Family Farm Weekend

Now that we've made it through Christmas (more on that later), I'm hopeful that we will have a bit of time to catch up on the many blog posts that we are behind on! As this blog serves as a great way for us to document activities and moments so that we ourselves can reflect on them later, we want to catch up on at least some posts so we can remember all of these beautiful moments that we have with our sons.

One of the best investments we have made since Jonah was born was a family membership to the Milwaukee County Zoo. We go there quite regularly - there was one period where we literally hit the zoo every month within the course of a year (a mild winter helped us maintain that record). It's a great way for us to get out of the house and enjoy seeing and learning about animals. In September, the zoo offered a Family Farm Weekend with activities focused more on traditional "farm" activities rather than animals that come from more exotic places. The weather was nice and we knew we needed a break from thinking about the upcoming move and home sale.

Jonah had the opportunity to participate in his first tractor pull, something we figure would make his Grandpa Gregg proud. He was literally the first kid to get on the tractor, which was a good thing, as Jonah saw the tractor and really wanted to get on it right away. We thought he was going to make an actual attempt to use the pedals on the tractor (he REFUSES to use them on his tricycle, even though his legs are now finally long enough that he can use them), but in the end he just used his feet on the ground. He pulled to the left and made a very spirited attempt to pull the tractor to the end of the short track. Unfortunately, he didn't make it all the way and he wasn't the most gracious about leaving the tractor behind (he wanted to continue to play with it), but it was a valiant effort! I'm sure there will be many more tractor pulls in his future!

Giving it his all.

In addition to the tractor pull, the zoo offered hay rides around one of the central loops. I made the mistake of telling Jonah that we weren't sitting on hay, but rather straw. For the rest of the day, he insisted on calling it a straw ride rather than a hay ride.

This is so much fun riding on the wagon!

As a part of the weekend's activities, the zoo had a variety of demonstrations and opportunities for kids to try their hand at "old-fashioned" activities. The timing wasn't exactly ideal to participate in many of the activities, but Jonah was at least able to try his hand at cranking ice cream (and of course, sampling the ice cream, which almost made us late for the tractor pull).

Are you sure I'm going to get some ice cream?

We made sure that we allowed for some time to play on the zoo's playground as well. Jonah has become increasingly daring on play equipment and we were able to catch him swinging one-handed from the bar at the top of one of the small slides. Jonah was also very interested in walking on the curb in the farm area (though he still required Daddy's hand at certain points).

Daredevil Jonah!

I want to be a big boy, but I'm not quite brave enough to do this alone.

No trip to the zoo would be complete without a ride on the train. Unfortunately, we weren't able to sit in the caboose, but we took last car that we could. Jonah is so excited by trains and proudly posed in the car for us:

We didn't spend as much time as usual looking at the animals for this visit, but a highlight was the elephant exhibit, where one of the elephants was wowing visitors with its reach across the ravine to get food on the other side. This photo doesn't quite do her antics justice.

What a fun day we had! We hope the zoo will offer this activity again and hope to attend again next year.

Baby Announcement!

We used Shutterfly for our baby announcement with Jude, and it looked fabulous (see below)!

 

 

 

 

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Jonah's First Haircut

As often seems to be the case, we are way behind in blog posts. I think we've had some good excuses lately between the move and Jude's birth, but at some point, we need to catch up. One that has been long overdue is Jonah's first haircut!

Two years, three months, two weeks, and one day after he was born, we finally brought Jonah in to get rid of the little mullet he was starting to develop. It still didn't seem particularly long, except in the back. The hair behind his ears would get cowlicks in them that just would not stay down.

On October 13th, we brought him to Comb 'n Shear, which is where I get my haircut. Just a small, local shop where the barber is the owner and only employee. Tom the Barber was particularly busy this day, but he works pretty quickly and we didn't have to wait too long. Jonah kept busy in the meantime playing with the cars and other toys Tom has out for kids. We filled the place up with spectators, too, as Grammy Sweets was in town to help us move, and joined Michelle and me for this first.

When his time came, we sat Jonah in the kid's cutting chair, which Tom has a variety of different vehicles that he puts on the stand. On this particular day, Jonah got to sit in a tank. He needed the incentive of keeping a truck with him to get in the chair.

