Jonathan lets James out the front door of our apartment. James crawls full speed down the hall and they both laugh while making their get-away. The other day I said, “Hey, James where are you going?” Jonathan said, “He’s going to Utah to see Gwanpa and Gwanma D.”

Jonathan describes everything as being either really strong or really fragile. James can’t read his big boy books because, “The pages are fragile”. I like to tell him he can tackle Daddy but Mommy is too fragile. He still hasn’t completely grasped that.

So a neighboring group of young church-going ladies with babies get together on Tuesday mornings to “walk together”. Last week when I first went, I learned that these stroller walks consisted of running, speed walking, leg kicks, push-ups and lunges. I wasn’t dressed for it with my flip flops but went a little more prepared this week -my motivation for going being exercise and the idea of talking with someone over the age of three. Actually, the girls that go are super nice and it is in the middle of college housing so there aren’t many people watching the group of buff women running around with babies. Another plus to the location is that there is a playground in the middle area so while we workout the older kids can play and then get on the stroller for the speed walking or running. Today our instructor (a nice, fit volunteer) decided that it was time for some weight lifting and had each of us take our smallest child to use as a weight. Now, this isn’t a big deal for most of these fit mommies. However most “littlest ones” aren’t 25 plus pounds. I’m sure it was quite hilarious to watch me lifting James over my head, to the ground and to the side. He giggled the whole time, laughing at his mommy and loving it. I still can’t get over how good it feels to have people tell me what a “happy baby” he is, as if my parenting had anything to do with it. I know better than that.

I was talking to my mom and told her I better go to take care of “my boys”. Jonathan proceeded to tell me that the boys I needed to take care of were, him, James and Daddy, as if Daddy were one of them. He often likes to separate things into boys and girls. I feel a little outnumbered.

I know children go through stages of being cute, not cute, easy, hard, and so forth. Right now, putting James to bed is one of the best things about being a mom. I sing to him in the rocking chair. He stares at me, coos and occasionally smiles. It’s so simple but wonderful. I find myself looking forward to it.

A few fun things about James in this stage- walks with someone holding his hands, smiles a lot, still only two teeth, getting more hair, beautiful coloring, chubby legs, sometimes still mistaken for a girl.

A few fun things about Jonathan in this stage- likes to cover his smile with his hands if he has a surprise, secret, or thinks something is silly, loves to be read to, thrives on attention, lots of energy, prays for “everyone” to be safe and protected in all his prayers, can’t really keep a tune but makes up silly songs about things like monkeys climbing trees. He likes to pretend to be the alligator eating the monkeys when we sing the song about monkeys in the tree, loves bubbles and helping in the kitchen.