I remember when rock was young / Me and Jonah had so much fun

Our neighborhood association sponsors several concerts in the park over the course of the summer, with a range of musical performances, free ice cream, and other food available for purchase. While we didn't always attend these, it's become a nice event to go to as a family and it gives us an opportunity to catch up with some of our neighbors, many of whom Jonah has come to know and enjoy as well.

We took Jonah to a couple of the concerts last year, but his interest largely focused on pushing around a dump truck or some such toy that we would bring along. This year, he is much more interested in rocking to the music and checking out the musicians themselves. Last Thursday's concert featured dueling pianos (keyboards in this case), and a lot of recognizable music. Jonah had no issues walking up close to the stage to dance and was even called out by one of the musicians. Here you can see him getting into it a bit (Elton John's Crocodile Rock):

After dancing and studying the musicians for a while, the call of the playground was just too much. He's still working to master the other stairs to the top (they don't have railings in all places), but Jonah has been very interested in using the side stairs that provide more direct access to the slides. In the past, we've helped him up these and provided a lot of supervision as he goes up, but I don't think that's really necessary any more, as you can see in this video from last week. Getting up that first step is the biggest challenge!

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.