one symptom of a larger tendency in my “real life,” my life outside the garden. Worthwhile projects are taken up with vigor and enthusiasm: The handmade cross-stitched Christmas ornaments with which I’d like to adorn our tree; the de-cluttering and organizing project aimed at making our home more aesthetically pleasing and easier to keep neat; the books begun in pursuit of being a better wife, or mother, or person. All too soon and all too easily I set them aside, because my enthusiasm simply fades or because I assume that “this will take care of itself.” When I realize that these things are actually work and demand something of me I let them fade from my vision; eventually they become just visual white noise, something that I look past without seeing, another part of the landscape. And I am the poorer for it. I suspect that taking the time to learn proper tomato care instead of watching another round of useless TV would in fact have yielded a bountiful harvest instead of a fight with leggy plants and few fruits. In the same way, sitting down to cross-stitch in the day or evening may yield not only a product that I’ve made and of which I’m proud, but also more time spent in conversation and a deeper relationship with my sons or husband. The book that I’ve stopped reading after 50 pages may contain that one thought of phrase that will carry me through many a rough day. But breaking out of the rut of malaise, I find, is a job in itself.

Too often I choose the easy way, and feel myself impoverished. I imagine and even know what I’m missing but find myself too mired in sloth to seize it. I regret these missed opportunities, and I feel a not-unnecessary guilt when I am reminded of “what might have been.” The challenge, I know, is to transform this guilt into action. It’s not too late for me right now, or ever, as long as I have breath, to begin again. I may scale back my expectations; I may change my strategy – such is life. But here is the beauty of life, and gardens: Spring planting will come again, offering another chance for a rich harvest.

Glory to God.

Indian summer

2010-10-31T22:02:00.006-05:00

Late September graced us with a visit from my sister Kara. (Can you see how happy Iohan is in the picture above?) Kara took three days from work to come visit us, and we made sure to pack those three days with fun, fun, and more fun. It didn't stop. Stop 1, on Monday, was a trip to the Shedd Aquarium. Day 2 included a visit to the North Park Nature Preserve, and Day 3 was for the Brookfield Zoo. Whew! Are you tired yet?! We were. The boys loved the attention from Auntie Kara, and I enjoyed company for three days straight, especially since it was with my little sister.

Do the following pictures look extra amazing? That's because Kara took them. (Yes, she's available for sessions in the Grand Rapids area. http://vividphotoanddesign.com)

I don't know what it is about this picture that cracks me up: Manny casually pestering his brother? Iohan looks stuck? Iohan's doing a pushup? Iohan's checking behind him to see why he can't move forward? I don't know, but I love it. Perfect capture of a quotidian moment.

Manny's mitt, and Iohan's baby boobies!

Angel face.

Somehow Manny has taken up the habit of walking with his hands behind his back. Taking his afternoon constitutional?

Here's my new hair, by the way. And the now ever-present giant earrings! Thanks to Mom for this pair.

Off-roading.

We wanted a picture of Manny pointing on this bridge, and I'm sure that we asked him to point, whether directly or indirectly, about 20 times. This might be the photo of just when Manny got fed up with that.

So big!

Primate House

2010-10-31T21:32:00.011-05:00

Here's Kara with Iohan. As you may be able to tell, based on the fact that she's in the photo and not holding the camera at an awkard angle to photograph herself, I took this photo. It's the only one in this post that I actually did take! For the rest, you can enjoy Kara's photographic skills again...

Nothing like a little pre-zoo buffalo horn-hangin'.

Aaaannnnnddddddd... In we go!

High fliers.

When I see this photo, I'm tempted to think: "Why didn't I leave them there?" They obviously want to join the animals.

Here is Sebastian, watching the dolphin show. Alina, Sebastian's mama, was nice enough to invite us to the Brookfield Zoo, as guests on her membership. It was a lovely morning!

Can you see the rhino in the black and white photo? A grey rhino in a black and white photo is kind of like a black and white "Where's Waldo," isn't it?

Iohan sleeps, brothers are silly. Fairly typical.

Kara and I were actually able to watch the primates for quite awhile at our last stop for the day. We were only able to do this because the boys were busy calling Africa. And they should soon be calling Auntie Kara, because they love and miss her! Thanks for the visit, Sister-Friend!

Precious cargo

2010-10-31T21:31:00.000-05:00

Mil-i-wau-kay

2010-10-31T21:11:00.005-05:00

In August the boys and I were able to travel up to Wisconsin to meet my Iowan maternal grandparents at my cousin's house in Milwaukee (roundabout, but it worked!). My poor grandmother, lover of babies and all things sweet, hadn't met Iohan since his birth, so we were all thrilled that this daytrip worked out. I didn't know how beautiful Milwaukee was. Granted, we stuck to my cousin's backyard and the lake, but I'm sure that the rest is great too, right?!

After the boys chowed down on their delicious Jimmy John's (above, with second- or third-cousin Isaiah), they headed down to the lake to throw stones in the water with Isaiah and Great-Grandpa Denny.

Stone-throwing and sand-digging.

Hey, everyone, take one last look at my beautiful hair, and Jonah's! You won't see either again! (Little did I know...)

When Iohan wasn't chomping on a water bottle, he was kissing Jonah through the Pack 'n' Play mesh. Everything this baby does is cute.

Great-Grandma Ruth with Ioey, and my grandparents with all three of my little bears. (The elder two were distracted by the TV -- can you tell?)

Correlation

2010-09-12T22:54:00.002-05:00

There is a correlation between the number of photos that I take of the kids and how crazy they get. I know that correlation doesn't always equal causation, but I think that sometimes it just might. (I originally got the camera out to take pictures of Manny and Iohan in their twin shirts; Jonah had to get in on the action, though he lacks a matching shirt.)

Smooth moves

2010-09-12T22:32:00.003-05:00

For the finale of Jonah's summer camp at the beginning of August, his group of campers performed a little dance in the camp's talent show. He'd practiced his moves for me a couple times at home, but with no knowledge of the song to which they would be performing, or what the moves were actually supposed to be, I had no real way to evaluate his talent. Come of the day of the show, though, I saw that my little Birdie is a very enthusiastic, and maybe even first-rate dancer (you can see a leader doing the moves at the end of the line of kids; Jonah's keepin' up with him). He knew the moves so well; I was so proud of him that, yup, I got a little teary-eyed. I couldn't help but brag to the dad sitting next to me that, "Hey, that's my kid!" Jonah was apparently his group leader's favorite camper -- she told me so! -- which may be why he was chosen to lead the train. Well done, Jonah!

(Wondering about the costumes? We were told to dress the kids in 70's clothes, though, really, who has bell bottom pants for tots? Not I! The leader also suggested vests and buttondown shirts, both of which I was able to pick up at a thrift store. We turned the patterned side of the vest in; Jonah declared that, "My vest is special, because it has bricks inside!" I love his innocence, that he doesn't know when a vest is, well, just a little ugly. The beanie hat, a gift from Gabe's boss, was Jonah's own idea. 70's?, maybe not, but just right for a J-Bird.)

Body paint

2010-09-12T22:17:00.005-05:00

A couple months ago, in the middle of a "great moms do fun things with their kids!" tizzy, I got out the ol' finger paints to do hand- and footprint paintings with the elder two boys. It was actually quite a bit of fun, and I'm sure that many of us know that unless a moment of fun is documented on digital camera, it never actually happened, right? I'd forgotten my camera upstairs, so I left the boys (briefly!) to get it. By the time I returned, the painting of small body parts had degenerated (or evolved?) into nearly full body painting. Like lightning, these kids!

Cuter by the month

2010-09-12T21:52:00.003-05:00

Following are pictures of Iohan on his month-markers over the past few months. I keep trying to convince him to stay a baby forever, but he's denying my request.

June, 7 months.

July, 8 months.

August, 9 months.

September, 10 months. Into double digits!

Magical day.

2010-09-01T22:32:00.006-05:00

Jonah has said to me a few times lately, "Mama, I just love Chicago." Days like July 22 make me feel the same way. Can you see why?

Metra-watching.
Pedestrian bridge from the Art Institute to Millenium Park.

Lurie Garden.

Pritzker Pavilion. Too loud.

Really too loud.

Chow hounds.

Brothers' construction biz.

Crown Fountain. Too busy, for one little man.

Daddy attack, baby snack.

On not being Super-Mom, not even close

2010-09-01T22:22:00.003-05:00

While on a playdate recently with a new friend, I let it slip that I'd gone to the gym that morning before packing lunch and bussing over to the park to meet her, her daughter and the little girl she cares for during the day.

"You WHAT?!?" my new friend practically shouted at me. "You went to the gym?! Oh, I hate you moms who go to the gym in the morning!"

Instantly, I realized how I'd unintentionally presented myself, and I could imagine the picture that I'd conjured in her mind: Perkily-ponytailed, clad in cute workout clothes, super-fit Super-Mom, bounding to the gym as the sunrise breaks over the horizon. Ta-da! She probably runs marathons, too. Or maybe Perfect-Life Mom: The children awake with nary a snarl, feed themselves, dress themselves and look at books for an hour so Mom can go to the gym and Dad can sleep past 6:00 a.m. Amazing!

Listing excuses, I struggled to kill these Super-Mamas-in-her-mind, my imposters. "No, no, I really don't enjoy going that early. My muscles aren't warmed up enough to really work out. I only go in the morning because it's too stressful to go in the evening: If I wait till then, it's right during the boys' bedtime, which Gabe has to do alone. And I feel like I always return to a messy house, which stresses me out." I rolled my eyes at this point. "I'm one of those moms: I mean, is there anything worse than walking on crumbs first thing in the morning?" To my mind, sweeping the floor is far less a tip-off to a lurking Super-Mama than is early-morning gym-going. I hoped to win my friend over on this one. It worked, at least temporarily. She corrected me a bit, claiming that waking up to a loose hair stuck tangled in the toes was the worst way to start the day.

"Still," she said, doubt returning. "You have three kids. That's pretty impressive." I changed the subject.

Oh, friend, I thought to myself later. Some days I feel like I could vanquish the world; many days I feel like the old man on a poster in my parents' house: "I've only been here a week, but the boss says I'm already two weeks behind." This friend is new. Not knowing me well, she may see me as a young mom of three who manages to keep her stuff mostly together, evidenced, for example, by the fact that I make my own granola bars. And of course by the fact that I go to the gym before my children wake. According to the face that I typically manage to present in public, I may as well be a Super-Mama. Those family and dear friends who have known me for longer and around whom I let down my guard have seen the reality of self-doubt, strained relationships, impatience with my children and husband, and cynicism. And the person that exists where only God can see can be downright scary, far more often than I'd like to admit.

My immediate defense of my gym-going on hearing my friend's reaction make me realize how much I want to be known and accepted for what I am, with all my imperfections and baggage. I am often guilty of assuming that other women, and other mothers, have it all together. I assume that they are invincible, that they are better people than me, that their lives smell like roses. All this I assume based on a single and surprising new piece of information, just as my friend did when I revealed my morning trip. She makes her own yogurt? She grinds all her family's grain? She works on the side? She lost all the baby weight in how much time? Who is she? As much as any of these bits may speak to a woman's drive and motivation, they are hardly indicative of the larger picture of one's life. Going to the gym in the morning doesn't speak to my superpowers or my perfect life at all. I don't go then because I want to: I go to make the evenings run more smoothly. I go because these extra 20 pounds that I'm carrying after my kids consistently do a number on my self-esteem. I go because I don't want to wake up to crumbs on the floor, even two mornings a week. I go, essentially, to smooth even a little bit a day that will inevitably have a bump or two. Or more than I can count. I imagine that plenty of other moms do what they do less because they want to than because they simply need to.

