valentine rewind

left to right:  top - elijah diligently ices his heart-shaped cookies while his brothers decide to skip that step and go right to eating theirs; bottom - jonah arranges the cards he distributed to his preschool classmates; after a shrimp scampi and linguine dinner at home with our sons, jay and i enjoy one of our favorite dessert wines, icewine.

presidents

in honor of our national holiday yesterday, i gave my sons a brief overview of three of our presidents using their pictures.

photo courtesy of www.eartohear.net

me:  who is this? 

boys:  uuhhh...

me:  what's his name?  george ...

elijah:  washington!  george washington!

the other two repeat after him.

me:  yes!  that's george washington, our first president! ...  now who is this?

boys:  uuhhh ...

noah:  he's on the penny!

photo courtesy of www.fookembug.wordpress.com

me:  yes, he is on the penny.  what's his name?

the boys all show me their pennies and chant, "he's on the penny!"

me:  a-bra-ham ...

boys:  a-bra-ham ...

me:  lincoln!

boys:  lincoln!

me:  a-bra-ham lin-coln!

boys:  a-bra-ham lincoln!

photo courtesy of www.barackobama.net

me:  who is this?  who's our president now?

jonah:  the happy man!

me (giggling):  yes, but what's his name? 

boys:  uuhhh...

me:  ba-rack ...

boys:  ba-rack ...

me:  o-ba-ma.  barack obama!

they form a chorus of different pronunciations that resemble "barack obama", though not quite.

jonah:  why is he so happy?

and that was the end of our lesson.

one month

i survived my first month on a blog!  first, let me rewind a lil bit.  after christmas, i joined fb.  for the few of you in this day and age who are still clueless as to what fb stands for, it is facebook.  don't worry, i was in your boat.  over the past several years, i've been invited and encouraged to join social networks like friendster, myspace, and eventually, the almighty fb.  i always refused, denying my friends and family that gratification and willed myself to not get sucked into that social fad.

then the holidays of 2009 came and went, and i began to wonder about various people, like i do every year.  i was also looking for something to fill the little extra time i recently acquired.  so i succumbed to the one and only F.B.

i was immediately awestruck!  i found so many people that i haven't seen or heard from since high school.  in the first couple of days, i checked my page every few hours.  who confirmed me as a friend?  i got a friend request!  let me see if so-and-so is on fb.  i was able to update myself on their families and careers merely by reviewing their pages.  i received quick greetings and comments and reciprocated.  it was really interesting and fun.  however, by the fourth day, i realized that fb actually wasn't for me.  i wanted to be able to connect, i mean really connect, with others.  that's the impression i got about social networking whenever someone recommended it.  but you really don't, not with everyone who claims to be your friend.  (by the way, i've seen 100+, 300+, even 500+ friends on various pages.  c'mon, who truly has that many friends?) anyway, yes, i've been in more contact with a several people that i've lost touch with, which makes it worthwhile to keep my page and check-in a few times a week.  but the longer your friends, acquaintence rather, list is, the more difficult it is to keep up with all of the posts and comments that appear on your homepage.  some of those comments are also trite and meaningless - do we really need to know this?

hence, the blog - well, after i watched Julie and Julia, in which the challenge of julie powell's blog and goal intrigued me.  as i mentioned before, though, my mere purpose to blog was to share my life with the freedom to write more than 420 characters at a time, unlike in fb.  and i love it.  i've been challenged with a variety of topics for posts, an array of photos to select from, and layout capabilities/inabilities that drive me insane but keep the wheels in my head turning.  and trust me, i've often felt like my wheels have remained parked for too long at a time.  certainly, my sons constantly keep me going, but that's another kind of wheel-turning.

my blog has been visited several times, and i've earned the respect of a few followers (thank you!).  while i still have long a journey ahead of me before i can make my mark in the blog community, i enjoy blogging.  period.  and at this moment, that is good enough.

vocabulary lessons

~ noah on "busy"

his brothers were playing with their v-tech v-motion while noah and i watched.

noah:  bus-sy. (as in "bus")

me:  that says biz-zy.

noah:  but it looks like bus-sy.

me:  i know, but you say it biz-zy.

noah:  then why does it look like bus-sy?

me:  i don't know.

