Lessons learned on an eleven hour car trip

1) When handing new books to Alex, look them over carefully first. Make sure you see everything that he might know the name of. Otherwise, he will shout "Het! Het! HET!" at the top of his lungs for twenty miles. You will say "Hat? Hot?" and he will keep shouting until you unbuckle, reach back, take the book, and see the heart shape that makes up part of the butterfly. Then you will say "Yes, Alex, a heart! Very good." He will take the book back, flip a page, and start shouting again.

2) Jonathan will watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" fifteen times. Will he learn the true meaning of Christmas? He will not. Will he enjoy chanting "Stink. Stank. Stunk!" from the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch?" He will. Will he learn compassion for the much-abused dog who pulls the Grinch's sleigh? He will not. Will you hear him laughing like a loon, predictably, thirteen minutes after you start the DVD? You will. He's laughing at the scene where the dog is dragged down the mountain.

3) Crayons roll very nicely into crevices all over the car. Pack lots and lots of extras. In fact, most of your luggage should consist of crayons.

4) Alex's desire to sit on the potty and flush it is in direct proportion to how dirty and crowded the restrooms are.

5) Late at night, Jonathan will be absorbed in a DVD. So absorbed, in fact, that he will take the cracker you hand him without looking up. If, however, you hear a voice in the backseat that says "Who gave me this cracker? Daddy? Why is Mommy driving the car?" then perhaps your husband should share the driver's seat a bit more.

6) On our next vacation, we're leaving the kids with Grandma.

A good start to my birthday

6:30 AM. Chris and I are awake and quietly talking over our plans for the day before getting up. Suddenly, we hear the pitter pat of slippered feet as Jonathan makes his way down our hallway in the dark. He doesn't say anything to us, but opens the door to our bathroom. He turns on the light, then carefully and quietly shuts the door.

Moments later, we hear the pocket door slide open and he gets up on our toilet. He prefers our heated seat - the one in his bathroom is unpleasantly chilly on a cold winter morning. He flushes and slides the pocket door closed. He steps out into our room and is closing the door when he realizes he's left the light on. So he fixes that, gently closes the door, and again without saying anything to us, goes back down the hallway.

Soon we hear the water as he washes his hands in his own bathroom - he can't reach the sink in ours. There's some silence, which could be him drying his hands, or perhaps he's going back to bed. But then we hear his slippers scuffing the carpet as he comes into our room again. He wordlessly reaches up for Chris to give him a lift, then snuggles in between us to start the day.

Our two smarty-pants

Jonathan is having a great time with Legos these days. He got a set that includes pieces with wheels and other car parts, and he carefully constructs complex vehicles. These are the big-boy Legos, not the chunky Duplo blocks. Last night he came running downstairs to show off his latest design. It is a truck with a place to sit, a big part that doesn't do anything, and a chopper for cutting down trees in the road. Its name? Interjuice Stevensville Hartford. Really.

Alex isn't quite at the same level verbally, but he's doing pretty well for his age. He really enjoys coloring, but only with the special crayons Grandma bought that have plastic protective sheaths. As far as the regular crayons go, he much prefers carefully stripping off the paper. We have cups full of naked crayons, and nobody can tell blue-green from green-blue with the labels gone. But the plastic crayons are sturdy and he enjoys scribbling. In a surprising development, he knows most of his colors! He shouts "Boo! Boo!" and picks up the blue crayon. He also knows pink, red, "peppa" and green.

Jonathan's coloring has really taken off. After months of formless scribble, I was starting to worry that he drew like a serial killer. Grandma was quite surprised during her visit to Jonathan's classroom, when he announced he would draw her a picture. A few minutes later, he'd produced a house with a door, and five people with heads, eyes, legs and feet! Now we get a picture of a truck sent home each week in his folder. If he becomes motivated to write down the names, he'll be writing fluently by the end of the school year.

Not clear on the concept

Trick or treating was a night early in St. Joseph - the Bears were in the playoffs on Halloween proper, so the township changed the holiday rather than the football schedule. We got Jonathan dressed in his firefighter's costume and struggled Alex into the mouse costume I bought him last week. They picked up their plastic pumpkins and off we went, with Grandma and I on walking duty, and Chris staying home to disperse treats.

We stopped next door first of all, with Alex crossing the lawn to get his very first treat from Hilary. He stopped several times to look at the small chocolate bar rattling around in his Elmo head bucket. His mouse costume had little pink mittens on the end of the sleeves, so he carried the bucket over his arm like a handbag. Jonathan went on ahead with Grandma as I coaxed Alex along.

Jonathan really got into the spirit of trick or treating this year. He sprinted up the sidewalks and rang doorbells. If people didn't answer right away, we had to discourage him from banging on the door. He confidently said "Trick or Treat!" and remembered to say thank you most of the time. Then he would come running down the walk, shouting "Grandma! I got some MORE candy!"

Alex was much slower and spent a lot of time looking around at the groups of trick or treaters all over the neighborhood. Finally, we convinced him to walk up to one door with Jonathan. His big brother expertly steered him past the cars in the driveway, but let Alex fall behind as the Bear got distracted by some rocks. Jonathan got the candy; from the sidewalk, we urged Alex to go get a piece also. He was happy to walk up to say "Hi" to the people and the doggie at the door. But when offered a piece of candy, he shook his head, pulled his bucket away, and said "No!"

Jonathan ran over to put a few pieces in Alex's bucket. Alex promptly sat on the ground and wailed until I came to take it out. I didn't really want Now and Laters - I was going for one of the chocolate bars. But Alex is too smart for me. He realized I had taken one of the original three pieces of candy and wailed again until I restored them, then removed the upstart fruit chews.

From then on, Alex refused all treats and Jonathan quickly learned on his own how to work that to his advantage. We overheard him asking for "a piece for my brother - he's little - and can I have a piece for my Grandma?" Alex visited a few more houses to say hello, and then I carried him home. Jonathan and Grandma got home later and ate a few pieces, and then Jonathan went to bed.