There are undoubtedly a few mothers out there who actually do have next to everything in their lives together. When I meet them, I want to learn from them: After all, they've got what I want. I expect, though, that many of the women I meet are like me, trying to figure out what works best for self and family, looking for grace and understanding from their friends, and hoping to pass that same grace and understanding along to others. I don't in fact want to wallow in the misery of getting up at 6:00 a.m. to go lift weights, which, let's face it, "misery" accurately describes the reality of some morning trips. Instead, I try to look at these mornings optimistically: I'm doing what I can to achieve what I want. I'm trying to live the life I want instead of complaining as it passes me by, out of control. Getting up to go to the gym doesn't make me Super-Mom or Perfect-Life Mom, but it does give me a chance to grow into the person I want to be. A person with more peace, more patience, more strength, and, as a bonus, more muscley arms.

Happy Birthday, Little Birdie!

2010-07-31T09:00:00.013-05:00

On July 4, Sweet Baby J celebrated his golden birthday.

Manny celebrated with him.

These are Lego cakes. Legos cakes matched my two criteria for this year's birthday cake: First, it had to be something that Jonah was interested in; and second, it had to be easy to make. Ta-da!

Enjoying birthday cake and birthday ice cream after a birthday dinner of pizza, during a birthday visit from Gangee and Pop-Pop.

Iohan is as excited about Jonah's new car carrier as Jonah is, I think. Jonah's not excited that Iohan's excited, though.

For his birthday, we bought Jonah tickets to a White Sox game. He was generous enough to include Manny in the outing. Here are the boys in their Sox gear, ready for their big adventure.

Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Denny gave Jonah a baseball "glub" (his preferred pronunciation) for his birthday. Pop-Pop and Gangee gave Manny one, too, so that the two could play together, and so that any "it's-not-my-birthday-and-I've-got-no-presents" meltdowns on Manny's part might be prevented. Success! These days, Gabriel takes the boys out nearly once a day to practice. We're counting on someone making the majors!

This may be one of my favorite pictures ever. Baseball brothers, in boots and undies cheesy grins in place.

Sky-gazing

2010-07-26T21:34:00.007-05:00

I'm not generally one to stand about gazing at the sky, thinking deep thoughts. I don't think that those who do are necessarily silly (though some of them certainly are) -- I just don't have the time. I've caught the sunset only a few times during my years here in Chicago, and never by intent; it's only been by lucky timing when I've been out walking, or have just happened to glance out the window after a storm.

One evening a short time ago, though, during a time of too much tension in the house -- summer guests, summer heat and too little sleep do not a good combination make -- I took my dinner outside to sulk, or to just calm down. The air was in fact almost unbearably hot and humid (though cooler than that stagnating inside our apartment), but it carried the sounds of cicadas and of the traffic on Addison Ave, somehow a strangely soothing combination. After I finished eating, and needing more solitude, I pulled on my dirty gartdening gloves and poked around the tomato plants, netting a handful of red jewels. The sky sputtered once, for a few minutes -- big, fat drops that tried to show how much damage they would do if only their ranks were multiplied by several thousand. And then the clouds were lit from one direction by a red light that I so rarely see here in the city, and I felt compelled to actually take a picture.

It was such a rare moment for me, and it was lovely. Eating outside, a few red tomatoes harvested from the garden, and the sky on a wants-to-be-stormy evening were enough to take me out of my funk. Snap me out of it?, maybe not, but at least to give me enough room to breathe, to calm myself down, and to try to re-start the evening. It's a remedy that I should take up more often: Eat, breathe, garden.

Te adoramos, Iohan.

2010-07-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

We love this baby.

Mama-dates, part 1

2010-07-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

I've joked with friends lately about "mom-dating," that is, the process of finding and getting to know mama-friends with whom I might like to have friendship and what's become known as "playdates." ("Playdates" are what I always called "going to play with" or "going to X's house" when I was a kid; today's mom needs a trendier term for it, apparently.) I've felt the need to begin mama-dating lately for a couple reasons: The first is that I've resolved to put down roots here in Chicago as much as possible despite the fact that there is always a sort of limbo in our lives as to where and when we may be next. (To this end, I also planted a garden this spring, a sign of my commitment.) Second, many of my friends have either moved away or have just been occupied with the general busyness of life. It's taken awhile, but I've finally admitted to myself that I am, in fact, kind of lonely. Attempting to be proactive, I've challenged myself to quit acting like I don't see other moms at the playground or our Music Together class and make some friends, already!

Perhaps you think that mama-dating should be easy? Well, friend, you think wrong. Consider: There are four separate parties involved in any form of mama-dating: oneself; one's children; prospective mama-friend; and prospective mama-friend's child(ren). All four parties must agree that play-dating is a good idea for a successful relationship. Add into this the limitations of coordinating these four parties' schedules (classes, naps and mealtimes) and tastes in activities (inside or outside; free-play or structure; rowdy or more sedate), and some relationships are doomed before they've even begun.

And once you add actual humans into the equation? The difficulties are heightened exponentially. Just look at me: I've always been shy (or have, at least thought of myself as shy, which is virtually the same thing), and this shyness sometimes proves insurmountable when attempting to initiate conversation with a stranger. What's more, the thought of making myself vulnerable can lead to paralysis by over-the-top self-doubt: Does she already have enough friends and doesn't need the mopey mom at the playground hanging around? Does she think I'm funny, "funny"? Will she think that I'm some weirdo stranger if I ask for her number? Will she think that the only explanation for three kids at my young age is that I'm a crazed religious zealot? Do I smell funny, or is my hair just too weird today? Maybe I should've worn makeup! Ack! Lacking the ability to read minds, and imagining the worst, I've missed at least a couple opportunities.

For however many opportunities I've missed, though, the past several weeks have led to a few actual connections, which I consider fairly remarkable. Except, of course, the drama is not over, and now I must figure out what kind of relationship I want with my current suitors. More on that to come.

Happy Valley, again.

2010-07-23T14:57:00.015-05:00

Sure, the Pennsylvania hills are pretty and all, but they're nothing compared with what I imagine is a tanker truck filled with the world's best coffee. I mean, that has to be what this is, right? Oh, wait, that says "on the Interstate." Interstate's best is not = world's best? Shoot.

Like last year's visit, this year's included a visit to Brandon's parents' house, "in the country," as my kids like to say. I think that to their minds, "country" means anything that has a farm or farm animals within a couple miles, so this fit the bill well enough. As soon as we pulled up, the kids leapt out of the van and disappeared into the woods, never to be seen again. Well, until dinner and dessert, and until they ran back to tell us about all the berries they'd found in the woods, or about how one or the other was bugging one or the other of them. Actually, though, this was a pretty quiet portion of the evening for us adults who stayed on the porch. Bliss.

Kisses for Baby Lucia; ice cream; and memory-capturing, in action.

Father's Day.

Maybe this photo would be cuter if it didn't include a smashed quarter of an avocado, but that look on Iohan's face is awesome.

Berkey Creamery: A clown with his very own ice cream, and more kisses for Baby Lucy.

Here's Jude, eating pretzels straight outta the tub. Here's Jonah, acting casual, until he sees his opportunity. Afterwards, he ate his captured pretzels, victorious.

You might guess from the above photos that we had a water-based outing during our visit. The Swishers took us to a nearby waterpark on our last full day in State College. It was great seeing the kids having so much fun, and I think that Gabe and I both had more fun than we could've anticipated. We were even able to sneak away for a bit to go down the giant slides on tubes. It brought back memories of childhood outings to waterparks -- good times! Jonah spent most of the day scooting around by himself, while Manny required Gabe's assistance for maximum fun. He was scared to do much of anything by himself, but he didn't even mind going through the "water blast" as long as Daddy was holding him. So sweet.

Manny and Ezra.

Ioey and Lucy.

7 Month Sunshine

2010-07-15T15:53:00.004-05:00

It wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that Iohan has only two speeds, Happy and Asleep, as these month-old pictures might suggest. It is however, at least somewhat accurate to say that. Jonah and Manny were both excellent babies, demanding in their baby-ways, but un-colicky, un-fussy, interested in their surroundings and pretty friendly. Iohan, though, has apparently determined to be The Most Excellent Baby, and he is. I'm not sure if it's inborn personality, or if he's already adjusted to being lost in the shuffle of three kids and has adapted to a forced low-maintenance lifestyle. (This latter option makes me sad, especially since he's right now my most enjoyable child: He doesn't talk back or throw fits (yet), he still nurses and therefore cuddles, and he always has a smile for Mama. He deserves lots of attention, not leftover attention!) Whatever the cause, Iohan is great joy to have around. I find myself hoping that his middle name ("Hilary," meaning "cheerful") is prophetic. God should be so good.

Sand in our toes

2010-07-06T21:26:00.011-05:00

Someone I know recently commented that there is no place like Michigan during the summer -- so true! We visited Grand Rapids a bit before summer arrived, on Memorial Day weekend, but the weather was great and the effect was pretty much the same. Ah, Michigan...Just shy of 7 months.

Few things are cuter than chubby little baby feet, except for the chubby little baby himself.

It's always a hike from the car to the beach, and one can't be expected to make that journey again just because a little boy's hat was left in the car. My sister was nice enough to let Jonah wear her hat. I like to think that he looks hip, not that he looks like an almost 4 year old boy in a woman's hat. J's man enough to pull it off. Right? Right? Jonah loves, LOVES "rhinoculars." Apparently Kara and I broke this pair of my dad's when we were kids, so by dad wasn't too bothered when Jonah dropped them in the sand as he ran off in pursuit of something more interesting than close-up looks at the surf.

Iohan loves the water so much that he was barely phased by the cold May water. He stayed in it with Gangee till his chubby little feet turned purple, brave soul. He's a stoic one at this young age, undoubtedly learned from living with two crazy older brothers.

As often happens, Manny finished the day without pants. I don't think that any of us really knows why this was the case -- Manny was wearing trunks, then, suddenly, he wasn't. The child is a living cartoon and has no shame, two of the many reasons we love him so much. Our lives are incredibly brightened by Manny. Yes, by Manny and his glowing white buns.

White Sox night, once yearly

2010-06-29T22:20:00.009-05:00

My boys willingly and happily sit in the back of the bus. It is going to take them a while to understand Rosa Parks. Train platform. City kids.

Jonah with Southpaw, the Sox mascot. I asked J if he wanted a picture with Southpaw. He seemed surprised, but then ran right up to the creature and (as you can see) posed happily. Manny, on the other hand, has always abhorred live and lifesize mascots; he was not letting go of his grip on Gabe. J, in older sibling fashion, talked several times throughout the night of having his picture taken with Southpaw and wondering aloud, "Why didn't you do that, Manny?" (Implication: "You big wimp.") "Next time," Manny reassures us.

(Yes, that's a plastic bag that I'm letting Iohan play with. We live dangerously 'round here.)

To cut down on concession costs, I packed a "snack sack" for the older boys. It was almost magic. I filled it full enough to last through several innings and we faced barely any requests for ballpark snacks. Next time, the snack sack will be even bigger and better!

