Jonah has been taking more and more interest in our activities in the kitchen. While he can be happily be playing with his trains in the living room, he tends to come running into the kitchen at the first hint of any activities that might be going on. He insists on getting up to see what is going on on the counter top, which can make it difficult to get any of the cooking done.
Spreading out the dough.
Hey - someone has to make sure the sauce passes inspection.
Most of the time, we are able to accommodate his interest by allowing him to sit on the counter and "help" as appropriate (this does not work well if the preparation requires a lot of knife work or if there are many ingredients competing for space on the counter); occasionally we will also allow him to stand on a chair to watch or assist. Increasingly, we try to find ways to encourage his interest and allow him to help us out by practicing counting and pouring, learning ingredient names, stirring, and the like.
He LOVED licking the beaters when we made cupcakes for day care for his birthday last month. He will often snag foods from the cutting board that he refuses to later eat from his plate (vegetables, for example). And he was fascinated watching the zucchini shred in the food processor yesterday. Of course, this can get very messy, and it can also be a bit time-consuming, but it can also be fun and rewarding and I hope that we can raise a child who is comfortable in the kitchen and who enjoys cooking as much as we do.
While the grandparents were visiting for his birthday, we made pizza one night. Jonah had helped prepare pizza before, but he was particularly interested in becoming involved this night, and we had two pizzas to make instead of the usual one. Needless to say, we were in for double the trouble!
Normally, Jonah isn't too intent on eating the ingredients for the pizza (other than the shredded cheese, which is how he now prefers to eat his cheese), but he wanted to try everything from the get-go this time around. For the first time, as we spread out the pizza dough, he ripped off pieces to eat (we kept this to a minimum!), and he sampled the sauce as well. And then came the toppings - once that shredded cheese came out, we had difficulty keeping his hands off the pizza. At one point, he grabbed a big handful out of the middle of the pie! He tried the pepperoni, as he usually does, but spit it out (as usual). The red peppers were okay. Black olives - not interested in those either.
Sampling the toppings.
By the time we were finished getting the two pizzas ready, Jonah was covered in sauce and everything else. What a mess! The pizza still tasted great, and fortunately there's Oxiclean. And we had some great laughs and made some great memories!
Check me out - I'm still stuffing food in my face!
It's been another crazy couple of weeks and I've gotten behind with the blogging. Ben was traveling for work and I was pretty wiped from dealing with an intensely opinionated 2-year old (who might that be?) so didn't have the energy to start a blog post at 9:30 in the evening. Hopefully we can catch up a bit again this week before I'm the one who turns the table and heads out of town for a few days.
Jonah started his birthday day off by opening a few presents from us.
We knew he would have plenty of them to open at his party on Saturday
and that would be a lot for him to get through and focus on. Plus, it
just seemed like he ought to have at least something to open on his
actual birthday. He'd received his main gift - an Imaginarium train
table - a few weeks prior, as we'd found it at a garage sale and there
really was no way to hide it from him. But we still had a few things for
him to open, and boy did it take some convincing to get him to take any
interest!
You mean I pull on the paper, like this??
He had some Little Mr. and Little Miss books to open, as well as a Lorax quilt that I made from some panels available from Robert Kaufman Fabrics. He passed over the books pretty quickly (but has since given them a fair amount of interest), but took great interest in the Lorax quilt, even climbing on the table to get up close and personal with it (we indulged the birthday boy):
Whoa - what is this - Lorax?????
It's soft and cuddly!
Cool - there's more on the front of the quilt!!!
I'm going to play on this right away!
I had to leave for a quick appointment with the eye doctor, but Grammy Sweets took Jonah to see the construction equipment and work going on over on 67th Street. We'd stopped by to check it out the day prior, but nothing much was going on that day. On Jonah's birthday, there was plenty of activity and he was thrilled to have seen it all.
