Socks and shoes and uh-oh!

Overheard one morning:

Jonah: What I really want to do is go up on the roof.

Matt (who was, at the time, naked): Well, we need to put some clothes on if we're going to do that.

Jonah: All we need is socks and shoes!

Ava's first word was uh-oh. (Is that a word?) She has now progressed to hi, cheese, and blackberry. Or maybe it's blueberry. We're not totally sure. She can also tell you what a duck says.

Jonah has taken to calling himself John. He claims he is John from They Might Be Giants, but he won't tell me which one. When I ask who the other John is, he says, "John is singing, and I'm the other John."

I'm knee-deep in my first class. I'm doing well (2 As so far!), but it's definitely been an adjustment. I love being in school, but I hate the papers/ presentations/ other assignments--which, I have discovered, in business schools are called "deliverables." I used to say I wanted to be a professional student, but I think that really, I'd prefer to get paid to audit classes, so I can avoid the "deliverables." Anyone know of a career like that?

In Which Elmo and Amy Sedaris Step in for a Sleeping Sitter

Jonah had a fever of over 103 on Tuesday evening, so he couldn't go to school on Wednesday. It was my turn to stay home and play nurse, although he seemed more or less fine and we had a lot of fun together. Thursday wasn't so bad, either, so we were fairly confident that he would be heading to school as usual today.

Wrong. I took his temperature this morning just to be sure--we've been having some difficulty getting a good reading--and it was 101.6. Not an emergency, but too high to go to school. Unfortunately for Matt, he had stayed up til almost 4 AM working, so he was a little concerned about it being his turn to do sick boy duty. Fortunately for Matt, Jonah is one of the best patients I know. Especially if he's allowed to watch as much TV as he wants. Which, when he is sick, he is. Also, I work from home on Fridays, so he had some backup.

Jonah fell asleep on the couch (never happens) and then he and Matt went to Shaw's. When they got home, they ate lunch and then it was naptime. Since he had taken the earlier snooze on the couch, Jonah was not terribly interested in a nap, so Matt laid down on the floor in Jonah's room.

About an hour later, Jonah came walking into the living room and asked to watch a DVD.

I obliged, and seconds later, he was enthralled.

I, on the other hand, found it incredibly amusing that Amy Sedaris was guest-starring on Sesame Street.

Then I went into Jonah's room to check on the real babysitter.

Nice, huh?

Sometimes Mommy needs to say what she means

Monkey has this shaker toy, kind of like a maraca, but shaped like a cylinder, that he recently rediscovered. This morning, he was banging it against a wall, and I told him, "We don't bang things against walls. If you want to bang something, you can go get your drum and bang on that."

I turned around to do something else, and a moment later, I saw him walk past me, carrying his drum. He continued down the hall to the same spot where he was banging the shaker on the wall. I caught him just in the nick of time.

"No, no, honey, I meant that you should bang on your drum! With your drumsticks! Not bang your drum against the wall!"

Photos courtesy of Nana's camera, which she graciously lent to us until little girl is born.

It's been a busy summer.

We had a major computer malfunction just before our August vacation, and sadly, lost about a months' worth of photos. It took quite a bit of time to get the computer back up to snuff, and I'm still not sure it's really 100%. But we bought an external hard drive, finally, and so now we have plenty of storage space for everything.

Part of what we lost were some fun photos from our 4th of July trip to New Jersey, but I do have these (admittedly low-res) photos from my camera phone, including Monkey's first "amusement park" ride, from a fair at the park near Grandma's beach house.




Monkey wasn't too sure about the ride at first, and the operator was about to stop it to take him off because he was crying, but I got him settled down, and by the time it was over, he had enjoyed it so much he didn't want to get off, and cried again.

When we got back from vacation and finally got the computer up again, it was time to start watching political conventions. Matt and I stayed up WAY too late during both the Democratic and Republican conventions, cheering and jeering.

In case you needed a hint about which convention got the cheers and which convention got the jeers, check out these Monkey videos:



(Okay, "Go Bills" isn't terribly relevant to the election, but it's awfully funny!)

I also decided that it was time to make my wedding album. (Almost three years later, with kid #1 approaching two years old, and kid #2 on the way, I'd say it was more than time!) So I've been spending a lot of time on that. In fact, once the conventions were over, I started staying up late to finish the book. But it is nearly done, and anyone who wants a look-see can e-mail me and I'll share the Shutterfly link.

We did, however, take some time to visit with Nana over Labor Day weekend, and the highlight of the weekend was our trip to Edaville USA, for a "Day Out with Thomas." Monkey loved the kiddie rides, the ride on the train (according to him, we rode on Clarabel), and spending time with Nana and his aunts. Check it out!

Monkey tidbit

Monkey has taken to yelling or screeching loudly from time to time. The other day, I yawned loudly, like a lion, and he said, "Inside voice."