Music lover

Oldie, but goodie.  (The video is from late January.)  Iohan is a much more spontaneous singer than Manny, who sang a lot more than Jonah did.  His late favorites are "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Baby Beluga," and "The Farmer in the Dell."  He can sing the Our Father with us at prayer time, which is not only adorable and soul-warming, but also slightly hilarious -- his Our Father singing voice is high-pitched and chirpy, the exact voice that Jonah used to make his plush pup Whiffy sing with.  I'll put money on that sweet little voice making a thousand angels smile, and sing, too.

Smooth moves

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.)

Who dat?

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.

Happy Birthday to Moo!

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.

Three years, three wheels

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

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!

In color, and with moving pictures!

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.

Franken-baby walks!

This was taken almost a week ago; Manny is much steadier now, though he still prefers crawling. He's been drinking from a cup (open top, no sippy cut) while standing for at least the past three weeks, without losing his balance. I want to say to him, "Manny, if you can do that, for heaven's sake, you can walk." But the Moo likes to do things his own way, thank-you-very-much.

We call him "Crazy M"

Manny had a very happy first birthday. It was especially happy because he received a (second) Puppy Pal, which he is waving around wildly in this video. Manny is a barrel of laughs!

Sassy AND sweet

Twinkle, twinkle, this is our little star.

Happy boy

Things have been a little Jonah-centric around here lately, haven't they? Here are a few for the Moo-lover in everyone.

(That strange noise causing Manny to giggle? Mama's hiccups.)

Mother-Boy.

Nature-Boy.

Silly baby!

This kid never listens to his mother.





Which Manny do you find the most silly?

The love affair continues

After I stayed in Michigan with the boys for two weeks following my sister's wedding, my parents were generous enough to let us take their car to Chicago, in order to travel back to Michigan three weeks later for Gabe's 10-year high school reunion (ask him how THAT went sometime!). On our first car-enabled weekend in the city we drove far, far out of the city to Union, Illinois to visit the Illinois Railway Museum. It was, I think it's safe to say, Jonah's dream museum, and we had fun taking a train ride and a trolley ride and wandering around the huge buildings full of retired engines and cars. Driving back down the Kennedy, of which the Blue Line train runs straight down the middle, Jonah was looking (and looking and looking) for the "choo-choo." Before I watched this, I was pretty sure that he said, "Where are you, choo-choo?" at least 60 times; now that I've watched it again, I'm guessing that he asked after the train at least 80 times. We never said he wasn't persistent!
Here we're boarding the train for a "fun" 40-minute ride. Actually, it wasn't that bad (good thing Jonah really loves trains!), but in retrospect, I think that this wasn't the best use of our time. I take full responsibility for this idea.
Jonah correctly idenitified this engine as a diesel; I, on the other hand, had to ask my dad if he was correct. Jonah loves to spend time with Dada.Manny, lookin' cute on the way home. He's such a trouper.

I thought he was saying "Big bear"

We promise you, he came up with this on his own.

We were heading back from my sister's wedding reception, and Jonah was tired and cranky. We had stopped at Meijer for some, um, refreshment, and Jonah decided that he needed some, too, after a long, hard day (which was, incidentally, his birthday). Happy Birthday, son. (And, no, we didn't open anything in the car!)

(Hey, Katie, that's the Raffi CD playing in the background. Have I told you that it's Jonah's favorite? Especially "Baby Boo-ga". Thank you!)

Unfulfilled hopes

Someone we know wants to crawl...

...while someone else we know just wants to dance.

Oh, my sons, the things we want but can't yet have.

A very sad good-bye

We bid a fond and very sad farewell to this bundle of love and energy on Thursday. We will miss your enthusiasm, "Bia"! (Luckily, we don't have to say "Good-bye" to Auntie Katie and Uncle Clay until next week; you can bet that the tears will be flowing then.)


Months ago, Jonah started calling James "Bia" ("Bee-a") for some reason that we never managed to figure out. Here, Bia works his magic with the rubber tubed ball that Auntie Angie scavenged from the playground for us way back in October.Bia manages to bring out the best in Jonah. (Auntie Katie does too, but she's only seen as the head-cropped-out pregnant lady in the video.)
Our boys love to hug each other. Both are very sweet with their hugs and kisses, though they sometimes play hard to get, and neither one always performs on command. We like their spunk. We can pretend that this was their last hug (though it was far from it); their last hug was a little anti-climactic, as four moms and five kids had just come back from a wild time at Starbucks, Jonah was over-tired and (literally) roaring like a lion (or dino?), and it hurriedly took place on a street corner. So here are our boys, sharing the love.
We love and miss you, James! God grant you many years in your new home!

Manny, conversation monopolizer

Ever wanted to see 41 seconds of a squealing baby?


Manny likes to make noise. Some of his noises have gotten so loud that I must cover my ears of his mouth for protection. I should be glad that at least he's squealing for joy, right? Our little pteradactyl.

Our little pteradactyl has an appointment with the allergist next Friday. He's hoping that the doctor recommends a diet of cupcakes and marshmallows, though I've tried to warn him that such a recommendation is highly unlikely. He remains an optimist.

Starting young

Well, he's no lefty, but Gabe needn't yet give up his dream of having a ball player in the family. Jonah loves to watch baseballers pitch, and he's picking up on their form. Head tucked, a twist to the torso. Sox or Tigers, son?