hey, I'm making music here!

So, I was sitting down, jamming on Jonah's musical instruments with his little plastic mallets. I thought I sounded pretty good with my funky groove, nodding my head to the rhythm, imagining I was one of those cool performers in Stomp, but what do you know. Just when I imagined myself up on the stage, playing an infectious beat and making the audience tap their feet, Jonah walked up to me, pointed at his head and said: "Headache." Translation: "Mommy, the noise you're making is giving me a huge headache." Great. Thanks, son. Thanks a lot. I thought I was making splendid music here!

brand recognition

This morning we ran some errands. It was the perfect day for it, since Jonah was very mellow and able to sit still in his stroller for quite a while. One of our stops was at the bank. Jonah sat quietly for a long time while I dealt with the teller. The bank began to fill up with people, forming a long silent line behind us, seemingly not noticing there was a child in the room. After some time, a man wearing a bike helmet walked in. Suddenly Jonah exploded with excitement, shouting "Helmet!" at the top of his lungs. Everyone burst out laughing. It was excellent comic timing. Such a random, yet meaningful utterance from such a tiny somebody.

One of our other stops was the post office. I have only taken Jonah there maybe three times in his life and not in a while. He has been obsessed with things that go lately. These include dump trucks, diggers, bulldozers, big rigs, fork lifts, cranes, mail trucks and the like. He is so good at identifying them around the city that he beats me in the race all the time. What shocked me the most today was when at the post office, no mail trucks in sight, he noticed the post office logo, the blue and white eagle, on the envelopes they were selling. He pointed and unequivocally stated: "mail truck." I couldn't believe it. That's logo, even brand recognition if I've ever seen it. That's how they get them so young.

I remembered a long-lost friend whose two-year-old would see a Starbucks logo somewhere random while riding around in a car and say: "daddy's work" because his dad worked at Starbucks. Incredible!

tulips & dump trucks

Lately Jonah's imagination has blossomed. He is turning ordinary objects into other more fun things - small balls into berries, a push toy into a lawn mower, a stick into a car key, a parent into a horse. Heck, he doesn't even need an object to use his imagination. He can just pretend he is eating without holding anything in his hand.

Likewise, his vocabulary has been expanding with the speed of a lightning. For example, he has been learning colors lately.

Today was a fun day. We went to a tulip festival, something I've always wanted to see, but always missed by weeks. This festival was so much fun. Of course, the beautiful flowers, food, and so much for Jonah to do - mostly simple, old-fashioned entertainment, which is what we're mostly about. There were hand-powered water pumps that propelled ducks down a rain gutter, slides, tunnels, a simple wooden playhouse for toddlers, swings, and best of all - a sandbox with a dump truck and shovels it. Jonah was in heaven.

One of my favorite things to see, aside from the flowers, were the old-style steam powered tractors. The machinery worked effortlessly, with the wheels spinning silently and the wood, burning to heat water that in turn created the steam, smelled so good!

I put up new pictures in our photoalbum for your enjoyment

word games

Jonah's vocabulary is exploding. He's now even able to play with language. Today we went to our usual weekly story time at the library. There Jonah met another boy named Harry. Since Jonah learns names quickly these days, he called the boy by his name and was later able to reminisce about interacting with Harry. We were "talking" about Harry when suddenly Jonah said "strawberry." I laughed and replied: "No, not strawberry; Harry at the library." Jonah laughed and repeated: "Strawberry." I repeated my answer. He then wanted to hear the joke again: "Strawberry?" He requested to hear the same joke dozens of times and laughed hysterically each and every time. That was our first funny word game. Jonah's growing up so fast!

"dick"

One of Jonah's favorite activities these days is digging in the garden (and on the beach in the sand). He is obsessed with it. He used to ask if he could go "dee" with a "shoffa." Now he has improved his pronunciation of "shovel" and added the final consonant to digg. Except it's not a "g"; it's a k sound. He walks around the house repeating it when he reminisces or urges me to drop everything and go "dick, dick, dick, dick."

sentences & impersonations

Just last week Jonah said his first toddler sentence. He was "reading" one of his favorite books, which features construction vehicles such as dumpster trucks and diggers. He said, "Baby go outside." I know I posted here a long while back, claiming that Jonah uttered his first sentence, but now I realize that was just happenstance. He is now forming toddler-style sentences frequently. Yesterday morning he helped me do the dishes and while at the sink, he played with the coffee pot, narrating: "Coffee make daddy."

