Last night I was checking out a Thomas the Tank Engine website that I plan to order Jonas’ birthday present from. Jonas is very enthusiastic about these toy trains. He frequently (like every hour of the day) asks me to go to Barnes and Noble so he can play with the huge train set they have there. He also likes to look at the toy trains online. Whenever he wants to see them he tugs on my arms and asks, “Choo-Choo? Choo -Choo? Choo-choo choo choo choo chooooooooo,” until I either take him to the store or look them up online, or go crazy from the incessant choo-chooing.

Jonas has started adding new phrases to his small vocabulary, much to our amusement. As I was looking at the little engines online Jonas saw a set he liked and out of no where exclaimed,
“I WANT IT!”

Both Chris and I were like, “whoa, where did that come from?” He has said the word want before, but never very clearly. So we had some fun with it. We made a little wishlist at the site I was shopping at and put everything Jonas really wanted on the list ( umm, yeah, he won't be getting everything on the list because my birthday budget simply isn't that extravagant). I would have thought that being two, he would have said he wanted everything, but he is actually a very discerning train connoisseur. Not all toy trains are created equal, apparently.


I guess these three are really awesome,


but this last one, well that set just stinks, according to Jonas.

This new vocabulary was all well and good until we went to Target an hour later. I think Jonas wants the whole store delivered to our house. He yelled I want it at almost everything he saw. He has been on a no treats ban for almost a month because I was hoping he would learn to deal with the fact that he doesn’t get a treat every time we go somewhere. I can’t afford it and he doesn’t need it. He has gotten better about dealing with me saying no, so that is good. He actually did pretty well when I made him put back 98% of what he was grabbing, especially for a kid who had skipped his nap. At the checkout he hopped out of the cart and grabbed all of the hotwheels cars off of the impulse buy rack by the checkout counter and started putting them on the counter. He didn’t see me put them all back, but I think he did wonder where they were when we got home.

Babies have such tiny nails!

I've been reading a lot about the new Pope lately, and while I really don't care one whit or another, it strikes me as odd that people are offended by the fact that he plans no sweeping change to the current views on issues such as abortion, birth control, homosexuality, women priests, etc.

I'm not Catholic, but as far as I can see, when you ascribe to a set of religious beliefs that you consider to be God's Word, or God's Holy Law, why would you expect it to change? Christianity is based on the premise that God is infalliable. His word does not change and is never wrong and if it were so, He would cease to be God. In Catholiscim, the Pope speaks for God. So, with liberal Catholics calling for change, one would have to surmise that, in their hearts, God has ceased to be God. They have become Master of their own lives, instead of submitting to God's will. They just feel insecure about moving on from it, and hope to have the Papacy say that what they are doing is ok, so they can do what they want in good conscience and still be aligned with the Catholic church.

Now, I really don't care what the Catholic church says or does, or what your opinion is on the hot topics, and if it is morally or ethically wrong or right. I know the hot topics are pretty hot and spark a lot of controversy. I just think that if you are going to be Catholic, then be Catholic. Live your religion. If you don't agree with several things that your religion feels strongly about, find a new faith. The point of religion isn't to have it bend to your will; it is about bending to the will of a supreme being.

I also don't understand how you can be a liberal or conservative proponent of any faith. I haven't seen many religions that say, "well, you could do this and be more righteous, but you don't have to so, you know, whatever you want to do, that's just fine." You either are or you aren't. You live it, or you don't. Perfection isn't neccesary, but all of your effort is.

I have the utmost respect for any individual who truly lives their religion, regardless of their faith. Being wishy washy never benefitted anyone. Decide who you are and be it. If you are Catholic, then I would assume that would include living by the Catholic church's official stance on things. I know some Christians feel that what they have currently is the best they have found so far, even if they don't 100% believe everything that faith teaches. If that is the case, call yourself the broader definition. Be simply Christian, or if you really don't know, call yourself agnostic, and admit that you don't know. There is no shame in that.

Do you remember the plant my husband fell in love with a few weeks ago? The one I thought was a jasmine bush, perhaps? It’s not.

I was browsing through the BX garden center today shopping for a clematis when I spotted a very small plant that had flowers exactly like the big twiggy plant I had at home. The plant Chris bought didn’t come with any instructions so I really had no idea if I should put in it sun or shade or if it had any weird preferences. I was itching to get my hands on an identification tag, so imagine my delight at spotting the plant again. I grabbed the tag, flipped it over, and lo and behold. . .

It’s a grapefruit tree! I busted up laughing right in the middle of the garden center. My husband was enchanted by the lovely blooms of a grapefruit tree. It does explain why it smelled so good. It also explained why the darn flowers kept falling off; I was getting really skeeved about that. Well, when you are growing fruit, that’s a good thing. This whole time we figured it was a shrub or a vine of some sort. The word TREE hadn’t crossed my mind.

