May 5

On this beautiful Thursday, Adam left early for a good friend's bachelor party in Key West. Once again, I tried to plan fun activities for each day so we wouldn't have too much time to be sad.

In the morning, Isaac's good friend Zack came to our house to play. These two boys would both rather play trains than just about anything, but they are on very different sleeping schedules. Zack had been up for hours when they arrived; Isaac had just rolled out of bed at 9:30. Zack showed up ready to play, while Isaac began an ear-splitting meltdown that lasted at least a good half hour. The reason, supposedly, was that he wanted me to come up and help him with his shirt, and I asked him to come downstairs instead. I think the real source of his emotional upheaval, however, was missing his dad once again. And once he calmed down, I found out that he'd been afraid for Zack and Shawn to see him with his shirt off. Coming from a kid who will strip off his underwear right in the front yard if we let him, I was a little surprised, but I explained that it's okay for boys to have their shirts off in front of other people.

Zack is such a good-hearted kid. He waited patiently for Isaac to calm down and play with him, and Isaac eventually took interest in what his friend was doing and started to smile again.

After that, they were best buddies, and the morning that had started with me wanting to strap a muzzle on Isaac ended with the three boys (it's never occurred to Jonah that anyone might exclude him) playing happily and enjoying a fun lunch and slow, observant walk together.

I hadn't had a chance to make any food, so we walked to Pasquini's for some pizza and pasta. Outside, Zack was exuberant and adorable, running up to Isaac and throwing his arms around him for a big hug and saying: "I love you Isaac!" Isaac hugged him back with a little smile on his face. Then Zack insisted on holding hands as we walked to the restaurant.

All the boys were starving. Isaac polished off his own plate of 4 enormous breadsticks, and then ate most of his spaghetti too. Jonah wanted spaghetti too. He was cranky when we first sat down, but it turned out he was just starving.



Here is Jonah after a full plate of spaghetti, the rest of Isaac's spaghetti, a breadstick and a third of my piece of pizza.

May 4: Peaceful Morning at Home

One quiet morning when I'd stepped into my office for a few minutes, I returned to the living room to find this adorable scene: two little blond boys in hats, taking turns pushing a doll stroller around the downstairs circuit.







Then Jonah started showing off for the camera:










Happy boys today.

April 27-30: Deedah and Babop

Isaac and I looked forward to my parents arrival like it was Christmas morning. They were here for a long weekend, and we got dinner at Ernie's the first night - pizza and microbrews for dinner, then a few rounds of skeeball. Adam took the boys to play while my parents and I finished eating, and they were an adorable sight when we caught up with them.

The weather was nice, and we spent lots of time in the backyard. Jonah and Babop have always had a special bond. Anytime my dad leaves Jonah's sight, he starts looking around and saying "Babop. Babop." until we explain where he went and when he'll be back.


Jonah is perfectly content to be in my dad's arms, even when he hasn't seen him in a few months.




We tried to go to the zoo one day, but the whole, enormous parking lot was full, and there were school buses everywhere...With nowhere to park, we went to the playground instead. Isaac got to swing all he wanted, with Deedah pushing him (normally my job, and I tire quickly), and Jonah went down the slide for about an hour, with my dad at the bottom to catch him.


I'd bought a bunch of shrubs that needed to go in the ground, so my parents took the boys to the Children's Museum, and then played with them in the backyard, while I planted blueberries and blackberries.




On Saturday, we all went to the aquarium.




Jonah is obsessed with tunnels these days, so he was thrilled to find a child-sized tunnel at the aquarium.


Outside, there was a free bouncy castle. It was Jonah's first time, but Isaac showed him what to do and he loved it.

April 24: Easter Sunday

Jonah's basket: a new wallet because he loves Isaac's so much, an interactive book about his favorite animal (cats, or "ow?" as he calls them), a new train engine with a tiny headlight, and some candy.


Isaac's basket: a new book (Stellaluna), a "learning book" as he calls them (to practice writing), a new set of paints (he loves painting these days), a new pair of sunglasses with flames on the sides, and some candy.



It was another dreary Easter Sunday here, cold and gray, not like the glorious warm mornings I remember from childhood when we would cut flowers from the yard and weave them into the cross that stood in front of our church. Even when Easter is late here, spring usually hasn't really arrived yet, and I always carry that image of the cross taller than a child, with fresh flowers bursting out of it everywhere.

