Ice Cream

We are all moved into our new place -- which is one block away from an ice cream shop so we have been eating ice cream a lot more than usual.

To top it off, this is what happened yesterday:

An ice cream truck came down our street. Ani said "MOM! I heard an ice cream truck so I went outside and I stuck my arms out and I jumped up and down and then I knew AT ONCE that it was going to stop in front of out house!"

It did, of course stop in front of our house . . . Does she realize she has the ability to flag down an ice cream truck?

Jonah and Claire

Tonight I was putting Jonah to sleep, and before he drifted off, he signed "Claire." I said "Aunt Claire?" Then he did the love sign :)

We can't wait to see her -- couple more months!

More Anneke. . .

We needed to pick up some pills from the vet the other day for our cat. While we were there, a family was gathered around and old German Shepherd. They were crying and sad, and it was pretty clear that they were there to have the dog put to sleep. After we left, Anneke said "I noticed that those people were very sad. Why were they so sad?" So we had a little conversation about how when pets are in a lot of pain and have a very sad life, that the vet will give them a little shot and they will go to sleep and not wake up.

Ani: Not even for CHRISTMAS?!
Me: No, honey, the dog dies.
Ani: Oh. Hm.
Jonah: ARRRRRRG (sun in eyes in the car)
Ani: Mom, I think JONAH is in a lot of pain right now. . .

Then that night for her snack before bed (almost always nuts and raisins) she pointed up in the cupboard and said "I want one of those GIANT raisins!" I couldn't figure out what she was talking about, but then realized she was pointing to a dried chipotle pepper!

Jonah has been talking more and more -- he found a ball on the playground the other day and was so excited about it. He kept saying "A BALL!!" Then last night he went to sleep clutching a bouncy ball in each fist.

Baby Clothes

I must have mentioned to Anneke at some point that I had once made some baby clothes for one of her babies.

Now she wants me to make more clothes for all of her many, many babies. She says "you can do it in the night-time when I am sleeping!" I kind of wonder if she doesn't realize that I sleep too. . .

Then she got out a huge mound of babies and gave me specific instructions: "This baby already has two clothes, so she only needs one more. This baby has only one clo, though."

Beauty and the Beast

Anneke went to watch my cousin Julia's performance of Beauty and the Beast with Rockford High School. She is now completely obsessed. She has been listening to the music that my mom loaded on a little MP3 player for her.

A few moments:

"Hey! The beast did just what Beauty did! That's such good manners!"'

"AHHH SKIP THIS PART! THIS IS SO SCARY!!"

We only watched about 25% of the movie

Bedtime. . .

"Mommy, sank you for getting me dis milk and honey, but I have a pwoblem."
"What is your problem?"
"Well, every time I take a sip, my eyes open up and then I don't go to sleep."
"Well why don't you try putting your milk and honey down and go to sleep."
"Oh yes! I will twy dat!"

I guess it worked. . .

More Dreams

Ani has been having bad dreams lately -- just when she's drifting off to sleep.

Here are a couple:

"So, it was your birthday? and you were sitting in front of your cake? and you were sitting on one of those roller-chairs, with the wheels on the bottom? and you were going to blow out your candles, AND THE CHAIR ROLLED AND YOU FELL RIGHT INTO THE FIRE ON YOUR CAKE!!!!!"

"So, deah were these two little boys, and one of them was Jonah, and they were out in a little boat on the water. And then, ANOTHER boat, came and went right over the two little boys (and one of them was Jonah), and the two little boys, went RIGHT UNDER THE WATER! AND NO ONE CAME TO HELP THEM! NO ONE!"

She is usually comforted by the thought of puppies.

Ani's Dream

In another phone conversation I recently had with Anneke, she told me of this terrible dream that she had where she and I were at the coffee shop by  her house. All of a sudden, two guys tried to catch her! I was shocked and asked if I ran to save her. She said that I couldn't, however, because I was at the other side of the coffee shop buying a bagel! 

Does that mean something? I wish I could have saved her...

Ani on the phone

Now that I live far away from my family, my form of communication with Ani is snail mail with pictures, skype, and phone. I was talking to her the other day on the phone and said, "I'm glad you didn't forget about me, Ani" and without missing a beat she said "clea, I would nevah fo-get about you". 

that warmed my little heart.

Jonah's First Words

He's been saying "Mama" and "Dada" for a while now, but in the last couple of weeks, he has said "Mo" for more, I assume, "Nana" and just today: "Pop" which sounds a lot like Bop. He's almost 20 months.

Jonah's Signs

so far, in no particular order. . .

Anneke
kitty
Nana
Pop
Claire
Ruth
Uncle B.
Kathy
Rae
Sam
dog
music
food
drink
please
nurse
thank you
i love you
more
elephant
fish
tree
flower
banana
apple
car
book
library
sleep
bird

Sleepovers

Anneke went to her aunt Claire's house for a sleepover last weekend. She had a great time, of course, but told Claire that this time she was going to sleep all by herself. She said "if you peek at me when I am asleep; go sleep somewhere else."

She always goes to sleep listening to music. She told Claire, "sometimes I sing along to the music, but my daddy doesn't want me to do that. But then I sneak-sing when he is gone!"

She's going to Ruth's house this weekend, we'll see how she does!

