another milestone

Jonah peed in the potty for the first time today. My mom was over and we cheered and clapped for him. Then we called daddy and uncle Andy at work to share the good news. Jonah was so excited, he kept trying to pee in the potty, but obviously, there was nothing left to squeeze out. I hope this is the beginning of a new trend!

On another note, this is the third day in a row when Jonah hasn't taken a mid-day nap. Not good for the parents, I will tell you that. Hopefully this is just a short phase and the naps will resume very soon.

babysitting milestone

Jonah had his first experience being babysat by someone other than a family member. The first day he missed his parents and cried and got angry, but the next day he did great, said my friend Mia who watched him. Her son Ira and Jonah played well together and generally had a good time, which they usually do, but I have always been there. This time I had to go to an all-day workshop. In the end, all turned out great. What a relief!

big news

Many of you already know, but for those of you who don't, here is the big news: Jonah's brother or sister is on the way. The due date is January 25th. I am very excited and at the same time anxious about how we will survive the first few months of dealing with two demanding little beings. Eventually, things will settle down and we wil recognize, I'm sure, that it was all worth it.

When I told my boss I was pregnant, his reaction was: "Again?" Mind you, that's coming from a man who has five children, if I remember correctly. It's best just to laugh about such reactions. The last time he found out I was pregnant was two and-a-half years ago. I guess time flies and it seems just like yesterday. Jonah will be turning two next month.

4th of July, another day at the ZOO, and fun at the park

We spent the 4th of July at our Czech friends' house. They are both artists and wonderful people. They had a few other friends over. We ate like champs, played in their backyard, watched a homemade display of fireworks in the street, and then had a fire towards dusk. Jonah thoroughly enjoyed himself, though he was the only child at the gathering.

Today we went to the ZOO with Jonah's friend Ira and his mom Mia. The highlight was petting the goats. But even better than that, there was the old favorite - the sandpit with dump trucks, shovels, and buckets. I have put a few pictures here.

Later in the day we went to our neighborhood park to check if the wading pool had water. Sure enough. The city has started filling the pool every weekday afternoon for the summer. The perfect time to go is late afternoon, right before they start letting the water out. The day camp program is over, so there are fewer kids. Plus the wading pool is mostly in the shade at that time. Just perfect. I took Jonah to the wading pool a few times last year. He had just learned to walk and was still a little too young to appreciate it. This time he was so excited, mostly watching the older kids play. We will go to the wading pool often from now on!

Won't you be my neighbor (or mail man)

Jonah's imagination has really been expanding. Today I noticed he was playing "post office man" with a fridge magnet that he would stick in the horizontal slots between his dresser drawers, saying: "Post office. Magazine - in. Movie - in." He was obviously sticking mail in mail boxes. I asked him if he was "post office man" and he smiled, all pleased with himself. How great!

Before that, he has pretended to be daddy going to work with a bag over his shoulder and keys in his hand. He has also pretended to be a digger (and a driver of one). He has fed and changed his bear and doll and taken both on a stroll. Sometimes he plays "kitchen man" too, baking pizzas in the oven and cooking in the pots.

Lately he has been imagining random things to be other things - a piece of a fried egg may become a bulldozer, for example. When he draws, he now describes the drawings sometimes. He will draw a squiggle and call it a dump truck.

As you can tell, he still hasn't quite moved out of his obsession-with-construction-equipment stage. That's why the mail man game was so encouraging to me!

The other day Jonah caught me off guard. I made various objects out of play dough, fulfilling his requests: dump truck, digger, garbage truck (that one was tough . . . and hardly recognizable, I must confess). Then I made a person, sitting on a chair, starting from the feet up. When I finally added the funny-shaped head with ridiculous hair and unintentionally spookey looking facial features, Jonah took a look at the play dough person, and remarked with conviction: "Neighbor." My mom and I almost fell over in our chairs. I am glad the neighbor didn't hear.

funny guy

We were eating pizza in one of my favorite pizza restaurants, when Jonah snuck up behind me, made a fart noise with his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs: "Mommy farted!!!"

The pronouncement echoed loud and clear through the restaurant, which was fortunately half empty. Tim and I roared with laughter. Jonah - what a funny, funny guy. Not yet two, but so cheeky already.

the boys then and the boys now

Here are the boys that went camping together this last weekend before they were toddlers.

And here they are now.

first time camping

Just got back from our first camping trip with Jonah. This one was in honor of Father's Day.

Three couples with one little boys each went. Yes, that's right. Three toddler boys in tents. We had a great time though the weather was cold and off-and-on rainy. The boys really enjoyed themselves.