At any rate, the tree went back to the store. I didn’t think it was going to be happier much longer in a pot. We live on an Air Force base, and they have crazy rules about what you can and can’t plant and you can’t plant trees without special permission. (Not that we have enough yard to plant one in to begin with.)

My poor husband. I could tell he was bummed. He really liked the grapefruit tree. We did about ten laps around the garden center hoping something would strike his fancy (and like being in the shade). I finally talked him into a blue hydrangea. I know he will like it when it blooms. How can you not like a hydrangea?

I just spent the past two hours putting together a yummy chicken soup. It smelled really good. All the vegetables were just right, so I added the noodles. Ten minutes later all of the juice has boiled out of the soup and it's all burnt and nasty and sticking to the bottom of the pan. So, basically eight dollars down the drain. I swear I'm going to just start eating out. This is depressing.

I have had a few very blah days. I’m extra tired and extra short tempered. Jonas has been my personal tornado, ripping up the house and making a lot of noise. He is such a boy. In many ways I have given birth to my little brother. He pokes and climbs all over me. He blows raspberries in my face and licks my arm just to be weird. I didn’t like it when I was growing up and it isn’t all that exciting now either.

In many ways I feel very trapped by Jonas right now. He is so boisterous that he is hard to take places. His fits are long and loud. He can also just about outrun me, so he is very good at getting away from me.

About a week ago I took the kids to Barnes & Noble. Jonas was standing two feet from me when he looked at me, said “be right back,” and took off down the stacks. I had Maggie in the baby carrier so I couldn’t move as fast as I usually do. I thought he went back to the DVDs ( he had just finished throwing a fit over an insanely overpriced Mickey Mouse DVD, so it was a good guess), but he wasn’t there. A salesgirl asked me if I was looking for anything in particular and I said, “Yes, a little boy with a green shirt and khaki shorts.” So she helped me search from him.

I tried very hard not to worry. After about two minutes and a full lap around the store they did a Code Adam and all of the employees dropped what they were doing and looked for him. It took five minutes, my panic level rising every second he was missing, before an employee found him in the women’s restroom.

As soon as they got him back to me another lady, sixty-ish, greying hair, purple tweed jacket, came out of the bathroom and chewed me out because Jonas had been peeking under the stalls. I apologized for him and she just went on and on. I finally said, “He’s two, ma’am.” After a few more remarks about me watching my child, ( I was watching him! I watched him run away while I was too slow to catch him!) Then departed. Many other mother’s saw this exchange and said things to the effect of “ignore her, she’s crazy,” But it still stung.

On the up side, if he was busy peeking under stalls (probably looking for me) he wasn’t being abused by some creepy person.

Anyway, I now hesitate to take him anywhere. It is driving him and me crazy.

Each of my children have a special lullaby that I sing to them. I didn’t really plan what their songs would be, they just came about naturally. Jonas’ song that I sing him is “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You”. It isn’t really a lullaby, or even a song for an infant, but the lyrics fit so well, “Baby, now that I’ve found you, I’ll build my world around you, I need you so. . .Baby, baby, when first we met, I knew in this heart of mine, you were someone I couldn’t forget.” There is nothing like your first child, when you are so newly thrust into motherhood, to change you, to make you completely revamp your life and re-prioritize. With Jonas, my life went in an instant from being all about me to being all about him. And I mean that in the best sense. Motherhood didn’t cause a loss of self- just a discovery of a new, better self, like suddenly reaching Nirvana. Everything that mattered became clear. I build my world around my family because I really don’t think it gets any better than this.

Maggie’s song is “Baby, Let Me Take You Dreaming,” from the old musical The Court Jester. (If you haven’t seen this movie, well, that’s a shame. It is completely hilarious and wonderful in every way. Go watch it. Seriously, stop reading this entry and go watch it right now. Come back later.) This song is an actual lullaby, sung to the infant king. It is very beautiful and soothing, (In the movie Danny Kaye sings it.) Some of the lyrics go as follows, “and someday, when you go dreaming, when you’re very old, when your crown is rich with rubies, diamonds laid in gold, none will shine as bright, as the stars we find, tonight.” The song focuses so much on how this particular moment, through the rain watching the stars, is so perfect and wonderful. That is how I feel with Maggie. I am not in a hurry for her to grow up. With Jonas I was so achievement oriented, when will he sit up, when will he run, etc. With Maggie, I just cherish every moment. I know this is where I want to be. This is the sweetest part of life. I don’t want her to rush to get big. I want her as she is now; I know it will slip away much too quickly.