But we can still have fun in dreary weather, and Isaac was beside himself with excitement after we had casually mentioned the Easter Bunny the night before. For one blissful night, all I had to do was remind Isaac that the Bunny might not bring him anything if he didn't behave (kind of like Santa, right?), and any transgression, from hitting his brother to speaking rudely to me, was followed by hugs and kisses and a solemn "Sorry, Mama." And then: "Are you still going to call the Easter Bunny?"
Yes, I had threatened to call the Easter Bunny, early in the night when Isaac was stubbornly refusing to listen to me. I didn't have to bring it up again.

Jonah was kind of oblivious the next morning, but Isaac was excited, examining each gift. We wanted to keep it low-key, and it was, but their baskets were also filled with things they wanted and loved. Jonah finally discovered his engine and his wallet and was enamored with the Petsmart card inside. He even sat through most of his cat book, which is a real success, as he normally doesn't read anything in a linear fashion and is reluctant to sit still long enough to read a book. Isaac loved Stella Luna and ate chocolate and a banana for breakfast...a special treat.

Then there was church - a beautiful service, as always, but Isaac forced us to leave early by crawling under the seats and then trying to push his way under the legs of the poor man sitting next to us. We were already short on space, and there was not enough room for me to reach down and pull him out without setting him off kicking and yelling. Jonah was sitting pretty calmly on Adam's lap, listening to the music, but then he wanted my lap, and the man next to me had his legs all the way to the side trying to avoid our large, thrashing preschooler on the floor beneath him, so that was the end of church.

We headed to lunch instead and ended up at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants - fun for me since I'd given up chips for Lent.

April 23: Starting the Garden

The boys got to dig in the dirt while we put in the first seeds and seedlings of the year. Adam turned over the dirt in another bed and worked in compost, and I planted little pea sprouts that we'd grown from seed. I also got to start on mustard greens, carrots and onions, all of which need to go in the ground in early spring. We're about a month late, but I was just glad to get them in the ground. And the boys were happy.






Happy...most of the time. This picture shows pretty clearly who was the aggressor and who was the victim - a developing pattern.

April 7-16: On Our Own for 10 Days

In April, Adam and a good friend from college went on a 10-day fishing and camping trip in southern Utah - 10 days away from us, with no contact, since they were in the wilderness. Before you feel too sorry for me, let me say that this was my idea. It was my Christmas present to him - a chance to relax and do something he loves, catch up with an old friend, sleep, and disconnect for a while. They had a great time, and back at home, I tried to plan fun activities for every day to keep us happy and busy.

April 7:
The hardest part was watching them leave. After a busy night and morning of packing, Adam and Jason drove away while the boys and I sat on the daybed together and waved rather sadly. I tried to explain to Isaac that we could be happy and sad at the same time - sad because we missed Dada, but happy because we were sending him off to do something he loved. And that when you really love someone, you give up a little of your own happiness sometimes because you want to see him happy.

Isaac and I were kind of glum, but then Jonah decided it was time we all cheered up. I blew my nose, which prompted him to stuff his fists up against his nose and make dramatic blowing sounds. Isaac and I couldn't help laughing, which made Jonah repeat his antics again and again, while we all laughed and laughed.


April 8: Isaac was the saddest of all after Adam left, so I let him pick any place he wanted for our outing the next morning. Of course, he picked the train museum. That was the highlight of our first day on our own. Here he is peering out of the steam engine.


That night, my throat got really sore and I was hoping for some good sleep. But Jonah moaned for half the night until I went in and nursed him around 2am. Then an hour later, Isaac woke up with a bad dream, and we discovered that his left eye was glued shut with green mucous...A boy he'd played with recently had come down with pink eye, and it looked like a pretty sure case of the same thing.
Once I'd cleaned Isaac's eye with a warm washcloth and put him back to bed, I just had a few hours left to sleep. My sore throat burned the next day, and I was starting to feel sick. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of an awful cold that lasted 2 1/2 weeks - including all but a day of Adam's absence. But we had fun anyway.

