Jonas the Ornithologist

Jonas is becoming quite the avid bird watcher. His favorite bird is a Blue Jay, which is fortunate because there is a tree visible from our yard the is teeming with them most days. He likes to draw birds, especially interesting new sightings.
Today he spotted what may or may not be a Yellow Warbler. He saw it perched on a Black Eyed Susan in our neighbor's yard. He described it to me with such enthusiasm; as if it were a new ship in the Lego Mars Mission series. We set off at once to Google his findings. It seems that is was indeed a female Yellow Warbler, though it's somewhat late in the season for spotting them, I'm not sure what else it could be. He was pretty insistent that it was not anything like the other yellow birds that came up. We referenced our Birds Of Ohio library book, and the description matched well enough to satisfy him.

In the end it was decided that I got carried away and embarrassed him with my excitement, but that he would like to have a book to record his findings. Good thing I'm headed to Boarder's tonight anyway.

The impregnable cuteness of a girl in pigtails

There's something troublesome about how I feel when my kids look cute. It doesn't seem fair that if they sneak ice cream with sticky fingers, dirty faces, and a frumpy too small/too big combination of clothes that they picked out themselves and have since rolled in dead fish and mud puddles (or so it would seem) I am much less likely to let it slide as when they look cute to me. I am much less prone to loosing my temper and being snippy with them when they look more appealing. Is this my biology at work, the reason babies come out adorable with big eyes and helpless expressions and such, or is it something sinister? Should I feel guilty to acknowledge this phenomenon and use it to my (truly their) advantage? Perhaps I could purpose my perception to be always the same, or just better master my impulses so as to appear unbiased.

In truth I think this is fine and reasonable and unchangeable. But it does still worry me that I can feel so very different about this same little creature depending on the presentation. It's human nature to be sure, but that's doesn't mean I like it.

Jonas funny

"...Person, person, zombie"  ....  "no no, it's 'perons, person, zombie' then you get up and zombie-chase me around...."

omg I'm dying of laughter!  This is what I hear from the other room.  Jonas is appearntly instructing three sweet little girls in his new made up game.  I think it's "duck, duck, goose!" revised.  he's been talking about "duck, duck, goose!" a lot, so I'm not surprised, but this is indeed a new take on it.

Boxes and Babies

So we're moving in 2 days, just a few streets away.  A bigger, nicer, much higher rent house than we live in now.  It should be wonderful over all.  Nice big fenced in back yard, dishwasher, 4 bedrooms, yada yada yada.  You can read about it on my blog about me, along with the stolen car debacle.  
At any rate, the house over there is not yet ready for us, and my house over here is not yet ready to be moved.  After all, I still have to live here and take care of children here.  I broke down Jonas' room (since he doesn't use it for anything but lego building) and started packing and piling boxes in there.  It's hard to decipher what things we need to live here for a few days and what we don't.  I'm still not sure.  I'm confidant that there are many things I should be packing, but I'm not sure what they are.

Lavinia seem overly excited about the move and has woken in the night and done strange things the past few nights, many of which include peeing in my bed.  Lovely.
Jonas talks about it a lot, but I think I've discussed it all enough with him that he's handling it all very well, aside from being high strung and more aggressive than usual.  We haven't actually changed very much yet, so I still expect transition anxiety and post move insanity - in all parties.

Come to think of it, I should get up off my ass and start packing again.....

Egghead

Lavi's been carrying around this uncooked real egg for about an hour.  I can't get her to put it down.  She's professed her love for it (what's going on around here with that?) and how much she wishes her mother would cook it for her.  I can't stop giggling.  She's been known to do this before, but this is just over the top.

Baby Love

Jonas:  "Don't you know we love taking care of babies?"



Sniff sniff.... Have you ever heard anything sweeter? He said this moments ago and I came cyber-running here to document it. He really does, too. He said this gem to his rollie pollie baby girl friend who we watch twice a week. He looks forward to her. It's adorable to see this rough tough and seemingly insensitive and empathy-less big grown up guy simply melt over this little squish. You wouldn't even believe it.







p.s. yes yes I know I've been MIA for far too long.  Shame on me.

