All in one

Quote of the week

2011-03-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

"When I'm a Dad I'm going to drink beer at a St. Patrick's day party."

Little does he know that Dad hasn't attended any good St. Patrick's day parties since a certain someone was born.

The Very Hungry 5-Year Old

2011-02-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

The little guy came home from daycare today and immediately started rooting around the kitchen for food. He ate one yogurt, two pieces of raisin bread and three cherry tomatoes but he was still hungry (just like the Very Hungry Caterpillar).

I didn't want him to spoil his dinner, so I tried to distract him by playing some games. The game very quickly ended up back in the kitchen where he proceeded to wolf down a banana and a plum. I tried once again to distract him by dancing him around the kitchen, but the phone rang. By the time I returned to the kitchen he was polishing off a piece of bread smothered an inch thick with peanut butter. But he was still hungry.

Luckily that's when the pizza delivery man arrived.

Yet he still only weighs 40 lbs. Where does it all go?

Little Mr. Sticky Fingers

2011-02-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

Last night, I brought home a giant homemade chocolate chip cookie from my friend's house. I thought about that cookie all day. I was going to heat it for 10 seconds in the microwave and then eat it with a fork. I even contemplated buying a small container of vanilla ice-cream to compliment the gooey chocolate. Mmmm....cookie.

Unfortunatley the little guy found the cookie and gobbled it down. This was despite my careful efforts to put it in a spot I thought was out of reach of his small hands. There was a little pile of crumbs on the counter that marked the spot where the crime took place.

I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I am! And it doesn't help that hubby and the little guy laughed about it.

Grrrr....

Yes, I'm still alive

2011-02-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

I bet you thought I had given up on my blog. I'd like to reassure you that I haven't. It has just been a rough couple of months. Forgive me for not elaborating but it's deeply personal.

The last couple of months haven't been all bad, though. We had a wonderful visit from Amma at Christmas followed by a family holiday in Seattle and Whistler. While in Whistler I did something I never thought I'd be brave enough to do -- I went ziplining. Over treetops, jagged rocks and an icy creek. My god it was fun! And terrifying. The little guy was in ski lessons while I was out hanging from that very thin line. When he heard what I had done he said, "Mom, can I go ziplocking too?" Too cute.

The ski lessons in Whistler have paid off in a big way. The little guy has become an amazing skier and totally fearless. He likes to say, "Mom, I have skills now." And he really does! On Sundays he takes ski lessons. Since returning from Whistler they've bumped him up multiple levels because he's heads and tails above the other kids. As a result he is feeling really good about himself and his abilities. Hubby is thrilled, of course. Skiing is his favourite thing to do in the world and now he has someone to share his passion with. I like skiing too but I'm far to timid to be a good ski companion.

In other news, the little guy has his first loose tooth. It is now dangling by a thread and he likes to jiggle it with his finger. This totally creeps me out. Makes me shiver just thinking about it. It won't be long until the tooth fairy makes her first appearance in our home. Frankly, I can't wait!

Speaking of our home, we are converting from baseboard electric to gas on Wednesday. The gas line has been installed, holes drilled etc... The switch is going to cost us a fortune, but will pay for itself very quickly. The cost of heating this place is out of this world!!! Plus, we are contemplating selling this place in the next year or two so it's a good investment. Just to give you an idea of how complicated it was to bring gas into the condo -- the line had to be run through our neighbour's basement, through another neighbour's storage room, through the sprinkler room, across the parking garage, and up though the ceiling of the garage to our balcony. Yah, it's going to cost us a fortune. Thank goodness March is a three pay month because our trip to Whistler is also going to be on this month's bill. Gulp. And did I mention that we may be buying a new car this month too....

That's it for now. I have lots more to share for another day. Don't worry -- you won't have to wait two months for my next update. I promise!

A letter to Santa

2010-12-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

The little guy is too terrified to sit on Santa's lap. Instead, he just gazes down at him at him from the upper level of the mall. I think that's probably about as close as we're going to get.

"How is Santa going to know what you want for Christmas," I asked the other day.

"I'll write him a letter," he said.

So that's just what we did. Here is the little guy's letter to Santa (composed with a little help from Mom and Dad).

*******************

Dear Santa,

I have been good this year. I want the cow trailer that has a momma cow, and the trailer is red, for Christmas. I like cows.

I love you Santa, and the way you say "Ho Ho Ho!"

You will get a cookie and milk here, and a carrot for your reindeers.

Love,
The Little Guy

P.S. The trailer has a door that opens and closes. And it's red. It has a handle.

*******************

The part at the end was added later because he wanted to make sure that Santa had an exact description of the toy.

For several weeks he had been telling us that he wanted Playmobile and Thomas trains from Santa. But when we took him to a toy store this weekend so he could point out the Playmobiles he liked the best, he saw the trailer with the cow. It was love at first sight. Now, none of the other toys matter because this is "the one". I have to say that it is pretty cool. Take a look.

A love letter to my little boy on his 5th birthday

2010-12-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

I've taken the idea of writing a love letter from Danigirl. It's a nice way to mark a milestone.

************************

Dear Little Guy,

I can't believe that you are 5-years old already! That makes you such a big boy. I know that you've been looking forward to this birthday for months. Lately, virtually every sentence that comes out of your mouth starts with, "When I'm five I'm going to...."

In the last year you have done a lot of growing up. You went from being incredibly timid on the play structure to a total daredevil. Last year you had a very hard time following instructions in gymnastics class. This year, you are a role model to the other kids. Last year, you were shy and socially awkward. You still are sometimes in new situations but, once you've eased in, you are so outgoing and fun to be with.