We had a couple of scares when Jonah refused to go to sleep in the tent, saying things like: "All done forest. Go home." But eventually he got to sleep and slept more soundly than at home.

The highlight was the adult badminton game (no score kept) with the boys running in our midst like crazy. The two older boys loved playing with their construction equipment and would occasionally get into a tiff over diggers and such. But not too bad.

Lenore and Ted, the parents of Espen, who is only three weeks younger than Jonah, made the most fabulous dinner over fire: grilled salmon and veggies. Wow! I told them they won first prize for most gourmet meal I've ever had camping. Beat canned chicken soup, that's for sure!

You can see pics from our trip here.

shameless plug

I just participated in the 50 Voices of Equality campaign, "a public education campaign by the Basic Rights Education Fund (BREF). BREF's mission is to build community through education and advocacy and to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Oregon."

As a volunteer I interviewed prominent Oregonians dedicated to working against discrimination. After the interviews, I wrote copy for the campaign's website.

I interviewed Oregon Senator Frank Morse and activist Lew Frederick. I will be interviewing State Representative Judy Uherbelau later this month. So, go to 50voicesforequality.com, click on meet the 50 voices, and you will see the pieces I did.

a budding gentleman

The other day I sneezed and Jonah, completely on his own, brought me a package of tissues, saying: "Here, mommy."

What a little gentleman!

the terrible twos are here!

Because Jonah is such a genius and so advanced for his age (tongue in cheek, I hope you know), Tim and I are convinced that he has hit the terrible twos early. Why do we think so? He is so determined that any little thing he is not allowed and wants to do or vice versa - anything he doesn't want to do, but we make him do, sets him off. He screams, cries, kicks -you name it- to assert his will. Like whatever is happening is the biggest trategy or attrocity ever known to - well, our little man. It's quite a challenging stage, because it's very easy for the adult in the interaction to get angry and frustrated as well, which only escalates the situation.

Let's hope this phase passes quickly!

checking in

I have been so swamped lately that I've hardly had time to blog. Between work, the university course I'm taking, and parenting, there has been very little time to spare. On top of all that, I am hosting the Erase Racism Carnival at my other blog, White Anti-Racist Parent, this month. It's been taking me quite a few hours to put that together. When it's up, I'll let you know, so you can peruse the contributions from all the brilliant bloggers that sent in their writing.

At the end of May, Jonah's Montana grandparents paid us a visit. It was wonderful to see them, as always. The highlight for all of us, I think, was seeing Jonah "swim" in a pool for the first time. He swam on the backs of several whales that day - daddy whale, grandpa whale, and uncle whale. So much fun! Pics here.

I also enjoyed the Portland Underground tour that we took to learn about the disturbing history of women and single men getting "shanghi'd", or basically kidnapped and enslaved, for labor (or prostitution) and profit. Portland was the number one U.S. city for this in the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's, with anywhere between 1,500 and 3,000 men being kidnapped each month to be imprisoned underground in dark holding cells, then sold to sea captains to work on ships for no pay, and shipped who knows where. Scary stuff! The underground in Portland's old part of downtown is so complex, that one could easily get lost. It's also one of the most haunted places in North America.

As you can see, the granparents' visit was quite an adventure.

stinky is funny - to mom only

Just the other day I was asking Jonah if he wants a snack, offering him a lengthy verbal menu of choices. He looked at me and said: "No, no, no, don't care. Don't care." My eyes almost popped out of my head. Don't care. Where did he get that?

This morning after Jonah woke up, he yawned, covered his mouth, puckered his nose and stated: "Stinky." Then in the car he repeated: "Stinky breath, stinky breath, stinky breath." Funny, funny guy.

Also, I coached Jonah to say "stinky daddy" when dad entered the room, and sure enough, Jonah didn't disappoint. Unfortunately, Tim wasn't amused.

finally a hike!

Today we finally went on a hike after a long, long time. I've missed hiking so much. Tim and I used to go nearly every weekend before Jonah was born, but it was nearly impossible to go for many months after Jonah came around. He would get too fussy on car rides lasting longer than 20 minutes and in a backpack, preferring to walk, first with our help, then alone, but of course, for only short distances.

Today he was pretty fussy in the backpack too, so we had to make frequent stops and didn't hike very far. The best part was our stop over on the shore of the Clackamas River, where Jonah dug in the sand, waded in the cold water, watched the rapids, and threw rocks in deep water, listening to the "plunk" sound with great gusto. The weather was gorgeous!

