I'm a roly poly

Hi, it's me Jonas.



Yep, that's me. I love to be on my tummy, see how happy I am. Really, it's one of my favorite positions to be in.



I can play with toys and grab things and it's so much easier to put them right into my mouth like this.



Sitting up, you say? Yeah I'm working on that too. Mom says I look like a frog when I'm sitting because I still have to hold myself up with my arms. But I just love the tummy.



Except at 2am when I wake up and roll over onto my back but I don't know how to roll again to my tummy where I like to sleep. So I cry and cry and call for my mom then when she comes she has to hold me on my tummy because I can't help myself..I just want to flip over again. Finally I fall asleep again. Oh, but just until it's time to do it again in 2 hours for the 156th time of the night.




What's wrong with that?

At least I'm cute.

We've got a scream-singer on our hands

Bruce says Elijah is meant to be a rock band singer. If you can even call it singing. I call it scream-singing. Elijah likes to entertain himself by playing his little piano or guitar, pacing back and forth and "singing" songs that I've never heard of. Nor can I make out most of the words he's singing. Same as many rock bands I've heard.

Here's a video of a selection of a couple day's tunes. Let this be your fair warning that your volume should be set on LOW.

Dance par-tay

One of Elijah's favorite things to do is dance. Many nights before bed Elijah asks if we can "dance for some music" and we blast music and all dance around silly and mimic whatever latest dance move Elijah has come up with. It's a fun time here - you should see Bruce do the orangutan!

Well we hosted a retreat a few weeks ago where some friends came in town. Most nights we had a dance party where all the girls plus Elijah danced around and he got to teach us all some sweet new dance moves that he came up with.

Here's a video from one night's dance party. Ugh, I almost don't want to post it because the video quality is SO BAD because of the dimly lit room. But if you can see past the grainy darkness you will see a super-cute Elijah.

Mother's day 2009

Ah, a mother's day post just in time for Father's day. Aren't we so timely here? :)

This year's mother's day was so special. We went to breakfast at our good friends' house where they cooked pancakes. As we were all sitting around, they casually mentioned - hey we're going to an internet cafe later this afternoon to call our moms for mother's day if you wanted to go with us. Bruce looked at me and said - right, it's mother's day...we need to call our moms today. About 30 seconds later he goes - oohhh, right. You're a mom too. :)


He made up for it by sending me off with one of the girls to get my hair cut and then went to an internet cafe to check my email for the first time in over a week (we didn't have internet at the time, so it was a special treat!) When I got home, the kids had each made me a special mother's day card - a tradition started my first mother's day when Elijah was just a wee 5 months old.

Here are some of the in-progress shots by Bruce:





I forgot to take a picture of the actual artwork, or of mom with the kids but this is a work-in progress shot of Elijah's picture.






I think some of this paint was intentional for the effect...

...whereas this paint is au' naturel

Jonas made use of all his limbs

Elijah riding his bike and looking in the mirror at his paint-covered self.

Reminder to self: don't forget Father's day is Sunday June 21st!

Do you have any fun father's day traditions or plans this year? Do share with us.

First solids

I am SO SO behind on blogging. By now I am just overwhelmed with my 1,000+ pictures that I took this month that I need to sort through and post about. Thank you to Danny for the friendly reminder that it's been like 6 weeks since I've blogged. :)

This milestone happened over a month ago, but it's important that I post the obligatory "first solids" pictures. It's a special time in a baby's life when he makes a step away from dependence on mom for nourishment (hooray!) and towards real food! His first taste was rice cereal - I was excited that a good friend sent over a box of rice cereal since all the baby food sold here has tons of preservatives and is loaded with sugar! He really liked it, but it took him quite a few days to get the spoon concept. By now, he is eating 2 large ice cubes of puree 2 times a day. And he eats it fast -- just like his parents.

In the last month Jonas has tried: rice cereal, banana, avocado, carrot, potato, peas, apples, and pears. Phew! I am making all his food from scratch for a lot of reasons. It's much healthier because I know what's going in it. Here they don't sell any baby foods without lots of sugar. It's not too difficult and so convenient to just grab a few cubes of puree, warm it up and eat! I did it with Elijah too (except for traveling). For other moms looking for recommendations on books for starting solids, my two favorites are: Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron and Superfoods for Babies and Children by Annabele Karmel. They both have some great recipes, especially once you are ready to start meats and they are great for combining all the major food groups in one convenient meal.



Jonas, ready to try his first solids.



...completely unaware of the goodness coming at him.



An intial shock and slight disgust. I think he's saying "what the mess is this mush?"



...ah, ok. I can do this mom.