Recently I spied on you outside your classroom. I watched you hanging out with the other kids. I could tell that they all love hanging out with you. When I ask you about your day at school it's like pulling teeth trying to get any details. Spying on you for five minutes told me so much. It's quite obvious that you love school. For you it's a place of laughter and fun and discovery.

You have the best imagination of any kid I know. If I put you in an empty room with some mundane objects, you would find a way to transform the space into a magical wonderland. And even though you have oodles of toys, you are just as happy to play with a coaster, a rock or a piece of string. My favourite was the day you found a bunch of bowls and an empty aquarium and created your very own frog exhibit like the one at the Museum of Nature. Or the "simple machine" you made out of lego, a stack of toilet paper rolls and a plunger.

These days you can't get enough of your Playmobiles, farm animals and building blocks. I can't walk into a room without tripping over a farm, or a a crocodile pond, or an animal transport vehicle of some sort. I actually hate cleaning up at the end of the day because I feel like I'm destroying a piece of art!

We are so proud of how well you are doing at school! You have a natural aptitude for reading and writing. Last year you had a hard time writing your name in a straight line. Now you can write out sentences with perfectly formed letters. But, even more amazing, is that you know how to read a lot of words. Wow! The teacher also says you are so good with the other kids. You always go out of your way to make sure that no one is left out of the group. The teacher said that this was unusual for a kid your age. When there are disagreements, the teacher says you suggest ways that everyone can cooperate.

I don't remember having a best friend at your age, but you seem to have several of them. SM, of course, being the best friend of all. Both of you have been going to the same home daycare since you turned 1. You fight all the time but hard feelings never last long (even after the biting incident last summer). The two of you are inseparable.

You used to be hesitant to try new foods but we've made a lot of progress over the last year. There are still some things you won't touch (like sauce) but you will always at least take one bite (with persuasion). Avacado rolls, hamburgers and "steak on the bone" are your favourite meals next to peanut butter on toast. If I let you, you would eat peanut butter exclusively. Thankfully, despite your fussiness, we can always count on you to eat your fruits and vegetables. I don't think you've ever met one that you don't like.

Although it usually takes some convincing, once we get you into the great outdoors you love it. We go hiking and canoeing all the time in the warmer months. You love seeing nature up close and are always jumping into the bush to catch a frog or a butterfly.

If you could have three wishes, they would be to:
1) stay home and play all day
2) eat treats to your heart's content (you've inherited my sweet tooth)
3) be surrounded by family (grandparents, cousins, mom and dad) and friends ALL the time

I could go on and on, but I need to save some material for future blog posts. But what you need to know is that Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you and we love you more than anything in the world.

As easy as 1,2,3

2010-11-23T17:56:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of.

The little guy is incredibly strong willed. Especially when he's angry. Or hungry. Or both. Usually the two go hand in hand. And even though he has a snack at daycare right before we pick him up, he is often in a foul mood on the way home. This is usually about the time he becomes bossy, rude and whiney. None of the distraction techniques work. Food doesn't work either. No matter what we offer him, it is the "wrong" snack. Nothing we say or do helps. It just adds fuel to the fire. So how, after we've all had a long day, do we shift the negative to positive?

Quite simply, we count to three.

This is the same strategy we use to get him to cooperate when we ask him to get dressed in the morning. Or to get ready for bed. Or to pick up his toys. 95 per cent of the time, we never actually make it past two. Because he knows that if we actually get to three that he is going to lose some of his special privileges (i.e. watching a bit of television before bed).

We tried the counting method in the past, but it never really worked. But now, as he approaches his 5th birthday, it works like magic. The key was to just follow through a couple of times to let him know we mean business.

The amazing thing is that he actually likes it when we count to three. It helps him to regain control when he's having trouble focusing (i.e. getting dressed in the morning). Also, when he gets into a negative frame of mind, it helps to turn the tide so we can actually enjoy ourselves and do fun things. And, of course, he's getting a lot more positive feedback because he's more cooperative these days.

Yay for parenting strategies that work!

Sharing isn't always good

2010-11-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

Especially when you are talking about pinkeye. Hubby and I both have it. And, yes, it is horribly unpleasant. I should have worked from home again today because my colleagues were acting as though I had the plague. I'm not contagious anymore but admittedly my eyes are frighteningly red and angry looking (and still very itchy and oozy).

So how did we catch this horrid infection? We think the little guy may have had a very mild case of it a couple of weeks ago. In the morning, for three or four days in a row, he had gooey eyes. But they weren't red and they weren't itchy. We chalked it up to having a bit of a cold. I guess we were wrong.

But rather than stew in my misery, here are some funny things that the little guy had to say to me about pinkeye.

"Mom, you aren't allowed to touch any of my toys. And don't put your tongue on me because that's where germs come from. And, whatever you do, don't put your eye on my bus driver."

He's always full of good advice :-)

Quote of the week

2010-11-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

Hubby and the little guy have been making daily visits to the neighbours cat for the past couple of weeks while the owners are away. Usually the cat comes running to the door to greet them. So it was quite unusual when, the other day, they entered the house and she was nowhere to be found.

They called out her name over and over again.

Hubby: I wonder where she is.

Little Guy: Well she's either sleeping or she's dead.

Thankfully she was only sleeping!

The poop debate

2010-10-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

So the little guy stepped in a big pile of dog poop yesterday. And hubby and I fought all night about who was going to clean off his rubber boots. We even contemplated throwing them out and buying a new pair (yah, it was that nasty!).

Our ~~conversation~~ fight went something like this:

Hubby: I think you should clean the poop off his boots.

Me: Oh, really? And why do you think that?