Getting ready for his first cut!

Jonah was great. No crying and very little fuss. He did have a tendency to move away from the clippers, but I would imagine that to be normal for any kid getting their first haircut.

Suited up and ready to go!

"Hey, I'm driving trucks here!"

The kid cleans up pretty nicely. I think he liked getting vacuumed.

Tom put some trimmings in an envelope for us and gave Jonah a first haircut certificate. It was a good experience, and we hope future ones go as well. You can see more pictures on our web album.

Jude Thomas Sweetser!

Our new family of four on Jude's birthday

We are excited to announce the arrival of Jude Thomas, born on October 25 at 9:27 a.m., weighing 6 lbs., 2.4 oz. and measuring 19 inches long. He has beautiful blue eyes for the time being and about as much hair as his big brother had at a year!

The beautiful baby boy!

Jude arrived nine days in advance of his due date, and due to all that took place late this summer and into the fall we weren't entirely prepared for his arrival (buying, selling, and moving houses, amongst other things ... we will get the blog updated in the coming weeks)! My water broke at 1:15 a.m. (it also broke at home when Jonah was born); when I woke Ben to let him know we needed to go to the hospital, his response was, "are you kidding me?" Just hours before, around 9 p.m., I had sent emails to friends who had volunteered to help care for Jonah when the baby was born, providing information about Jonah's care, hospital information, and the like. I'm pretty sure none of them had a chance to read it before we were calling around in the middle of the night! In the end, Jonah got to stay at Kristin and Ryan's house, and we arrived at the hospital around 2:45 a.m.

Mommy, Daddy, and Jude, just before we moved to the private suite.

Daddy with Jude, just after he was born.

Contractions came on naturally with Jude's birth, unlike Jonah's, when the doctors administered Pitocin to bring on the labor. I had a lot of back pain as Jude was sitting very low, and I struggled a lot to get comfortable during labor, but the entire process went pretty quickly. Ben was great dealing with my constant shifting of positions, trips to the bathroom, and requests for massages and ice packs. We had a great staff of nurses during our stay at St. Joe's and I felt like this visit was much quieter and more relaxed than the last (perhaps that is also due to the morning delivery time versus Jonah's delivery around dinner time).

Kristin picked Jonah up at day care and she and brought him to the hospital in time for dinner. We were definitely excited to see how Jonah would react to his new baby brother. We'd been talking up his arrival for some time and had read a few books, shown him ultrasound pictures, talked about going to the hospital while playing with his car mat (which includes a hospital), etc. But we knew that he wouldn't really know what it all meant for him until the time came. Jonah was definitely interested in meeting his brother and gave Jude and me kisses and hugs, but then he was quickly on to bigger and better things. What 2 year old boy wouldn't be interested in all of the things to play with in a hospital room: the buttons on the bed that adjust it up and down and backward and forward, the sliding curtains to give patients privacy, the doors to the bathroom and other little cubbies throughout the room, etc.?

Jonah discovers how to adjust the bed! Trouble ahead!!!

Eating dinner on the bench in the hospital room. A special treat!

I spent nights alone with Jude at the hospital so that Jonah could have normal nights at home with Daddy. That was definitely a bit of an adjustment for me - feeling so far away from the normal routine of seeing my oldest going to bed and getting up in the morning and off to day care. I'm thinking that some of that adjustment may be the most difficult for me in the future - we'd become pretty set in our ways as a family of three and I won't always be able to be there for Jonah in quite the same way as I once was (for example, Jude's nursing schedule at times precludes me from putting Jonah to bed or helping to get him up). We will make new memories and routines, I know, but life is definitely different.

Holding his baby brother for the first time!

The hospital offered a family pizza party for us on the second night of my stay, which was a nice option that allowed us all to enjoy and partake (they also offer a fancier option for just the parents, but Jonah enjoys pizza and we'd heard we would be able to leave with leftovers, which is never a bad thing with a new baby in the house!!!).

Afterward, we felt brave enough to let Jonah try holding his brother with the aid of the Boppy nursing pillow. He was very sweet and gentle in doing so and seemed to be proud and interested in touching all of the visible parts of Jude's body (ears, nose, mouth, eyes, etc.). We hope he continues to show this same gentleness in the months and years to come!