Also recently he put on Tim's shoes, put a bag over his shoulder, and began walking around the house talking in a loud and whiny pretend voice, the same type of voice he uses for make-belief phone conversations. I wonder if he was impersonating daddy. It sure seemed like it.

names

Jonah has been learning people's names. And not just people's. One of his favorite books features a little boy character whose name is Matt. Jonah learned his name right away and now refers to the book by saying "Matt." Just yesterday when Tim left for work, Jonah said in his soft and high "goodbye voice": Goodbye, Tim. Wow! In New York, Jonah learned all his new friends' names right away too and now we reminisce about these friends still.

New York trip

Jonah and I had a wonderful time visiting my sister and her partner Adam in New York. This was our first inter-state trip alone, without dad. Jonah did great on both flights - he even slept! - which were both 100% full! Since Jonah was a lap child, I didn't get much sleep myself. But the flights were non-stop and only about 6 hours long.

As soon as we walked in to my sister's place, Jonah felt right at home. It was amazing how comfortable he felt with my sister. He called her "baba", the same as my mom, and was totally trusting and affectionate with her from the get-go. My sister even babysat Jonah for a few hours one afternoon and Jonah barely missed his parents. How great is that!

One of Jonah's favorite things to do in New York was play uncle Adam's drums and piano. Pics here. The other hit was Prospect Park, a huge and pretty park only two blocks from my sister's house.

What surprised me was how quiet her Brooklyn neighborhood was. Hardly any cars passed by. Most of the surrounding houses were one or two-family houses, no bigger than two-stories. My sister still does her shopping the old-fashioned way - in little stores. A deli, a fish market, the butchers..., because that's the way the neighborhood, which not long ago used to be predominantly Italian and is still full of old-timers, works.

We saw some friends with kids, which was also very fun. Jonah played with a 3-month old, a four-year-old, and my cousins, who are teenagers.

I got to meet Carmen, who, as per my earlier post, asked me to write for antiracistparent.com. She lives in New York and is great!

Well, that's it for this installment of Adventures with Jonah. More soon.

in New York

Jonah and I are in New York, visiting my sister and her partner Adam. I'll post more about the trip soon, but just checking in to report that we're having a fabulous time! Jonah feels right at home here.

I'm published in this month's issue of....

Oh my goodness! I can't believe my piece is among those published in the March issue of the Erase Racism Carnival hosted by racialicious.com, an excellent blog about the intersection of race and pop culture that read frequently. The Erase Racism Carnival is is a collection of blog posts dedicated to creating a world free of racism.

You can read this month's issue, including my piece, Tracing Race: one immigrant's journey from race awareness to anti-racist consciousness here. I will be hosting the carnival in June on my other blog, white anti-racist parent.

By the way, the founder of racialicious and host of the carnival this month approached me about becoming a columnist for another site she runs called antiracistparent.com, a blog for parents who are committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook. I said yes! Please cross your fingers for me. I am scared, but thrilled!

love to reminisce

Jonah now has the ability to reminisce about things he's done and people he's seen. He especially likes to do this in bed before he falls asleep. He not only wants to list the objects, people, and activities he's remembering from the day gone by, he wants to discuss them (with his limited vocabulary of course). I have to respond to him, repeat what he says and expand on it or admire his ability to extrapolate.

Example:

J: Fih, Fih, Fih..
me: Yes, Finn.
J: Fih, Fih, Fih...
me: We saw Finn today.
J: Meh, Meh...
me: And his mama Megan.
J: Hamma, baw.
me: You played with a hammer and balls at their house.
J: Dee.
me: You played with a digger too.
J: Dee, dee, dee.
me: The digger had a shovel.
J: Shofoo, shofoo...

It's amazing to see his cognitive ability expand.

on the coast with family

A week ago we spent a wonderful few days on the coast with Jonah's Montana grandparents and aunt and uncle. (Yes, during this trip Jonah learned to finally say his aunt's name - Jenni. He says it ALL the time now!) The house we rented was brand new and beautiful. The weather, not so much. But we had a fire every day and a nice time despite the rain and gusty wind outside.

