Silly Things Parents Do

I think all parents do silly things to humor their children from time to time. It's one of the privileges of parenthood.

We recently purchased a used play set from someone via craigslist. Ben and a friend (and one of our new neighbors, pulled in at the last minute) were able to get it moved to our back yard on Saturday, but we have not yet been able to get it put together (tearing it apart and moving it took longer than expected). Of course having all of these pieces in the back yard - especially a slide - and not being able to play on them is rather frustrating for an almost 3-year old. So Ben humored him on Saturday night, lifting the slide up so he could go down it.

We've had some gorgeous weather the past few days so this scenario has played out multiple times, and I've even lifted up the slide myself. Hopefully we can get some help on Saturday to get the set put back together. It's amazingly difficult to round up 5 adults on the weekend in the spring!

(One final note: don't you love the too-small hat Jonah wears in the video? He insisted upon wearing it, even though a winter hat was unnecessary.)

Jude tried solids

Ready to try this eating thing!

Although our pediatrician had suggested we try introducing Jude to solid foods after our four-month check-up (in order to get more calories into him), we decided to stick with our plan to delay solids until six months, continuing to reap the health benefits of breast milk, minimizing the development of food allergies that are sometimes tied to an early introduction of solids, and maintaining my supply. We had introduced Jonah to solids after six months and felt that it had worked well with him and that we would repeat it this time around. While Jude's weight gain has been very slow, and he continues to be at the absolute bottom of the charts for weight (just 11 pounds 5 ounces at his 6-month check-up today), he's been on track developmentally. Although we were concerned about his weight, we felt the benefits of continuing with the original plan were worth it.

Whereas Jonah had not necessarily shown a lot of interest in eating solid food before we introduced it, Jude has been showing some signs that he has been ready. He watches us eat and occasionally grabs at our silverware and plates when he sits on our laps at a meal. He often stares at Jonah during meal times as well. We've had Jude sitting in the table in the high chair at meals with us for about a month, and while he tends to slouch to one side, he can support himself just fine.

What is going on here?

We'd planned to offer Jude solids for the first time last Saturday and opted to start with sweet potatoes again as they are a staple in our house and the avocados weren't yet ripe. We weren't quite sure how Jonah might react to all of the attention we knew we were going to give Jude when he had this experience. Jonah sometimes exhibits some signs of jealousy, and we knew we needed to be sensitive to his feelings but also true to our desire to document the moment as we wanted. We lucked out in that Jonah had resisted his nap earlier in the afternoon and ended up falling asleep on the couch while I read to him late in the afternoon. He slept on the couch while we took our time feeding Jude. A win-win for all!

I'm supposed to eat this, right?

Trying to figure this out...

Not so sure about this any more...

Jude has been doing remarkably well with the solids! While he's still trying to figure out how to work the food to the back of his mouth, and it has a tendency to come back out, he's actually had a pretty decent intake. We did three days of sweet potatoes before offering him avocado at dinner time yesterday, and I actually had to prepare additional avocado for him. He had avocado again tonight and ate a generous amount. We may find that we can move much more quickly through a variety of textures with Jude. While I don't mind making purees, it's nice to be able to serve table-type food as well!

Ben caught it on video (while also taking photos):

Here's a link for a look back at  Jonah's first experience with solids.

Look who's 6 months old!

What a heart breaker at 6 months!

Jonah couldn't stand that Jude was playing with "HIS" Tigger so had to take it away during the photo shoot. Jude grabbed Jonahs' sleeve quite by accident and we watched a little playful back and forth between the two boys. So nice to see them both smiling and generally enjoying one another! Looking forward to seeing much more of this!!!

It’s hard to believe it, but our little guy turned 6 months old last week! Much has happened since we last blogged, but finding the time to blog is just increasingly difficult these days. Let’s just say that we have our hands full with the two boys, our full-time jobs, and trying to keep the household running...

