Even though the weather is getting colder, we managed to take a walk midday for the mail and some fresh air. Judah gathers up mommy shoes and brings them to her as we bundle up with our coats, hats (minus the gloves as he does not like them), and our boots. Our walk always turn into collecting sticks and searching for rocks. He carries one stick in each hand and stops to make you pick-up and carry all the other things he wants, making your arms very full. We have our own little wood pile outside. Judah also knows what houses have rocks in their yards, likes stopping to check them out no matter how big or small. Unfortunately, the rocks usually make their way in the house.
Indoors, Judah's favorite activity has been playing with a large, empty box. We get out crayons and color, most often drawing circles over and over with his favorite color, blue. Mommy even gets down on her tummy to color along. On other occasions, we build a fort with the box, crawling in and out, and chasing each other. Then when we are done with the box we like to pretend to ride horses (or ducks) or climb all over things (even when mom is not looking). As a result, Judah has started losing privileges or things when he is naughty. Most often the chair gets taken away for standing on it.
This month, Judah's vocabulary has increased so much, that we cannot keep track. He is putting phrases of a few words together such as “I love you.” We often discover he knows words that we did not realize he even knew, pointing at objects and naming them like “deer.” Among them he learned to say video (v-o), always asking for a video from watching so many while he was sick. He uses “up” when he means down. He says “stairs” to go upstairs or downstairs. Things that start with “B” usually become “bet (bed)” except for banana (which he pronounces as manana).
This month Judah discovered condiments. Watching daddy dip fries into ketchup and putting mustard on his sandwich, Judah wanted to mimic daddy, trying all the condiments but most often licking it off. He really hated spicy mustard. He also still likes you to blow on things that are hot; whether the food is hot or not, Judah wants you to blow on everything, including Parmesan cheese. And if he has the smallest fuzzy on his fingers, it is "icky," and he whines to have you wipe it off. We go through a lot of paper towels around here due to all the "icky" things.
This month, Mommy's Recess really kicked off as my friend Sarah and I had over 1,000 hits from Internet readers. We took some time to reorganize the blog, making it more user friendly and accessible adding twitter. Writing everyday keeps us challenged among our daily activities and taking care of kids. But then we write about our daily lives, making it fun and useful for other moms.
Toward the end of the month, Judah and I started our own play group with some friends from the library, as a result of the blog and story time. Our friends Sarah, Sean, and Brendan were already coming over on Monday mornings, so we invited a few additional moms and their sons from story time to come over too. Now every Sunday evening is spent cleaning for our friends coming to play the next morning, guaranteeing the house gets picked up a least once a week. Arriving at 9:30am, the kids have a snack while four moms chat over hot tea. The five boys usually find something to play with, crawling around together.
This month we also welcomed the newest cousin into the Rittgers family: Joshua Joseph. Another “J” name and another boy. Both mommy and baby remained healthy and happy after delivery. Traveling up north to the farm, we were able to visit and hold the new, little guy. Judah kept going around saying baby and if you ask him if he wants a baby, Judah responded, "yes, please, please." Cousin Jacob just enjoyed having Judah around to play with since Joshua was not able to play yet.
Another weekend we spent family time at the Des Moines Science Center. We all had fun along the exhibits playing with the experiments and learning hands on about science. In the toddler and children's room, Judah crawled around through the colorful village, cranking hot air balloons up and down, built magnet robots, fished, and made giant bubbles. Tim enjoyed creating a dam and mommy helped Judah throw balls down the ball wall. We even saw some snakes and posed for the evening news.
Then later in the month, the three of us traveled to Ohio for Thanksgiving with Grandma Betty Coleman (Great Grandma for Judah). We left on Friday evening for a bite of Amana's good cooking and stopping half-way in Bloomington, IL. Instead of sleeping like mommy had intended, Judah remained wired the whole evening up until we finally quieted down for bed time after 1:00 am. Thankfully, Judah had received a new magnet board with animals for the car ride and videos from the library. At the hotel, Judah had to check out the luggage cart and spent some time on the phone.
On Saturday, packed back up for the rest of the trip which thankfully was more laid back as Judah slept. We arrived at Grandma's house in time for the fourth quarter of the Ohio St/Iowa game. Judah chose to ride Grandma's goose while we watch football. With a quick supper of wieners and sour kraut (Grandma was ready for me), we headed off to bed for some much needed rest.
On a whole our week was a nice, quiet pace. Judah played at Grandma's coffee table with his new Chuck and Friends Garage set or stood by the fireplace singing E-I-E-I-O. Grandma sewed her embroidery. Tim read. Judah watched videos with Grandma. We walked around in the woods on a few 65 degrees days collecting sticks or swinging at the church playground next door. I visited with Grandma, Uncle Roger, and Uncle Bruce, and found some time in between for reading, napping, and card making. Also, we took a turn at cards in the evening. Grandma pampered us with good cooking and we treated her to some pizza and fried Canadian Walleye with Iowa sweet corn. We even celebrated Christmas.
In the middle of the week on Wednesday, we loaded for a day trip to Cedarville, Ohio, to see my cousin Karen and her family. We spent the morning at my Aunt Maxine and Uncle Dwayne's house so that Judah could play with his cousin Will. Both boys competed for hugs and toys. Afterwards, we went out to a quick lunch at Panera before walking around some outdoor shops seeing where Karen works.
On Thursday, Judah started out Thanksgiving day with another bath (tradition now). Then he fell asleep while we ate dinner with Uncle Roger and Aunt Linda, also tradition for him. This allowed us to visit while enjoying Grandma's fine cooking once again. Judah woke up in time for pie and to entertain everyone while eating. We enjoyed ourselves with at the dinner and a show.
Judah stayed awake again the following Friday evening on our way home. I came down sick with a cold. So once we got to the hotel, we fell asleep right away. On Saturday, Judah slept to make up for the night before. Then we stopped at the outlet mall along the way to walk around.
We finished out the month with another round of sickness. While I had a sinus cold, Judah's coughing turned into croup with runny nose and fever making him very irritable and mommy tired. For five plus days we stayed cooped up indoors watching videos and starting our days at 4:00am. We even started our week and ended it with trips to the doctor.
