Jonah’s Constitution

In preparation for our recent trip to Washington D.C., we read a few books and watched a couple of videos about it.  (One was an excellent book called This Is Washington D.C., first published in 1969 and updated.)

One afternoon in the hotel, Jonah came up with rules for his own country (a bunch of scribbles, which he read to me with great authority):

“No stealing.

No fighting.

No robbering.

No taking other people’s money that doesn’t belong to you.

If you break the laws of the country, you have to leave the country.”

Paper bag mushroom garden

During Miami's dry winter season we made a paper mushroom garden in the front yard one afternoon.

We used mostly brown paper lunch sacks, but we had a couple of colored ones, too.  Benjamin created the red one below, then used markers to color some cardstock and cut out circles of that to glue on as decorations:

We had just planted the last one when the boys decided we needed signs to direct people's behavior around the mushrooms.

Do Not Chop Down The Mushrooms!  (by Benjamin)

Do Put Mulch Here and Do Not Chop Down, by Jonah.

Jonah also wanted it to be known that since they are made of paper, we Do Not Water The Mushrooms.  Nor Do We Step On Them.

Four trios

above:  at the zoo

below:  walking through what passes for "woods" in Miami

above:  squished

below:  horizontal

Note:  the photo above was taken on the campus of the Univerity of Miami... Jonah found the little Gumby figure somewhere and christened it "SpunChee."

Farewell palm tree

We lost one of the palm trees in our front yard.  The dry winter, along with the whitefly infestation, overwhelmed the tree.  The remaining fronds all turned brown.  One morning we discovered they had all fallen together in a big clump on the ground, leaving a naked 25 feet vertical stick in our yard:

I put the boys to dragging the giant clump across the yard to the pile where we accumulate such things.  This was the most fun they'd had all week.

Life with Jonah

A box for a small stuffed animal, made from a tissue box (scavenged from the recycling bin), yarn, tape, and paper. 

close up: 

Here is one of my favorite things I’ve ever stumbled across on the Art Table… it sums up Jonah perfectly:

Last week, we were riding in the minivan one afternoon, driving south on a busy six lane road… 

Jonah:  Are we going in Dad’s car?

Me:  Uhhh… going where?

Jonah:  Now.   Are we in Dad’s car?

Me:  Look around you, Jonah.  Are we in Dad’s car?

Jonah, making a smooth, calm transition back to planet Earth:  Oh yeah.  No.  But I just saw our car passing us.

Me:  A lot of people have gray minivans, Jonah.

Jonah:  Oh.

I don’t know if just writing out that conversation conveys how bizarre it was, on several levels, especially the fact that he was so matter-of-fact about the whole thing, undisturbed by it all. 

In the end, what I find most disturbing is how his brain works so very similar to mine.