Since we last really posted about Jude (about 2 months ago), he has hit a number of milestones:

1. He’s rolled over, going from his tummy to back just days after the 4-month mark, and finally rolling the other way for the first time last week (at least the first time I’d ever witnessed).  While Jude can roll, he doesn’t really do it all that often. If he’s on his tummy, he’s generally perfectly content to look around and to suck his thumb or to inchworm or spin until he gets frustrated or close enough to the item that he desires. If he’s on his back, he’ll often twist and contort his body to see things (moving all of his body over but his head), but usually gives up or spins enough in the process that eventually he finds something of interest. Now that he is more interested in the world and in getting objects of his desire, it will be interesting to see if he steps up his rolling. It seems that the two other boys in his room at day care who were also born the same week are also in this boat (yes, three of them are within 5 days of each other!).

2. Jude’s a pretty good sitter, all on his own. Until he just completely flops over backwards (or forwards, but usually backwards). He’ll be sitting just fine for several minutes and then fall over seemingly out of the blue, after performing somewhat more difficult feats of moving toys or arms and legs without incident. He’s gotten really good at this in about the past 2 weeks or so. We first started encouraging him to sit on his own after Easter when we got out the musical table and propped it up on two legs. Supported initially by two boppies and then by one and none, he really seems to enjoy being able to see more of what is going on around him, especially seeing what Jonah is doing.

 

3. Jude is an avid thumb-sucker. Doesn’t matter which one. But one of his thumbs is pretty much a permanent fixture in his mouth. Sometimes he double-thumbs it. It’s a good thing the thumbs are inseparable! I have mixed feeling about this – it’s nice that he doesn’t need to have the pacifier to comfort him, but at the same time, I worry that it will be difficult to wean him from the thumbs…

Caught on camera sucking both thumbs at once!

4. Jude also enjoys eating his feet, so much so that giving a bath can be a bit of a challenge as he’s practically doubled over in the bath and little of his body is exposed. Socks are often victims of this compulsion too.

We've hit a number of other milestones as well, such as playing with certain toys, getting some great vocalizations, and starting solid foods (yesterday). Those will come in separate posts - hopefully sooner rather than later. How amazing it's been to watch this little guy grow and change! 

Melting the Coldest Winter Snow

With all the talk of "Snowpocalypse" and various other names for the big winter storms floating around, we've been pretty fortunate to not have gotten huge amounts of snow at any one time. It has been cold, though. Fortunately, we've got a couple sweet boys who know how to make us melt.

A happy little guy

Jude obviously doesn't have any words, yet, but his smiles and expressions just turn us to mush sometimes. 

Jonah has a full arsenal of words at his disposal to go along with his expressions, and I wanted to be sure to share some before they are lost to time. This isn't just the standard "I love you" and random "I'm happy" that still have full impact, but other little things that he says.

Michelle bought some daffodils today. Jonah constantly reminds us that yellow and orange are his favorite colors with great enthusiasm. He was thrilled when he saw the flowers, and I introduced him to smelling them along with enjoying how they look. After lunch, he said "I want to smell the yellow flowers again!" As I type it, it doesn't seem to have as much impact, but it was really sweet the way he said it.

Reading by turtle-light

A few nights back, after reading with Jonah, he was playing with his Twilight Turtle, which projects stars on his ceiling and walls when lit up. Usually he likes to shine it so that we can "eat" the stars or so we can have the starts on our faces or hands. That night, knowing it was cloudy out, he asked me to open his curtains so he could share his stars with the sky.

Michelle told me a story at daycare where they had puzzles out, and after completing one, he walked over to a friend and asked if he could "please do the puzzle with" him. They then continued to work on the puzzle together. I'm sure I don't do the story justice, but it sounds like such a sweet moment.