Jonah's reenactment of an amazing catch that we saw. Can you feel the magic?

First solids

2010-06-29T22:06:00.004-05:00

These pictures were taken mid-May, a few days after Iohan was 6 months old. I finally caved and gave him solid food -- one more meal to prepare, but I can't make the poor child survive on mama milk forever. He loves me all the more for letting him grow up. He's also growing out, thighs chubbier than ever, belly nice and round. Just the way a baby should be. Avocado was Iohan's first food. I look at these pictures, and all I hear is, "Squish, squish, squish."

Hot diggity!

2010-06-29T21:49:00.005-05:00

At the beginning of June, we celebrated Jonah's last day of play class with a stop at ye olde weiner stand. Sadly, it only served to remind me why I don't eat hot dogs, but I didn't let my rebelling senses rain on the boys' parade. They were so happy that Manny willingly shared with Jonah. Now that's somethin'. Actually, no, now that I write that I realize that "somethin'" would be if Jonah willingly shared with Manny -- Moosy is fairly generous -- but you get the point, right? They loved it. Possibly atomic relish. I won't use vulgar language, so as to protect the sensitivities of some of my readers, but I will say that I only let my kids eat this, ahem, STUFF once in a while. It was painful to even look at. It actually colored Manny's bowels. Atomic!

Cutest. Kid. EVER!

Three bears

2010-05-12T09:28:00.013-05:00

As I sit to post these pictures of barely-clad children enjoying our backyard, I find myself looking out the window at a very gray day and thinking about the fact that the apartment's radiators were warm this morning. Not unrelated is the fact that I just switched over the boys' winter clothes for their summer ones. Doing so it simply an invitation for the cold weather to return, I'm pretty sure. Maybe it I pull out their winter clothes, the warm weather will return? If there's no improvement in a couple days, I may have to try it.

Jonah said about the first picture, "Iohan looks angry." Really? I would've gone with "silly." Or even "exasperated," especially since it looks like Middle Bear is trying to bite him on the head. It may have been a kiss, now that I think about it.

Hmmm, my eldest piled atop my youngest? Some parent is slacking on the job. Poor Iohan. If his babyhood doesn't kill him, it will certainly make him stronger. (Strong enough to pop his brothers pretty good, I'm thinkin'.)

Here's Iohan's disgusted face. He's tired of Jonah intruding on his personal space. Really, Jonah better look out. It may take a couple decades, but Iohan will have his revenge.

We call Manny "Angel Baby" for his looks, not his personality. Personality-wise, we just go with "Crazy."

Awwwwww.

Not a fan of the burrito wrap, eh, Io-Io? Let me take a few photos, then I can help ya.

Good day, dear friends

2010-05-10T23:06:00.000-05:00

Me, me, me

2010-05-10T22:30:00.006-05:00

My eldest child is still young enough that I find his self-centeredness adorable and endearing. It is, I suppose, because he is self-centered in an entirely childlike way. It's not selfishness that I love -- the refusal to share a toy train or a bite of a treat with his brother. This tendency I am often quick to correct (save those times when I've just had it, and those two can figure it out for themselves!). No, the self-centeredness that I love is revealed in Jonah's proclamation to his grandma: "Someone must have left it there just for me!" while he shows her the new coloring book that we bought from the supermarket. It's revealed in the coloring of cards for a variety of adult friends and the expectation that thet will be overjoyed upon receipt. In the introduction of his younger brother to his teacher at a Parks District class with overwhelming enthusiasm, clearly indicating that Mr Tom should be excited to meet Manny. With Jonah's selfish tendencies, I've started to bring to his attention how the other person feels: "Manny doesn't like it when you take his food, Jonah, and you wouldn't like it if he took yours." These self-centered tendencies, though, I just let go. Soon enough, Jonah will learn that a coloring book is just one of hundreds churned out by a publisher looking to make a buck; that many adults look at a 3 year old's coloring and just see a mess of scribbles; that not everyone is interested in him, let alone his brother. (Though this doesn't apply to Mr Tom; Mr Tom is actually very kind.) Soon enough, Jonah will learn not just that the world doesn't revolve around him, but the extent to which it really doesn't revolve around him. Some day Jonah will be crushed by the disappointment of learning that he's not as important to somebody as that somebody is to him -- the last thing that I want to do is hasten that day. Though self-centeredness is not a virtue, there is something pure in the self-centeredness of a child: He can hardly imagine that the world might let him down and he's going to enjoy every second of the world living up to his highest expectations. There is so much in this embrace of life and of the world that I lack, and that most adults lack. We're disappointed and jaded and our defenses are up. We expect the worst -- or at least something bad -- and that is what comes to pass. That's life, I guess, in a fallen world, and I know that my precious children will have to face it and live with it in the course of their lives. While I can, though, I will keep them safe in the bubble of their own innocence: For the first several years of life, at least, the world should be rose-colored.

2/5ths of the family takes a vacation

2010-05-10T22:18:00.002-05:00

In mid-April, my husband sent me off to visit the boys' godparents and godsiblings (? I think of them as "cousins") in State College, Pennsylvania. Gabriel stayed home for five days (yup, you read that right -- FIVE DAYS) of fun (read, "unending work") with the elder boys, while Iohan and I were pampered in Happy Valley. I'm even more pampered because Corene was nice enough to blog about the event on her site, saving me uploading and photo-moving troubles. Check out the pictures of Iohan with his godfamily by clicking right here.

Jo-Io

2010-05-08T00:13:00.008-05:00

Really, I just don't think that there's any such thing as too many images of my eldest loving on my youngest. As much as Manny may love Iohan, I think that his toddler-love pales in comparison with Jonah's big brother love. "Let me just see that cute little chubby guy," Jonah pleads when Iohan emerges from his nest in the morning. "Who's got you, little guy? Is that your daddy?" Jonah asks in sweet, high-pitched tones imitative of the "mother-ese" that I use when lovin' on my baby. Jonah tells me, though, that he doesn't want another sibling. I imagine that he thinks that Iohan will always be so small, face breaking with a huge smile, chubby hands and surprisingly sharp-nailed fingers reaching out to grab our faces to mouth them. With my eldest baby about to turn four, and my youngest far too close to crawling, away from me, I sometimes wish that I could freeze time. Jonah's future self, at, let's say, six years old is still a mystery to me and as such is exciting: He'll be reading! Playing sports! Buried in Legos! But experiencing the transition from babyhood to big babyhood and knowing what comes next for the third time now, and knowing what to expect, I find myself mourning the passing of tinyness more that I've done before. I almost wish that, like Jonah, I had no idea about what would come next, but the knowledge throws these baby days into beautiful relief, and all I've left to do is soak it in while I can.

And the Oscar goes to...

2010-05-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

...This guy.

Only human

2010-05-08T00:00:00.006-05:00

Like the rest of us, Manny puts his pants on one leg at a time.

Unlike the rest of us, Manny puts his pants on foot-end-of-the-pants first (though still one leg at a time).

Wha...?!?!?

2010-05-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

Hate to say it, kid, but that's really not your best face.

Big baby at the park

2010-03-21T20:38:00.010-05:00

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

2010-03-07T20:42:00.017-06:00

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

2010-03-07T20:31:00.005-06:00

Snowman

2010-03-07T20:01:00.008-06:00

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

2010-03-07T16:42:00.013-06:00

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!(?)

2010-03-03T10:57:00.020-06:00

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.)

Nice and warm and hot.

2010-02-25T16:29:00.018-06:00

A pilgrimmage to the Garfield Park Conservatory here in the city has become an annual event -- in 2009 we even went twice! It's lovely there, and, as Jonah just said while watching me upload these photos, "It was nice and hot and warm at the Conservatory!" Perfect for a Chicago winter. My mom has happened to be in town on the weekends that the Conservatory has hosted "Sweet Saturdays," a chance to learn about foods (bananas!), products (waxes!) and sweets (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!) given us by these lovely plants. I'm already looking forward to 2011...!

Manny can barely contain his excitement at the cocoa station. He knows that chocolate isn't far behind.

Bzzzzz.

We often call Manny "pig." It sounds insulting, I know, but he's white and pink, (used to be) round and has curly hair; it just works. Incidentally, he happens to be a little crazy, a wild child, yes, even feral. Our little feral pig. Here, our little feral pig pops out of the jungle, from whence he came.

Manny is also very studious. A studious, book-loving pig, when he's not torturing his elder brother or finding ways to maim himself.

I can't remember what kind of plant this was, though I do remember that this section grew off a tree. I love it when I encounter plants that the imagination almost certainly wouldn't conjure by itself. I'd like to make this one into a necklace.

Whiffy's (and Baa-Baa's) Birthday

2010-02-15T21:30:00.019-06:00

I think that these photos tell enough of a story without me interjecting any trying-to-be-clever captions. All you need to know is that Whiffy's birthday apparently falls on January the 27th (this was decided when we were faced with a bitter cold spell); Baa-Baa's does, too, because he doesn't want to be left out. Which will be good, since January the 27th is certain to be horribly cold here in the Midwest every single time it cycles around. Now we have an annual excuse to bake something tasty and heat up the kitchen.

Independence

2010-02-11T21:59:00.004-06:00

This is what independence looks like. A pickle, mustard and "cheese product" slapped on a piece of bread.

Last week, when asked what he wanted for lunch, Jonah refused to answer (not uncommon). I turned to Manny, who answered, "Mac 'n' cheese." When Jonah found out what was on the menu, though, he just about lost it; he was eating no mac 'n' cheese, thank you very much. I told him, "Fine, child, you can make your own lunch." He did. He opened the fridge, placed everything he needed on the counter and assembled the sandwich himself, then ate it happily. (Unfortunately, we were out of both deli turkey and hamburger pickles, so Jonah was stuck with a meatless, pickle-speared sandwich.) While I don't want my child eating pickle and cheese product sandwich every day, there is something amazing and satisfying in seeing him do something all by himself. Jonah was at least a little proud of himself, too, I think. He still relies on me so much and is sometimes a real "Mama's boy," crying when I leave the house to go to the YMCA or run an errand without him. Insignificant though it may seem, Jonah making his own sandwich is one of the ways in which I see him becoming his own little man, separating himself from me and from complete dependence. Bittersweet, it's true, but necessary and important. And, really, there wasn't any mac 'n' cheese left by the time Manny was done with it, so it was a good thing that Jonah had another plan in motion.

3 months

2010-02-11T21:53:00.003-06:00

Iohan just passed the 3-month mark. He's getting bigger and sweeter every day. His most recent accomplishment is finding his thumb. He still uses the pacifier to take the edge off his naps, but always resorts to his thumb before too long. You can't see it here, but Io-Io actually has rolls in his sweet little thighs.

Building boom

2010-01-27T21:30:00.002-06:00

Jonah's been experimenting with architecture lately. Pop-Pop received a door as payment for removing it, and he cut it up into these blocks as a Christmas gift for the boys, per my request. Since Jonah's life virtually centers around his train table ("Best $30 we ever spent," I thought today), his block-building activities do, too. If I had a dollar for every time that he begged me, "Mama, come look at what I'm making!", I could hire that maid I've had my eye on...

An ice cream factory. Quite a majestic building with all those columns and that height, if you ask me.