Hubby: Because you are "pro" dog. You think dogs are so great and so cute. You don't care that they crap all over because dogs are so great and all. And I don't really like dogs all that much. They are kind of nasty and disgusting.

Me: So you think I should clean off his boots because I like dogs and you don't?

Hubby: Yes. Yes I do.

Me: You should also know that I am "pro" people picking up after their dogs. I am not "pro" letting dogs crap wherever they like.

I think you should clean off the boots.

Hubby: So what is your argument. I think my argument is pretty strong.

Me: Well, let's see. I made your breakfast, lunch and dinner today. I also did the grocery shopping. Plus I get the little guy up, dressed and out the door every single morning which, as you know, is not the easiest of tasks these days. And....(I went on for 5 minutes rattling off my list). So, you should clean the poop.

Or, I'll clean them in your shower :-0

Hubby: Okay, fine. Let's just buy new boots.

Me: Fine. New boots it is.

This morning it was damp outside so he had to wear boots. Hubby was in the shower and time was ticking so I ended up cleaning the boots. I soaked them in a bucket of hot water in the yard. Life is so unfair.

I should have tossed them in the shower with hubby....

Bowled over

2010-10-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Today, the little guy went bowling for the very first time. All that the he knew about bowling was what he'd seen on television. The rest he made up.

"Mom," he said. "Where can we buy some canons?"

"Why do you need canons?"

"I need them to bowl with," he explained.

"They aren't canons, sweetheart," I replied. "They're called bowling balls. But they do kind of look like canons."

"Oh...."

As we were on our way out the door, he said "Mom, did you remember to pack our bowling balls?"

"No honey, we don't need to bring bowling balls."

"But how are we going to bowl without bowling balls?"

:-)

Every day

2010-09-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

Every day I have to pack a change of clothes in the little guy's backpack. Every day he wets his pants, and his change of clothes. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes he goes through three pairs of pants.

What is going on? He's almost 5 years old for crying out loud. I know that it's not a medical problem, since he never wets the bed. And there have been times when he's gone several weeks without having a single accident.

I have two theories. One: he's doing it for attention. Two: He waits too long to go to the bathroom because he's too busy playing. Or, maybe it's a combination of the two.

Yesterday, he wet his pants at daycare and didn't say a word all day. His pants were made out of a thicker material so no one would have been able to tell. "Why didn't you tell someone?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. I think he was embarrassed. So he sat in wet pants for four hours! That couldn't have been much fun.

So what can we do other than to encourage him to "listen to his body" and run to the toilet before it's too late? We've tried everything else.

I'm sick of dealing with toilet training issues. I'm sick of taking two steps back every time we move one step forward. And most of all, I'm sick of all the laundry this problem is generating!

No wonder childhood obesity rates are on the rise

2010-09-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

So, the little guy started senior kindergarten last week. Instead of each kid bringing a snack they will be having a"communal snack," aimed at teaching the kids about sharing etc... In principle, I support the idea. And from a practical standpoint it's great that I only need to provide a snack once a month instead of every day. But the reality is (and I speak from experience) that most parents make bad snack choices.

When the little guy was in nursery school there was also a communal snack. Virtually every day, he was fed a big pile of sodium-packed goldfish crackers. If it was once in a while, I wouldn't care but every day? Hubby did a a little research on goldfish crackers the other day and discovered that Dorito chips actually have more nutritional value. Even though parents would also send some cut up fruit, a lot of the kids would only eat the goldfish. It's all about the goldfish when you are a toddler.

On the first two days of school the little guy came home reporting that they had goldfish crackers for snack (surprise, surprise). Hubby and I thought, "Oh great, here we go again." Instead of sitting back idly, we spoke up immediately and suggested that parents be provided with some "snack guidelines." The teacher thought it was a great idea, and put us in charge of the project. I've happily taken on the task and am preparing a hand-out for parents that includes some simple, fun, and wholesome snack ideas. I also plan to include information on "snacks to avoid", how to read nutrition labels, avoiding overly processed foods etc... I'm hoping that other parents take the advice to heart.

Nutrition is only half the problem. The other half is that kids don't have enough opportunities to run and jump at school. The little guy only gets gym for 20 minutes, twice week. How pathetic is that??? Thankfully, he goes to nursery school after school and plays outside for a full hour before his caregiver picks him up. We also take him to the park every day to play on our way home. And in the fall, winter and early spring he is enrolled in sports programs a couple of times a week. The onus really is on parents to make sure that their kids are fit, because our schools are really letting us down.

Thoughts?

Boot Camp

2010-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

So we were having a picnic at the park tonight when a group of ladies showed up for their Boot Camp class. The little guy and his friend decided to join in and run a few laps. I'm pretty sure they were the fastest ones there. After they got bored with the running part, they stood on the sideline to observe the class. They were joined by a giant, orange cat that they had befriended early in the evening. As the ladies ran laps around the field, the boys made sure to keep the cat out of harm's way.

"Be careful not to step on the cat!" they yelled as each person ran by.

I overheard the instructor say, "Thanks for the warning guys. I almost didn't see that enormous orange cat because he was camouflaged by the green grass."

*Snicker*

Then it was time for the ladies to use those resistance bands that look like skipping ropes. The little guy got really excited.

"I know what your going to do with those ropes," he said. "Your going to use them like cowboys!"

I'm pretty sure that that comment was the highlight of the class!
:-)

************************

I was in the middle of absolute madness at work today, when my cell phone rang.

It was my caregiver. First thought: OMG, is the little guy hurt? Is he sick? Does she need me to pick him up early?

No. She called to let me know that he bit one of the other kids. In the back. Really hard. It was so bad that they had to apply ice to the wound.

