The Update

My babies are growing up so fast.

Jonathan has started kindergarten this fall. He attends Riverside Christian School. He loves it. His teacher teaches each letter and uses a song to help them remember the sound of the letters. Talk about a teaching style just for Jonathan!!! Music is in his soul!!!!

Jonathan is also taking two classes of gymnastics. This is such a great time of exercise for my little man . . .he sure does sweat.

Today he is having a friend come over after school. His first school playdate. We are going to make cookies and hopefully play outside. Jonathan is excited!

Miss Julia is all about fashion. She changes her clothes several times a day. She has her own style . . .sometimes different than mine. I have bought clothes for her and have been told by my sweet daughter that she is not going to wear them . . .four going on thirteen. However, she is very good about putting her clothes back into her drawers . . . not neatly but she does clean up.

Julia and I have a problem . . .her gorgeous naturally waving locks. It apparently hurts her so badly to have it brushed or combed . . .with or without snarls. She literally screams bloody murder if I try and comb it. Many days I send her to preschool with snarly hair. It pains me because she could look so much more taken care of . . .groomed . . . oh, well. Cutting her hair short would not solve the problem it would just create more of a problem . . .why---her dad is against shorter hair!!! He loves her locks . . .mentioning that it doesn't look so bad snarly . . . because he is bald he thinks that it would be a crime to snip "Goldy's Locks." So----we will continue the screaming and the stress for now so that daddy po will have a daughter with long hair . . .Rapunzel must have had a really strong scalp.

Jocey Sue has a nickname we have given her . . ."Hot Dog." She has this name because of her on again off again unruly behavior. We could never call her a brat . . .how awful . . .but we thought hot dog is our is like a 'brot/brat" but not so severe. However the name has become an endearing nickname. We just love her . . .she is my cheeky monkey. She is confident- physically strong and impresses us by her athletic moves. She sings and dances (boy, does she have the moves . . .think shimmy, shimmy.) She also is talking in sentences . . . counting and answers questions.

Jocey loves playing with her siblings. Loves rough housing with Jonthan---jumping on the bed and wrestling. Playing mommy with Julia . ..basically following Ju Ju around. Jocey loves to snuggle and just recently gave up her greatest love of all . . . nursing. Yes, I nursed Jocey until she was 24 months . . . plus being pregnant. Don't tell Jocey but I miss nursing her, too. It gave her great comfort . . .tears are actually flooding my eyes thinking about being done nursing her. My strong sweet baby is two . . .this is another step on her journey in life.

I nursed Jonathan until he was 20 months . . .he could have nursed longer . . .his face was always so puzzled when I would nurse Julia . . .like I was doing "his thing" with the baby. Julia was 21 months. I remember the last time I nursed her was the first weekend in April of 2006. I could go on about what a sweet thing baby Julia was . . . heartbreaking to end something that they loved and depended on . . . however---both are semi-normal and are coping well with the lack of nursing in their lives. Jocey will also do great as well.

Our new baby is having a great time being knit together in my womb. I am 13 weeks pregnant and feeling better . . .not as much nausea.

Give Him Time

My Jonathan has been such a blessing to me. I remember holding him when he was first born and thinking about how Jesus must have looked to Mary . . .much like how amazing Jonathan looked to me. Really- I did think about baby Jesus when I was holding my precious baby boy. How thankful I am to God for giving me my son!

Jonathan has taken his time in almost everything he does except for eating sweets . . . he eats them fast like me!!!! Jonathan crawled at 13 months and walked at 17 1/2 months . . .these milestones seemed like they were never going to come. My friend's babies were rolling over on time, crawling on time and even walking on time. Not mine!!!! It was hard not to freak out. I was desperate to figure out how to get Jonathan to walk . . .no matter what I did he did not seem to be ready. Then one day . . . hallelujah . . . Jonathan decided to stand and take a few steps. I remember where we were and what he was wearing. We were in our church basement at a meeting and he was wearing his purple Viking's jersey. Those few steps were AMAZING to me . . . my eyes could hardly believe it!!!! T hose steps turned into more steps and soon he was walking full time . . . weeks away from turning 18 months.

Potty training also took him extra time . . .or atleast when I compared him to his friends. Believe me, comparing your child to another child is a waste of time. He did train---close to his fourth birthday. He basically did it himself . . .now BMs took extra time .. . but he uses the bathroom today and is not wearing diapers in Kindergarten.

We gave Jonathan another year to get ready for kindergarten. He is almost a head taller than all the kids in his class. He kind of looks like a first grader . . . he doesn't care. That extra year was actually what he needed. He is learning to identify his letters, sound out words such as "at, cat, pat, and tap", participating in class activities . . . .just having a good time . . .and he is learning.
Now I could start to worry that he might fall behind . . . but I am not!!! Jonathan Matthew time is different from the "rest" and he will do if we give him time.

Go Jon Jon!!!!