Loose Tooth!

Jonas has had a loose tooth for a while now, maybe two weeks?  Maybe less.  He has talked of little else since it's discovery, and he's been vigilant about wiggling it and keeping me posted about it's progress.

On Saturday he was with my sister and he called me and said "I wanted to tell you that my Tooth came out.  The wiggly one.  I was wiggling it and suddenly I noticed that it was actually not connected anymore.  It just came out.  How much money do you think the toothfairy will bring me?!"  *sniff*  My baby is growing up!  Using his big words and everything.

Zoo

So, we went to the zoo a week or so ago when I had a friday off.  Of course, we didn't make it there until after 3pm even though we theoretically had all day to get there.  I don't know what that's about, but mornings and even early afternoons suck all our time up.  Don't try to hang out with us before 2pm, you'll be sorely dissapointed.

 


 We went with our friends Anna, Aleks and Sebastian, of course.  Here we are checking out the seemingly uninteresting ground below.  If we are up we must look down; it's always good to get a different perspective, I guess.



 This is a capybara, which is the world's largest rodent.  This giant guine pig and you've about got the idea.  There was a small farm a within walking distance of my house, growing up, that had capybaras.  They seem like such sweet, strange animals.  



Behind him is an Giant Anteater.



 There were two Anteaters, and though they mostly just paced back and forth, they had quite a bit of personality, I thought.



 I think, here, the kids are looking at some big, leopard looking fishing cat.  They were really climbing and wild this day.  The kids, that is, not the cat. It just sat there looking bored.  



Ah, yes, the Francios Monkeys.  I have mentioned these before.  I have only ever seen them doing this strange behaviour.  These are a french monkey, and I think Anna said it best, "They would not have looked odd drinking espresso and smoking cigarettes."  The females just laid there with their butts in the male's face while he groomed her, at least, we think that's all they were doing.  It was kind of sketchy, to be honest.  



Who's child is that?  Certainly that is not my little boy!  Look how grown up he is.  This is killing me, I swear he was just my tiny baby a minute ago.  They're checking out the otter.  They all kept running way over here to see the otter, which would have been fine if they'd all done so together.  



While Aleks and Lavinia ran off to visit the otter (and Anna ran after them) me and Bastian and Jonas got cozy with the male Orangutan.  



Actually, he got cozy with us!  He came right over to Jonas and Bastian and started showing them his orange peel he was chewing on.  It was really cool!



 He is 22 years old and the only male with a whole bunch of females.  There was also a baby, of which I think he is the father.  It was really interesting to watch them interacting with eachother.  There was one point where a younger looking female came over to him and started dropping sticks and leaves on him.  Once she got his attention she started walking around and bending over.  The bending over part was pretty graphic and made me feel really bade for her and this whole zoo situation.  Poor thing had to have giddy teenage girls laughing at her being a normal Orangutan.



 This is a snake necked turtle.  They're real cool because he'll just be swiming around looking like a normal turtle and then all of the sudden out pops this long neck!  Like a jack in the box.  



A corcodile!  



We loved the Corcodile.  It was neat to walk along side it.  










A little freaky, actually.



 The snapping turtle was swiming with the croc.  He looked like he could hold his own, too.  



Anna nursing Bastian infront of those silly Francois Monkeys.

Super Heroes

Jonas drew batmanesque belts paired with backless bras on himself and his sister.  They were some form of super heroes, I never really got the whole story, but when I asked about the bra looking things Jonas replied
"They're for our booooooobs!  So they don't flap around while we fly and chase bad guys!"
 I said "Oh, of course they are.  But you don't have boobs, so you don't have to worry about flapping, do you?"  He looks at me as if I'm dumb as dirt and says "Yeah, but it's pretend.  We don't really fly, either."  Well excuse me.  Then he pointed at his nipples and said "boobieeeees!!!" ...but, ya know, I'm the silly one.