At first I thought she'd called the wrong parent. My child has never been the kind to bite! Or hit or push for that matter. On the whole he's a pretty peaceful guy (although he has been known to throw sand from time to time). What could have provoked him to do such a thing?

From what she told me, he just lost it when the other boy pushed him (this other boy pushes him fairly regularly). Well, I guess he'd been pushed one too many times.

Immediately after he bit the other boy, he knew he had done something terribly wrong. The caregiver said you could see the guilt and shame written all over his face. She, of course, had a long talk with the little guy about his behaviour. I'm pretty sure it won't happen again.

We didn't say anything to him about the incident after daycare today, on the advice of our caregiver. Best not to dwell on it, she said. He's made his peace and he already feels guilty enough. All has been forgiven. He has no idea that she even called to tell us what happened. Unless he wants to talk about it, we aren't going to say a word.

I am hopeful that the silver lining in all of this is that the other kid will think twice about pushing him again.

So much going on, don't know where to start

2010-08-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll start with the big news (no, I'm not pregnant!). We bought a 16-foot orange canoe this weekend from MEC. It's beautiful and will, no doubt, provide us with countless hours of fun and adventure over the years to come. Our friend (RD) has graciously offered to provide shelter to our "new baby" in his garage. Eventually we plan to buy a cottage, which will be its permanent home. I have a picture but blogger won't let me post pictures anymore (WTF!???).

So our inaugural voyage in the canoe didn't quite go as planned. Lets just say that the little guy and I decided to go for an "unintentional" swim in some pretty slimy, disgusting water. Yuck! It was quite the scene! We had an audience and everything, including someone with a video camera :)

*********************

Hubby and the little guy are still on vacation, but I am back at work after a two-week holiday. This year we went to Montreal with some friends for a few days and did a bunch of day trips. Usually we spend time at a cottage, but not this year. I'm actually okay with it because we visited some beaches and got plenty of fun in the sun. It was kind of nice to not have a schedule of activities. We just did what we wanted when we felt like it. All in all there were lots of fun time, good food, good wine and good company.

********************

Some other tidbits to bring you up to date:
- My dad is now on the waiting list to get the Liberation treatment for his MS in Poland! Very exciting. It could still be several months before he gets to the top of this list, but it will hopefully be worth it.
- The little guy will now eat fish! He's always refused to even take a bite of fish until a week ago. But apparently he'll eat anything if you put it in a taco.
- Got the little guy's entire fall/winter wardrobe at a consignment store for $65. Sweaters, pants, shirts etc....
- I'm thinking of putting off my road bike purchase until the spring on account of the canoe purchase. Unless of course someone wants to get me one for my birthday (I can always dream, right?)
- Project weight loss is under way. I'm doing well, but still have about 10 pounds to go.
- Making plans for our next reno project: converting to gas and getting whole new heating/cooling system, gas water heater etc...We need to get on this before the snow comes.
- Quote of the day: The ghost is clean (instead of the coast is clear)

Just as advertised

2010-08-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

So the little guy has started to really paying attention to commercials lately. Every night we let him watch a little Discovery Channel at bedtime. Usually he falls asleep instantaneously, but there are occasions when he watches for longer because he's not tired yet. When that happens, we find out all about the advertisements he watched the next morning. He's like a walking billboard.

Here are a few of my favourites:

- "Mom, did you know that you can get two chicken wraps for ninety-nine dollars?"

- "If you eat Vector cereal you get to be really good at sports! It will make you ski and bike and run and do all kinds of sports."

- "Mom, did you know that Tylenol can make you be normal again? It's the one with the white letters and the red bottle. You can even go biking because it makes you normal!"

- "On CBC they said you can get a DVD to help your child ready for back to school time. If you get it, they can learn about numbers and letters and then they can get the help they need for school."

Sometimes word of mouth advertising is also effective.

"SM likes to eat chicken in a cup."

"He eats chicken in a cup. What's that?" I asked

"You know, the kind that has the picture of the guy on it," he tried to explain.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know, the kind of cup with the guy on it who's old and has a white beard," he urged.

"You mean Kentucky Fried Chicken? In a bucket?"

"No, that's not what it's called!"

"You mean KFC?"

"Yah, that's the one. He eats chicken in a cup from there. And he gets it at the place that has the big, yellow "M" on the outside."

"You mean McDonalds?"

"Yah!

The potty dance

2010-07-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

The little guy has had more than his share of accidents lately. Usually because he's just so tied up with playing a game that he waits too long. Any time we see him doing the "pee pee dance" we say, "What is your body telling right now? Make sure to listen to your body." Often he denies that he has to go and keeps on playing. Then about 5 minutes later he yells, "I have to pee!!!!"

Today I asked him if he had to go. It was pretty obvious that he had to but he said he didn't have to, as usual. Not two minutes later he went flying down the hall to the bathroom, yelling. "Look mom! I'm listening to my body!" :-)

So proud!

2010-07-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Today the little guy hiked more than 6 km and mostly without grumbling! We met lots of jumping frogs along the trail today. His only disappointment was that he didn't catch one. The ice-cream after the long hike helped to make up for that :-)

****************

So we are officially on vacation now. I'm off for two weeks, and hubby is off for all of August (jealous!). We are just going to take it easy and not over-schedule ourselves. A couple of days at the cottage here, some day trips there, and a whole lotta relaxation in between.

I'll keep you updated on our adventures. I wish I could post photos but the post photo button seems to have disappeared from blogger. Has anyone else run into this problem????

