One Busy Boy

Jeremiah is certainly a busy boy. He's full of energy and recently very full of questions. Some of the interesting highlights lately have been asking why our female cat has girl parts, asking his cousin Kelley why men and boys have peepers, and asking what the complete strangers names are. These are only a sampling of the deluge of questions we get these days. We do our best to address his curiosity.

He's also been excited to "make" us food and drinks. We often get to enjoy pie and coffee. The coffee comes with a little song, "Coffee, Coffee, Sugar, Sugar." It's a pretty good little tune.

We're finding challenges in our nightly bedtime routine recently and he's learning the hard way what it is like to lose privileges. We know the transitions of the move have been rough on him but our patience can only go so far.

He's had the chance to take in several activities in the past couple of weekends, making his days with us busy. We note that he seems to behave better when we are out and about doing things, as this is really what his days were like before the move.

Last weekend, we went to central IL for the weekend. We met friends for a couple meals, attended the state fair and visited our old church. At the state fair, we enjoyed games at the dairy barn, seeing the "cow made of butter" as Jeremiah will tell you, visiting the barns, and riding the big slide!

This weekend started with a trip to a minor league baseball game with our friends Jane and Eric. We appreciate them sharing their tickets with us. Jeremiah was very good, watching the game, eating an entire hot dog, and sitting on mom's lap. The fireworks that followed the game were apparently "scary" but he was willing to watch them and comment on the colors with my hand over his ears. On Saturday he accompanied me to a neighbor's house for a coffee social session. He used very good manors, even asking the hostess for some more milk without even consulting me. That evening we headed up for a celebration at the historic county jail, where they were offering rides in an old jailer's wagon pulled by horses.He enjoyed the ride and had many questions about it all. We decided a trip to Papa's farm was in order today so we loaded up and headed to Elizabeth. Jeremiah helped Kelley and Devin comb their calves and participated in a hot game of croquet with Mama.

We topped off the weekend by picking up pizza at one of our favorite places in Savanna and curling up to play with baby to watch Ice Road Truckers.

Playing with baby

Jeremiah has a new nightly routine of playing with the baby. Two nights ago he delighted in feeling it kick his hand. He squealed with laughter! It was really fun to see him connecting with the baby and he has now started asking if he can "see" it, which is basically me showing my belly so he can try to feel it. He also likes to know if he/she is awake.

We went to another appointment on Wednesday. Baby seems to be measuring OK and the heartrate continues in the 150s. We've also learned that if this kiddo is born on a Saturday of a home football game, we should plan an alternative route to the hospital because the stadium is right across the street from the hospital and traffic may be backed up.

Here is a belly shot from 27 weeks.

Big Boy Underpants!!!

Big update from the Todd house is that Jeremiah is spending more of his days in big boy underpants than not! His drawer now includes a collection of Disney movie characters, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Handy Manny underoos!! We've been making minor progress on all of this for a while but he seems to have gotten it. We do still have accidents but it feels like we're getting there!!

This past weekend we partook of some local fun. On Saturday, Jeremiah helped me make bread with zuchinni we bought at the local farmers market. He's a pretty good kitchen helper. Late that afternoon we all enjoy taking a dip at the local pool. It has a small slide that Jeremiah loved.

On Sunday, we met our friends Jane and Eric for an informal picnic at park about 45 minutes from here, a middle point for us. Jeremiah played on the slide and kicked his ball around.

Other recent highlights include:

- Jeremiah inquiring why his name has so many letters! However, he knows them all and can put them in order on our fridge, thanks for an extra "e" made by Krista.

- We've been having some issues with non-sense words and name calling. We're predicting that this may be something he picked up at daycare, but we're working to remind him that we don't talk nonsense and we certainly don't call names, even when the name is a nonsense word.

- Jeremiah informed us that firetrucks throw candy, during a discussion of what they are for. We clarified that they indeed do but they also are primarily used for putting out fires!

- He's been enjoying playing with his farm toys more often, making regular trips between rooms to get grain.