This might be "the wash-down" (that's certainly some lingo from "Thomas the Tank Engine," though I'm not entirely sure, as I don't actually watch shows with my kids). What I think is interesting is the second horizontal layer, which has to be balanced by the offset first horizontal layer. It's exciting to see Jonah's skill and reasoning develop to make an overpass like this.

The sheds for the engines, plus some sort of skyscraper. Plus, I think Manny looks really cute in this picture.

Sir Topham Hatt looks out proudly from his custom-made office building. I can tell that my kid is a city kid when his office is a skyscraper.

So proud!

Three peas

2010-01-27T20:44:00.004-06:00

How cute IS this? "So, so cute," is the answer.
A much more typical picture: diverted attention, half a face hidden, one smile out of three, but still so full of life.

Jonah absolutely dotes on Iohan. Jonah was so young when Manny was born that Manny was more of an occasional diversion than he was an object of adoration. Lucky Iohan. Our "cute little chubby guy," as Jonah likes to call him.

Children painting, not on cookies

2010-01-24T20:19:00.002-06:00

Gangee (i.e. Grandma Patten) managed to find an easel for the boys on the cheap for Christmas. Jonah has been a little slow to show much interest in coloring and painting over the past couple years, but has recently started to put brush to paper. Manny has been a little artist right off the bat. When my sister (Auntie Kara) came to visit a couple weeks after Iohan was born, she brought a coloring book with her for the boys. Manny selected a few colors for his pictures and went to town; some coloring pages are virtually covered with wax, without any white patches of paper showing through. Chicago winters aren't exactly my idea of a good time, but this easel is helping the time to pass a little more quickly.

They don't typically share the space, but it works (briefly, and somewhat infrequently).

Jonah is making either stegosaurus footprints or fireworks. Or, stegosaurus-footprint fireworks!

Finally, a little alone time.

Little artist

2010-01-24T20:09:00.002-06:00

Finger-paint project. Hee, hee, my hands are dirty.

Ha ha, really dirty!

You want me to what? Look at you? Look at the camera?

No way, lady.

Snowthing

2010-01-24T19:57:00.002-06:00

Finally my first two sons are old enough to enjoy playing in the snow after a couple years of hating that cold, icky stuff. One day after returning from the store, they wanted to stay outside and play. I momentarily got into the spirit long enough to roll a few snowballs and make them a snowman, sans accoutrements. The snowman quickly became a tall column with points on top, a snowman with kid-flair.

Pretty, pretty... what?

2010-01-24T19:53:00.002-06:00

The day Iohan wore this outfit, our priest seemed to get a case of the giggles when he saw Iohan at the chalice. Then, Jonah said that Iohan looked like a princess. Yup, that's right, a prinCESS.

See? Atop his head sits a crown...

...and down here is a dress. (When he said that, Jonah tried to fluff the skirt out a bit.) Makes sense, right?

Apparently Iohan is not convinced either.

Rogue's gallery

2010-01-17T20:09:00.006-06:00

Last year I picked up a $4 box of Crayola gingerbread cookie mix, frosting and edible paint. I finally used it this winter as a way to pass one of our too many cold days. They actually tasted quite good. I tried and mostly succeeded in supressing my "the cookies all have to look cute!" urge; I let the boys paint them however they wanted after I applied the frosting. Gabe's comments were that we had quite the "rogue's gallery" of cookies; and that these cookies would be quite disturbing if they weren't painted by children. Here are Jonah and Manny's creations, in all their glory. I'm learning to love preschool art. Mr Scarf 'n' Boots, no eyes. (Manny, except for the boots.)

4 Eyes. (Manny)

Mr Minimal-Paint. (Jonah)

Half-a-Smurf. (Manny)

Ugh. This cookie looks too gory for comment. At least Manny succeeded with proper eye-placement on this one. (Manny)

Rainbow Snowsuit. (Jonah)

Smile practice

2010-01-07T19:27:00.003-06:00

Now that he's discovered smiling, Iohan is full of smiles. (These photos are from Jan 1.)

Here's a face-breaker.

The half-smile.

Mr Inquisitive.

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Smiling and dancing apparently go together. (I think he looks like he's dancing, anyway.) Can you spot the baby-gut threatening to spill over his waistband? We love the baby gut! Interestingly, at Iohan's 4-week visit to the doctor, he was only 1 pound 4 ounces heavier than his birth weight; in contrast, both older boys had gained over three pounds by their 4 week visit! Iohan has been packing it on lately, though, so I'm curious as to what the scale will read at his 2-months appointment this coming Monday.

Why do baby-eyes take up 30% of the area of their faces?

Tannenbaum

2010-01-05T20:39:00.010-06:00

This was our family's first year having a Christmas tree. We've always gone back to Grand Rapids for Christmas, and I haven't felt like buying a tree, hauling it into our house and dealing with maintenance and clean-up for a couple weeks, only to be gone on the day that is the reason for having a tree! Since we stayed in Chicago this year, though, a tree went up. After much searching, I even found my coveted all-blue lights at Walgreens. Of course, that wasn't before I'd decorated the tree with multi-colored strings of lights, so I was briefly faced with the dilemma: Redecorate, or no? I really wanted those blue lights, so I did.

Jonah with my old-time Sports Santa ornament. This was the first (and so far only) casuality among our ornaments. It currently lies in two pieces on the kitchen butcher block.

Manny contemplates -- what else? -- a Handy Manny ornament. This one is his favorite to point out on our tree: "Hanny Manny!"

The children's attempts to actually hang the ornaments were completely futile, but sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

Where is Thumbkin?

2010-01-05T20:30:00.004-06:00

What's cuter than a baby in a fuzzy blue lion suit?

How 'bout a baby in a fuzzy blue lion suit who's frustrated that the little suit just won't let him suck on it, pacifier-style?

This poor child wants to suck his thumb so bad. One of these days, kid.

Iohan's baptism

2009-12-23T22:58:00.010-06:00

Just over a week ago, Iohan Hilary was baptized into the Orthodox Church at our parish, Christ the Savior. The boys' beloved godfather, Brandon, flew into Chicago for a too-short trip to be present at the sacrament; godmother Corene, being nearly eight and a half months pregnant, was unable to make the trip. (She was sorely missed!) Laura's mom and Gabriel's brother both made the trip from Michigan; we were also blessed with the presence of some of our Chicago friends, who roused themselves for the very early Sunday morning baptism. It was a wonderful weekend, and we are joyful beyond words that Iohan has been received into the Chruch.

Christ the Savior Church, with the baptismal font. The iconography is quite new (some, in fact, is still in progress) and is so beautiful as to be awe-inspiring. Brandon, right behind Father John, holds Iohan during prayer.

Those baptized into the Church are baptized by triple immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I'm fond of baptizing babies as close to the customary 40 days as possible. They have no idea as to what's going on and they don't fight the priest. Iohan took his baptism beautifully. Here he is over the font, with the icon of the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan on the far wall. I love this picture because Iohan is named for Saint John the Baptist and Forerunner, seen on the icon in the act of baptizing Christ. Iohan is practically reaching out to his patron saint here. I just realized that Iohan is about to be baptized by a man named John as well.

Post baptism, our pink little baby is dried and dressed in his white baptismal gown.

Every baby needs to fuss a little after being dunked in the water three times.

Feet are annointed with the oil of the Holy Chrism.

Father Anthony Coniaris, in his book, Introducing the Orthodox Church, writes:

"Baptizing infants before they know what is going on is an expression of God’s great love for us. It shows that God loves us and accepts us before we can ever know or love Him. It shows we are wanted and loved by God from the very moment of our birth. To say that a person much reach the age of reason and believe in Christ before he may be baptized is to make God’s grace in some way dependent on man’s intelligence. But God’s grace is not dependent on any act of ours, intellectual or otherwise; it is a pure gift of love."

(Thanks to Christine for finding that succinct passage.)

My mom made this beautiful gown and jacket for Jonah's baptism just over three years ago. All our boys have worn it, and I hope to one day pass it on for any grandchildren that we may have.

Who dat?

2009-12-10T12:30:00.007-06:00

Manny has been slow to speak, much slower than Jonah was, and with less articulation and enunciation. He tends to drop the last sound or syllable from several words, which I know can be a sign of a deeper speech pathology. When I mentioned this to our family doctor, he wrote a referral for Manny to see a speech therapist. The evaluation indicated that Manny's speech is, in fact, normal. The therapist actually recommended a session for him every week perhaps for as long as six months, which we've decided is overkill. Since the evaluation, though, we've emphasized the final sounds of words when speaking, asking Manny to repeat them if he drops them. His progress has been remarkable. On his own, he now includes the final sound of many words, especially new ones. (It's as if he's trying to unlearn some of the poor pronunciation on words that he learned longer ago.) He's also started putting together three and four word phrases and has started to ask questions using the big question words -- who what and where especially. Both of these are big steps.

As happy as I am to see this progress, though, I have to admit that I'm going to miss this "baby talk" when it's gone in too short of a time. His sweet little voice asking me, "Who dat?" of the trains in his catalogue is absolutely priceless. It took a little while to get him to say, "Who dat?" while on camera. I'm glad that I stuck with it. And there's a little extra Manny-craziness at the end to boot. "Who dat?" Dat, my friends, is my sweet Mooster.

Angry gnome

2009-12-10T12:27:00.005-06:00

Please don't revoke my parenting license for letting my baby continue to cry just so I could take some pictures of him doing so. We call him our little angry gnome when he cries because he looks like, can you guess?, an angry gnome. (Except gnomes are supposed to be ugly, but this guy is incredibly handsome!) Iohan looks just like Jonah when he cries, his face scrunching up in the same way that Jonah's did when he was a baby. A friend once told me that he appreciated seeing pictures of Jonah crying, only because it shows one of a baby's many facets. With that in mind, I've tried to capture the sad faces of my babies alongside their happy ones. Each little memory like this is something that I want to retain, so I snap away while my child cries. But not for too long...

...not when Iohan looks at me with these accusing eyes. So sorry, sweet baby!

Feast of St Nicholas

2009-12-10T12:16:00.009-06:00

Happy feast of Saint Nicholas to all!

Not having a fireplace, we improvised with the stocking-hanging location. Near the back door, in the kitchen, works well enough for us!

Manny and Jonah are thrilled with their puppy stockings. Iohan slept thru the party, and, like most babies, will probably sleep thru most of the special days of his infancy.

$1 flatware from Target...

...and a little box of Jelly Belly jelly beans are enough to make two boys very happy. Yet another reason to treasure these early years.

Gabriel spent way too long putting this mini-kitchen together, not because of any ineptitude on his part, but because the thing arrived in an impossibly large number of separate pieces. I almost burst into tears when I looked into the box, but Gabe saved the day when he said, "Don't worry, honey, I'll take care of it. What are dads for if not this?" Thankfully, the boys really like it, so it wasn't time wasted. Well done, Gabriel.

First snow

2009-12-04T16:07:00.003-06:00

The same day that we met Santa was also the day of our first snow. Jonah loved walking in it, pretending that we were in a fierce snow storm (the snow didn't even stick, porr deluded child). He kept telling me throughout his walk that his dog pal Whiffy was at home, reading a book called "Jonah, Mama, Manny and Iohan and the Snow Storm." An exciting read, to be sure!

Looking over my shoulder just now, Jonah just said, "Ooooh, look, it's the snowstorm!" Now Manny thinks that it's a snowstorm, too.