Strawberry "shark" cake

2010-07-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

Amma is visiting right now and has presented us with all kinds of treats, including strawberry short cake. The little guy thought it was called a strawberry "shark" cake and we didn't have the heart to correct him. So, instead, hubby carved his piece of cake into the shape of a shark's head and made eyes and teeth out of strawberries.

He also thinks that Whinnie The Pooh lives in the Hundred "Naked" Woods. :-)

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He can read! Although some of it may be memorized, we're pretty sure that he's able to read simple stories. He read me a story the other day, word for word!

We are being eaten alive by toys

2010-07-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Toys, toys and more toys. When does a 4-year old finally have enough of them? Apparently never. His wish list is longer than my arm. And while we try not to spoil him too badly, we do make the odd toy purchase here and there. After a while, it really starts to add up! Especially when you combine those toys with ones that friends and family give him, and items that he purchases with his own money at garage sales etc... The toy bins are completely overflowing and our small townhouse feels like it is shrinking in size.

I managed to weed out some of the baby toys recently, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. My new rule is for every new toy coming in, two have to go out. It's going to be tough to convince the little guy to go along with this plan, but I think he'll go along with it knowing that the toys will all be donated to less fortunate children.

Here are my top 10 toy pet peeves:

1. Little pieces of playmobile. I find them everywhere!! In the washing machine, in the kitchen, under the couch. Arggghhh!!!!
2. 90% of them are made in China, which makes we worry about lead paint and other harmful chemicals....
3. Ones that make noise. Why do people think that noisy toys make good gifts? They are horrible! Once the battery runs out, I let them work on imagination. And you know what? He plays with them more when they don't do all the work for him.
4. The clamshell packaging some of them come in. So much waste, and so hard to open!
5. "Trendy" toys like transformers and Lightening McQueen cars etc... He desperately wants them and then only plays with them a handful of times. Frankly, he's had more fun playing with the discarded cardboard boxes they came in.
6. They are so expensive! It makes so much more sense to buy them second hand.
7. The quality is crap! My parents still have the toys I played with when I was a kid and all of the grandkids are enjoying them all over again. I seriously doubt that any of the little guy's toys (with a couple of exceptions) will pass the test of time.
8. Too much plastic! Not only is their too much plastic in our lives these days, it's so unnatural.
9. Stuffed animals. As far as I'm concerned they are big germ and dust collectors.
10. They multiply like rabbits, which is what motivated me to write this post in the first place.

Memory

2010-06-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

I've always been astounded at the little guy's long-term memory. He remembers places we visited only once when he was only a year old!

But lately, I've noticed that he only needs to watch a movie once to remember intricate details from each scene as well as most of the dialogue, word for word. He's like this with music lyrics too. Someone taught him the Waving Flag song last week and he memorized it instantly. In fact, his teacher told me that he put up his hand and asked to sing the song to the class. That was the day after he heard the song for the first time! My little shy guy was brave enough to sing a song to his class? And he remembered all of the words?

Wow!

Hubby thinks he has a photographic memory. And I'm beginning to suspect he does too. Either that or his brain is a very big sponge.

Bonus!

2010-06-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

I try not to indulge my son too much with sugary treats. However, from time to time, I do let his have 4 or 5 chocolate covered almonds from the organic store down the street.

Today he asked if he could have 4 chocolate almonds. I said okay and helped scoop them from the bulk bin into a little bag. I accidentally scooped out 5 instead of 4.

"Oh, I guess you get a bonus one," I told him.

"Can you put that one back?" he asked.

"I have an idea," I said. "You could give the bonus one to me."

He agreed but seemed strangely reluctant to buy the extra treat. As we were leaving the store, he pulled one of the chocolate almonds out of the bag and held it up.

"Mom, is this the boneless one?"

:-)

Small veins, street dancing and hooters

2010-06-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks. A cottage trip to visit my parents, summer get-togethers with friends, end of year school festivities. As usual, my blog has dropped down on my list of priorities. So here are a few anecdotes.

- While visiting my parents, we watched Part 2 of a W5 feature about the "Liberation" treatment for Multiple Sclerosis (MS). My dad was diagnosed with MS more than 40 years ago, and has gradually become more and more disabled. It is becoming increasingly difficult for him to do all of the little things we take for granted (get in and out of bed, dress himself, drive, shower etc...). But he's truly a fighter and won't let it get the best of him. He's incredibly independent thanks largely to the fact that he's as stubborn as a goat (actually, 10 goats put together). This is a very good quality to have when faced with his day to day challenges.

While we were watching W5, the little guy kept coming into the room talking loudly and demanding my attention. I told him that he needed to be quiet because we were watching a very important show -- a show about how people like Grandpa who have MS and have trouble walking can get better. After I explained this to him he settled down and snuggled in next to me on the couch. He watched the entire show and has been drilling me with questions ever since.

For those of you who don't know about it, the Liberation treatment was developed by an Italian doctor named Dr. Zamboni. He discovered that people with MS had a narrowing in their veins (in their necks or other parts of their body) which resulted in poor drainage and a build up of iron deposits in the brain. In a test study, he performed a relatively simple surgery to widen the veins of MS patients with this condition to see if it would have any impact on their MS symptoms. The results were nothing short of miraculous for many of the test subjects. Some of the patients who had previously had bad balance and trouble walking are now able to walk perfectly. Others have reported that their MS attacks have completely disappeared. The list of miracles goes on and on. As word of this treatment spread, MS patients around the world have been offered new hope.