Add caption

We recently got some books through the Scholastic order at daycare. One of these books quickly became a favorite: Penguin and Pinecone. Completely out of the blue while we were eating lunch one day, Jonah looked at Michelle and said "Mommy, you will always be in my heart." Then he turned to me and said "Daddy, you will always been in my heart, too." The unlikely friendship between a penguin and a pinecone introduced him to the expression, and it blew us away that he would use it.

There's nothing quite like sweet words from your two year old to melt your heart.

 

Jude is 4-Months Old!

4-months old! Look at me sitting up for a while!

It's hard to believe it, but our little guy turned 4-months old today! Where has the time gone? We've been having a ton of fun with Jude as he has become more and more social.

We took Jude to the doctor today for his 4-month check-up and were a bit shocked to learn that he weighs just 10 lbs. 5 oz. (slightly less than Jonah weighed at 2 months), and measures 23 3/4 inches (exactly the same as Jonah did at 4 months and in the 10th percentile). (See what Jonah looked like in the post we wrote when he was 4 months old!). Developmentally, Jude is where he is supposed to be, but we'll be watching his intake and growth a bit more closely in the coming weeks.

Jude at 3 months.

We get lots of smiles, laughs, and jabbering from Jude now, and it is fun to learn more about this little social guy. He is almost always in a good mood and is a pretty easy-going baby. He enjoys playing with the toys in his little activity gym and on his bouncy chair, and enjoys - for the most part - his tummy time, where he is working very hard to roll over (and has come very close to success). We'll try to post some video of these activities in the coming days. Jude loves to eat his hand and lately has been seen frequently sucking on either one of his thumbs. We have introduced him to the Bumbo for short periods over the last few weeks, and he does really well in it, just hanging out and enjoying the activities that are going on around him.

Of course, it's interesting to see the interaction and interplay between the two boys as well. Every "toy" that comes back out for Jude has to go through rigorous Jonah testing first, as was the case with the Bumbo:

This sure is a different experience!

Hey - wasn't that my chair?

I can still fit in this! This is MY chair!

In terms of the personal dynamics between the two boys, it has generally been sweet. This evening, Jonah was concerned that Jude was trying to eat his burp cloth and tried to pull it off of my shoulder so that Jude wouldn't "eat" it. I explained that Jude wasn't trying to eat it, but that sometimes the burp cloth got in the way of his hand getting to his mouth. It was nice to see Jonah exhibit some concern for Jude. And then Jonah tried to get Jude to laugh by making up his own "baby talk" and blowing raspberries at him. Unfortunately, it didn't work in this instance, but it was so much fun to watch Jonah take an interest in and watch out for Jude. There are still times where he has fits and asks us to not bring along Jude, or tells me to not nurse Jude because he would rather I do something else, but overall, Jonah is a good big brother.

We are lucky to have two such sweeties!

We Couldn't Resist

 I follow a lot of art and education blogs and browse Pinterest from time-to-time, searching for various activities that I think we'll enjoy doing at home with Jonah. Recently, I came across a couple of ideas that focused on resist painting and thought it could be a fun, educational, and seasonal activity we could engage in with him.

The essence is that we used painter's tape as a resist on paper and canvases. Jonah doesn't yet have the dexterity to do this on his own, but we quickly ripped and placed the tape for him and he went at it with his paintbrush (and hands). The first weekend, we made snowflake scenes on art paper; the second weekend, we made Valentine-themed messages on canvas. I'm not sure whether it was the additional experience, the novelty of the canvas, or the slightly smaller size of the canvases, but he was much more enthusiastic about it the second weekend. We actually had to tape off a few more canvases while he was working to satisfy his creative binge (note to self: time to stock up on more multi-packs of canvases at Michael's).

Sticking out my tongue always helps!

The project was a great opportunity to work on a number of skills and introduce some new concepts, including use of a paint brush, color mixing, negative space, resists, different media (canvas versus paper), pulling tape off of canvas, and the concept of Valentine's Day.

