Jonah is 5 months old today. He is currently giving me a blank stare, or the relaxed, I-just-woke-up-and-am-feelin'-good stare. He's doing really well, besides the occaisional teething pains. He's finally getting the bottom front ones in after the top and bottom vampires showed themselves first. The past few days he's been "talking" a lot. He won't go back to sleep after his nighttime feeding because all he wants to do is talk! He's a talker. Perhaps a politician or a car sales man or a lawyer. Who knows, he could be a bungee jump instructor! It doesn't REALLY matter, just as long as he's doing his best at what ever it may be.
Dave is loving his new position! He's really pleased with how things are working out.
I am really pleased as well! Turns out my spring schedule will be a breeze! Well, not in the difficulty of the course, but schedule-wise it's going to work out really well. It looks like I will be taking a couple internet courses as well as two classes on Monday afternoon/evening. There is a possibility I could take a saturday afternoon course for 4 weeks but it starts at 1 and Dave gets off at 3. We'll have to see if taking that course is pertinent for this coming quarter. I really am excited that it is going to work out so well! Thanks be to God, because I was praying for help with our schedules.

So, I got my calling for the year. I'm in the Nursery. How fun... I hope the kids behave. I will have to have Jonah with me the second hour on account of Dave teaching his class, but the third hour, is when the kids in the nursery get crazy, so Dave will either have to come and help, or take him off my hands to help out with the nursery kids. Nursery is for kids ages 18 mths to 3 yrs. This year we'll be getting TONS of newbies (GREAT). Afton, Cali, Reiker, Joel, Joel's friend with no hair, and we'll be getting Owen towards the end of the year. This will be fun!

Alrighty, he's lost the just-woke-up relaxed thing.

P.S. there are a lot of new pictures if you go to the Jonah pictures link.

the wild berries - a slushie favorite

There is nothing to do with slushies in this blog, I just thought it might be interesting to entitle something that.

Nate and Eunice came for a visit and we got the funniest (well, to us) picture of the two kids. Here it is :

Jonah is being a big time stinker today! He's not crying per se, but he is certainly not in the best of moods. I'll finish this post later, I just wanted to share the funny (again, to us) picture.

And it came to pass in the twenty and first year...

We baby-sat on saturday, well, Jonah had a playdate rather! Nicholas came over to play. Nicholas is such a good, easy going baby! He really is. The only time he fussed was when he woke up and wanted to play, way to go Nicko. Nicholas is only 3 weeks older than Jo, so it's cool to see how much they are alike and how drastcially they really do differ. First of all, if you take the bottle out of Nicholas' mouth while feeding him he doesn't scream bloody murder like Jonah. Nicholas is really content watching the world go on around him. Jonah is an attentionaholic, which of course isn't bad, it's just what he is. Nicholas likes to play with toys, Jonah likes you to play with toys with him, which makes it REALLY fun to try to eat meals when he wants to play. They are both about the same weight, but Jo is about 2 1/2 - 3 inches taller. That's really okay because David and I are both a bit taller than either of Nicholas' parents. They have such cute and wonderful boys! Of course, they are a handful, but it is obvious that they love them dearly, other wise they wouldn't have so many!!

Oh! When I came home from practice & class on Wednesday, David said, "We have a suprise for you!" As usual, my immediate thought when when my husband says suprise, 'Food? Dessert? What?!' No, Jonah has teeth!!! Can you believe it? He's getting his vampire teeth in. The one on his right is peaking through, and the left is not too far behind. No wonder he has been SO grumpy this past week, I thought. Mom came down for a visit on Tuesday and he hardly smiled for her. She had to work REALLY hard for a tiny little laugh, good effort though, Ma. We don't have picture becuase Jonah doesn't like being touched on the face unless it's a tickle. I am sure that digging around in his mouth surely doesn't feel like a tickle!

