For Chris B.

Singing all the time

Terrible two's? Ha! Nothing terrible is going on around here! Our little guy is getting so grown up. He loves to sing songs and make up new songs about what he's doing. During breakfast he sang a little ditty about "Claireball, Claireball." (Our nickname for Clara). He also likes to sing a song we heard on TV about a singing bologna sandwich and one about washing his hands.

I would say that Jude's current favorite album is I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers, but he's a big fan of his Yo Gabba Gabba album, Big Bang Boom, and Barenaked Ladies. Also, hearing Jude say, "Barenaked Ladies" is worth a chuckle. It comes out, "bare....kjgijrigrgj...ladies."

We are currently looking around for a little nylon stringed guitar for him to play around on. He really wants to strum Jon's mandolin when Jon is playing guitar, but it's a little too nice for Jude to play with.

Jude is, as ever, loving books. His current favorites are The Lorax, Wild Boars Cook, and Rhyming Dust Bunnies. He's beginning to get pretty interested in Green Eggs and Ham, but our copy is actually Huevos Verdes con Jamon from my days as a Spanish teacher. I don't know how much he understands, but he sure enjoys the rhyming! Speaking of Spanish, Jude is learning to count to 10 in the language, but most of the time he stops at six unless we sing it in a song.

We're still playing around with the potty training. We have a potty in the living room, and Jude goes after his bath. The rest of the day, we just let Jude tell us if he needs to go and he gets stickers for going, trying, and washing his hands. We're going to save the actual training for closer to 27 months. We're hoping to get a good start in before the holidays strike.

We're not really sure how the holidays are going to go this year with a potty training toddler, 2 old cars, 2 pugs that will need to be kenneled or towed with us, and Jon in the midst of a job search that could possibly lead to a move for us. I'll be glad when we can finally buy a newer car. That is definitely what we will be saving for when I am out of school and working. We thought we would buy one in the spring of '09, but then the house didn't sell and the dog almost died, so we continue to patch things up. I'm hoping that our next move leads us to a place where we can settle for a bit and get our feet underneath us again and lay down a few roots. I wouldn't say that our next stop will necessarily be our forever home, but I look forward to not having closets full of boxes that I can't unpack. Jude loves to play outside and I love to garden and Jon loves to cook what comes out of the garden, so we'll be looking for a place with a yard.

At times I feel like we're in a holding pattern, circling our final destination. I'm so happy we're in it together with Jude's sweet little voice singing to us the whole way.