First visit with Santa

2009-12-04T15:36:00.005-06:00

Well, this is something that I never did as a child: The meeting with Santa. The religious group in which I grew up was pretty zealous about not celebrating any holidays that may have had a religious meaning behind them. We had no Christmas tree when I was a child, though my immediate family and one set of grandparents did give gifts. (Ironicially, we celebrated the entirely secular holiday of Thanksgiving with gusto.) Visiting Santa was out of the question. Indeed, from the first I knew that "Santa Claus," he of the red suit and herd of reindeer and elven slavery, was a myth. Sinful child that I was, I maliciously ruined Christmas for some neighbor children, making sure to let them know that, "Fools, Santa isn't real!"

Now, as a mom, this is one battle that I'm choosing not to fight, or at least not to go out of my way to fight. I plan to avoid Halloween like the plague no matter how cute kids in costume look, but Santa is ubiquitous, and, as far as I'm concerned, harmless. As my parents did with me, I told Jonah that Santa is a pretend man who rides around in a sleigh with reindeer and is believed to bring children gifts. My kids won't actually receive gifts from Santa, nor will I ever stand in line at the mall so they can sit on his lap, but I won't go out of my way to avoid Santa. Our children will know about Nicholas, saint and Bishop of Myra, and, admittedly, things could get a little confusing when the kids learn that "Santa Claus" is a corruption of "Saint Nicholas." For now, though, Santa Claus of the reindeer and Saint Nicholas whom we honor on the 6th of December are two entirely different people.

This Santa fell into our laps. This fall, Jonah's been attending a Chicago Park District "play class" near our house. The class lasts for 1 hour and 45 minutes, which has been just enough time for me to go grocery shopping or play at the park with just Manny before arriving breathless and one or two minutes late for pick-up. For the last day of class, there was party (of sorts) at which the kids could play with toys and ride-on cars and tricycles in the big gym, eat way too much sugar and meet Santa. Jonah was totally enthusiastic about the first two, but unsure about the third choice. After he saw a couple other kids walk away from Santa with a toy, he decided to give it a try.

Mr. Tom, Jonah's teacher for play class, is on the left. Jonah really liked him. You may notice somebody fixing Santa's beard in the back. Because he knew Santa wasn't "real," Jonah wasn't bothered by the fiddling around.
Can you see the green beard Jonah's wearing? Store-bought cupcakes with (what I consider) nasty frosting.

Apparently, this defective-beard Santa only brings cellophane stockings filled with cheap plastic toys from China that Mama throws in the garbage within fifteen minutes of arriving home. I wish my kids realized how lame that is.

In case you're wondering, Manny did not like Santa at all. He was concerned when I went near Santa to take a picture of Jonah. When Santa left and shouted "Merry Christmas!" while waving at the kids, Manny almost burst into tears; he only didn't cry because someone distracted him with a cellophane stocking of his own. Apparently he's not crafty enough to avoid being suckered in my cheap toys, just like his brother.

Busy growing.

2009-12-04T15:30:00.001-06:00

November 19, 11 days old November 28, 20 days old. And handsome!

Yes, it is hard work being a baby, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

Brothers

2009-12-04T15:13:00.007-06:00

These pictures were taken just a few seconds apart. I don't think that Manny necessarily made Iohan cry, though you might not know it from the photos. At any rate, Manny is commiserating with his little brother. What a sweetheart.

Can you see Iohan hanging out down at the bottom? He's camouflaged pretty well. Aren't baby critters usually born with some sort of camouflage? Yeah, he's like that: A little critter.

I think that this picture was Jonah's idea. He really, really loves Iohan. He says things to him like: "What do you think, little guy?" and "I want to see that little chubby guy." All this in his special baby voice, of course, which is much softer and higher pitched than his regular voice. He also likes to show Iohan everything he makes, and he's pretty good about helping by fetching various things and washing him off at bathtime (supervised, of course!). If only Jonah were old enough to babysit, I'd be all set.

Iohan's birth

2009-11-22T21:49:00.001-06:00

Iohan is now two weeks old, and I’ve been meaning for the past thirteen days or so to sit down and write about his birth. It’s seemed a little perverse to do so, though: The same day that Iohan was born, a woman who attended our church before leaving Chicago also gave birth, but to her son who’d died in the womb, at 20 weeks’ gestation. A short time later, I learned of a friend of our friends who was and still is in a coma, struggling to live through an H1N1 infection and pneumonia. This young woman’s same family suffered the death of a husband and brother- and son-in-law a few years ago, as well as the death of an infant girl on, again, the same day of Iohan’s birth. Though my connections with these families are far from intimate, their sufferings have weighed heavy on my heart, especially, I think, when set in relief against my own child’s safe and healthy arrival into this world. I don’t believe that life is inherently “fair,” but I can’t explain why life should be so unfair to good people, and spare the rest of us.

So I sit down to write this with a paradoxically muted and heightened sense of joy at my own child’s birth. Muted because the sheer fact of Iohan’s healthy birth reminds me of the death of two children and their families’ suffering; heightened because the blessing of life shines so much more brightly when juxtaposed with death’s curse. I won’t go so far as to call this small account an act of defiance against Death, but I do offer it as a prayer of thanks to the One who gives Life, and, in some small way, as a prayer in memory of Adrian and Celia.

Iohan’s birth was, simply put, a dream come true. Considering the rapidity of my last two births, I’d spent at least a few weeks in mild terror of the worst case scenario, which consisted of any of the following: Gabe wouldn’t be home; no one would be available to care for Jonah and Manny; there would be heavy traffic; I’d give birth by myself; I’d give birth with only Gabe attending; I’d give birth on my front steps with the EMT; I’d give birth in a car; I wouldn’t realize that I was in labor until it was too late to go to the hospital; I’d give birth in an hour flat.

To my immense relief, my contractions started at 4:30 on Sunday morning, and they were regular enough, coming every 10-12 minutes, that I was able to establish that I was actually in labor by 5:30. Around 6:00, I experienced a couple signs that told me that I was in labor and that it was moving along, at which point I woke Gabe up; between 6:15 and 6:20 or so I was able to call the midwife, who told me to wait till the contractions were more frequent, lest they stall when we arrived at the hospital; my mom, who started her drive to Chicago; and our friends the Schmidts, who were on hand to take the boys until my mom could pick them up.

Finishing my phone calls, I attempted to act fairly nonchalant about being in labor, even though my contractions were now three to five minutes apart. Fortunately, my wise husband looked at me laboring and declared that we at least needed to get the boys to the Schmidts, regardless of what we did afterwards. The next several minutes were spent by Gabe packing the car and the boys and by me bent over at the waist whenever I had a contraction. In his hurry, Gabriel shut the keys in the trunk of my parents’ car, so he spent a part of this interval on the phone with my dad, searching for the magnetic extra-key box attached to the underside of their car, and being chided by our eldest son, who didn’t like the sight of his father laying in the street under a car.

Sometime around 7:00 we dropped the boys off at our friends’ home and then started for the hospital. This car ride had none of the panic that I experienced during labor with Manny; indeed, when Gabriel looked longingly at the McDonald’s a few blocks from the hospital, I told him that as long as he went through the drive-thru, I didn’t mind if he stopped. We signed in at the hospital around 7:40, at which point the staff put me in triage. This was my first time ever being in triage; previously, I’ve arrived at the hospital already pushing. It was about what I was expecting: A long wait for a nurse, who chatted on the phone about another birth; many seemingly inane questions (“How much did you weigh before you were pregnant?”) when she finally ended her call; and some griping by a different nurse that my preferred position was not conducive to hearing the fetal monitoring device. I couldn’t talk through my contractions at this point, and I felt sick. (A recurring thought in triage was, “Eating that CLIF bar on the way here was a mistake.”) The midwife came into the room sometime after 8:00 and proceeded to ask some more questions. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t vocal enough about my labor, or if it’s because the staff didn’t pay adequate attention, but it seemed that nobody realized that I was on the verge of having a baby, at any moment. The midwife checked me, as if to make sure that I was really in labor, only to discover that I was dilated to 7 or 8 centimeters. Almost on cue, transition hit with chills and nausea. The midwife decided that it was time to move me to the delivery room. I was fairly dismayed when I realized that this meant that I had to actually sit up and move into a wheelchair, but it may have been that act of sitting up that let gravity pull the baby further down: I was ready to push.

Though the attending midwife was my least favorite in the practice, she was great in the delivery room. She kept the nurses from putting an IV in me and reprimanded at least one who was evidently not paying attention to the fact that I was pushing. I gave birth lying on my side, and it took only eight contractions or so to push the baby out. Iohan is the first baby I’ve ever actually watched emerge, as I’ve always been too squeamish in the past to do so; I never realized how dark a baby’s skin is when they are born. When I saw his bluish-looking head, I told myself to push and get that baby out now! When I mentioned this to Gabriel later, he told me that that is how Jonah and Manny looked too. Later I saw that Iohan’s Apgar score was a 9. He was indeed perfectly healthy, but I was surprised that he wasn’t already pink. The midwife handed Iohan to me immediately, which almost created a no-nurse bubble of protection around us. Iohan’s bare and unwashed skin lay on my own bare chest. He wasn’t interested in nursing right then, just in being held and experiencing, I imagine, some mild shock at his new surroundings. In time, he nursed and was weighed and measured; his feet were inked and he was bathed; but the precious first moments were just for mama and baby, with dada right next to us.

I don’t love my third son more than my other two, but I was so much more present in his birth compared with either Jonah’s or Manny’s that there’s a sense of peace with his birth that I don’t experience in my memories of the other two. I knew what to expect, different from Jonah’s birth; and nothing ever felt out of control, as everything did with Manny’s birth. The pain was intense, but I was able to call on a couple mantras (“Pregnancy is not a disease” and “I’m going to get huge!”) from Ina May Gaskin’s book Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth that helped me to deal with the sensation. I’ve read about women turning inward during birth, and I was able to do that, to mentally process what was going on with my body and to think about how close I was to my goal of birthing my baby peacefully. My husband, as always, was a rock. He remembered that I’d told him to tell jokes to help me relax, but he wasn’t offended when I showed zero interest in joking. His firm hands pressing on my back helped me through the worst of my contractions. He reminded me when I was at my most negative that I wanted this birth, I wanted to meet this child, sweet Iohan Hilary. “Iohan,” a variant of John, means “God is gracious”: Indeed, He is.

Welcome home, Baby Iohan!

2009-11-14T12:14:00.003-06:00

With our first two children, I wanted to be home as soon as possible after giving birth. With this third one, though, I stayed in the hospital for as long as the insurance company would let me. It was so peaceful and quiet there, and we weren't awakened at 6 a.m. by our 3 year-old's floppy feet. Iohan was born on Sunday and Gabriel, Iohan and I waited till Tuesday to return to the apartment. We were confident that the boys were well cared-for by Gangee and thought that, in fact, they probably appreciated being able to be spoiled by her without Gabriel or me interfering. Right now, the boys are completely smitten by Baby Iohan, or "Baby Han," as Manny calls him. He's the first thing they look for upon returning home from some outing with Gangee, and they love to show him their projects and toys around the house. It's very, very sweet. Just like this picture of Iohan and his daddy.

Happy Birthday, Little One!

