tfl: The Flatiron Life

Continuing my trend of posting some photos that got past me last year, I have a set from Jonah’s 2nd birthday party.

Jonah is very blessed to have a healthy and active great grandma around.  We are trying to get him to call her “Oma”, which is colloquial German.  This picture of Jonah and his Oma is my favorite one of the set.  I also like this one of him in the middle of the action because that is how I remember birthdays as a child.

One of the great things about not having cable TV is that we would have to work at watching political theater.  This means I have a time to finally tag some photos for Christmas.

Asleep on Mommy, originally uploaded by flatiron32.

We, The Tomaws, are expecting baby number two in August. I am coming up to the end of my first trimester and my belly seems to think I’m six months pregnant. Perfect strangers feel comfortable congratulating me, so it’s hardly practical to keep it a secret any longer.

It was difficult to find an appropriate picture for this post, but this one took me right back to the early days with Jonah; The days when our lives began to change for good. Looking back, I don’t even know how we used to fill our time. I know we used to consider ourselves busy people, but how was that even possible?

Things were tough and very overwhelming in the beginning. Jonah was not the easiest infant, but slowly he grew and each day got a little easier and now he’s this awesome little person who talks to us. Asside from his weird aversion to eating food, Jonah is a piece of cake now. This can mean only one thing. It’s time to start over.

IMG_1820, originally uploaded by flatiron32.

This is Jonah and his friend Nathan dressed as sheep for our church’s Christmas pageant. These costumes are adorable and ingenious. The babies mostly thought they looked hilarious and didn’t try to undress themselves at all, which is impressive for a bunch of two-year-olds. The little lambs didn’t end up getting much stage time and since Jacob helped guide them, it mostly looked like he was standing at the front of the church in his bathrobe for no reason. The parents were happy, though, and that is what matters.

Last Fall on what tuned out to be the last warm weekend, we went for a walk in the South part of Indian Road Woods, part of the Cook County Forest Preserves.  Here you can find a few other photos that I took of Jonah.

With Jonah turning 2 last month, it was time to transition Jonah into bed.  The crib we have is a “4-in-1“.  Only 2 of those 4 really make sense, nonetheless we wanted a crib like this so we could convert it to a bed of sorts.

Saturday was set as the day of transition.  After first nap, I broke out the Allen Wrench, took off the drop side of the crib, and installed the side guards.  Jonah was very excited and was ready to pretend nap in it with Pooh.

However when it came time for second nap, he needed more convincing than normal that a nap was a good idea.  Eventually he talked himself down.

Things got interesting at bath time though. When Joscelynn undressed him in the bathroom, he bolted out of there and ran straight for his bad and jumped in.  It was as if he had always wanted to sleep in bed naked and he was finally going to do it.

We coaxed him back to the bath and the night went normally.  The last couple of days have also gone well.  He needs to be a little more tired than what was normal for a nap.  I don’t think he knows he can get out of bed without permission, so he will stay in bed trying to convince us to come get him and eventually talks himself down.

I have expect to find him on the floor in the morning.  Either because he got up to play and then went back to bed or because, like his father, he is a faller.  I fell out of bed up to an age that is embarrassing.  I remember falling out of bed in “my room” in Flat Iron long after if was mine but before the divorce, so at least I was 5 or 6.  I think Jonah’s transition is going better.  When we travel and he sleeps in our room, I have not noticed him tossing and turning a lot.

So, congratulate Jonah the next time you see him and enjoy these pictures.

After traveling around west-central Indiana for Christmas and up to Michiana for New Year’s, we are happy to be settled back at home.  Everything is unpacked, but there is a little bit of packing that needs to be done.  We are trying to institute a one toy in, one toy out policy.  By my count, Jonah got 10 toys and so we need to send 10 toys down to the basement for either future use by future children or for a rummage sale.

This morning, Church was a nice reset for the beginning of a normal week and Jos and I hope we can quickly get back into the rhythm of work.  Jonah seems to already made it back into the rhythm of sleeping in his own bed.  However he has grown very used to having his mommy at his beck and call, and it will be interesting to see how he does with Megean tomorrow.

I will not make any promises about posting pictures, all about our travels, or even just more this year than last.  I always fail when I promise to blog.  What I would like to promise, but will not because I will fail if I do promise it, is to be more consistent.  Maybe that is posting weekly, maybe that is every time I think of something clever.  What I know it is not is meeting the goal of everyday I have had for a few years.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I was just reading about Bible Reading Plans and one of them is the Bible in chronological order.  As an example the description states, “Job lived sometime after the beginning of creation (Genesis 1) but before Abraham was born (Genesis 12). As a result, the Book of Job is integrated into the Book of Genesis.”

Some how this placement of Job escaped me all these years.  I always assumed Job lived during the time of the judges because the theocratic government is not mentioned.  However, I missed that the priests are not spoken of either or that his tribe is not given.  Knowing that the story is set before Abraham makes it make a lot more sense to me.

However a bit more research at the Wikipedia shows that it is not a clear cut as this.  A Christian is always wise to consult a Rabbi when it comes to the Hebrew Bible and in the case of Job the Talmud is not 100% agreed on when Job is set, placing it as early as before Abraham to late as the time of Moses .   What is clear is that I was wrong and Job makes a lot more sense to me at any of the traditional Talmudic times.

A few weeks ago, Jonah got a hold of my camera and started taking some pictures.  The camera is nothing fancy.  It is just a point and shoot that I am not too worried about him braking.

I have given him the camera a couple more times to see if he can figure it out more.  He likes to look at things on the screen.  I am trying to help him figure out how to aim, but some of the random stuff he gets is interesting nonetheless.

Two years ago, this little coneheaded monkey was forced into the world.  I cannot believe it has only been two years.  He has grown so much and it seems like he has been the little boy we have now for a long time.

If you look through this set of photos you can see how much he has changed just this year, but it will not give you any information about how well he is developing in other ways.

• We have better and better conversations everyday.
• He knows the words for colors but does not know which colors they go with which word.
• We are on the verge of potty use.  He lets us know when he is going, but it is too late to do anything about it.
• He sits in a booster seat and mostly feeds himself.  It is only mostly because he still gets distracted easily and needs to be reminded he needs to eat.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  We just don’t focus on what he can do but are always looking forward to the next thing to teach him.  I loose track of how well he is doing today.

Happy Birthday, My Son.