The most disturbing part of the hike was the graffiti on the picnic table - in German. Scribbled on the table in thick black marker were the words which the Nazis placed over concentration camp gates: "Work brings freedom." But the author also added the word Jews in German. This hit me right in the pit of my stomach. My grandparents and many other relatives were imprisoned in concentration camps, many died there. How could anyone propagate this kind of thought and hate today? And in one of the most beautiful places in our region. Truly despicable.

On a positive note, here are the pics from our trip.

update on language & other stuff

Just this week Jonah looked at me and for the first time said: "Mama, I love you." What an amazing thing!

He also uses adverbs such as never and seems to understand tenses, distinguishing between simple past and present progressive. He also uses plurals and the -er ending for people. Skateboarders, for example. His brain and language development is really incredible to watch. He is now interested in numbers and letters. He can pretty reliably recognize the number 3, 5, and 0. As far as letters, he usually correctly identifies m's and o's.

Yesterday we went to story time at the library. When we did our usual Ring Around the Rosie, I encouraged Jonah to hold the hand of another toddler in the group, a girl named Angel. This was his first time holding another child's hand and he LOVED it. He smiled and wanted to hold her hand for each round. So sweet!

Also, I got Jonah a new book, trying to ease him out of his construction equipment obsession. This book is called This Jazz Man and it introduces young kids to famous jazz musicians from the past with playful language and beautiful collage-style illustrations. Each page is sung to the tune of This Old Man. Jonah loves the book so much! We've already read it about twenty times today. His uncle is a jazz drummer and Jonah got to play his drum set, piano, and xylophone when we visited him and my sister in New York in March. Jonah still remembers and we use the book to review his drum vocabulary: high hat, cymbal, bass drum, snare drum. Maybe he will be a drummer some day!

weekend on the coast

Just got back from a wonderful weekend on the coast with friends Mia, James, and their one-year-old son Ira. We all had a fabulous time. The weather wasn't too bad and the house was perfect - a play structure in the backyard for the kids and a hot tub for the adults. It was so great to vacation with another couple with a child close in age to Jonah. The two of them get along great. I put pictures of our getaway here.

flu relay

Over here in Jonah land, we're keeping busy by playing flu relay. First, Tim had an awful flu, which put him out of commission for a few days. Next, Jonah got it and had a fever and slept for almost two days straight. Now he's better, but still coughing hard and tired a lot. And for Mother's Day, I too got the bug. How wonderful. Right now I'm laying in bed, covered with three blankets and still feeling like I'm at the North Pole. Happy Mother's Day to me :(

my piece got published today

My first column is up on the parenting blog Anti-RacistParent.com today, the day Jonah turns twenty-one-months.

my compassion and his

Mine first: Jonah's been running a fever the last two days. We think it's his teeth since he has been drooling profusely and always sticking his fingers or other objects in his mouth. Hopefully he doesn't have the flu Tim just got over.

His compassion: Today our cat Pancho was coughing, trying get rid of a hair ball. Jonah got so concerned that he began to cry, saying "No" and "Au," the Czech equivalent of "Ouch." He got so scared for Pancho. I picked Jonah up and held him, consoling him and explaining that Pancho is just coughing and that he is fine. After Pancho stopped hacking, I told Jonah: "See, he is happy now." Jonah stopped crying and repeated: "Happy."

a day of firsts

Today Jonah finally laerned to climb up and ride down the slide all by himself at the community center where we go. There he also introduced himself to a little girl. He was playing with a toy when she came up to him. She must have been just about a year older than him or so. I said hello to her, she said hi and then watched Jonah quietly for a while. He looked at the girl and then with a smug smile said: "Jonah." If you ask me, that was a little toddler introduction. Remarkable.

The other new thing that Jonah did today was try to draw a circle, which he couldn't physically do. But he did draw over a squiggle which he called a snake. He drew and drew over it with a brown crayon and said "Neni," which means it's not there anymore in Czech. He then called the brown area he had colored dark and a tunnel. He talked about cars going through that tunnel. That's quite imaginitive if you ask me.

Jonah has also started using articles. Now he makes such requests as: "Make a bottle" and "in the backpack" when he wants to sit in the backpack. Very cool

Jonah's friend Ira came over with his mom today. They played nicely together except the few times Jonah pushed Ira for no reason at all. He is in his cause-and-effect experimentation stage. But I sure don't like it. Still, the boys seemed to enjoy each other. They played with pots and pans, read a book together, played hide and seek, and fed each other cheerios. Jonah handed Ira toys too, which was quite an accomplishment in this hate-to-share phase.