2009-11-08T20:49:00.004-06:00

Baby Iohan Hilary arrived Sunday, Novemeber 8 at 8:54 a.m. He weighed in at 8 lbs 5 oz, our biggest baby by far, though he's only 20 1/2 inches long. Like a teapot, short and stout. Details to follow; enjoy the photos.

Happy Birthday to Moo!

2009-11-06T21:58:00.008-06:00

October 22 marked two years since our little ball of sunshine and silliness, sweet Manuel Mark, made his entrance into this world. "Ball of sunshine and silliness" really is about the best way that I know how to describe him: He loves to ham it up for anyone who will watch, and he has so many cute little quirks and habits that I find Gabriel and myself saying, "He's just so cute" far too often. I tell Manny himself that he's way too cute, which is pretty dangerous, I think. I worry that I give him the power to get away with naughtiness if he'll only just turn on the charm; I'm sure that it's already happening. We love you, our sweet little Moosy, our delicious Pumpkin Pie! Many years!

I planned to hold off on any real birthday celebration until the day after Manny's actual birthday, when Gangee visited, to avoid any confusion about birthdays lasting only one day, not several. The morning of his birthday, though, my husband scolded my energy conservation project, so I agreed to at least do something. The boys and I made oatmeal cookies to be served with our lentil and rice casserole dinner. "Lentil and rice casserole" doesn't sound like much of a birthday dinner, does it?, but Manny loved it. As I said, a little ball of sunshine.

Oatmeal cookie cake will serve in a pinch...

...as long as it's accompanied by ice cream.

This is the look of a boy who doesn't want to be interrupted while playing with his new Winterwonderland Thomas the Tank Engine and the giggling Troublesome Trucks. ("Giggling Troublesome Truck," incidentally, happens to be a great nickname for Manny, who does indeed love to giggle while making trouble. Trouble is cute! Trouble is fun!)

Here's Manny's "real" birthday cake. It's supposed to be a dinosaur. There has to be a dino that was green with blue spots and a fin on its back, right? Dinosaur, dragon, whatever; it fierce and close enough for an easy-to-please two year old boy.

Nice work on the candles, Moo.

A is for Apple

2009-11-06T21:27:00.007-06:00

I rarely take photos in Michigan these days. There are only so many pictures that one can take of carousel rides at the mall and boys playing with trucks in the sand, cute as all that stuff may be. I did, however, pull out the camera for our spur-of-the-moment trip to Grand Rapids a few weeks ago. At 9 a.m. on a Friday morning, my husband said, "Instead of me going into work today, how 'bout we rent a car and go to Michigan?" Because (and only because!) he agreed to pack for the boys, we were on the road within 2 1/2 hours, and the boys were ringing Pop-Pop and Gangee's doorbell and shouting, "Surprise!" a few hours after that. A part of my husband's motivation for the return was nostalgia brought on by the turning weather and the changing leaves. In honor of the fall season, our family made a brief stop at Robinette's, a lovely apple orchard where urbanites like us can purchase our own autumnal experience. Overpriced, yes, but a nice stop. Next year, I want to dress us all in overalls and flannel and do the whole thing: apple-picking, corn maze, hay ride, donuts and cider. Well, maybe not the denim-'n'-flannel (or the corn maze, now that I think about it), but the rest of it, for sure.

The Moo sports his new haircut on the play wagon.

I was surprised that Jonah actually "took a bite" out of this giant apple like I told him to, just so that I could take a picture of it. I love it when he cooperates.

Donut sugar is best when licked off of hands, didn't you know that? These donuts, by the way, were to die for. I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with another kind of donut again; at the very least, not completely. You've set the bar high, Robinette's Orchard. Well done.
After play, cider and donuts, I decided to drag the boys into the apple orchard so that they could actually see where apples come from -- a tree, not a plastic bag in the market. I was way too cheap to spring for a $12 peck of U-pick apples; neither, however, did I want to be accused of or guilty of stealing. Somewhat to my relief, Jonah failed in his attempts to pull any apples off the trees themselves, so I just told him to pick a decent-looking one up off the ground -- not stealing! Close enough to hand-picked, and a whole lot cheaper.

Jonah cooperated before with the giant apple, but I couldn't get a smile out of him on our hike thru the apple orchard. Win some, lose some, though I tend to think that this picture is a winner, despite the "Are you kidding me, Mom?" look on his face.

"How big is your apple, Jonah?"

As big as his giant candy apple head, apparently.

See you next year, Robinette's!

"Doing Transportation"

2009-11-02T21:40:00.007-06:00

Proof that kids can be fairly easy to please: "Doing Transportation." (Jonah came up with that name, by the way.) Jonah's tricycle-riding skills have improved to the extent that he can now easily ride around the block, to the park, to the dry cleaner, anywhere in our neighborhood. Now that pedaling comes easily, he is eager to head out on jaunts whenever his mama can work up the energy. Manny's short little legs have a tougher time of it, but he's always game to ride his truck around the block. In fact, he insists on it, and if I try to put him in the wagon (which I always bring with us, empty, should Manny decide that he's had enough) he usually kicks and screams. (And then proceeds to nearly fall asleep in the wagon in the remaining couple blocks till we get home, but I'm sure that he would tell you that he could've made it home, no big deal.) Though I have no photos of all the lovely changing leaves that we've seen over the past month or so, the red, yellow and orange have added some beauty to our mornings. Beauty that I've tried to share with the boys, but I can only expect so much from a 2 year old's and a 3 year old's attention spans. "Doing Transportation," though, has been a lovely way to spend some low pressure time with the boys (assuming that we don't cross to many streets), even if it does take 40 minutes to travel half a mile.

Manny likes to act coy. Yes, act. "Transportation" is one of his favorite activities.

Jonah put an assortment of stickers on top of his now-outgrown helmet a year ago. Strictly speaking, Manny probably doesn't need this helmet, but since Jonah wears one, the Moo insists on wearing his own. Last week, though, Manny actually hit a bump at a high enough speed that he pitched forward over his steering wheel and did a push-up on the sidewalk. I breathed a sigh of relief then that he insisted on copying his brother.

No "Transportation" trip is complete without a stop at the construction site down our street. Dream come true for my two guys.

Despite his generally reckless demeanor, Manny does still appreciate the finer things in life, like autumn leaves.

Snip, snip

2009-11-02T21:27:00.002-06:00

Well, it only took two years -- or about a year longer than it took with Jonah -- to decide that, yes, indeed, Manny's hair was getting a little out of control.

It took some convincing to make him see that he looked a wee bit of a mess; here he turns his head away in disbelief, or maybe shame.

Gangee was nice enough to take the Moo for his first haircut. I hear that he was a little unsure about the proceedings at first, but with his Thomas the Tank Engine book (and maybe some food?) in hand, he settled in. Afterwards, he charmed the ladies at the cuttery by pulling his shortened curls (so thankful that they survived the trim!) and proudly proclaiming, "Haircut!" And he at a sucker, of course. What's a haircut without a sucker?

Boston, pt 1

2009-10-12T17:13:00.002-05:00

Way back in August, I traveled to Boston to visit my dear friend Anneke, her husband Steve and then four-month old baby Mary Lou. Last year, in May, I took the trip with Manny in tow; he was still nursing and was fairly portable, it was free for him to fly as a “babe in arms,” and I couldn’t imagine leaving Gabriel with an almost two-year old toddler and a seven-month old baby. This year, I planned to take Manny with me, registering him as “in arms” (no longer a “babe,” at least to my mind) with the airline ahead of time and beginning arrangements with Anneke to find a car seat and pack ‘n’ play for Manny’s use during our visit.

However, just over a week before we were set to depart, I experienced a Manny Meltdown while homeward bound from a pool outing, during which I was gently reprimanded by a fellow passenger. This incident was preceded a just several days before by a Manny Meltdown following a trip to the zoo, in which he screamed on the bus because he dropped his sucker; that time, I was reprimanded by the driver. Both incidents, and especially the combination of incidents, left me a little shaken: How on earth was I supposed to travel in the confined space of an airplane for more than two hours with a toddler who screamed when tired and hated to sit still? Not to mention the fact that my lap was becoming non-existent with the growth of the third Sanchez child.

My wonderful husband, upon hearing my distress at the prospect of traveling with the Moo, hit upon a brilliant solution: Leave Manny home with him and Jonah. At first, I said, “No, there’s no way.” I actually looked forward to showing Manny off to Steve and An, to having him around Baby Lou, and to spending the weekend with just one child. It didn’t take long, though, for me to see the wisdom of my husband’s advice. Going child-free would mean that I could actually enjoy some adults-only time with my friends; I wouldn’t have to worry about Manny annoying the other passengers (as he undoubtedly would); and I could have “one last hurrah” before, well, it probably wouldn’t happen anymore. It would be like Magical Laura Saturday for three whole days! The turnaround from thinking, “That’s a nice offer, but it’s not going to happen” to “Hurrah! A trip by myself!” was the matter of only a few days.

Once on my way, it didn’t take long to realize what a treat it was to be traveling solo. I could sleep in; I worried only about my own naps and not toddler naps; and I could sit down to read or to chat with Steve and Anneke whenever they weren’t busy tending Baby Lou or their home and garden. While I did miss being able to show off how much Manny has grown over the past year, leaving him in Chicago was well worth whatever minor regrets I may have experienced about that. What’s more, Jonah and Manny were able to have three whole days of bonding time with just Dada, which was a treasure for all three of them. It’s lovely to be missed, as Gabriel told me I was, but I like being missed just enough to know that I was in their thoughts and not so much that the home couldn’t function without me. Bravo, Husband!

Boston, pt 2

2009-10-12T16:58:00.004-05:00

The trip was wonderful. My visit last year prompted an interest in the beginning of the United States, as we visited Concord, the site of the first battle of the American Revolution. We were treated to an inspiring lecture on American exceptionalism by a real New England blueblood, who spent his time dressed in period clothing, demonstrating rifle-loading, and rousing the masses. (Steve’s comment on the way home was that he actually felt proud to be an American for the first time in ages.) This year we continued the American theme be visiting the national park that includes the birthplace of John Adams, his first home with Abigail (both located, almost strangely, at a busy, unattractive, commercial intersection in Quincy – the times, they have a-changed!), and Peacefield, the lovely (onetime) farm and estate that he and Abigail bought and expanded upon their return from Europe.

Here Anneke relaxes with Baby Lou on the front porch. Lou did great thru most of the tour, and then passed out on this horribly uncomfortable-looking wooden bench. She could easily be mistaken for a doll.

Peacefield was handed down thru four generations of Adams men, who all kept an eye toward maintaining the home (which makes sense especially because they lived there!). The last of these men, Brooks Adams, donated the land to his country and its people -- we should all be grateful. Below is the side of Peacefield, at right, with the greenery-covered stone and brick library on the left. The library is a work of art itself.

We relaxed in the gardens with lunch.

Me, An, and Baby Lou. I look like I'm wilting from the heat and humidity. I was.

The four of us also engaged in that great American pastime, baseball spectating. One of Gabriel’s favorite major league pitchers, Tim Wakefield the knuckleballer, happened to be pitching a rehab start for the Boston Red Sox minor league team, the Pawtucket (Rhode Island) Red Sox. I almost felt guilty watching Wakefield pitch, knowing how much more my husband would appreciate it than I ever possibly could. A giant round of “fried dough” (yup, it is what it sounds like) with some powdered sugar helped to take the edge off. (I shared.) I took this picture on accident, thinking that I was taking a video. Lucky mistake!