However, because this treatment hasn't been well researched or "proven," Canadians can't even get tested to see if they have the narrow vein condition. Doctors also won't perform the surgery on MS patients. Many MS sufferers who don't have time to wait for the research to catch up are saying to Hell with it and going overseas to get the operation. W5 spoke to some of these people and the reported results were nothing short of amazing. As a side note, my parent's neighbour at the cottage also has MS and has suffered from chronic pain and migraine headaches. She went to Poland and had the surgery done and is now pain free. My father is now considering following in her footsteps some day, even though he doesn't expect the results to be quite as dramatic because he's had MS for so long. But even if it could help him only slightly and make his life just a little bit easier, it would be worth every penny.

So back to my story about how the little guy watched the W5 episode. A few days later he asked, "Mom, does grandpa have small veins?"

"Yes, he probably does," I told him.

"Do I have small veins too?" he asked. "Am I going to get MS?"

I told him that I very much doubted it and that he shouldn't worry about it.

Fast forward to this morning. It was the crack of dawn and he shouted to me from down the hall, "Can you bring me my truck?"

I grumbled something about the fact that I was still sleeping and that he could come and get it if he wanted to. He whined and moaned and carried on like there was no tomorrow. Oh the torture of walking 20 feet down the hall!

"Is there something wrong with your legs," I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I have MS."

:-)

**********************************

Tonight we crashed our friends' street party. They have a water slide/pool for the kids, BBQ, beer, ice cream etc... As part of the festivities, they had a dance contest.

The little guy watched some older kids show off their break dancing moves and was quite intrigued. Once the contest was over, he emerged from the water slide area - wearing nothing but dinosaur underwear - and took to the stage (which was actually just a green carpet). I have to say he had some pretty fancy moves!

**********************************

So I decided that it was time to go bra shopping -- something I do once every year or so whether I want to or not. I hate bra shopping and put it off until my undergarments are practically disintegrating. This really isn't a good idea considering my evident need for "support". I can almost hear my mom's voice right now saying, "I don't know where she got those from. It certainly wasn't from me!"

A fellow blogger had written about a bra shop in town that does professional sizings and fittings. The bras are out of the world expensive (between $100-$200 each!), but I decided this was the way to go. I reasoned that not only would save me a lot of time and headache (normally I have to try on 30 to find just 1 that fits), it would also make me and my clothes look better. And besides, a girl needs to treat herself once in a while. Right?

I couldn't believe it. In less than 20 minutes I had been sized and tried on at least 10 bras -- all of which fit me perfectly. I ended up buying 2 bras (gulp!) and I have to say that they make me look pretty good! I've always hated being well endowed, but today I actually felt at peace with bust line.

So what did I learn on this expensive adventure? Well, for one thing, I was buying bras that were WAY too small. My cups are two sizes larger than I thought they were! I guess I should just change my name to Chesty Laroux (Simpson's fans will understand what I mean). No wonder bra shopping has always been such a hassle! Now that I know my true size, I'm going to go out and buy a couple of cheaper ones too. And when I'm done, I'm going to get rid of all my old ones.

National Lobster Day

2010-06-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, the little guy found an awesome rubber lobster at a garage sale. He paid with it with his own money (25 cents) and it is now his most prized possession. He and the lobster are pretty much inseparable.

On Sunday morning he came bursting into our room and announced that it was Lobster Day. He was absolutely bubbling with excitement.

"What do you do on Lobster Day?" I asked.

"You celebrate lobsters," he said, while proudly holding up his red lobster.

"What sorts of things do you do to celebrate lobsters?"

"Well," he said, thinking for a moment. "You sing lobster songs and you get to eat ice cream after dinner. In a regular cone, not a sugar cone."

"Do we get to eat lobsters on Lobster Day?" I asked.

"No, just ice cream after dinner. And you can bake cookies too."

All good ideas!

Later that morning, when he was being a bit of a troublemaker, I told him that when little boys acted that way that Lobster Day got cancelled. I immediately felt guilty for saying this.

"You can't cancel Lobster Day, Mom!" he blubbered. The very thought that it might get cancelled almost brought him to tears.

So after promising to be a good boy I reassured him that Lobster Day would not be cancelled. And we all dressed in red to mark the occasion.

I think they should make it a national holiday, don't you?

This is a test

2010-05-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I wrote about how I wanted to lose 15 lbs. By some coincidence, an ad popped up on the side of Facebook today that said, "Want to lose 15 lbs?"

I have another blog about a medical issue I'm going through right now. Every time I put up a new post, the ads on Facebook start hitting a little too close to home.

I'm torn. On the one hand I feel incredibly violated and think I should wash my hands of Facebook. On the other hand, I enjoy keeping up with friends and family on Facebook. At the very least, I'm going to have to look more closely at the privacy settings.

So to test my theory that Facebook is tracking my other online activity, I'm going to put some strange keywords down below to see if there is any correlation with the ads that pop up in the next few days. Here it goes:

- erectile dysfunction
- diapers
- leather furniture
- stephen king
- sinus infections

Let the test begin!

I stand corrected

2010-05-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

The Spiderman lunch box made its way home safely. The little guy had not given it away to a kid in his class. I feel so bad for thinking that, but he was acting so strangely.

Bad mom. Very bad mom.

********************

In other news, I completed my very first triathlon last Saturday. It was a mini one, but it was still a good physical challenge. I'm happy to report that I didn't drown. In fact, the swim went amazingly well. All of that pool training really paid off. My swim time was pretty slow, but it was only a very small part of a much larger race. As the lady behind me in the start line said, "You can make up your swim time while changing into your shoes." And she was right! Being fast in the transition zones made a big difference to your overall time.

To keep up the momentum I'll be competing in the marathon 10 km race this coming Saturday. I did a long run on Sunday to prove to myself that I could actually make it to the finish line. The triathlon training must have really helped because I wasn't even stiff the next day.