Saturday, we skipped basketball but went to Spring Fling, a festival and vendor fair put on by neighborhood business owners and moms. Isaac wasn't allowed to play with the other kids in the gym full of bounce houses and art projects, but we got pizza from the Basic Kneads truck (Thai tofu-cilantro-green onion for me - yum!) and had a picnic under a tree on one of Denver's first beautiful Saturdays.
It was a fun morning, though by the afternoon, Jonah's eye was red and gooey, so then I had both boys on eye drops - 4 times a day, for 7 days, according to the nurse. Trying to put drops in Isaac's eyes was no fun - I had to be quick before he yelled and twisted out of my lap. But Jonah had seen Isaac do it a few times by the time I started him, and he knew exactly how it worked. For the whole week, all I had to say was "Jonah, time for your eye drops," and he would walk over and lay his head back in my lap. I don't get it; he didn't like the feel of the drops, but he just dealt with it, and that made it so quick and easy.

On Sunday, our favorite babysitter Kelly came in the morning, and the boys had a great time with her while I got to paint. Then our neighbors and good friends Rina, Custo and Bianca had us over for dinner that night. By then, both boys had been on antibiotics for 24 hours, so they were not contagious anymore. And they were looking so much better as long as I cleaned their eyes out when they woke up. My cold had turned into awful congestion, and I could hardly go 5 minutes without blowing my nose, but I washed my hands and was careful. The kids had a great time together as always, and I savored the chance to have a few glasses of wine with friends.

On Monday, Isaac had school in the morning, and in the evening, we met our good friends Kari and LT and Adler for dinner at Isaac's favorite restaurant - Benny's! The boys ate bean and cheese burritos, I got to have a beer with another good friend, and we even went out for gelato afterward.

Tuesday, April 12:
Usually on Tuesdays, the boys go to Roman's house (a good-hearted little guy about Jonah's age) so that Kelly can watch all three of them. Roman walks around all week asking for Isaac and Jonah, and Jonah has recently started asking for Roman (Wo-wam) and Kelly (Ta-tai) throughout the day. This time, Kelly brought Roman to our house, and the three boys were beside themselves with excitement. They all played and squealed for hours while I got to paint again.
After naps, we'd planned to meet Kari and boys for dinner again (her husband was out of town too). We had some extra time, so we went to the playground. Isaac climbed on this structure, while Jonah just went up and down the slide.


On the way there, Isaac asked me something surprising. He looked out the window and said: "Was that heaven there? Did we just pass heaven?"
He was looking at a funeral home.

Dinner was fun, a long table with lots of boys. Jonah was unusually cranky, but then he ate a whole small pizza, so I think he was just starving. Kari comes prepared, so the boys had lots of toys to play with.


Wednesday and Thursday were cold, dreary, wet days. We had Isaac's teacher conference Wednesday morning and found out that he really loves painting and that he'd gained some confidence since last semester.
By this point, I was really not feeling well, and the boys weren't either. They started waking up with gooey eyes again, and I had to take them to the doctor. He prescribed an oral antibiotic and said that the pink eye medicine wouldn't do much anyway - basically they'd developed such bad colds that the green stuff was coming out not just their noses but their eyes too. It was sometime around then that I started waking up with my eyelashes stuck together too - along with what seemed like a sinus infection.
I really hoped we hadn't given this to friends, but the boys had seemed fine earlier in the week, and I thought I just had a cold. I decided to wait on the antibiotics and try just keeping their eyes really clean with a washcloth, the way they tell you when your newborn has clogged tear ducts.

