The Boy Likes to Sing

Nashville

My trip to Nashville went very smoothly. I arrived early Saturday afternoon, killed a couple of hours by walking around Vanderbilt University's campus and the nearby Centenniel Park with its replica of the Parthnon (complete with a huge statue of Athena), hung out in my hotel room for a bit before getting cleaned up, saw my friend Leah get hitched, went back to the hotel to sleep (well, not really - I never sleep well on that first night away from home - so I ended up tossing and turning before finally getting up at 6:15 - UGH!), saw another friend Paul Saboe and his wife on Sunday morning, then headed back to the airport to await my flight home. This was where the only snag in the whole trip came in (other than the not even being able to sleep in on my first night away from Jonah!): my flight was delayed by two hours due to thunderstorms in DC. All in all, it was a nice trip.

And Josh admirably managed to take care of Jonah all by himself for the weekend!

We're All Still Here......

It's just been rather busy around here, even though Jonah has been out of school for the past three weeks. I never knew we could do so much in such a short amount of time, or just how quickly the time can pass when you're constantly on the go.

While Jonah is out of school, I'm only working two full days a week. So on the three days of the working week when I'm home with him, we have an activity lined up for each day. On Monday, we have a Gymboree music class that Jonah really seems to be enjoying (you ought to hear him belting out songs when he's at home, or on the bus, or in the car, or just about anywhere - it's a riot!). On Wednesdays, we have his JW Tumbles gymnastics class, which he has loved ever since we started there last August. And on Thursdays, we have an art class through Color Me Mine called Paint Me a Story, which involves reading a story and then painting a ceramic that pertains to the story and is then glazed and fired during the week to be presented back to the kids at the following class. We've been going to the pool a couple of times a week, I've been trying to grow tomatoes and cucumbers in our back yard where we've also been battling a couple of bee/wasp nests, I'm trying to get into some sort of workout pattern by doing Tae Bo at home while Jonah naps, we've taken Jonah to an ear/nose/throat doctor who we think has finally put us on the right track of solving the mystery of Jonah's chronic morning cough (she thinks it might be reflux so she's put him on Zantac, and it seems to be helping), Josh got a crown on one of his teeth, and we took a trip to Pittsburgh for Josh's 35th birthday.

While up in the Pittsburgh area with Josh's family, we went to the Butler County Fair for the Fourth, which for those in the know know is Josh's birthday (I've always been jealous of that - he gets fireworks and a day off from work every year for his b-day - I don't know anybody else who has that luxury!) Above is a picture of Josh and Jonah going down the giant slide at the Fair. Jonah just loves those giant slides - he could go up and down those things over and over and over!

We stayed at the Fair to watch the fireworks, which was really nice for me. I happen to be a person who loves the big fireworks displays. Josh could care less if we see any fireworks, but I love them, and I think Jonah may take after me. It was obviously a late night for Jonah, and he was beginning to fall asleep right before the display began, but once things got started he perked right up and was riveted for the whole thing. He was so cute with his little "Ooooh"'s and "Wow!"'s and "It's a giant!". Finally, I have a fellow fireworks lover to go and enjoy the displays with! :)

The weekend after the Fourth, Josh and I took a date night to go and see a soccer game, DC United vs. Guadalajara, a game that was part of the SuperLiga tournament, which is a match-up of Mexican and American professional soccer teams. This was actually my Father's Day gift to Josh (I'd bought the tickets and presented them to him last month). DC lost, and that was rather disappointing, but it was a fun game. It was especially intriguing and a little disturbing to be in a stadium where there were more people rooting for the away team than the home team! I'm sure that at a normal MLS game these same folks would be rooting for DC, but not on that night!

This past weekend, we took Jonah to the National Air and Space Museum. Given his love of the solar system and the stars, we'd been wanting to take him to a planetarium and finally took the opportunity to do so. We saw a show about black holes, narrated by Liam Neeson. Jonah was absolutely enthralled! Above is a picture of him looking at a display of the planets and naming every single one.

This coming weekend will mark my first overnight trip without Jonah. A dear friend from college is getting married in Nashville, and it was going to be too expensive for all of us to fly out for just the weekend, so I'm going solo. I'll only be gone for a little over 24 hours, but it will still feel a little strange to not have a little guy to cuddle for a few minutes that night and then walk into the bedroom in the morning to wake me up. Oh my gosh, I'll actually be able to sleep in! What a concept! What sheer indulgence! Just wait, I bet my body will probably wake me up at 6:30 on the nose, and I won't be able to fall back to sleep. Any takers?!