Bathtime Logic

The other day Anneke and Jonah were in the tub together and it was time to wash hair. I wanted Anneke to go first to help show Jonah how painless it is as he's still not a big fan of the procedure.  When Anneke nominated Jonah to go first, I joked about how whoever says that someone else should go first, should themselves be the one to go first. She paused for a minute. The wheels were clearly turning. Then she said, "Jonah says that I should go first." Awesome! No dice, but awesome. 

On the subject of tubs, Jonah loves the game of having me hide behind the curtains. First the clear, plastic one, then the cloth outer curtain. He goes bonkers, poking my face through the plastic one and trying to shove things into my inaccessible mouth. Then being just utterly amazed that I appear again from behind the cloth curtain .... for the tenth time in a row. 

Ballet

We just started Anneke in another session of ballet at the Y. She loves it so much. She asked me this morning on the way to school if she could please please go to ballet today.

She also told me that she "secretly did a dance that wasn't a ballet dance when the teacher wasn't looking!" She can't help herself. Jonah charges around and watches and waves and signs "Anneke" while she has her class.

More Signing!

Jonah did the sign for music to a theme song from NPR this morning! He kind of stuck his little finger out when he did it.

He likes NPR, but Ani says she doesn't like Diane Rehm because she's "too naughty." Weirdo.

The Bank of Anneke, Jonah Keeps on Truckin' and More!

So Anneke has a new piggy bank. (A metal can wrapped in paper, covered in stickers and the yet-to-be-found pig to paste on the top.) We were having a discussion this afternoon about money and how I bought a toy for them even though we didn't have a lot of money for toys right now.

Her reply: "I have a lot of money. If you run out, you can just have some of mine." This after we've filled her 'piggy' bank with about a dozen pennies, two nickles and a dime.

Anneke also took a spill on her bike this afternoon. Handle bars twisted with her sprawled face first over it all. The brim of the helmet (thank goodness I insisted) caught the brunt of it, but she had a little skinned up spot. I parked Jonah's stroller, moved her bike out of the parking lot and picked her up to effect the planned-for dash up to the house. After a quick glance at her forehead and a few comforting words, I attempted to remove her helmet. She's still crying pretty loudly - about 45 seconds have now passed - and she immediately yells even louder, "No, Daddy. I want to ride my bike some more." I set her down and she calmly walks over to the bike and hops back on. It's nothing serious but there's definitely a skinned-up spot in the center of her forehead. She remains unphased. Wow.

As I type this, Jonah is on the other side of the room standing up, sitting down and taking a few steps at a time. This afternoon he took 8 at a stretch.

I also just learned this afternoon that he enjoys flying by the seat of his pants or rather being suspended by the suspenders Grandma Spoelma gave him for his first birthday party last weekend. I hope that they're well-sewn.

His other new trick is a kind of dancing whenever even the slightest muzak is heard in the distance that involves bouncing, a little bit of a hip-hop hand bounce, and then shaking his head side-to-side in a kind of crazy, happilly emphatic denial of whatever anyone else might think of his antics.

First Steps!

I can't believe I haven't posted this, but Jonah took his first steps on July 24! He has only done it once or twice since then, though. I think he's pretty happy crawling and climbing on everything.

Head wound

Ani was a flower girl in Ruth's and B's wedding ("When Ruth and B get married, Daddy is going to be UNCLE Daddy!" Um, not quite. . .) which was beautiful.

On Monday we went to Henry and Anne's house for supper after the beach. Jonah had been playing in their outdoor stone fountain and had gotten the grass around it wet. When Ani went running up to it, her feet went right out from under her and she hit her forehead on the corner of the fountain.

Kevin picked her up and rushed her inside to the sink so we could get a better look at it. It was gaping open. On the opinion of two doctors and one nurse, we took her to the ER at Holland Hospital. Kevin held her in the back seat while I drove. She cried for a bit, but then almost fell asleep in the car on the way there.

When we got there, no one was waiting, so we were seen very quickly. The nurse took a peek at the wound -- there was no doubt she needed stitches. We waited for a few minutes in the waiting room for the nurse. She gave Kevin a gauze pad soaked in anesthetic ointment of some kind to hold on her head. He held it there for 45 minutes or so. While we waited for the pain-killers to kick in, we told Ani what the doctor was going to do. She said, "Oh, that is fine if they want to give me a shot. I give my babies shots all the time and they don't hurt."

The doctor came in and asked her to lay down on the table. Kevin was at her feet and I was at her head. He gave her a series of shots in the wound and gave her seven stitches. She never even flinched. In fact, she spent the whole time talking about the time that her friend Rose came over and on and on.

We got her home that night and she never complained about it once. The only thing she didn't like was when I took the bandage off to replace it in the morning.

She had the stitches removed on Friday which "didn't hurt AT ALL." About three hours later, she fell on the stairs and opened the wound up again. It started bleeding all over again, but thankfully not as badly. I called urgent care and they said that they wouldn't be able to sew it up again now anyway, so all I could do was to control the bleeding. Ani was pretty unfazed: "Hey, look! My hair is getting all red again! Dat so silly!"

Ani's Son

Setting: Taking a walk with Ani, she's pushing Jonah in the stroller.

Me: Wow, that’s a cold wind, I’d better put this blanket over Jonah’s legs.

Ani: Sank you so much for covering up my son.

From: Nana

Woman With Wedgie

She is secretly doing storytime with her babies.

I just heard her say:

"There was an old woman and she was going for a long walk in the woods. Then she had to stop for a second because she had a wedgie."