Jonah's idea of color mixing right now is quite interesting: he pretty much just pushes all of the paint around until it becomes mostly the same color. When we encouraged him to use a particular color and mix it on the canvas, he would go around and get a dot of each of the colors from his palettes (paper plates), such that he was never really adding just one color to his canvas. The results are great, but the process is not at all like how we as adults might have gone about it. I know it's important to remember that!

Intent on his painting, with that tongue still out.

Additionally, he has really started to use the brush quite well, moving it around on the paper and canvas in broad strokes. However, during each session, he eventually found his hands to be the most compelling canvas, painting the left one thoroughly (and well up his forearm as well). When we painted canvases, he also actively used his hands as a brush at points to distribute the paint.

What will this look like when I get the tape ripped off?

When it came time to pull the tape (resist) off of the paper and canvas, we found that we couldn't really let him help with the paper artworks, as the paper ripped away a bit. However, he was able to help remove tape from the canvases (for as long as it kept his interest), and it was fun to watch his reaction as he saw the clean, white canvas beneath.

The snowflake works are now hanging in the playroom where we can see them every day. For Valentine's Day, Jonah selected an artwork to send to each of his grandparents; Ben and I got to keep three of them and I know we will treasure them!

The finished works of art!

Early stages of covering the paper, with tape still visible.

Painting his hands instead of the paper. Caught in action.

The finished snowflake scenes.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Two Boys and the Tub!

I don't think I like this!

It's amazing how much something as simple as bathing can evolve as a part of the routine and how quickly it can do so. I'd forgotten what it was like to bathe a newborn and how challenging I find it to support his head while cleaning his back side. And how little time it really takes to bathe a newborn, as they aren't yet into playing, stalling, or pitching fits. Or that they might actually dislike the bathing process.

Jude was not happy about his first bath at home. We did it in the spare bathroom in a small tub that came home from the hospital with Jonah, and I made it as quick as possible. Jude screamed and cried the entire time. Jonah had to be present to witness it, but he spent the entire time washing his combs in the sink nearby, which was both a help and a hindrance. I secured privileges of the first bath at home because Ben had those privileges with Jonah. Fair is fair, right?

Who cares that my brother is screaming about a bath right next to me!

We only did one sponge bath like this at home before graduating to the baby tub in the tub. And ever since that time, Jude has pretty much unilaterally LOVED his bath time. He can be crying up to the moment you put him in the tub, but once he hits that water, he just chills out. Of course the poor kid gets absolutely no privacy because big brother has to come along to check out what is going on (he might miss out on something) and to take advantage of the additional opportunity to play with his bath time toys.

Jude's first bath in the "big" tub.

Jonah's interest in Jude's baths has its perks: while Ben has traveled in the last couple of months, I was able to bathe Jude and manage Jonah by taking advantage of Jonah's desire to help. Suddenly I couldn't remember how to draw a bath and needed his assistance in the bathroom. He came running, happy to show me, and I closed the door behind us so he was effectively corralled. He played fairly innocently alongside the tub while I was able to take care of business, and he took care of emptying the little tub while I got Jude dressed. The downside, of course, is that Jonah can get in the way as you try to get Jude in and out, and he also gets himself in little predicaments (falls) between the toilet and tub as he moves all over in his imaginative play. (He also unapologetically walks all over your legs.)

Jonah playing with his duck boat while Daddy bathes Jude. Typical scene.

Baths with Jonah are now all over the place. He used to consistently LOVE his bath time, but lately he has been throwing fits about it: sometimes because he doesn't want to take off his clothes, sometimes because the water is too "hot" (it's not), and sometimes because who knows why. Invariably, the days when he throws the biggest fits about getting in, he then throws the biggest fits about getting out. Sigh. The joys of parenting a 2 year old.

This does not qualify as a fire truck in Jonah's view.