From there, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Museum to see the butterfly exhibit, some of the other displays, and a movie about the sun and moon in the Planetarium. Jonah did really well during the movie and the presentation before it that talked about the stars that are visible in the Wisconsin sky this time of year. It was really funny when he realized that there was an "E" on one wall (to indicate East) and yelled out "M" (he tends to get them confused). Moments later, he realized there was a "W" on the opposite wall and had to yell that out too ("W" is his favorite letter, other than perhaps "J").
Look at that butterfly on Grammy's purse! (It later landed on my arm and didn't want to leave.)
The remainder of the day included a nap, reading, painting with his watercolors, and video chatting with his cousins, amongst other activities.
Video chatting with Alex and Grant!
The day concluded by watching the Dr. Seuss video Gerald McBoing Boing
(or has he says, Bang Bang) until Grandma and Grandpa Gregg arrived
from Ohio. We don't watch it often, so it was a real treat, and it
always gets some laughs from Jonah.
Grandma Gregg got the honors of
reading and putting him to bed! Happy second birthday, my precious
little bear!
We took advantage of the beautiful fall weather and our family membership to the Milwaukee County Zoo and headed there on the final day of Grandma and Grandpa Gregg's visit. For the first time, we decided to check out the Northwestern Mutual Family Farm, which is supposed to give kids the chance to get up-close to farm animals and the like. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that they stop the animal presentations and close the goat yard at Labor Day. It was October 10, well after Labor Day. Bummer.
We did get to see a few cows, and they had a section set up with farm vehicles and the like that Jonah just loved:
Look at me! It's a red tractor, Grandpa Gregg!
Taking Grandma Gregg for a ride.
The milk truck is cool, but not nearly as cool as the tractor.
While the weather was quite nice, many of the animals were indoors. We did get to see all of the beautiful giraffes (Jonah was more interested in the waterfall that is a part of their habitat),
and the rhino,
and the camel was fun to watch wade in the water.
We also enjoyed seeing the penguins, which we make a point to visit every time we are at the zoo, partially because they are a personal favorite of mine, and partially because they have so many of them and they are always doing something that is interesting for a toddler to see.
We got quite the show from an adult monkey playing with some babies, and saw pretty much all of the primate house as well. One of the final stops was to visit the same statue that Jonah posed with on his first visit to the zoo, when he was all happy and excited about it. This time around, he was not one bit interested in posing with the statue (my, how quickly things change)!
I don't want my picture with this guy (I'm talking about Grandpa G.)!
We left the zoo around noon, and not really a moment too soon, as Jonah was falling asleep on the way home. After a failed attempt to eat lunch (too tired!), we just put him down for a nice, long nap. It's so hard to gauge how long he can tolerate outings like this!
We certainly got our money's worth from our zoo pass in these last six months; it has to be one of the best values around. I'm not sure whether we'll really go in the winter, but seeing as it doesn't really cost us anything more, perhaps a visit to some of the indoor exhibits will be worthwhile (and a good excuse to get out of the house).
During Grandma and Grandpa Gregg's visit, Jonah had the opportunity to go to his first tractor show, the Pioneer Farm Days in Oak Creek. While Grandpa was the only adult with much enthusiasm for the tractors, we thought Jonah would enjoy seeing them - they have wheels, so of course they are awesome, right? - and Mom and I figured that the flea market and farmer's market would keep us occupied for a while. Unfortunately, we were wrong on the latter assumption, but spent some time at the show before leaving Grandpa to his own devices for a couple of hours while we did reconnaissance for shopping in the area.
The lone picture of Jonah we took during the show. Bad us.
Grandpa in his element.
Mom, Jonah, and I spent some time watching the kiddie tractor pull and it brought back memories of my own participation in a few of those at the Findlay show and other ones Dad took us to while we were growing up. I do hope Jonah has a chance to pedal to a win when he is a little bigger! And the barrel train looked like something he'll enjoy too.
There were some cool things to see there, though I'll admit that I didn't really walk around to see much of the show. Ben took nearly all of the photos with an eye towards artsy, and I'm not going to bother with captions, as Grandpa Gregg will only scoff at my attempts to label them. It's interesting, however, that most of the images he took seem to be of cars, not tractors.
