Since birth, Jonah has gone through a number of different comfort items. You could call them lovies, snoodles, binkies, security blankets, or babies. Every child has some strange item that he or she has attached themselves to. At the preschool I taught at, there was a toddler who was attached to the very edge of his old recieving blanket. The blanket had frayed and worn away, until just one little patch of the silk lining was left, and Little D carried that patch around, rubbing it against his cheek. He called it his “mimi.” And if he decided at any moment that he needed his “mimi” you’d better have it, or watch out!!!

For Jonah, his first “lovie” was my boob. No joke. He would (more…)

Jonah is definitely moving out of his baby stage and into the toddler stage. I realized this more than ever last week, as I cleaned out his toy area in anticipation of our holiday guests. While I’ve been pretty good about switching out his clothes and diapers as he outgrows them, I have never packed away any of his toys. Still in his toy bin were rattles, and colorful “manipulative” toys. Things he hasn’t played with for probably about a year or so. The day after Christmas came the big day for organizing. All of his rattles were replaced with puzzles, and his security blankets have been replaced by a basket full of board books. The more I look at his play area, the more I see toddler playthings rather than baby items. His bouncy seat was put into storage, as was the bumbo, and a series of stuffed animals that he won’t even look at anymore.The rainforest toy that hung on the side of his crib, that he loved to look at before naps, is now the Twilight Seaturtle that projects constellations and pictures of animals around his room. My baby is becoming a big boy.

It’s not just the toys that are changing. We are also (more…)

Screw all the new toys! Boxes are so much fun. They can be anything. At one point, Tio was flying a plane & then we decided to make it a car. The kids LOVED being in the box w/ him.

(more…)

Well, just like laundry and dinnertime, a New Year is already so quickly upon me and I feel equally unprepared by its prospect.  Here I am still trying to process the events of 2009 and 2010 is already tugging at my shirt-tail and pestering me with questions: “What are we gonna do now?  Where are we going?  Huh? Huh?”

Somehow this scenario feels hauntingly familiar

As I was perusing a couple of my favorite blogs (more…)