We do still have a lot of fun during our baths. Lately, the Matchbox cars have taken much of the focus during bath time. But we've also gone through periods recently where other activities took precedence, such as writing and drawing in the tub with the washable crayons he received as a gift. Requests could be very specific, such as a certain number of tractors, trucks, cars, buses, etc., or very generic, such as "write something." Ben is a much better artist than I, so I can't say that I loved the "drawing" phase, particularly when Jonah provided commentary to me that my artwork was not up to stuff. Take, for instance, the fire truck I drew here. Jonah informed me that it was NOT a firetruck. Sorry - I'm already insecure enough about my drawing abilities. I don't need that from a kid!!!  I do credit this interest in drawing and writing with his knowledge of all of the letters of the alphabet. We practiced them in the tub (which he enjoyed immensely, honestly), and we occasionally practiced a few words as well.

Sometimes we sing and use the toys as a part of the fun. For a while, Jonah was very much into the "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" song, and we used it to work on counting/numbers and just having fun in general. I caught it on video one night in December (though it wasn't Jonah's best performance on the counting side):

Now, we can't play with the little frog without Jonah stealing it and having to squirt us. He still can't quite figure out how to fill it (and it does tend to "stick" in the collapsed position, so no additional water will enter it without coaxing). It's hilarious when he has to stop squirting you to ask you to fill the frog and then immediately expects you to give it back so that he can get you wet. 

So many fun times and memories have been made at bath time! We very much look forward to seeing the two boys interact together and have fun in the tub, but expect that is still some time away. In the meantime, separate back-to-back baths it is!

The Color of Food

Just a quick post tonight before bed before I forget some of the things Jonah said and did today.

He's been very sweet lately, saying things like "Thank you, Mommy, for making oatmeal for breakfast," and "I love you, too" when we tell him we love him. Tonight, he told Mommy that "in the morning I am going to eat the yummy oatmeal she made for breakfast." (It is a cranberry-apple baked oatmeal, and he's right... it is very yummy).

For dinner we made up some beef with broccoli with rice. Of course Jonah had no issues with the rice, but he adamantly refused to even touch the beef and broccoli. When we had this same dish in the past, he liked it. This time around, though, he wouldn't even put a piece of beef in his mouth. He got very upset, but I was able to calm him down to try to get some more information.  I asked him what he didn't like about it. Silence. Was it the color? Did he not like the brown? Yes, that was it.

So I offered to color the meat red. Would he eat it then? He said he would, so I grabbed a little ketchup and "painted" a piece of beef. He ate it, saying he thought it was really good. With this in mind, I thought we'd see about getting him to eat some more, so I offered to "paint" the rest of his beef with our "special red food paint" (I wanted to be careful about this and hope it doesn't come back to bite me the next time we do an art project with paint!). I even colored some of the broccoli red, and he ate that with "yummy" comments. In the end Jonah ended up eating a pretty good meal, even if it was a little colored with ketchup. Funny that brown isn't an issue when it is shaped like a cookie or cake!

At least Jonah ate, and even though he did, I'm sure he will still be hungry for Mommy's oatmeal in the morning.

Santa, Baby!

Visiting Santa at Brookfield Square Mall.

We're still playing catch-up here. I can't believe that Christmas was over a month ago already, but it's too cute not to document some of our experiences with the man in the red suit this year.

As in the past, we took the boys to see Santa at the mall. We went on a Friday early in December, taking advantage of the fact that I was home on leave to avoid the longer lines of evenings and weekends. Jonah had been very excited about Santa; this is the first year that he really seemed to engage in and understand the concept of Christmas and this mysterious man named Santa. Ben and I were able to use the concept of staying on Santa's nice list to our advantage, prompting good behavior and a listening boy on a number of occasions. Before visiting Santa, we had asked Jonah what he was going to tell him that he wanted for Christmas. This changed a few times over the course of a couple of weeks, but then fortunately settled into a pretty consistent response of "an orange convertible and lots and lots of garbage trucks."