~ jonah on "won"

we were all reading a book together.

me:  so who won the race?

jonah:  mistress mouse winned the race.

me:  yes, mistress mouse won the race.

jonah.  it's winned!

me:  actually, you say won.  did mistress mouse win the race?  yes, she won the race.

jonah:  it's winned!!

~ elijah on "bertram"

we were playing with their thomas and friends trains, and elijah was looking at the name of one of them.

elijah:  what does this say?  bert-ram.  (like the animal "ram")

me:  that says ber-trum.

elijah:  but it doesn't have an h.  it says bert-ram.

me:  i know it doesn't have an h, but it's pronounced ber-trum.

elijah:  it doesn't have an h.  it says bert-ram, i said.

can you say, "are you smarter than a preschooler?"  my boys certainly don't think i am.  ... okay then, guys, you winned!

their second christmas

"santa made it christmas again!" noah exclaimed when he and his brothers saw the snow through the window.  my children's eyes widened, and all their little faces lit up so bright.  their expressions were identical (get it, identical?) and made me warm and fuzzy all over.

i wished i had a camera to capture their picture-perfect expressions.  that little voice inside my head - you know, the one that you dont always listen to but should always listen to - bugged me about the camera that morning, telling me to charge its battery every time i passed by it.  we planned to go to pump it up, jr., a place filled with bouncers and inflatables, and which we've been to countless times since the boys were two years old.  there wasn't a special event scheduled that day.  why would i need the camera?  ... then it snowed, the first snow of the season.  for all that i can remember, it might have even been the first snow of 2009!  and it happened while we were at pump it up, jr.

where did the snow come from?  i tracked the weather on the web all week and looked at it that very morning.  all i saw was rain!  but there they were, out of nowhere, large, ivory, beautiful flakes floating down from the sky.  isn't the science and technology of meteorology dependable?

shortly, all but one family at pump it up, jr. disappeared.  like a naive, young woman (though i'm actually not that young anymore), i said to the grandmother, "i guess everyone's gone out to play with the snow."

like a wise, older woman, she replied, "nope.  they're all worried about how they're getting home."

of course.  when it snows here, even the slightest, everyone reacts as if the state has just declared an emergency.  it doesn't help that the city and its surrounding metro areas share a total of only two or three snowplows either.  consequently, the roads were congested everywhere, and commute time compounded exponentially!  we had to pick up jason from work that afternoon, and the drive home usually takes no more than five minutes.  but on this day, it really would have been quicker if he had walked home!  sadly, though, due to the traffic, the sun set before my sons could play outside.

i was worried the snow would melt overnight.  yes, worried.  i was probably the only one who felt that way while the rest of the state's population felt relief.  my sons love, love, love the snow.  they truly wished for it this past christmas.  but in the immediate forecast were warmer temperatures and rain.  just our luck.

elijah jumped out of bed the next morning and looked out the window.  we were so elated that our backyard was still heavenly white.  after breakfast, the boys gathered at the sliding door gazing at the snow that they so longed for.  like puppies, they whined and rapped at the door to be let out.  or was that coby?  i was having my coffee at the moment, and my children had already learned that i should not be bothered when im still sitting with my cup of kona.  however, the predicted weather threatened to melt the snow, so i had to compromise.  but only this one time.

i went to the closet and dug out their snow outfits.  it's been a year since my kids have had to wear them that i forgot how long and tedious they take to put on.  so i formed an assembly line in hopes to speed things up: 

helped jonah put on his bib (jumpsuits, i have no clue why they're called bibs).  told jonah to put on his socks and boots.  helped elijah put on his bib.  jonah's foot got stuck in the middle of the boot shaft.  told elijah to put on his socks and boots.  held jonah's boot and tried to shove his foot down into it.  tried again.  told jonah to keep trying by himself.  helped elijah with his boots.  elijah's first foot made it all the way in, but his second got stuck.  tried to shove it in.  got it.  jonah got his boots on too.  helped noah with his bib.  told him to put his socks and boots on.  helped jonah and elijah with their jackets and told them to put on their gloves.  shoved noahs feet into his boots and helped him with his jacket.  told him to put on his gloves.  let the other two out into the backyard.  let noah out into the backyard. 

total time = 15 minutes, give or take a few.  not bad!  whew!

this time, my camera battery was charged, and i captured my sons' picture-perfect expressions as they relished in their gift of a second christmas from santa.