Using gentle touches to talk to his little brother!

Playing around with the boppy!

A big boy helping get things to the car!

On our final morning in the hospital, Ben picked up doughnuts from Cranky Al's as a special treat to me. He picked up some for the nurses as well and had Jonah deliver them in his little shopping cart (brought along as a distraction for the hospital room and also as a means of assisting in getting things in/out of the hospital). Everyone enjoyed his antics, and Jonah was a proud little helper. When the time came to leave, he hauled a bouquet of flowers in the cart all the way out to the car. I'll have to be sure to look for creative ways that I can have him help me out with tasks both at home and when we are out!

We are so blessed and look forward to our new adventure! More photos are available on our photo site.

Puzzling it Out

Jonah's interest in his trains and cars has waned a bit recently, as he has taken a budding interest in doing puzzles. He got a great set of four small transportation-themed puzzles for his birthday. Each puzzle has 12 pieces, which was just about the right number for his patience until he began focusing on them more intensely.

Ben and I explained to him a number of concepts that adults might use in solving puzzles: things like "outside" pieces, how to look for pieces of the puzzle that relate to one another pictorially (pieces that have sky in them, for example), and to understand what we call "knobbies" and "holes" and how pieces fit together (you can't connect a hole to a hole). For the most part, Jonah's initially success with the puzzles was entirely a matter of trial and error (and a lot of asking for help, which we tended to provide only minimally, mixed with the occasional outbreak in frustration). He's become much more proficient of late and managed to get a 24-piece puzzle together with minimal help on his own last night. Here he is doing one of the 12-piece puzzles late last month:

Lately, I've caught him using some self-talk that indicates he is beginning to get some of the concepts that we've been talking about. One night last week, I heard him tell himself that he needed to find another tree piece and also that he was matching the pieces that both contained the train conductor's hair. It is so cool to see how his thinking and skills are developing!

The soaker

Jonah has been helping water the flowers with his watering can throughout the summer and has become much more competent at doing so. Recently, he started asking if he could use the hose to water the plants too.  While Ben was traveling last week, I handed the hose over to Jonah, knowing he would probably get pretty soaked but figuring that it would be some good, clean fun.

Unfortunately, I'd left my phone inside because it was nearly dead, so I missed some great footage where Jonah was really spraying the water as far as he could and where he talked about trying to spray the helicopter and planes that were flying overhead. However, after seeing him having such a good time, I forced him to go back inside with me to grab my phone to record some more. It was after this that he decided to turn the hose on ME:

Unfortunately, before I was finished recording, I ran out of space on my phone (I've now deleted hundreds of pictures I'd been letting build up), so the video cut off before Jonah accidentally sprayed himself a number of times, turned the hose back on me once again, and decided he wanted to spray the "for sale" sign in our yard.

While he WAS quite wet by the time we finished, this is a good reminder to myself to say YES to him more often when he wants to do things like this. We both had a blast, it was time to change him from his clothes into his pajamas anyways, and Jonah had a learning experience as well!

The next American Idol?

While Jonah has for some time been able to recite portions of books, songs, nursery rhymes and the like, he has recently been able to repeat longer and longer sections of favorite books and some songs in their entirety. Yesterday morning, I overheard him singing portions of On Top of Spaghetti while I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes (in particular, he was singing the portion about rolling under the bush, being nothing but mush, growing into a tree covered with moss, etc.). He currently loves to go round and round poles (on the playground), Ben's and my legs, or just about anything and sing Ring Around the Rosie, and I've heard a fair amount about London Bridge. He has recently asked both Ben and me to increase the number of songs we sing to him before he goes to bed: he insists that I sing him "three songs in the crib," and thereafter, "one song in the dark," as I leave the light on while I sing the first three to him.

But it definitely melts our hearts to hear Jonah sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He will launch into it at the most random moments, and he often turns it into an ongoing round, which I'm sure we will eventually tire of. I was able to capture him at one of these moments while we were on a hike at Lapham Peak on Sunday:

I need to go back to think of other popular nursery rhymes and songs to sing/recite with him as he definitely is seeming open to it at this point!