Meeka vs. Bear

I was sitting at the computer, wasting time, when Lavinia's playing caught my ear. Her toys were having a tiff, and wrestling. Then the little chipmunk ("Meeka") told the bear how the fighting made her feel, which happened to be "Yucky and sadly", and the bear said he didn't want her to feel that way.  Then they hugged and made up, and ran off to play that they were fairy princesses again.

Robots

Here's some action figures that Jonas is designing.



  They are robots, and have life points assigned to them in a video game manner, and can move in specific ways when you give commands.



  They are meant for battling.




We had to leave these set up over night because they are so very important.  In the morning he let me put them away after he took pictures of them.  He's very proud of them.

Pacman

Jonas played Pacman at Oma's house with Joy, and ever since he's been a little obsessed with it. Right now our dinning room looks like a pacman art gallery. Before he hung them all over the walls I snapped a few shots of his favorites.

Rice Cooker and Casio Piano

For lunch today we had beans and rice.  Jonas is usually fascinated by the rice cooker.  I can't blame him, it is pretty cool.  So we read the instructions and learned how it works and explored it a little.  We found out that this springy mechinism senses when the water has apsorbed or evaporated and the turns off the heat.


 
Also, note the cute shirt on Jonas and plate on the table. I've found a new obsession with thrifting. I kind of figured that was inevitable, however, not what this post is about.



After lunch Jonas got out his Casio electric piano and rocked out...



....Old school.  

Making art

Making messy art.  Both of their drawings are getting much clearer and more detailed.  It's amazing how they suddenly gain a skill or become perficient were they were "struggling" before in what seems like overnight.

Lavi Visits An African Savannah

We read about what kinds of animals are typically found in the African Savannahs, and what a Savannah is.  Then Lavinia decided to go to one.



I like that on Lavi's Savannah all the animals are friends and introduce each other with the politeness of a tea party.

Fight. Pose. Dance.

Jonas is getting really into music and dancing. He's particular about the music he listens to, and when he hears a song he likes he's quick to let us know. "Oh man, I love this song!" is a commonly heard phrase lately. Most of the Beatles' Abby Road album is what does it for him, with some Regina Spektor and Kings of Leon mixed in. A specific favorite is Modest Mouse's Black Cadillacs. He's clearly heavily influenced by me, but I think that's reasonable at this point. Frankly, I don't know where else kids his age hear music, if not from their parents. Oh right, the Disney channel, and possibly MTV. But I digress.

He likes to dance to the music he likes, as do we all. His dancing, unlike his taste in music, resembles nothing he's seen from me. It's a cross between karate, modeling, and that crazy leg kicking dance done by Elaine from Seinfeld.



I will return with evidence of this act.

Well, this is the best I could come up with:

Spaceship

Here you see a spaceship.



Lavinia is demonstrating how to operate the spaceship.
She tells me it takes three people to operate the spaceship. She is embarrassed that she's the only one flying it anymore. It was pretty impressive with all of them working it, but, of course, they dissipated by the time I got the camera and came back. Imagination happens too fast to capture sometimes.

Drawings

Lately our walls are literally covered in the exceptional art that has been made and hung by Jonas and Lavinia.



 Well, mostly Jonas, and they mostly depict video games (this is lego's dino attack!),


 or are instructions on how to build his imagined lego sets,

 or his design for action figures.

  Though, some of them just tell a story, al beit a violent one.

Lavinia's Puppy

Lavinia does not have a puppy.  I swear!  She thinks otherwise, unfortunately.  She tells people in the grocery store about her puppy "a-name-a-Isis."  "what?" they ask, because what she just said was unintelligable.  She repetes this giberish again, more slowly this time, and they just look at me.  "The puppy's name is Isis, and it's not her's."
Why does she insist that this dog belongs to her when there is no evidence to support this idea, you might ask.  That's simple: because Rachel said so. That's right, this is Rachel's giant, incontinent Great Dane puppy.  When Lavi met her she asked Rachel if she could have it and Rachel told her that she could but it would live at Rachel's house.  Most children would forget about this little fib, but not Lavinia!

Here's Isis as a new pup.  She's about four times this size now, no joke.








This was just before xmas, I think.



Oh and that's Oliver.  He's huge now, too.