Off, off and away!

We're off for the long weekend. The little guy is very excited about going on an airplane to see Amma.

Stay tuned for the tale of our weekend adventure!

Breaking up is hard to do...

Which is why, despite my previous blog entry, I have not deactivated my Facebook account....yet. I still think I might do it, even though some of my "friends" have been trying to convince me otherwise. Someone suggested I only put my initial instead of my full last name. I tried this, but Facebook was on to this trick and wouldn't let me change it. Craziness I tell you....

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Back to real life...
- M baby (as he calls himself) gave me a good-bye kiss yesterday that started off as a "mmmmwhah" kissing noise and then transformed into a "roar." The roar is becoming his trademark these days.

- When I dropped him off at daycare last week, there was a giant tent set up in the backyard. This just about blew M baby's mind! A moment later we heard voices coming from inside. Could it get more exciting than that? Well, just as the little guy was moving in for a closer look, out popped the head of a 14-year old girl (a very cute 14-year old girl, I might add). Just when he thought life couldn't get any better, the girl waved him inside. As it turned out, there were five teen-aged girls inside the tent. And, a television. Holy cow! This was just a little too overwhelming for him. The second he was inside the tent, he burst into tears.

Later that day, when hubby went to pick him up, some of the girls who had slept over the night before were still there. By then, the little guy had charmed them all to death. He had them securely wrapped around his little finger. They were feeding him watermelon on demand, and had even given him a new, spikey hairdoo. The tears from the morning had transformed into one big grin extending from ear to ear....

- We went on a big adventure bike ride on Sunday, making stops at two playgrounds. And we stopped to buy BBQ pork buns and some other Chinese baked good that was filled with lotus seeds. The pork buns were fantastic, but we ended up feeding the weird dessert buns to the ducks.

Full sentences - here we come!

Language development is amazing! It wasn't long ago that I was talking about the little guy's first words. He's now built his way up to four syllable words (e.g. Watermelon, helicopter). And, in the last week or so, he's starting putting "a" in front of his nouns (a car, a door etc...). As well, he's been stringing together the elements of sentences ("pool water out!").

A lot of his frustration over communicating has started to melt away. He can now express his feelings and desires in an understandable way. I can now ask him what he wants for breakfast and he'll tell me loud and clear. Usually it's toast or "shreshas" (Shreddies - his new favourite food). And the other night he completely shocked us by saying "I don't want to" three times in a row when daddy suggested it was time for a bath. He can now tell us, with key words and gesture, when he wants to go outside, if he wants to go for a bike ride, and what games he wants to play.

Every night I engage him in conversations about his day. I remind him of the fun things he did, the things he saw, the people he spent time with, the food he ate. His eyes absolutely twinkle with joy at reliving these experiences. He'll repeat back the most meaningful words to stress the things he liked most. His days are always so much more interesting than mine :-)

My love affair is over

It was a glorious three-week fling. I joined Facebook out of curiosity to find out what the hype was about. I soon found myself with a list of 51 "friends" -- some who I found, some who found me. I was absolutely giddy, catching up on 15 or more years worth of gossip. Heck, I even had an online chat with my first boyfriend!

After a few days I was hopelessly addicted to Facebook. I couldn't wait to open up my email to see if someone had "poked" me or had written on my "wall". Instead of reading the newspaper, I was reading the mini news feeds that the people on my friends list were posting next to their profiles. I spent countless hours browsing through photo albums, linking to blogs, and marveling at how much people had changed (or hadn't changed). I bantered back and forth (or rather "wall-to-wall" in Facebook talk) about life then and now.

When I realized that some of my "friends" had hundreds of other "friends" and I only had a dozen or so, I started feeling like a big loser. It was like being in high school all over again -- just one big popularity contest. Or that's what I thought until I realized that building up a list of friends on Facebook was like rolling a snowball. It just gets bigger and bigger as you come across more contacts. One friend may lead you to three more friends, and then those friends lead you to more friends, and so on and so and so on.

I started my search for friends by checking to see if any of the people in my email address book were registered on Facebook. I turned up a good half dozen here. After that, I began looking through online yearbooks where I was able to find people from my high school and college days. Heck, I even found some people from elementary school. Those were the really cool finds. Catching up with these people made the whole Facebook experience worthwhile.

Then I dug through my friends' friends' list (anyone on Facebook will understand exactly what I mean by this) hoping they would lead me to other long lost acquaintances. Instead I found a bunch of my co-workers that I see virtually everyday. I though, "What the heck?" and added them. Whether in real life I would actually qualify some of these people as "friends" is questionable. But I wanted to see how far I could go, how many people I could actually find.

Yesterday I saw the light. Actually I heard it on CBC radio (isn't this always the way with me?). They were talking about the dark side of Facebook. It was then that I started asking myself, what on Earth am I doing? Why am I putting my personal life on display so carelessly? If my hubby is reading this, he's thinking to himself "I told you so." What he had been telling me all along was affirmed by the media.

I was watching and being watched -- and not just by my "friends." Although I can't prove it, I'm pretty sure that someone out there is getting rich by selling my information. And who knows what other unwholesome ways my personal details are being used.