My Sunday evening flight out of Boston allowed enough time to attend church service with the Stassons, lunch and a nap, and the world’s fastest coffee date with just Anneke, which was greatly cherished, as they are few and months or years between! What’s more, Anneke has been for the past several years my best friend.

I was somewhat of a late bloomer in college. Though I stayed in the dorms for my first three semesters, I wasn’t really what you’d call a “dorm activity” kind of girl. What’s more, I was dating someone during that year and a half, and I practically refused (still not sure why) to do my laundry at the dorms, opting instead to live at my parents’ house on the weekends (clearly, I had a lot of laundry that needed attention). I spent my fourth semester in Costa Rica on a non-Calvin program; my closest friends there attended school in Oregon and Illinois and Iowa and central Michigan, out of range of the “amazing college friends” bond that is fostered by seeing one another every day. I lived in a house with four and then five other girls my junior and senior years, but never really felt that I found my niche.

It wasn’t until Calvin’s January Interim term that I finally began to feel really and truly comfortable at Calvin, thanks in no small part to Anneke’s friendship. While we’d known each other for at least a few months prior to that January, sharing a room in a South Korean university’s dormitory and traveling the country with our class catalyzed a deep and lasting friendship, the kind I’d always wanted to experience in college. Returning to Calvin for the start of my last semester, I was in many ways different from the person I’d been before. My friendship with Anneke and with one other person actually gave me the self-confidence to be as outgoing as I can possibly be (difficult for me) and to actually relax.

Anneke stayed in Grand Rapids for about a year after graduation, and so she was with me thru the early days of my relationship with Gabriel, and thru the early stages of my conversion to the Orthodox Church. Just those two events almost define my life as it is now, and it’s very possible that no one had a clearer view into the inchoate stages of “My Life Now” than Anneke. At the same time, visiting her makes me revisit “My Life Then,” in college, when I thought of a Ph.D. (which she is now pursuing), when I was single, when I was attending a church that I now think of as only barely “a church.” I certainly don’t mourn the turns my life has taken; there is just a singular sensation in being with the one close friend whose friendship straddles these two parts of my life. And there is a certain bitter-sweetness in being with Anneke. I recall that she came to my extended family’s Thanksgiving dinner with me my senior year at Calvin. Afterwards, she told me that while she was happy to be with us for the time, it almost made her sad that she was missing that hominess with her own family. Perhaps that’s what I feel when I visit Anneke: I’m thrilled to be with her and to take part in her life, but it makes me miss her even more when we’re separated by a thousand miles. Besides my husband, I wouldn’t be surprised if Anneke is the person who most understands me, even though we lead different lives and filter each thru our own personalities and backgrounds and practices of Christianity. Having a dear friend like Anneke in close proximity is something with which I was blessed for a brief time in my life; I’m blessed still by her friendship, despite the miles.

Thank you, An. I love you!

Pup

2009-10-04T21:29:00.003-05:00

Manny carelessly tossed Pup on the bathroom floor and left him there. I found the poor stray leaning on one haunch, propped on his foreleg, staring morosely at our cabinet, one ear perked up as he waited for his errant master to come back and reclaim him. Poor Pup can't actually walk by himself, you know.

Chubs in the tub

2009-10-04T21:12:00.004-05:00

The boys may be eating popsicles because Manny got hurt (cold icy treats have been known to cure an ill or two in the past), or just because they asked for them. Letting the boys eat the treats in the bath solves the problem of sticky sugar water on table, floor and clothes, and it clearly produces some pretty cute photos.

Hammy Manny and Llama Drama.

We do the tourist thing.

2009-09-09T22:19:00.004-05:00

Thanks to the Chicago Pubic Library's generosity, we've been able to visit a few places in Chicago free of charge. (At least our 10.25% sales tax pays for something, right?) Last week, I packed the boys and a lunch for a morning at the Chicago Children's Museum. The museum itself was a wee bit underwhelming, though this probably had something to do with my urge to keep moving and see everything in order to extract every last bit of fun from our excursion. (Thrifty Dutch blood dies hard.) The museum did afford the opportunity for the boys to sit down to a lively game of checkers. It lasted about 10 seconds. The museum did also afford me the opportunity to observe firsthand one of Manny's fears, which I would loosely describe as a phobia concerning lifesize or larger objects that should be real but aren't. This fear manifested itself earlier this summer when the boys spent a week with my parents and Manny screamed in fear when he was set down near a man in a dog costume. When I traveled to Boston a couple weeks ago, Manny was also scared of totem poles on display at the Field Museum, to the point that he refused to walk by them on his own power. At the Children's Museum, Manny was duly terrified of a man-shaped bench. I think that he may have even said the word "scared," which would be a first for him. Poor kid. Anyway, this whole paragraph is a digression, but I find these fears to be fascinating, and, in their own way, funny. Jonah's first fear was a city street sweeper truck, which is funny considering that Jonah loves trucks.

The real magic of the day, though was our ride on the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier. This summer I read the book "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larsen, which follows the planning, building and spectacle of the 1893 World's Fair here in Chicago (as well as detailing the work of a Chicago serial killer). I could barely put the book down and found the description of the Ferris Wheel to be fascinating. Though I've always avoided Navy Pier, I've also always harbored the desire to take a trip on the magical wheel there. It was worth it.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. It's nice when Jonah doesn't avoid and actually smiles for the camera!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Another favorite. I love it when they're quiet and together. (Unless they're scheming. I don't love that.)
Jonah's learning to be Mama's helper. Now, if I can just get him to raise Manny while I concentrate on the third child...

A magical ride on the Ferris Wheel must necessarily be followed by a special treat. These rainbow-colored unicorn horn suckers provoke a certain feeling of nostalgia in me, and I couldn't deny the boys. The larger purpose in buying them, though, is to keep the boys awake and distracted on the long ride home. Suckers have become my latest go-to for this purpose.

A few trips have ended this way, with Manny's chin on his chest. Still clutching that sucker, though.

Ham

2009-09-09T22:15:00.001-05:00

This child knows when the camera is on him.

Three years, three wheels

2009-09-08T21:58:00.005-05:00

You'd never guess from the picture above that Jonah is actually very excited to be on his tricycle. He didn't even really mind wearing the knee- and wrist-guards. I had, however, put them on a little too tight (sorry, buddy), and I think that his enthusiasm for the Thomas the Tank Engine-themed safety gear had reached its end. Photos like this make me want to throw in the towel on all this safety stuff. I'm sure that I never wore so much as a helmet before I was an adolescent, and I made it thru my childhood years with nary a broken bone and a fairly reasonable number of stitches. A couple things do keep my disdain of the virtual bubble wrap in check, though: One is the ever-present "what if?" question, accompanied by the memory of my husband's bad (when it could've been truly terrible) bike accident a couple years ago; the other is the disapproving stares (real or imagined, I'm never sure) from other parents that would come my way if I were to risk my child's well-being. The first consideration certainly reigns more strongly than the second, and for that reason, we may never see Jonah without a helmet. Really, though, I'm thinking that the other gear may be a bit much.

This video is about a month old. Jonah's really improved since then, despite the fact that his trike-riding is largely limited to the brief minutes he spends on it in the basement when he heads down to switch the laundry with me. Jonah knows how to make good use of his time, it seems.

A boy's boy

2009-09-05T17:15:00.007-05:00

Can you spot the goose-egg on Manny's head? The child stumbled (or was pushed -- we'll never know!) into the edge of our wooden toy chest -- ouch. The photos, of course, don't do it justice. The bump swelled so quickly that it split and started to ooze a little blood. Jonah did the same thing when he was about 14 months old; I guess that every child needs a bump like this during the toddler years. Right? It was probably the most traumatic thing that Manny's ever been through, but, considering that the tears and screams stopped with the application of popsicles, it was relatively non-traumatic after all. This happened five weeks ago now, and Manny still bears a visible mark and has a palpable bump on his head. Neither interfere with play and general rough-housing. Nor with book reading, as shown in Exhibit B.

We put Manny in a baseball cap awhile ago, and upon seeing him in it, Jonah exclaimed, "It's Baseball Pig!" (Pig being an endearing though potentially unflattering nickname.) Clever Jonah. Manny tries to live up to the name. (The photos and video are a month old now. Manny has vastly improved his swing and hit ability since.)

1) Pick up ball.

2) Decide that this is a job for two hands, after all.

3) Line it up.

4) Thwack!

Boyz 'n' Palz

2009-08-19T21:54:00.005-05:00

My boys love their pals. These are their little loveys, having abandoned their pacifiers long ago.

Manny cuddles with Pup and Baa (creative names, I know), as well as relying on his thumb. Jonah has had Fuzz the blanket (shortened long ago from "Mr Fuzz") since he (unwillingly) gave up his paci at age 6 months. He used to jam as much Fuzz as possible into his mouth and suck on it; happily, that habit has been retired. Whiff the pup joined our family not terribly long ago, but he is Jonah's second comfort, after Fuzz.

(One Year Early) 5th Anniversary Trip

2009-08-19T13:48:00.000-05:00

Since an 8-month-old baby might put a crimp in any big travel plans next summer, Gabriel and I treated ourselves to a one-year-early 5 year anniversary trip in July. Jonah and Manny were graciously hosted by Pop-Pop and Gangee in Michigan, which was a lot of fun for them and a nice break for two young parents. Even if we did miss the kids, I'm confident that driving 1600 miles in 7 days with them would've made our trip into nothing that remotely resembled a vacation. While the boys enjoyed pony and tractor rides, a trip to the zoo with Grandma Camille and Auntie Angie, a beach trip and a visit with their cousins, Gabriel and I embarked on a rather patriotic-themed journey to Gettysburg, Washington, D.C. and Monticello before our return to Chicago.

Gettysburg: A audio tape-guided driving tour with took us over four hours. While there was more to do in Gettysburg, we lacked both time and energy. The audio tour was more than enough, though, and gave us a great perspective on the battlesite.
If I remember correctly, there are something like 2,000 monuments around the battlefield, marking the armies' positions during the battle and sites where men were killed; others have been erected as memorials to people, states and army divisions (or battalions, or regiments, or whatever else have you). A Gettysburg fanatic could spend years walking thru the battlefield this way.

Our next stop was Washington, D.C., where we attended a friend's wedding. We stayed for a couple nights and days and so were able to do some site-seeing of our own, of which I actually have no real pictures. Here I am, though, standing in front of some trees in front of the White House. Just picture a panoramic shot with the White House far off to my left. Great, huh? This is supposed to be a picture of my pregnant belly, but the black dress is doing me a favor and minimizing it. I think that I'm past the point of "minimization" now.

One of the great things about D.C. is that all of the Smithsonian museums are free. Free! I went to the American Craft museum, where I saw this amazing sculpture. It's a clock covered in a sheet, but the sheet is carved of the same piece of mahogany(?) as the clock base. It was amazing. I couldn't believe that it wasn't a real sheet, even from six inches away. I was very tempted to ignore all the "Please do not touch" signage, but I managed to control my hands.

Gabe and I decided to have an adventure and save a little money by camping. It was a mild disaster, but I did manage to set the tent up almost all by myself, with a little help from Gabe. It stayed up all night. Moral of the story, though, is "Don't camp when 5 months pregnant, unless maybe you have an air mattress." Lesson learned!