Our experience at the mall was a positive one. Jonah sat on Santa's lap without issue and Jude, innocent babe that he is, didn't mind one bit. Santa definitely got a chuckle when Jonah made his request. How many little boys ask for lots of garbage trucks? I suppose there must be a good number of them as you can find several different models in stores and online.

Baby Jude is bored by Santa.

The following Saturday, we went to Cranky Al's, our favorite bakery in the old neighborhood, to see the Santa they had there. It's been a bit of a tradition for us, and we weren't ready to give it up. Leading up to the trip, we were getting some sense that perhaps Jonah wasn't feeling as keen about Santa as he had for his first visit. Trying to get him out the door with statements about going to see Santa were met with "I don't want to see Santa" responses. While we waited in line, Jonah was more interested in placing his order for a doughnut than in getting to the front of the line to see Santa. In the end, it took a lot of bribing to get him to stand next to Santa (Jude, of course, slept through it). Santa's elf even gave him a jingle-bell hat in an attempt to make him happier, but Jonah wasn't really having any of that either. What happened between his first visit with Santa and this one? I can't say, but a doughnut made everything better.

I just don't know about this guy...

Trying out the elf's hat...

My doughnut! Awesome!

Jonah with Santa at day care, 2011.

Jonah's final experience with Santa was at daycare. We rearranged our schedule so that Jonah would be at daycare on the day of Santa's visit. Last year, Jonah didn't want anything to do with the Santa at daycare, and it is our understanding that this year, he sat on his lap for this photo, took the candy cane from him, and would then have nothing more to do with him. Wouldn't talk to him. Nothing. Poor kiddo. At least he mustered a half-hearted smile.

Jonah with Santa at day care, 2012.

I wonder what next year will bring. I doubt Jude will be sleeping through the experience at that time. Will he be afraid of Santa? Will Jonah conquer his fear? What will be on their Christmas lists next year?

Christmas Trees!

Rolling the cone in the toppings.

Continuing the arts and crafts theme, Jonah and I had a good time at the end of November making Christmas trees out of sugar cones, white chocolate, and a variety of decorative toppings, including miniature M&Ms, coconut, and sprinkles. I'd seen the idea on Pinterest or on one of the blogs that I follow and thought it was a good seasonal activity for his current skills and abilities.

In an attempt to rein in the messiness, I plated the various toppings and let Jonah roll the ice cream cones in them, as the white chocolate itself was relatively hot and I wasn't sure he was able to handle spooning it on the cones. He enjoyed rolling the cones for a while, but the sugary foods soon won out (and stuck to his hand as he touched the white chocolate). It quickly became an opportunity to eat as much sugary stuff as possible, which is fine for a "special treat."

At first, Jonah tried to be sneaky about eating the toppings. Which is pretty hilarious. There is nothing "sneaky" about a 2.5 year old. (He currently likes to "hide" right in plain sight of us.) But I pretended to ignore it for a while. Eventually, he didn't try to hide it and his face and hands became increasingly covered with the sweets. The nonpareils were especially bad for sticking to his hand and he resorted to shoving his entire hand in his mouth to eat them. What a mess he was by the end, and what a great time we had!

I'm not eating this coconut, Mommy!

I put our trees on a small table near the front entry, amidst some stuffing arranged to look like snow. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of this (or I can't find them right now), but it was nice to walk by the trees every day and be reminded of our fun time together. I think this is a project I'll keep on the list to do again in the years to come!

Oh, you caught me, didn't you?

Open mouth, insert hands.

Look at that messy face!

Our finished "forest."

Not a Box

Painting the bottom of the car.

In our house, we are big fans of Antoinette Portis' book, Not a Box, which illustrates imaginative play and all of the things that a simple box could be imagined as. In early November, just after Jude was born, I received a huge box from Amazon filled with my subscribe and save shipment of diapers, wipes, etc. While the box was sitting empty in the hallway, Jonah stepped inside it, and an evening of pulling him around the house in his new "car" ensued.  What fun!

