snow at last!

Finally it has snowed enough to put on snow pants and grab a shovel! This is baby’s first snow, but at the moment he’s sleeping through it.

drawings

a recent discovery here is tracing paper; J’s tracing everything he can get his hands on, especially titles and characters from books within reach. Here is one that uses the shaped of robots that J has embellished lots, and another from a Cars sticker book, which is especially fun cause he added the notes for a song underneath. I like how the stems point up and down–you can tell he’s been sitting with Daddy on the piano bench lately.

bedtime

Today was our first day on our own, just the three of us, and it went so well! we even managed a trip to the grocery store and a fairly regular bedtime with a long book on monster trucks and a long chapter from Winnie the Pooh–for now it is not so terribly difficult, with William sleeping so much and needing so little. It’s nice, we are learning how to be a threesome together.

brothers

Jonathan’s got a brother! After two weeks of keeping his distance, he’s suddenly become comfortable being close to the baby this week. He still objects when the baby cries, finds it “annoying”, but otherwise is starting to touch the baby and take an interest in him. He’s even held him once, for the tiniest moment, and I think he kind of likes feeling himself so big and strong and all-knowing in comparison.

tee time with Daddy

 Yesterday was their second tee time together. The courses open up in the evenings for family golf, with tees halfway down the fairway and lots of parents with kids along. I visited them for the ninth hole, their last. This particular course is the one on the island where you can almost always spot alligators; we saw one swimming in a small pond along the cart path and then several more at another pond near the club house. The alligator spotting on Kiawah was lots of fun, and we even saw a tiny baby once with a grown-up alligator (his mother?) close by. In the last picture, there’s an alligator lounging to the right of the three snowy egrets.

ocean days

Our first trip to Kiawah and we’ve all adjusted very well to lounging around the hotel, visiting the beach and pool, and exploring the rest of the island. This is the first time Jonathan’s felt really comfortable with the ocean, running in and out of the surf and digging away in the sand (castles, ditches, dams). We hold hands once it gets up to his knees or so, because the tide still feels a little strong after the hurricane and anyway he’s a very new swimmer. Today we took a family boat ride along the estuary that runs through the island and out to the sea, spotting dolphins and lots of sea birds. I thought the boat ride would follow up on how much fun we had on boats in Maine, but the truth was J was so tired this afternoon (and the sun was so strong) that he sort of leaned a lot on the railing looking off into the water…and then fell asleep as soon as we were back in the car (a rare event at this point) and slept for a long while. Which was good, because he and Chris had a tee time (their second; they play nine holes together and the score card is not strictly kept) and he might not have been too committed a golfer otherwise. With sleep, though, he’s very committed, and hugely proud now that he can start having tee times with Daddy. He’s even got his first real golf shirt, which pleases him very much. Really any chance he has to identify with Daddy pleases him very much.

off to the treehouse!

Our tree house is finished! And it’s already in constant use. We’ve had Charlie and Alex to visit and the boys have both been very happy to play with Jonathan in and around it. When friends aren’t around, J is still either in the tree house or heading that way; and it’s roomy enough for a dog or a daddy inside, too.

 

beginnings of a tree house

Our tree house is going up! It will have open windows, a Dutch door, and a little deck with railing. We chose a spot halfway down our slope in the woods, somewhere Jonathan can go on his own and I can follow along or stay behind on the deck. Once work is finished, we’re going to add a basket with pulley, a telescope, and maybe a door knocker. (Today at Home Depot Jonathan told me I “was breaking his feelings” when I resisted the EMPLOYEES ONLY and NO SMOKING signs he suggested for the house.) The stairway leading up to the house has nice wide steps which I imagine a little brother could handle by eighteen months or so…. In a few weeks we are planning a tree house party to break it in with some friends, and I’ll be surprised if we don’t spend a lot of time there in the coming months.

cousins

A last post that’s really out of order about our trip down to Alexandria, where we got to meet baby Peter and play with Whitney, a very new big sister. The cousins always fall in very naturally with each other. Jonathan loves to be the authority figure, explaining to Whitney new ball games (this time was how to dribble, which is a feat even for him) and holding her hand on our walks together.

tennis love

But we had fun at home, too, and now Jonathan has a new obsession: tennis. He played everyday with both of us, but mostly with Daddy–he is really becoming a true Daddy’s boy. But really, even Chris doesn’t remember being as fascinated with all ball sports as J seems to be. (Was he?) Jonathan loved tennis before we even got there, as soon as we got him a little kids’ racket and some low-bounce balls at Target. Here are some action shots from their games together.