The Bike Trail

One of our favorite weekly activities are our bike rides and walks at the trail. We are very lucky to have extensive bike trails all around our area, and we take full advantage of this convenience. We have some friends who love the outdoors as much as we do, and they are always willing to brave mildly unpleasant conditions for the sake of fresh air. Julianne and Erica are great pals for Jonathan...

Off and racing

Meeting of the minds

He's off

Caleb has sporadically taken steps in the last couple of weeks, but hasn't really taken off. Today he took 7-8 steps without coercion on several occasions. I think that he has become a walking machine.

Church

Jonathan loves going to church. Now. He hasn't always liked it, but that's another story. He wanted to go to church on Friday, and Saturday, and was asking about it all day Sunday. You wouldn't know that he liked it from his demeanor during the kids' singing time.

This scene is what Jamie and I observed last week (as we watched from the outside before picking him up): all of the children together with the worship time leaders, all of them smiling, most of them jumping to a song, and most of them clapping. All of them smiling except my kid. He stood there, staring, not smiling at the leaders during the whole singing time.

We asked the worship time leaders if this was his norm and they started laughing. The singing as a whole kids' group is new. Apparently, the last time they had led singing (they only have kids' music every three weeks because we're a small church and the leaders have other worship service responsibilities) Jonathan stood off to the side of the group, not smiling and staring at all of them. The leader commented that he felt like the little man was observing them for a psychology experiment. His comment, "Jonathan just doesn't respond like most kids to the songs." Um, yeah.

In light of this, I asked Jonathan if he liked the singing. "Yeah, I like mighty GO GOD!" And, he proceeded to sing the song (minus some words) and do some actions. Hmmm...

Me: "So, why didn't you sing or clap or jump with the other kids?"

Jonathan: "Cause I didn't want to."

And, that is that.

Own Drum

If the content of this blog hasn't indicated this fact, I'll point out the obvious: Jonathan marches to the beat of his own drum. Rum, pum, pum, pum...

This results in some wowser dowser battles around here. There are battles I'll fight: Jonathan needs to learn kindness towards Caleb, Jonathan needs to learn to obey when asked to do things, and he needs to learn to ask for things kindly and not whine.

There are battles I'll not fight: the Halloween costume. He refused to wear it today for preschool. It's just a fireman jacket and a hat. That's it. Nothing uncomfortable or scratchy. Every other kid in preschool was wearing their costume, and still Jonathan told Mrs. Burns: "I don't want to wear that. I'll just wear my clothes by themselves." They went on a little Halloween march, and my little guy just marched along, costume-less, to the beat of his drum.

March on, Jonathan. The Halloween costume choice is one that is all yours.

In the Company of Friends

This fall has reminded me of the blessings of good friends. Our families live too far away, and we don't see them much. Jamie has to work some evenings, some weekends, and some early mornings. This means a lot of time by myself with the munchkins. It would be even less fun if I didn't have a couple of friends who understand. Really understand. Because they don't have family nearby and their spouses have to work odd hours, too. If they had family nearby or a nine to five husband, it wouldn't probably be quite the same.

We sometimes have dinner together when we're alone with the kids, we bring each other meals when one of the mommies is sick or having a rough week, we watch each other's kids when one of us has to go to the doctor, and we have met at Denny's for Saturday night kids eat free dinners...

We would all choose to have our spouses work the nine to five gig, and we'd like to see our families more often but if we have to have these circumstances... I'm so grateful for my friends.

With that I'll leave you with a clip of Caleb "talking". He wants those trains!!

Reading - Part Two

Don't feel the need to watch both of these videos unless you're the grandparents... but here is the second part of the video where Jonathan is "reading".

Reading - Part I

Jonathan really likes a little nursery rhyme book we got as a hand-me down from someone. Today I came to the basement as Jonathan started "reading" to Daddy. This is part one of a couple.