To help reinforce the notion that the box could be a car, I suggested that the following day we paint the box and that Jonah should think about the color he wanted to paint it. In the end, he settled for pretty much all of the colors of paint, which was just fine. I moved our rolling cart from the center of the kitchen and rounded up one of our drop cloths to protect the floor. Jonah had a good time using the paint brush and liked walking around the box to work on painting different portions of it. I had a difficult time keeping him from painting the bottom of the box, which I'd placed up on the floor (only really a concern because we were going to drag the complete box around the house as a car again), and Jonah had a hard time concentrating on any one section long enough to cover it completely with paint. Unfortunately, I realized too late that we never got a photo of the "completed" car.

Getting paint off the plate, er, palette.

We had a great time and I wish I could have given Jonah more painting opportunities while I was on leave. It was simply too difficult to know when I might have to drop everything to address Jude's needs, and Jonah is incredibly messy when it comes to paints (and doesn't yet understand our desire to keep paint off of things). That said, I look forward to more and more "not a box" experiences, as Jonah is really beginning to show a lot of imagination in his play (we've taken advantage of this to some degree with his eating as well - last night, he ate spoonfuls of Thomas, Percy, Harold, Tractor Mac, Plane Jane, etc.).

I think I'll move on to this side of the car.

Waiting for Mommy to dole out some more paint.

Halloween Tricks and Treats

Cheese! Look at me working on a pumpkin!

Halloween fell right on the heels of Jude's birth, but we managed to do a remarkable number of activities to celebrate the season. I'd done a bit of planning in advance, which helped (Jude's due date was after Halloween, so I'd been expecting a bit more time to do Halloween activities), and I think I must have been running on complete adrenaline at that point. I'm not sure how we did it all, in retrospect. Apparently, Ben and I do a pretty good tag team.

I follow quite a number of blogs with kids' arts projects and frequent Pinterest as I have time, so we settled in at the new home by making pumpkins with tissue and contact papers (one set of instructions is available here). It seemed a pretty simple project we could all enjoy together and skill-appropriate for Jonah. He enjoyed playing with the tissue paper for a while, but lost interest pretty quickly. He probably would have had more fun picking the tissue paper off the floor or ripping or crumpling it. Sigh - maybe some day I will have a child who wants to do crafts with me!

All three pumpkins hanging in the window of the play room.

On the day that we brought Jude home from the hospital, we learned that the neighborhood trick-or-treat was that evening. We'd missed our old neighborhood trick-or-treat the prior night and weren't certain what to expect in the new neighborhood. I'd picked up a shark costume for Jonah in August or September in a resale shop, recognizing a good deal when I saw it (plus the selection was great because Halloween was still so far off).

Jonah had seen the costume and was excited to wear it, even refusing to take it off one Saturday morning in September while we ran a few errands.  When it was time to go trick-or-treating, however, he refused to put it on and threw a tantrum. Finally, we told him it was his last chance if he wanted to go out to trick-or-treat and he decided that he did (though still with a few tears, as you can see here).

I'm still not so sure about this trick-or-treat thing.

He chose me to walk around the neighborhood with him (lucky me!), and we went down 116th and 117th Street, where there really were surprisingly few houses participating in trick-or-treat. Whether they were also caught off guard about the date (the notice appeared in our box that day) or this neighborhood is more bah humbug about the holiday, I cannot say. It wasn't like Jonah needed a lot of candy or we needed to be out in the cold for too long, so it was not necessarily a bad thing.

Watching a movie in his costume.

I'd encouraged Jonah to try to make shark sounds upon answers to doorbells, but that didn't go over with him. So then we worked on saying "trick or treat." This worked pretty well, with the exception of one house, where he sang "happy birthday" for them. Nothing like getting things a little mixed up for a laugh! Perhaps by next year, he'll have the routine down!