So my dear friends, I'm hanging up. Please don't take it personally. My new motto is a true friend is a friend for life. And I know exactly where to find all of my true friends.

18-month check up

I took the little guy for his 18-month check-up this week. He now weighs 22.5lbs and is 87cm long. Very tall and very skinny. He conveniently came down with a low grade fever that day and got to skip his vaccinations. Lucky guy! To him a trip to the doctor is like a trip to the toy store -- so many cool things to look at. I'm

The doctor asked me if he could say at least 5 words, to which I laughed and said "more like 200!". Although he's shy about speaking in public, he never stops babbling at home. He repeats pretty much everything we say now. We have to be extra careful now not to use any bad words....Of course I never use any of those! :-)

I was also told it was time to start potty training. That could be a disaster...a very messy one at that. I can't trust him to run around the house diaperless for five minutes without having him go off like a fire hose. Although I must admit, he is very interested in the toilet, and LOVES talking about pooh-pooh. Maybe he'll be a pro (although somehow I doubt it...). We're going to buy him a little potty this weekend and try it out. If he's not ready, we can try again when he's older.

We're also going to buy him a big boy bed (an organic one for reasons discussed in an earlier blog entry). His legs are getting too long for his little crib. Wish us luck with the transition!

Prognosis: fit as a fiddle. Wylie as a coyote.

The water series

IMPORTANT: Please read

I read another scary story about plastic sippy cups, that really freaks me out. There is a new metal sippy cup on the market called the Klean Kantine. If anyone knows where you can find them or order them in Canada, let me know. You can order them online, but shipping is really expensive.

Speaking of scary things, I read a study that linked SIDS to the toxic off-gassing of mattresses. I had been toying with the idea of buying organic mattresses for us. Reading this article sealed the deal. We've gone organic already in our eating, cleaning and painting, so why not in our sleeping?


Now that I've made my public service announcement and scared the living daylights out of everyone, here are a couple of more pictures of baby boy....



The Mayor made this special little chair just for me. Am I lucky guy or what?



Hi!

These boots are made for walking!

The only thing better than clomping around in my over-sized boots, is clomping around in a tee tee toga, with my favourite hat, daddy's cell phone and my stuffed bird.

Our little outdoorsman

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Once again daddy came home beaming with pride about the little guy's artistic talents. An early childhood educator was at playgroup this morning and couldn't believe how advanced his brush strokes were for a child of his age. She was simply amazed. I guess only time will really tell. I can't wait to see the piece of artwork in question. I'll have to photograph it and put it on the blog for others to comment on.


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This morning baby boy was up to his old trick of sucking water out of his sippy cup and then letting it drizzle down his shirt, onto his pants. I hastily changed his clothes, in a rush to drop him off at daycare and get to work.

In retrospect, the pants I chose were probably not the best -- but they led to some good amusement at the park this afternoon. As he trotted around the playground in his oversized pants, they began sliding down, skateboarder style. So low, in fact, that when he bent over to pick up a stick, we saw a full moon! Apparently it wasn't just his pants that were loose... I just about killed myself laughing!


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It was one of those days where you could really tell I was a mom. I went to grab my cell phone out of my purse, and instead pulled out the Elmo phone. How it got in there is beyond me (I think a little someone may have planted it there this morning). I contemplated taking it into meeting with me today. It would have been funny to say, "Sorry I really have to take this call -- it's Grover." :-)

The "table" series

One can never have too many table shots....

New photo series!

I think it's about time that I posted some new pictures of the little guy on my blog. Here is the first in a long series to follow... Tune in regularly to see new ones.

This one was taken back in March or April (I think) when my mom came to visit. Grandma is so hilarious!



When he accidentally fell in the colander, daddy came to the rescue. But not before I quickly grabbed the camera and shot these hilarious pictures.

Amma visit highlights

Amma left today, after a 6-day fun-filled visit.

She decided to look after baby boy during the day to maximize bonding time with her one and only grandson. At first baby boy wasn't too sure about the change of routine. But he soon came to realize that hanging out with Amma was pretty sweet! Not only did she smother him with affection, they did all sorts of cool thing together like watch boats, feed the ducks, play at the park, hang out in the market, build towers, blow bubbles etc... But all of these activities couldn't hold a candle to the fun they had playing with buckets of water. When his bucket was empty, the little guy would shout "ready" and Amma would run and fill it up again.

Since their infamous "water day" he pretty much wants to play in water all the time -- whether in the bathtub or with the hose. In fact the first three words out of his mouth this morning were "Appa" (his pronounciation of Amma), "happy" and "water." He's also become very fond of the word "wet" and "rain."

Besides the water, we had a really good time in the country this weekend, exploring some cute little towns. (as a funny aside: In the car, I asked the little guy what his name was, and he replied "M baby!")

For hubby and I Amma's visit offered some much needed respite. In addition to doing a lot of the housework and shopping, she babysat. We went out on our first date since September 4 (I'm not kidding). And, we got to sleep in on the weekend while Amma played with the little guy. Bonus!

It was a pretty sad good-bye today. "M Baby" kept saying "Appa? Appa?" when we got home, wondering where she had gone. You can tell he really misses her -- and so do I. Come back soon, Amma!