Thursday, April 14:
This was Day 7 without Adam, and it was cold, gray and wet, so I took the boys to the bright yellow, painted theater in our neighborhood to see their first puppet show. I was worried about Jonah, who can be an angel or an imp, but I promised the owner that of course I would take him out if he made too much noise.
Luckily, Jonah loves to play the dark game, when he turns the lights off and whispers "Dark...dark..." Darkness is for whispering; he knows that already.
So when the lights went down, after a few loud "Mama!"s as various marionettes appeared on the stage and started talking, Jonah quietly played with my cell phone and wallet while the characters acted out the story of "The Day it Snowed Tortillas." Isaac settled in next to me, eventually moving to the front row so he could be closer. Jonah, meanwhile, punctuated the loud and quiet moments alike with "Yeah!" and kept leaning into me to make sweet, exaggerated whispery noises in my ear.
The puppet theater was a child's wonderland; the room with the main stage and folding chairs was decorated with colorful mini theaters and puppets of all kinds hanging everywhere, all for free play. In the ticket room, there was a store selling more, beautiful puppets. There was a craft room full of markers, printed paper and glue, where the children could decorate their own tickets (paper puppets on a stick); and an attached restaurant and sweet shop with glass jars full of colorful candy, green plants filling the windows, an ice cream case and child-sized rocking chairs of painted wood. The place was run by a Peter Pan- sort - of couple who seemed charmed by our boys. And well, they were charming, with their innocent faces and squeals of laughter as they ran around the empty playroom after the show and devoured their homemade granola with fruit and yogurt and chugged down half my huge glass of chai latte. And also: Isaac's earnest attention and protectiveness of his little brother. Jonah's ability to sit still and talk mostly in whispers through a 40-minute performance; later, his little feet following their big dog all around the building and his sturdy arms giving her gentle hugs and pats. The woman who owned the place and who had done the whole puppet show herself looked at Jonah and said: "He's a gentle soul, isn't he?"
I thought it was the best compliment he'd ever received. Jonah is an imp, a tease, a flirt, a force of will, but he has such a loving, affectionate heart and great empathy already, and for her to see straight through to that good heart was pretty special.

Below, here are the boys decorating their tickets. Even Jonah colored all over his, the first time I've seen him trying to color.


Later that afternoon, as Isaac filled my pockets with dandelions: "I love to give you dandelions because I love you!"

Friday, April 15:
We all started taking colloidal silver, recommended by my nutritionist, as a natural antibiotic to see if we could avoid real antibiotics. It seemed to help, slowly.

Tonight the boys and I went for a walk. We brought: a broom, a spoon, a stuffed dog, a bowl of frozen peas and a paper bag kite made at school.

Saturday, April 16:
By Saturday, we were ready for Adam to come back. We'd filled the 10 days with fun and friends as much as we could, but cold gray days and sickness (miserably sick at times, in my case) made it hard to keep our spirits up. Isaac seemed okay that morning, so I took him to his basketball clinic and leaned against the wall, cold and congested, while he played. I think he was hurting inside because we had an incident during Duck Duck Goose - Isaac turned around and screamed at the poor little girl who was supposed to chase him, until she was sobbing in her mother's arms.
And Jonah must have still been feeling sick, because he was making extra trouble all day. For example:
- This morning he threw something into the bathroom trash while yelling "Throw!"
It was my toothbrush.
- He has been hitting and kicking Isaac all day today. And laughing. Jonah is perfectly content to laugh all by himself. I don't really know what is going on with him. Maybe he is missing Adam too?
- Tonight he was pulling clean dish towels out of the drawer and making a big show of blowing his nose on them. Then he laughed and laughed.

But the silver seemed to help, as our eyes cleared up even more. And the boys were cute after dinner, while Adam was on the road, finally, driving across Utah and Colorado. Isaac said he was doing yoga, and then Jonah said "yoga" and started doing some poses too. So we took this picture to show Adam.


We were all in bed fast asleep when Adam and Jason came in around midnight. We woke up in the morning to a complete family. Finally. I was so glad for Adam to go, but so glad to have him back.

Brothers - March 25 and 30

Here in these pictures, you can see the many aspects of our boys' relationship. Playtime is often filled with giggles, games, hugs and kisses, but Jonah is also learning how to be annoying - intentionally annoying.


Jonah still wakes up and asks for Isaac every day (yesterday after nap, he said "See Isaac!"), but he is now far too interested in creating reactions. And Isaac gives them.


At 18 months, Jonah is getting rougher and will walk up and hit Isaac for no reason. Recently, I caught him standing over his unsuspecting big brother, with a hard wooden block raised over his head. Poor Isaac one afternoon started crying and asked, "Why doesn't Jonah like me anymore?"


Jonah loves and idolizes Isaac as much as ever, but he's not old enough to understand how he's making Isaac feel. Luckily, Jonah does have a very strong sense of empathy, so one day we'll be able to extend that to understanding the consequences of his own actions...just not for a while.


For now, we just have to try and protect Isaac, help him use his words, and um...sometimes conveniently look the other way when Isaac gives Jonah a well-deserved smack in return.


But every day still ends in kisses...


and nightly playtime in the boys' rooms before bed.