If I had to pick a highlight of the trip, maybe I'd pick Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation. The gardens and grounds are amazing, as is the house and all custom-made Jeffersonian peculiarities. Whatever his shortcomingss may have been, Jefferson clearly had an amazing mind to design and build Monticello, not to mention write the Declaration of Independence.

I didn't know that this is how artichokes grow!

Outside the house, after our tour.

The happy couple. After not-so-happily taking the wrong path and having to turn around and re-hike it to the right one, but who remembers that now? At least we're still smiling.

Many thanks to those who cared for our kids for us, so that we could have this Americana vacation!

Macro

2009-08-07T22:08:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite settings on the camera Gabriel gave me for Christmas is the macro (or super-facro!) close-up setting. Who doesn't love pictures of flowers?

Jonah checks out the blooms at the Lincoln Park Conservatory, where we saw the following fauna. I love the colors in this hibiscus. Or, as Jonah calls it, a "biscuit." I wish I knew if he just can't get his mind and tongue around the unfamiliar word, or if he really thinks that I'm saying, "Hi, Biscuit" to the flower. I can only hope that it's the latter.

A couple varieties of orchid.

I actually saw this flower at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginian plantation. All the other flowers had labels, but not this one. Anyone know what it is? Whatever it is...wow.

In memory

2009-08-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

Quite sadly and unexpectedly, Gabriel's beloved grandfather Robert Hay passed away in May. (The obituary can be found here.) Even more sadly, this happened while our family was in Pennsylvania and we were unable to travel back to Grand Rapids during his decline in the few days before he died. We are thankful in retrospect that we had decided somewhat spontaneously to travel to Grand Rapids in early April, and while we were there, Grandpa was able to see Gabriel, Jonah and Manny for what would be the last time. Thank God for such mercies. One of my sweetest (by which I mean "bitter-sweetest," of course) memories of the visitation and the funeral is the image of our boys' photos placed beside Grandpa's body in the casket. Though by the time the boys were born Grandpa didn't have the physical capacity to be rough-and-tumble with them, it was clear that he loved them very much, and it was touching to see the photos beside him as evidence of this love.

A couple days after the funeral, after Gabe had returned to Chicago for work, Jonah and Manny and I visited the cemetery to place some flowers on Grandpa's grave. During the weekend of the funeral, we explained to Jonah that Grandpa Hay's body would go into the ground to wait for Christ's return and the bodily resurrection, at which time Grandpa's salvation would be complete. Jonah was as interested in this as an almost-three-year old boy can be, I think, and he was very enthusiastic and sweet when leaving the flowers in memory. How much he understands, of course, we really don't know, but his child's understanding is as pure and sweet as anyone's.

We love you, Grandpa Hay, and you are missed and your memory is cherished.

Vacay in PA

2009-07-13T20:19:00.006-05:00

In May, our family traveled to Pennsylvania to visit our dear friends and our children's godparents ("Padrino and Madrina"), Brandon and Corene, and their children, Jude, Abigail and Ezra. As I was still suffering from pregnancy sickness and since "it's the dad's job" anyway, Gabe drove all the way to (and from!) Pennsylvania. The boys were able to eat, sleep and read en route; Gabe to do none of those things; and me, to eat, pretend to sleep and read no more than a dozen pages. Road trips: Ya gotta love 'em. (Many thanks to Cousin Stephie for loaning us her family's portable DVD player; it killed a few miles!)

Pig with apple.

We all spent a couple days and a night at Brandon's parents house, which is "out in the country." They live in a beautiful wooded development, which was nice and quiet, and we all enjoyed being spoiled by them. I don't think that Corene or I did any cooking, and we were treated to a delicious steak, grilled tuna, grilled garlic bread and artichoke dinner our first night there. (I'm sure that there was more food on the table, but my memory is having trouble stretching back two whole months.) The food was very, very exciting, and the quiet setting was so relaxing. Thanks, Ann and David!

Manny and Ezra enjoyed playing with -- what else? -- rocks in the front yard.

Jonah, Ezra, Abigail and Jude, all feast on Kid Cuisine at Grandma's house. Hey, a vacation's not a vacation without a little KC.

Grandma (Miss Ann, as our kids called her) also has a sandbox-in-a-tub. This idea is so fantastic that I now have two of these boxes o' sand at our place in Chicago. Miss Ann, however, has blue sand. I can't compete with that.

One of our excursions was going to the Army Corps resevoir and feeding the carp. Yes, that's right, carp-feeding. They eat pieces of dog food, turning into a writhing mass of slimy green scales and gaping O-shaped mouths. The carp also like to splash their slime-tainted water all over when they get really excited about their meal. It's truly disgusging, but the kids love it. Below, Brandon and Corene try to make sure that the little ones don't fall in. (They succeeded, thank heavens.)

Here's some fun video, so you can get a taste of the experience. Just make sure to keep your mouth closed -- flying water!
I'm pretty sure that the Swishers don't consider a visit to their place to be official without a visit to the Berkey Creamery, the ice cream shop on the Penn State campus. It's okay with us if a stop at the Creamery is mandatory.

Brandon single-handedly entertains five children. Nice job, Padrino.

Manny ran away. Thanks to Jude for chasing him down. Watching Jude carry my younger son was a little nerve-racking, but really quite sweet.

Many thanks to our dear friends for opening their home to us! We all have very fond memories of our visit with them and can't wait for the next time that we get to go back, whenever that may be. We miss you, Swishers!

The little garden

2009-07-13T20:11:00.002-05:00

I was thrilled that our peonies were kind enough to hold off on blooming until we returned from Pennsylvania and Michigan. Also, I'm thrilled with the new camera that lets me take closeup photos. And thrilled that my son seems to love flowers. All in all, it's pretty thrilling around here.

Game time

2009-07-11T21:07:00.004-05:00

The Swishers, our children's godparents, introduced us to the Chicago White Sox Kids Club about a year ago. Said Kids Club allows us to attend a baseball game for free (along with sending a poster, baseball cards, and temporary tattoos), which further cements my loyalty to the Sox and my disdain for the Cubs. On June 10, we were able to attend the Sox - Tigers game, which was the dream matchup for my husband. Of course, watching the game with two young kids is a much different experience than enjoying the game without the munchkins, but we're both thrilled to be instilling within our children a great love for the American pasttime.

Manny, who spent almost half of his in utero life in Michigan, couldn't decide which team was worthy of his adoration. He finally decided to cheer both, suiting up with the Tigers cap and White Sox shirt. (Recognize the cap, Gaspards? You were so sweet to send it to Jonah last year.) Jonah's our south Chicago boy and had no qualms cheering for only the Sox, regardless of his father's ancient loyalty.

Somebody hit a homerun, which the Sox always celebrate with fireworks. Manny, lover of danger and loud noises, gave us his sign language sign for "more." "More fireworks," he demands.

This picture fairly effectively captures the personality differences between our two boys. Not that Jonah doesn't know how to or enjoy having fun, but Manny really knows how to have fun.

Hey, not a bad picture! One of us looks directly at the camera, the other two have their faces turned in the camera's general direction. I'll take it!

This is a much more typical example, though, of what we get with our boys in the frame.

Baby pool

2009-07-10T08:27:00.004-05:00

Have I mentioned yet how much I love having our new backyard? A yard in which we can actually play? Hmmm, I probably have. And now that it's warmer out, we're able to get out the water hose and fill up the pool a bit. Mind you, the boys don't actually play in the pool; no, no, they're far too busy caring for the plants and playing with the hose water. Well, whatever keeps them happy.

Jonah also likes to line buckets up. These days he insists that anything that is in line form is a train. Things like the heat radiators in our apartment and buckets full of water. This child lives on trains.

Practicing baseball. Here's his pitching form.

While Jonah loves to run thru the hose spray, Manny much prefers to stick his hand in the stream and spray himself in the face.

Hey, he asked for it. Quite literally, he did.

Happy Birthday, J-Bird!

2009-07-09T21:36:00.003-05:00

I still can't decide if it's hard to believe or not: It's been three years since Jonah rocketed into the world, 3 minutes till midnight on July 4, our "joke" due date. ('Cuz who ever thinks that their first child, a boy, will be born 11 days before his due date, on a holiday? It was a joke 'round our place, evidenced by the fact that my hospital bag was only half packed.) I say that I can't decide because it seems like there was hardly a time before there was Jonah in Gabriel and my married life, though I do have fond memories of our dating, engaged and married life, all not-quite 3 years of it, before Jonah was born. At any rate, it's been three years of the child known variously as "Jonah-Bean," "The Jonah Owl," "Senor Impaciente," "Mr. Poop," which morphed into "Mr. Poo," and , currently, "Little Bear" or "J-Bird". Considering my pregnancy, the extent of our summer travels and the fact that it still sort of seems to me that we "just moved," we opted for a lower-key celebration this year, inviting just a few mom-friends and their offspring over to our place for play, lunch and cake. The party managed to be fun without being crazy (at least that's my interpretation of it), and Jonah thoroughly enjoyed himself. That's the important thing, right?

(You wouldn't know it from the photos below, but we had eight children and five mamas in the house. Clearly, I should've designated picture-taking. Also, the darkish quality of the first few pictures is due to the fact that Gabriel bought me a spectacular new camera for Christmas, but I often forget that I need to switch the setting from outdoor to indoor. Also, there's something called a "flash" that really brightens things up. Who knew?)

I made Jonah a construction sign / dump truck cake, chocolate inside (from Christopher Kimball's "The Cook's Bible"), cream cheese frosting (Betty Crocker cookbook). It was a really good cake. Jonah was a bit perturbed that I put his dump truck out of commission for an evening and a day, but I do think that he forgave me. It's not for nothing that we call him "Jonah the Merciful." I made the mistake of telling Jonah to smile. Yup, that's a camera-worthy smile, not a grimace of pain. It took long enough for him to blow out the candles that I actually got a picture of it. Maybe that's why no one else ate the cake?

Jonah was able to choose his birthday breakfast on July 4. He chose French toast, which surprisingly won out over pancakes. Jonah loves to help me in the kitchen. "Help," of course, is a relative term, but I do like to have him with me. Look, he's mixing the egg mix with all my measuring spoons. Hey, whatever's handy!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Jonah! You are our little sweetie, and we love you dearly.

In color, and with moving pictures!

2009-06-05T14:11:00.004-05:00

My dad ("Pop-Pop," in our boys' parlance) fairly recently resumed work on his model railroad, a project that had been on hiatus in our basement for many years. I can remember being excited about it when I was a girl, but I'm pretty sure that my long-ago excitement would be faint next to Jonah's enthusiasm. Pop-Pop showed Jonah (and even Manny) how to use the control board to direct the trains, something at which Jonah became farly adept (he is, after all, not even three yet). In this video, though, you'll see that controlling the trains is hardly better than watching them: It's something of a miracle that Jonah's nose wasn't skinned by the passing locomotive. (This video is from our early April visit to Michigan.)

This truck was a Christmas gift from my sister and her husband to the boys. I won't say that I hate it: It's not out for play often enough for me to have developed any strong feelings about it. It does, however, provoke some pretty cute reactions in the boys that keep me from re-gifting it to another child. I'm just glad that the boys don't yet know just what it is that they're supposed to be shaking.