I Want To Hold Your Hand

Fall weather is here and the winter coats have come out. I even found myself wearing gloves a few times. A few days ago I put on my gloves just before leaving for work and came over to the breakfast table to give goodbye kisses. Jonah looked at my hands with consternation. Something was clearly wrong with Daddy's hands. After staring for at least a minute he decided that he needed a closer inspection. I gave him my hand to look at which only served to increase his concern. Then, to totally blow his mind, I took off the glove. He was a little freaked out by the fact that I had just removed my hand but, after he saw my normal fingers underneath, he was relieved. I handed him the glove to inspect. He was a little frightened at first but that quickly turned to amusement when I put his hand inside. Jonah must have been thinking, "The world is a crazy place. Just after I think I have it all figured out Daddy goes and pulls off his hand and puts it on me."

Jonah is almost fully walking. He can take four or five steps before he falls down. That is really cute and developmentally fine but the part that troubles me is that he is a phenomenal climber. We had to move Sophie's step stool away from her chair by the dining room table because he climbed onto the table a few times. We have a futon next to our bed which he can easily climb to get onto our bed. But, for me, the coup-de-grace was when he used Genevieve's doll house to climb onto her bed. I was helping Sophie get dressed for the day when I heard the roof of the house clatter to the floor. This isn't an abnormal sound as Jonah is quite the little destructor, much like his sisters. Something, however, caught my attention; when I looked to where Jonah should be - he wasn't. Now, it wasn't hard to figure out where he went as I saw him pull his trailing leg off the attic of the house and proceed to crawl full tilt towards the head of the bed. We recently put bars over the windows in Genevieve's room to keep her and Sophie from falling out if they are bouncing on the bed. Now I'm considering putting them on all the windows.

Through the eyes of a child

Carrie recently joined a gym that has day care services. She drops Jonah and/or Sophie off for an hour while she exercises. It is your standard day care with some toys and lots of television. It seems they only play Disney movies which is certainly better than some other places. When G was 4, her nursery school showed the class Spider Man III. Neither she nor I were happy about that, but I digress.

Ever since Carrie joined the gym, Genevieve has been lamenting that she never gets to go. On election day, since schools were closed, Carrie took all three kids to the gym. Genevieve was sorely disappointed. Sure, she got to watch T.V. but there was no bounce house or trampolines to play on. This confused me for a bit until I realized that her only exposure to "gyms" was through birthday parties. In her mind, Sophie and Jonah have been going to birthday parties at a gymnastics school every week, sometimes twice a week. These places are fully equipped with bounce houses, trampolines, foam pits, and lots of other fun stuff. I wonder if she was expecting face painting too.

On an unrelated note Jonah has started singing recognizable songs. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? London Bridge? Bah Bah Black Sheep? All good choices but none correct. It is "Rockaway Beach" by the Ramones. If you start him off he will sing a bit of the chorus: "ock ock ockaway eeee" I think he picked it up from Sophie as it is currently her favorite song. Both girls sing it at the top of their lungs whenever they hear it. Carrie is trying to get a video of him singing it.