Since I'm on a fitness kick (did I mention I was taking tennis lessons too?) I've decided to make some changes to my diet too. I'd like to lose between 15 and 20 lbs between now and my birthday in September. It shouldn't be too hard if I keep up my activity level and cut back on the carbs (I'm a total carb junkie). I weighed in this morning and just about cried. How did I gain so much weight?????

Wish me luck!

Baby Eagle cam

2010-05-23T06:08:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues sent me a link to this live web cam of an eagle's nest.

There is a newborn baby eagle in the nest along with an unhatched egg. I was told that the other egg isn't going to hatch. Normally the parents throw any unhatched eggs out of the nest, but not this time. The baby eagle is VERY attached to the egg. He/she often sits on it and snuggles up to it. It's very cute! I think the mother bird doesn't have the heart to toss the egg out of the nest.

The little guy would sit and watch the live cam for hours if I let him. He's absolutely fascinated with all of the activity going on in the nest. We tune in several times a day to see what the family is up to. Often we see the mom feeding or snuggling with the baby (she's a very loving and dedicated mommy). Sometimes they sit and talk to each other.

It's a real lesson in nature!

Who do you love?

2010-05-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

The little guy was mad at his caregiver for giving him a time out. Even though he totally deserved it!

Hubby told him that he shouldn't be mad at her, to which he responded "I don't like C-C because she gave me a time out."

"That's not a very nice thing to say. You love C-C."

"No I don't," he insisted, still mad.

"I bet you do. Just like I bet you love SM (his best buddy at daycare)"

"Well....sometimes."

"Do you love A-R (the little girl from daycare who he tells us he's going to marry)?"

"Well....Sometimes."

"What about JJ (C-C's husband)?"

"Well....sometimes."

When asked if he loved C-C's two drop dead gorgeous daughters he said, without a moment's hesitation, "Yes!!!!"

Kids can be so cruel

2010-05-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize it could start so young. A couple of months ago, the little guy came home looking all sad. When I asked him what was the matter he said, "E said he doesn't want to be my friend."

E is the most popular boy in his class. He's adorable. He's outgoing. He's into superheros. And there is just something about him that makes him the envy of all of Junior Kindergarten. One day when I was volunteering at the school I watched the kids greet E as he entered the playground. They got all giddy and excited. "E's here," they announced and then swarmed around him like teenaged girls at a rock concert. E knows he's a star. So to be told that E doesn't want to be your friend is the ultimate rejection.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was telling E about how our car broke down and we needed to get a tow truck and he 'You!!! Stop talking!'"

"That wasn't very nice," I said.

"Yeah and he said, 'I don't want to be your friend. I only want to be friends with M' (another boy in their class)."

The little guy didn't know what to say or do so he moped all day long. I tried to reassure him that E probably didn't really mean it.

"If he says something like that again, you could tell him that hurts your feelings," I suggested.

"Sometimes E lets me sit with him on the bus," he said. This just made me so angry. Maybe I'm overreacting. After all, they are only in JK, but can a 4-year old really have that much power over other kids? They need to have permission to sit next to him on the bus?

Then, the other day he tells me that he wants us to help him make a "light saver" for E. E has been admiring his homemade Star Wars light saber and has decided he wants one too. Almost every day he asks us to make one for E to which we reply. When we say no he gets upset.

"But I said I would make him one!"

Last week the little guy "lost" his Spiderman lunch box. This was one of his most treasured possessions. Yet he seems rather nonchalant about the fact that it is missing. Whenever I ask him about it, he's quick to change the subject. Call me suspicious but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I saw E walking into class with a Spiderman lunch box the next time I'm at the school.

So that's E. He's as innocent as can be compared to a bigger girl that the little guy likes to hang out with at the park.

The girl literally stalks him and his friends on the playground trying to provoke them into behaving badly. And the second they retaliate she burst into tears and goes crying to daddy about how the boys have hurt her feelings. The little guy and his buddies are always the bad guys and she is always the innocent victim. Are her parents completely blind?

This same girl pointed at the little guy yesterday and turned to her friend and said, "I'm not friends with him" Luckily he doesn't seem to notice how terrible she is to him. But as a parent I can't help feeling outraged!

Who knew that this sort of thing happened at such a young age?

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

The day before Mother's Day I was rudely awakened at 5:30 am with yelling, screaming, whining etc...

After little Mr. Grouch settled down, I had a little heart to heart with him.

"It's Mother's Day tomorrow," I told him.

"Can I give you your present tomorrow?" he asked, excitedly. (He'd been hiding my gift for a few days and desperately wanted to give it to me). All the waiting was killing him.

"Yes, tomorrow you can give me the present," I told him. "And you know what else?"

"What?" he asked, eagerly.

"Because it's Mother's Day you have to let Mommy sleep in. That's what kids do for their Mommies on Mother's Day."

"But....But....who is going to get up with me?" he asked.

"You can quietly come into Mommy and Daddy's room and watch cartoons," I told him. "But you can't be loud and you can't bug me."

"But who can I bug to make me breakfast?" he asked.

"You can either make your own breakfast or you can bug daddy," I replied.

"Okay, Mom."

Yesterday, true to his word, I didn't hear so much as a peep out of him. He quietly snuck into bed with us and snoozed for a while, and then got up and watched a show. When he got hungry, he tiptoed over to dad's side of the bed and said, "Dad, mom said I could bug you to make me breakfast." :-)

That in itself was the best Mother's Day present ever! A close second were the giant tulip card with "I love you" written across it and the plasticine garden he made for me. They are both being displayed with pride.