P.S. I was trying to come up with a clever tractor-related title for this post. Discovered a children's album called Crazy about Tractor Songs. How is it I've never heard of this??? (Oh wait, it's John Deere. That explains it all!)
I'm woefully behind on blogging this month. There seem to have been just too many other things going on of late, but I'm going to do my best to get caught up in the coming days. My apologies in advance for all of the posts coming in fits and starts; that just seem to be how things work of late.
We had the pleasure of a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Gregg earlier this month. It's always nice to have them come out for nearly a week each October. The weather is almost always gorgeous and we have the opportunity to do some seasonal activities instead of being confined indoors all the time. During last year's visit, we went to Barthel Fruit Farm and picked out some pumpkins as a family; unfortunately, Ben was not able to join us this year.
It's amazing what a difference a year makes! A year ago, we skipped picking apples with Jonah due to the time constraints of our trip (I ended up nursing him while we were there anyways) and the other things on our docket for the weekend. This year, I loaded him into the Kelty and had him "help" me pick apples.
Holding onto my apple. I like taking bites, but not really eating them.
Snack break at the car. Jonah was rather distracted (see below).
The main reason for Jonah's distraction. Wheels, wheels, anything with wheels!!
And unlike last year, Jonah was able to walk around the pumpkin patch on his own accord. He wasn't terribly interested in the pumpkins, though they tended to jump out at him, tripping him with their vines and roots. He was much more interested in the freedom of walking, and walking, and walking throughout the patch.
What is this?
Look, a pumpkin! And a bunch of vines to trip me up!
I'll be cute and pose for just one picture (too bad Mommy didn't pick a cleaner pumpkin).
Grandpa, let me down. I want to walk around!
I fell down right next to this pumpkin. Guess I'll check it out for a minute.
Walking the patch with Grandma Gregg.
We ended our visit in their store, where I picked up a bushel of pears to can and we attempted to get some photos of Jonah amongst the prepicked pumpkins next to the barn. The results weren't quite as desired, as someone was not cooperative:
These pumpkins are a real obstacle course!
I do not want to sit on top of these pumpkins in this bin, Mommy!
Okay, maybe I'll stop crying for a few seconds.
The barn. I love this shot.
What a beautiful morning! Grandpa Gregg did his best to keep Jonah awake on the drive home from the farm, but it was a losing battle. (I was hoping to keep him awake until we made it home and had lunch.) He was asleep within a few miles. Guess all that time outdoors was exhausting!
Jonah's room at day care took a trip to the zoo on a Friday in June (the 24th). As it was the day prior to his birthday party, he brought along an entourage, including Grammy Sweetser and Grandpa and Grandma Gregg. Parents had to accompany their children, so it turned out that only about half of the kids in Jonah's room were able to participate, but it was a great opportunity to see the teachers and student workers outside the classroom, to get to know the other parents better, and to witness animal antics.
Probably the most memorable moment of the outing occurred at lunch time while we were eating at picnic tables outside. Two of the many peacocks that wander the zoo got into a bit of an argument and chased one another under and around one of the tables our group was seated at. Hopefully Miss Tracy's daughter isn't scarred for life!!
Jonah showing some love to his teacher, Miss Tracy.
Jonah insisted on helping Grandpa push the stroller.
Liam and his daddy, Craig, have some fun. Unfortunately, Liam's graduated to the 1-year old room.
Adeline smiles for the camera.
Jonah and Grammy Sweets
Sharing a laugh with Grandma Gregg.
All tuckered out.
One of the zoo's elephants.
The zoo's three giraffes. Rahna, the lightest, is not albino, but on the light end of the color spectrum.
The polar bear put on quite a show with his ball.
More photos from the outing are available on our photo website. For those who live in the Milwaukee area, we highly recommend the zoo pass; we've used it twice already this summer and it's paid for itself. We're planning to visit again this coming weekend and I'm sure we'll go more before the end of the summer. It's nice to be able to go for just a couple of hours and not worry about seeing everything there.
