Daley Ponderings

This month has been full, busy, and blog-sparse.  Because we're actually living life instead of blogging about it!  But here goes:

Noah is experimenting more with sounds.  He copies a lot.  Still not much consistently, but here are some things we've heard him say: "where?" "Papa" "more" "Dad" "no" "none" "that" "hot" "hat."  He also often covers his mouth when he sneezes or coughs.

Jonathan has been interested in non-fiction books recently - specifically one about storms and one about skin.  On the way back from the playground last week, Jonathan said to me about his knee, "Every time somebody whacks it, it hurts, because I scratched it to the dermis."

How's this for a triple negative: "undoned-ed"  (As in My shoelace came undoned-ed, will you please retie it.)

When he grows up, Jonathan wants to be a construction worker, a painter, a dentist, an astronaut, and a fireman.  He says, "I'll do some construction, and then I'll say, 'bye, guys, time for me to go paint' and then I'll paint, and then I'll say, 'bye, guys, time to do my dentist work" and go there."

And now to chronological events.  Grammy and Papa came for the weekend of the 9th.  We had a blast at the children's museum.  The highlight for me was watching everyone in the garage workshop.  Jon, Jonathan, and Phil spent a long time building a big complicated house with bolts and nuts.  Noah helped, too.  Three generations of engineers!  Noah spent a long time with some audio-type plugs that controlled the bulbs of a streetlight.

Jonathan opened some early birthday presents, including some piano lesson books and a lego street sweeper.  Jonathan is more like Jon who would rather make up his own things, than like me who likes the kits.  He asked for piano lessons every day until we got distracted by activities later on. 

Grandma arrived on Tuesday the 13th.  We went to the zoo on Thursday and had a delightful time playing with one of the polar bears through the underwater tunnel.  Dad-o arrived Friday night.

Jonathan's birthday party was Saturday, complete with construction excavator cake.  He had made the excavator from duplos a couple of months before and said, "Save this for my birthday cake."  Grammy brought candy rocks for decoration, too.  (They tasted like m&m's!) Dad-o supplied candles that spelled out JONATHAN.

In the evening,  Jon said he could open one present early - our present to him.  It was a battery charger for the remote control car, but really to him it was the car itself.  That was the hit present of the weekend.

On his real birthday, Jonathan woke up to balloons and decorations on his bed (balloons supplied by Grandma who tried to buy them twice before the store actually opened.)  "I'm really four!!!!"

We went to church, where the tradition is for the whole congregation to sing Happy Birthday.  Kim asked Jonathan what is name was and he said, "Dash!"  So the church sang "Happy birthday, dear Dash" which thrilled him to pieces.

At home he opened more presents and Dad-o bought Thai take-out for dinner.  Jonathan's only request was that the restaurant would have soda, so Jon got ginger ale at the store when he picked up the food.  A fun birthday, and Jonathan is so happy to be four.  He did think he felt bigger. (:

Then we had a day to get ready, and on Tuesday we drove to Philly.  The trip was quick and uneventful.  Cousin K had an orchestra concert at a retirement home that night.  It was standing room only for the players' parents, so Jon stayed home with the boys.  But we hadn't prepared them ahead of time, so Jonathan was really upset about not coming with me.  Noah seemed to handle it ok that night, but was especially Mommy-clingy the rest of the week.

The concert itself was enjoyable.  My favorite piece was a chamber orchestra with jazz piano trio.  And I'll happily report to my sister that Dad did a great job with after-concert comments.  He asked K what his favorite piece was and gave many positive comments.

The Thanksgiving weekend was full of family, fun, and food.  The boys had a great time playing with cousins. Cousin A reported to his mom, "Jonathan is really fun to play with!" K spent a lot of time playing with Noah and Jonathan as well.  The weather was warm the first few days and lots of outdoor fun happened, too.  We had a concert (was that soup night or Thanksgiving night?) with cello, guitar, saxophone, flute, oboe, trumpet and piano.  It was a fun, cacophonous time, though we missed our other oboe/whistle/etc player.

Wednesday was Isaac's fifth birthday, which I remembered in sweet sad thankfulness lying on a hammock with my other two boys in the beautiful sunshine. 

The trip home Sunday also was quick, because we heeded the traffic warning and took a back road for an exit or two around a clog-up.  Noah was really ready to be out of the carseat, though.

This morning, we were going to be on time for women's Bible study, but just as I was getting in the car, saw that the front left tire was flat!  I was determined to change it myself and let Jon sleep (he had stayed up to the wee hours on a project that was going so well he didn't want to stop.)  But neither Mom nor I nor the two of us together could get the lug nuts off.  So Jon took care of the car while our neighbor drove us to Ascension.  Near the end of the meeting I felt my phone vibrating on my toe (it was in the backpack - the phone, not my toe!) and it was Jon letting me know that he had dropped off the fixed car in the parking lot. (The cause of thew flat was a half inch screw by the way.)

Tomorrow we bring Grandma back to the airport, and pick Sanda up from the same.  We then have two more days to finish up the organizing of the computer room, and here we are, Advent!  I doubt the fast pace will slow much until, oh, about March.  Pictures will be up soon, but I have taken so long to write this that they will have to wait.