You can see some of the pics from our trip here.

playing with friends & pretending

Jonah had the best time ever last Saturday. We had a get-together at our house and his best friend Finn was one of the guests. While the adults ate and chatted, the two boys played together. They were able to interact and have much more fun than ever before. Jonah can communicate a little bit better and is becoming less self-absorbed as he gets older. His imagination is expanding too. The two of them chased each other, played peeek-a-boo, read books, drew, and jumped on the bed. What a great feeling to see Jonah enjoy himself with a friend!

Yesterday Tim, Jonah and I went on a walk in a beautiful area with wide open fields and old trees along side of a river. Jonah found a large wood chip that reminded him of a fish. He called it "fish" and threw it in the field. Then he pretended the field was a lake and fed wood chips to the fish in the lake, saying "papat", which means "to eat" in Czech. He played this game for quite a while. It was amazing to see his imagination at work.

Today we went to the playground. There Jonah shared the slide with another little girl. At one point he stepped on her hand while they were both climbing up the ladder. The girl said something to the effect of "ouch", but Jonah seemed oblivious, too focused on getting to the top of the slide. I stopped him and told him in a language he could understand that it hurt the girl when he stepped on her foot. About half way home, he recalled the incident, repeating "au" (Czech version of ouch) in a slightly whiny voice and "baby." He remembered stepping on the girl's hand and was discussing the experience with me. He seemed concerned. I told him that I don't think it was too serious and not to worry, just be careful next time. I'm not sure he understood that, but it was interesting to see him processing something that happened in the past and that seemed significant to him.

the great imitiator

Jonah has started to repeat words and phrases he hears us say. The other day I said to a driver whose driving I was not impressed with, "Are you kidding?" through a windshield. Jonah said, "kidding?" It made my day.

Today he repeated a long phrase after me: "airplane in the sky."

This week he began to imitate some sounds he hears. When assembling and disassembling the potty, which he refuses to use, he made a peeing sound: "chhhhhh" and looked at me, following up with the words "pee pee" and "kaka". So he definitely gets what the potty is for, he just won't sit on it.

He also imitated the chirping, or more like screaming of birds outside, saying "pih-pih" (short for pipinka, or bird in Czech) and the barking of a dog in a house down the street, then saying "pey" (short for pejsek, or dog). Very cool.

He still occasionally pretends to talk on the phone in a very loud, theatrical, whiny voice. I wonder who he gets that from. And he feeds animals, pictures of babies (as well as real babies) and objects pretend food and water. Children are amazing.

"dee"

For a few weeks now, I've had Jonah "help me" with the dishes regularly. He's obsessed with the dishes now. He pushes a chair up to the sink and begs me to help him up to do the "dee". Usually he just stands there and pours water from a cup into a bowl or something akin to that. Today he really got into squeezing the life, I mean water out of the sponge. He looked like a weight-lifting olympic competitor, straining to squeeze as hard as he could. Yes, the dishes are a new passion. Now if I could just get him excited about something like dusting!

favorite sentence

My favorite phrase of Jonah's these days is "Come on." He enunciates the first syllable with such gusto. The other day he even said, "Mama, come on!" We both laughed.

Yesterday I was driving and trying to verbally hurry up someone in front of us, "Come on, slow driver." Jonah was sitting quietly in the back. About a minute later, he surprised me with none other than my favorite phrase: "Come on." It was perfect comic timing.

beach

Just got back from a Valentine's Day trip to the beach. This was a surprise present from Tim. What a fabulous idea. Our room was truly luxurious - a spa tub big enough for the whole family, a gas fire place, and a kitchen! And all within a half a block from the beach. The weather was a bit yucky, but we didn't care. I put some more pictures from our getaway here.

friends

Jonah loves his toddler friends. Ira just turned one on the 13th and Finn, whom Jonah played with earlier this week, is nine months older than Jonah. Here is a pic of the two of them looking out the window.

Jonah is a year and a half!

as of yesterday - the 11th.

my bad

Remember my anti-racist parenting post a while back? Well, I learned a lesson. When Jonah started crying at the store last month, I thought he was crying because he was scared of the cashier who was black. Last week we went to the same store and our cashier was a white woman about my age. Again, I had to step closer to the credit card machine as she pushed the shopping cart behind the counter to get the groceries out of it, thus separating Jonah, still in the cart, from me. And... Jonah began to cry. The separation seemed too much and he was scared. The same exact scenario played itself out again today. Again, the cashier was a young white woman. So much for projecting racialized reasoning onto my son. Interesting the way my adult mind connected things like that. Shouldn't be so quick to judge. My bad.