Mom bought me this great book right after I had Jo on one of her many walks due to boredom. It has made me laugh and cry with every page, and perhaps every phrase. It has also made me really reflect on how great a blessing being a mom truly is. I want to describe the book to you, but instead I will just share a few paragraphs in the beginning to just give you an idea. If you're not a mom, I don't think you'll understand...
"When I was pregnant, I never thought of his cry. I only prayed for a healthy baby. The ten-finger-and-toes prayer.
I never remember wishing that our baby would be the kind that slept ten hours straight. I never prayed for the proper latch-on or a good appetite or a baby who loved the stroller or traveled well. I read books about what to expect, how to acheive the optimal blanket swaddle... But the stuff you only know about a person when you know him--not his vital stats... but the particular way he likes to be held, his favorite perch, the spot where he burrows his face between your collar bone and shoulder tip, the way he likes to be rocked from side to side, not back and forth, the sound of his sighs in triplicate just before he goes limp for the night, the subtle gradations of mood shifting across his tiny face like a cloud across a late afternoon sky, his newborn eyes still puffy and crossed, his heart wrenching cry--these things I could never know before now...
In his newborn fear of falling, this child has asked me to stare long into a new life and trust. Myself, him, the process, God. Not an easy thing when you're used to relying on tangibles, feedback, and visual cues.
But as I lay crouched between the walls of my newborns helplessness, it dawns on me that whatever control I thought I had over my life prior to the birth of my son was nothing more than a sleight of hand I had learned to buoy me in an uncertain world...
I write to preserve myself, my mind, memories, untamed fantasies, dueling emotions, the ancient language of pantomime between baby and mother in the first stages of courtship...
I find... the territory is mine to chart. There is no external compass, only this baby with his sky blue eyes for arrows and his voice that sends me into the woods hunting for clues...
We are now two separated at birth...
Sometimes when he is sleeping on my chest listening to the rhythm of my beating heart, I wonder how on earth I am ever going to have the courage to let him go. That's when free-falling feels like an eternal passage. I look at my son in these first few weeks of our new life together and wonder if my feet will ever touch the ground again." Lu Hanessian, Let the Baby Drive, pp 8-10. And that's just the beginning. There are so much more heart warming and eye-watering moments through out every chapter and on ever page. It helps me remember that every baby is not easy, that this new life is supposed to be a journey, a journey on the scenic route. If anyone would like to borrow it, you sure can!
Well, it's late, but I just had to share. I have just finished the book, so now it's available for lending.

Food everywhere, even in my knee pit...

Yesterday was interesting to say the least. I was the victim of severeal very vicious food attacks set on me by my son, Jonah and my husband, David. Not only rice cereal, but butternut squash, mashed up sweet corn and whole corns. A little bit of green bean juice as well as Sloppy Joe mess. Thanks, you two, thanks.

David said the word, "Oodles" while explaining some football thing to me the other day. It was the funniest thing I have heard in a while.

Jonah is a roll over and talking machine now. If he were a turtle he would survive any turn over. If he were in some sort of talking contest, he would surely win.

I was offered a position to write for UC's newspaper today by the wonderful Al Sabato. Should I take it?

Classes and practices are going well. I am headed to one of them soon.

Eunice and Nate came over last thursday. Eunice showed us this great way to carry a baby by only using a bath towel! How cool is that! Alright, I am headed to Psych 575. Hope I don't fall asleep.

Match in the Gas Tank... BOOM BOOM

Crew and school started earlier this week and I will just say, "Ouch." Not only did we do a 75 min piece on the erg for the first day back, but yesterday I was one of 4 students in a research methods class. Ouch is right! And the teacher, poor guy, is retired and is teaching this class for fun. He kept on telling the corniest jokes. It was cute and we laughed out of pity. Rowing is going well. Some of the girls are still looking at me like, "Huh, who are you," but that's alright. It will all come with time. The Senior team, I believe, has won the Winter Wonder Erg Challenge! We rocked it! We got over a million meters logged over winter break, how sweet is that. The erg room is CLEAN! It was mopped and all the ergs were cleaned and it's nice and organized now. I'm way impressed with how great it looks now, Oh and 8 or 9 new ergs. They're shinny! Rule # 1 is NO SPITTING. That was never a problem for me, but man, some of those girls can really SPIT! I was suprised.

Jonah is doing well. He can fit his whole fist into his mouth (as you see by the picture). Isn't that funny, like mother like son. He also likes to hop a lot. I guess you could consider that like the jumpies we do for rowing. Man, I haven't done jumpies in forever! Well, Nate and Eunice are coming over with Emily tonight, and all though I won't get home until after practice and class (around 7:30), I have still got to clean this wreck of a house. Dave better have a good meal waiting on me for when I get home, or else! (Just kidding!)

Happy New Year

Well, well, well... I don't know what to do with myself! Dave went to the store and Jonah is asleep! In fact he has been sleeping all morning! He woke up at 3 and ate, went right back to sleep. Then he woke up at 6 to eat and play. He stayed awake till 7:30 and then he slept with me until 9. He played for about 10 mins and then went to leep in his room. It's now noon and he is still sound asleep. YAHOOO! Although, him sleeping this much probably only means one thing. HE'S GROWING! We actually got some cleaning done today. Dave cleaned out the nasty fridge while I did dishes... I am waiting, though, for Dave... I've got tons of stuff to do. Rowing starts tomorrow, so I have to get a physical, buy books (well, not buy them, but you know, get the slip from the Athletic department and then just got pick them up) and then workout. Yeah... New Years was fun. I visited fmaily at Deer Creek Park, then we went out to dinner with Dave's friends Chris and Nick and their wives Bridget and Tiffany. It was a lot of fun. After dinner we were supposed to go to a party that a family from church was throwing, but we were all too tired! We had all started our day at 6, but only Jo was the lucky one who got to take naps. Well that is all for now, maybe I'll find a fun picture to post. Yep! This is Jonah's first solid food YAY!!!!He's now eating, rice, carrots, squash and oatmeal. Once he starts to like the veggies, then we'll start him on the good stuff (fruit)!! Our doctor said, if you start them on fruit, they won't eat anything but fruit because it's sweet. good thinkin', Doc!