Category: Jonas

We were out in the front yard this morning, just tootling around…Jonas and Xander were playing with bubbles, and I had set up the water table for Roman. Pretty soon after, Roman found a big clump of mud on the driveway and squished his hands in it and then proceeded to smear it on both sides of his face and all over his chest. I’m talking Native American warrior here. He climbed up into the water table because he’s not much for just standing around, so I decided to just rinse him off a little bit with the water. Then, Jonas and Xander started grabbing dirt and mulch and leaves and flower blooms and dropping them all in the water table, complete with neon plastic frogs and snakes and lizards…a wooden spoon and a few plastic shovels later…and what do you have?!? Mud soup. Some days you just have to go with it, right?

The boys and I were a little stir crazy this morning, so we loaded up and went to the park. They are just all over the place, and it was great to get outside on such a beautiful morning (I can already feel hints of the fall weather coming…yay!!!) and let them burn off some of that little boy energy.

The boys and I drove out to Pratt’s Orchard this morning to pick peaches. We had so much fun and just love the experience of picking our own in-season fruit. We’re looking forward to making peach pie this afternoon.

We took the boys to the splash pad this afternoon, and we all had a blast. The water was cold, but it felt so good on such a hot day.
Roman was the first to run through the water…a lady stopped and asked me if he was the youngest of the three and marveled at his fearlessness for being so little. Jonas let loose after I went with him to ask another child if he could take a turn shooting one of the water guns. Xander, in keeping with the phase he’s going through this summer, decided to watch from the bench for a while before finally getting in (interestingly enough Jonas did the exact same thing when he was his age). He’s such a water dog at home, so it made my heart happy to see him finally getting out there and running around with his brothers in the water.

The boys and I drove out to Franklin this morning to go blackberry picking at Boyd Mill Farm. We went last year when Roman was about four months old…so, it was so sweet to see him walking up and down the rows of blackberry bushes, picking and eating anything he could get his little hands on AND to see Xander this year being the one who was more concerned about picking blackberries (“the black ones not the red ones”) than eating them. Jonas probably could’ve stayed there picking forever (don’t you love his head to toe camo?)…me too. We’re already looking forward to going back next year and to making blackberry cobbler this afternoon. I’m so grateful for the u-pick farms in our area that are so kid-friendly and to the farmers who allow children to participate in such a valuable experience!!!

The boys got to go to gymnastics class this week with our moms’ group while Lily was visiting with us. (There is no way I could have or would have done it without her.) Xander, who has been putting the breaks on most new situations lately, started bawling before we even walked in…sigh. Luckily (or unluckily), it’s been happening a lot recently so I’m getting a little quicker at letting go of my frustration…trying to remind myself that he’s just three, that he’s his own person asserting his own likes and dislikes, and that he’s a lot like me when I was a child (which you and I would think would automatically make me the queen of compassion when it comes to parenting him…however, I’m daily reminded of my tendency towards the exact opposite for some reason). Anyway, after all of the other moms and children spread out a little bit, I had a quiet moment to ask him which station he liked the best and wanted to try…he chose the tunnel to crawl through and perked up right away. By the end of the class, he was running around with red cheeks and sweat dripping down his face. HaHa!!! Here they all are having a blast: Jonas swimming in the pit of foam blocks, Xander doing the bear crawl on the low bars, and Roman standing on the cartwheel blocks.