Just thought I’d share a couple of Jonathan stories from the last week. The first one comes from last Wednesday morning. I had an early meeting, so I left for work before anyone else in the house was even awake. And just as my meeting was about to start, I got a text message from Miriam, “Jon just pooped in the toy box.”

I was in meetings all day, so I didn’t get the full story until later. Apparently, it went something like this:
Miriam was upstairs helping Mikaela get ready for school. Jon had gone on downstairs, still wearing his pull-up and a nightshirt. Miriam looked down from the landing, and saw Jonathan standing in the entry hall naked as a jaybird. They had the following conversation:
Miriam: Jonathan, where’s your pull-up?
Jonathan: I put it in the garbage.
M: Why did you put your pull-up in the garbage?
J: I put poopy in the toybox. I forgot to use the potty.
M:
The good news – Jonathan actually took ALL of the toys out of the overflowing toybox before leaving behind his “deposit,” so cleanup wasn’t too bad.

Today, on the way home from daycare, sweetheart Jonathan says,
“Mudder’s Day’s comin’ up. I’m gonna make you a present.”
“Do you like snakes?”

I turned 42 back on March 30 – the day of Second Seder. We celebrated at home a couple of days early, so that I could enjoy a non-kosher-for-Passover birthday cake. Miriam made a small cake, and Mikaela handled the decorating. It was great to be able to spend my birthday with family – Corey and Mo even made a point of calling to say Happy Birthday and Happy Passover to everyone who was over at the house for Second Seder. I got some nice Apple Gift Cards as birthday presents – they’re helping me save up for an iPad.

Our Passover season started with Jonathan’s CDC model seder. We enjoyed the usual mix of cute Passover songs about working for Pharaoh and a plague of frogs and opportunities for the kids to sample seder plate foods (Jon liked the hard-boiled egg, the matzah, and the celery dipped in salt water. The horseradish? Not so much). First Seder was our usual Seder at Aunt Judy and Uncle Lloyd’s house, made notable by Mikaela leading the Four Questions (in English) for the first time.

We hosted our usual small second Seder here at our house – just us, Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry (Grandma Sali helped us prepare while she was in town, but had to head back to be with Paca Steve for Passover), Uncle Matt, Aunt Sarah and cousins Ella and Samantha. The kids were great, considering they were being asked to sit through a much longer than usual dinner for the second night in a row. Mikaela took a regular turn reading parts of the Seder and led the younger kids to open the door for Elijah.

March was a busy birthday party month of Mikaela, and the last one (before mine) was a party at Zonker’s out at the Great Mall. Jonathan mostly spent that afternoon playing in the Great Mall indoor playground, but he eventually decided he wanted to try out the Zonker’s rides too. He rode the train several times, tried the banana planes (which he mostly liked, but didn’t want to try again), and tried the little roller coaster (which he HATED). Mikaela, as usual, had a blast, and capped the afternoon by getting her face painted.

We also got a taste of times to come with Mikaela’s schedule this month. Dance on Monday afternoon, Wednesday evening Theater, Thursday late-afternoon swimming. Add in a Daisies meeting and/or field trip and short work trips for me on back to back weeks, and I’m starting to think we need a family appointments secretary to keep up with it all.

Just before Passover, Jonathan introduced us to his pals, Soggy and Nat. Who are Soggy and Nat, you may ask? They are his right and left foot, respectively. Perhaps most interesting of all, we were informed that Soggy and Nat live in California. We let Jonathan know that they were welcome to stay for as long as they wanted to visit. Jon also added a new “friend” to his stuffed animal collection – a long-neck dinosaur that Jonathan dubbed “Cargo”. As you’ll learn in another post, Cargo is a remarkably spiritual stuffed animal.

February was a busy month, and once again I fell way behind on my blogging. It started with Mikaela’s debut as a Junior Dazzler. She attended a clinic put on by the Blue Valley Northwest Dance Team, the Dazzlers. After the clinic, she got to perform at halftime of a girls basketball game. She met some nice kids, and the high school girls who ran the clinic were great with her. Next up was the Cottonwood Point Elementary School Daddy-Daughter dance. We missed the dance last year, because Mikaela was sick, so Mikaela was really looking forward to this year. We had a good time – Mikaela even danced with me a bit before abandoning me to dance with her friends.

Mikaela and Jonathan helped Miriam make hamantaschen for Purim. Jonathan wore his dinosaur costume to the CDC Purim celebration on Friday, and was excited to wear it again to Beth Torah’s Purim service on Sunday morning.

But for some reason, once we got to Beth Torah, he didn’t want to wear it any more. Mikaela reveled in getting to dress like a princess in public, and readily joined in with the parade of princesses during the Purimshpiel. Jonathan looks forward to going to Beth Torah on Sunday mornings most weekends now. He has his own routine – get his bagel with cream cheese, go to services, hang out a bit, then go on in to babysitting to play with his friend Emma and watch a video.

January closed out with the Beth Torah Chili-Cook off. Mikaela helped – some with the making of the chili itself, more with the shtick behind the chili. The video linked above is what Mikaela refers to as her “cooking show,” where she described (basically) how to make my chili. Her video got rave reviews from Chili Cook-Off attendees – I had it set up and running on my MacBook right next to where I was serving samples of the chili. At the Cook-Off itself, both Mikaela and Jon spent most of their time playing games. We came home with two cakes and a plate of cookies froma the cake walk, and more small prizes and candy than a bad-weather Halloween haul, thanks to the “fishing” game that Jonathan did over and over and over again.

I know, I know – this is LONG overdue. But by way of catching up, December was a crazy month. Right after celebrating Jonathan’s birthday, Chanukah started, then it was Miriam’s birthday and the Winter Break from school. In the midst of all of that, we went through several weeks of the four of us taking turns being sick – bottom line is that blogging got pushed aside. I’m trying to get caught up today.

Chanukah was nice. We got to enjoy the full range of celebrations. We celebrated at home, with just the four of us. We did the annual big-family celebration at Rick & Teresa’s house. We invited our neighbors from across the street, the Alexanders, to join us for one night. And we concluded Chanukah at Grandma Marcia & Zaydie Larry’s house. While it was fun, it was also busy – it seemed we were always on the move.

Right in the middle of Chanukah, we also celebrated Miriam’s birthday. December featured a great snowstorm for sledding and playing in the snow. Oh, and a less-than-pleasant discovery that when wind blows snow sideways, it finds its way up into our house vents (and leaves water damage on nearby ceilings.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We had the largest Thanksgiving Feast yet at Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry’s house – I believe the final count was 28. We were served by the biggest turkey yet too – a full 30 pounds of Thanksgiving bird. It was great that so many out-of-town-based relatives were able to join us – Grandma Sali and Grandpa Steve from Montana, Corey, Monique and Annie from Chicago, Steph from Springfield, and Jeff and Brandi from Houston. Both the food and the company were great!

Now, if the Jayhawks can just pull off a victory over the Tiggers this afternoon . . .