A Fun Winter Day

Today truly was a day of ups and downs, but my hope is that the good memories are the ones that last. In an effort to preserve them and the reasons they were highlights over the rest of the day, I wanted to do this quick post.

We were going through a bit of cabin fever yesterday, especially after swim lessons were canceled. Michelle suggested that we go to see the butterflies at the Milwaukee Public Museum to make sure we got some time outside the house. It was a particularly good suggestion, because we've been talking about doing it for a while. Jonah loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and this book Butterfly, Butterfly that we discovered at the library (and later picked up a copy), and he always gets excited when he sees butterflies in books and pictures.

So we headed to the museum and made our way right to the Butterfly Garden. Jonah does what he usually does when he is very excited about something: He was stunned silent. At first, anyway.

The first butterfly Jonah found when we set him free to walk.

Checking out some butterflies on the floor with Mommy.

"These butterflies are so cool!"

"Look but don't touch, Jonah!"

After our visit to the Butterfly Garden, we started to wander the museum. Jonah's favorite part wasn't any particular exhibit. He just liked the stools that they have in various places around the museum. The first ones were in the bug room next to the butterflies. He walked around them, climbed them, spun them around...

No, he isn't into planking. He's just short and climbs this way.

He had an uncanny knack for finding them, too. At one point he ran down a hallway, seemingly with purpose, and turned into a room that had a bunch of the stools, as if he knew they were there.

He also enjoyed finding any place he could practice going up and down ramps and steps. in one room, there was a ramp up and then four short steps down that he could handle pretty well on his own. He did a few passes on that loop. There was another room with a wooden floor that required you to step up to get in. He liked going around in circles there, too.

This spot was a particular favorite to walk in circles going up and down the step.

Jonah did really well handling stairs today.

Jonah fell asleep on the way home, and the transfer to his crib is not usually a problem when he falls asleep in the car, but I managed to wake him this time, and the past few days have been Go the **** to Sleep days.

Michelle had already planned to do a little shopping with a friend this afternoon, so she left and I read to Jonah to calm him. He nearly fell asleep again, but I couldn't get him into the crib without waking him. He stood right up bawling. I'd rather focus on the good stuff for the day, but he never did go back to sleep, even though he did later calm down. He just started talking and playing with the window blinds.

Later we went for a little walk outside and then the three of us went grocery shopping. Jonah seemed to have a great time. He was happy and smiling.

After dinner, we put on a Pandora station based on Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Jonah and I had it on earlier in the day and had some fun marching and dancing around to it, but it was even more fun with Mommy there, too! Jonah was having such a good time, he decided to give Mommy some "kisses." You'll see what this in quotes in the pictures below. We kept "cutting in" and switching, and Jonah would get upset each time because he didn't really want to switch, but we were all having such a good time, it didn't take him too long to get over it.

Who's leading?

Jonah's future dates beware: you can't tell if he is going to kiss you or eat you...

"You step on my toes much more than Mommy does..."

One of Jonah's favorite parts. Though, what kid doesn't like hanging upside down?

We wore him out good, because he went down for bed better than he has in the past few days.

More pictures from the day can be found on our family photo site.