We'd talked up hot chocolate upon his arrival home, so he was excited about that, and we also let him watch a short movie on TV (I think we probably watched Dr. Seuss' Sneetches or something similar).  At that point, he wasn't too interested in removing his costume, as you can see in this photo at right.

Posing with the pumpkin he selected.

The following day, we decided it was time to carve the pumpkins we'd picked up at Basse's weeks earlier (and had moved from our old house to the new). Last year, we picked pumpkins and thought that Jonah would be interested in carving them, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the process and even refused to stick his hands inside the pumpkin. As a result, we weren't quite sure what to expect this year.

We needn't have worried, as Jonah was very interested in checking out pumpkin innards this year. Perhaps it helped that I marketed them as "pumpkin guts." Perhaps it helped that we had some new little tools for cutting from Target that looked appealing to a little boy. Perhaps it was just a better afternoon nap and a year's growth. Jonah was definitely interested in using the little scoop to get inside the pumpkin and we asked his input about how we should carve the face. Obviously, he was too little to use the sharp tools, but he requested a jack o'lantern with "a creepy mouth with sharp teeth." That took a little clarifying - we drew some examples on paper, as you don't want to get a temper-tantrum-prone 2-year old's vision wrong, believe me - and we ended up with two similar looking pumpkins.

What's in there, Mommy?

Scooping out the seeds.

Posing with the finished products.

After we finished carving the pumpkins, we let Jonah have a piece of candy from his bucket. He chose the Reese's peanut butter cup (there's a boy after my own heart). He'd never had one before, but I think he liked it:

Hmm... first bite (and a BIG one).

This thing is pretty awesome!

Cutting out a bat for Halloween.

One of my goals for my time home on leave was to try to do some fun activities with Jonah on the days he is home from day care (we are continuing to send him 3 days a week to give me time alone with Jude and to give Jonah time with his friends and activities that would be difficult for me to supervise by myself with a newborn). I feel like I did a better job with that goal early on, before the Christmas holiday preparations began in earnest. At any rate, we cut out and frosted some Halloween sugar cookies to take to Jonah's teachers and the staff at the day care center.

Everything is easier with a tongue hanging out.

We've made cookies together before, and Jonah has naturally become more active and helpful in the process. For whatever reason, he enjoys eating the flour used to dust the work surface (he calls it sugar sometimes). He also tries to sneak hunks of cookie dough into his mouth, often giving us a knowing and taunting look before doing so because he knows he isn't supposed to be eating it. Watching where he puts the cookie cutter in the dough isn't a priority yet, so it's easy to end up with partial cookies and a lot of wasted dough in each rolling. We'll get there with time, I'm certain.

We frosted cookies after Jonah's nap and I let him have an avocado knife to frost one on his own. He went right to it spreading on the frosting and finished frosting one before really starting to get his hands into his mouth. I got out some chocolate chips to let him help with putting eyes, noses, and smiles on the pumpkins, and he did that for a while, but we had to stay right on top of him because his hands were constantly going back and forth between the sweets and his mouth. In the end, we just let him decorate a few cookies of his own and isolated them from the remainder.

Putting on a chocolate chip mouth.

The final Halloween activity in which Jonah took part was the costume parade they hold at day care. The kids bring their costumes and walk down Wisconsin Avenue on the Marquette campus (or they are pushed in buggies if they are too little to walk). My understanding is that they have done this for years and years and that sometimes employees in buildings along the way will pass out candy to the older kids. We took in a fair amount of candy for this purpose as we overbought, not knowing how poor trick-or-treat attendance would be in our new house.

Showing off his costume at daycare.

Jonah was much happier about wearing his costume for the day care event, which Ben stuck around campus for. I imagine this is the last year I'll be able to pick out Jonah's costume for him. I wonder what he might choose for himself next year and whether I'll have to help construct something to make his costume happen. Time will tell!!

Jonah's classroom at daycare. Front row: Jonah and Noah. Back row: Aurora, Adeline, Adriel, Hazel, Isaac, and Mia.