Pukey times

2010-04-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

While I was away in Montreal for a fun girl's weekend, hubby was at home having no fun at all. On Saturday afternoon the little guy starting throwing up. I won't give you the gory details other than it was nasty. Just plain nasty.

Less than 24 hours later the vomiting stopped and the diarrhea set in. Again, I'll spare you the details. I stayed home with him yesterday just to make sure he was germ free. Other than having to run to the toilet a couple of times he was perfectly fine all day. He was laughing, playing, running and jumping. The only thing he wasn't doing was eating. He kind of picked at his food throughout the day. Having recovered from the same illness a few weeks ago, I could totally relate to the lack of appetite.

This morning he was sick again! No vomiting, but still had the runs. Really, really badly. And he was lethargic for most of the day. Not unhappy, just sluggish. Hubby said he didn't perk up until after 2:30 this afternoon. He's still not eating much, but he is definitely showing an interest in food.

I really hope this is the end. Poor guy!

Hate is a strong word

2010-04-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

There is a 6-year old at the park who enjoys bantering back and forth with the little guy. He showed her a craft he made at school out of toilet paper rolls. When he showed it to me, he said it was a roller coaster. However, to show off to the little girl, he told her it was a gun. She was less than impressed.

"I don't like guns because I hate violence," she said.

"Hate isn't a good word," the little guy replied.

"But violence is terrible so I hate violence," the girl stated emphatically.

"Well, I like violence because hate isn't a good word!"

My little troublemaker

2010-04-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

The little guy peed in a juice container and then left it sitting on the bathroom floor. Right in front of the toilet. He told me that he did it because he was mad at me.

What's up with that?

***************************

The little guy is learning all sorts of wonderful things in Junior Kindergarten. But, at the same time, he's learning a few not so wonderful things. Like bathroom humour, for example. Have you ever heard a group of 4-year olds joking around on the playground? They love nothing more that to use words like pooh-pooh, bum, stinky, toilet etc...

Curbing the toilet talk is next to impossible. It's like telling a teen-ager that they are forbidden to smoke. If you forbid something it makes it all the more appealing.

So, I've taken a new approach that seems to be working (although I must admit that I sometimes just turn a deaf ear to let him get it out of his system).

Here is what I find works the best:
- I give him a warning (sometimes two). Then, if I catch him using rude words again, we have to leave right the park/play date/activity right away. I made him leave the park one day for some repeated language offenses so he now knows I mean business. Usually a warning is all that is needed now.
- A dollar a day takes the potty mouth away. Each day he has the opportunity to earn $1 towards a toy purchase. If he uses bad words, he doesn't get a dollar. This week he did really well and racked up $5. We then went to the toy store and let him pick out a small toy. He is now working towards a bigger toy.

If you have any other tips, I'd love to hear them!

Oh the funny things he says

2010-04-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

Some recent questions he's asked me:

- "Mom, does nature look like a church?"

- At the dinner table on Easter Sunday in earshot of my friend's parents, "Mom, what toilet did Grandma throw up in?"

- "Do babies come out of a hole in your tummy?"

Some recent conversations we've had:

The little guy asked us what we call a sheep after its hair got all cut off.

"You mean after it gets sheared?" Daddy asked.

"No, after its hair got cut," he insisted.

"That's called shearing."

"No it's not," the little guy insisted. "It's called getting its hair cut."

"Okay," Daddy replied. "So what is a sheep called after its hair gets cut?"

"A goat."

******************

In the car yesterday, hubby and I started talking about the volcano that erupted in Iceland. The little guy chirped in from the back seat, "Do you know what an eruption is?"

"Yes, do you?" I replied.

"An eruption is when a volcano explodes."

"That's right," I answered, impressed that he knew the definition.

"When a volcano erupts the llama comes running out."

"You mean lava?"

"No, Llama"

Nothing we could say could persuade him that the proper word was lava.

***********************

I like to play Family Feud on Facebook. The little guy loves to help me.

"Are you playing the Family Few?" he always asks. (Heehee)

His favourite way to help is to type in the word "cat" during each round.

"Mom," he says. "Can I type the word cat all by myself?"

If only it ever came up as the right answer!

Did you miss me?

2010-04-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry peeps! I have been incredibly lazy about updating my blog lately. It must be the nice weather keeping me away from my computer.

So what's new? Well, for one, I have a new niece. Annika Lee was born on April 14. Can't wait to meet her!

In other news, I'm training for a 10 km race as well as a "mini" triathalon. A really mini triathalon that is composed of a 100 metre swim, 10.5 km bike and a 2 km run. The run and the bike should be fairly easy. It's the two laps in the pool that worry me to no end! I swim like a rock. No seriously. A rock. But I figure that, as bad of a swimmer as I am, I can muster the strength to flail myself across the pool for 100 metres.

When my mom came to visit for the Easter long weekend, Hubby and I went running together a couple of times. He made me do a 13 km run. I accused him of trying to kill me! My longest run of the season before that was 5 km so I was feeling a little out of shape. But hey, at least I know I won't have any trouble completing the 10 km race at the end of May. I'm really hoping that all of this working out will help me get back to my goal weight. I could really stand to lose 10 or 15 lbs.

My training was rudely interrupted by a nasty stomach flu. I have my mother to thank for sharing that one with me during her visit! She got sick right before Easter dinner. That night I became ill as well. For a whole week I felt like crap and could barely eat. My mom was so sick she had to delay her trip home by a couple of days. Hubby and the little guy managed to escape catching that bout of nastiness. Lucky!!! Anyways, I'm finally back to my old self, except that I now have a cold. Oh well. I'm still going to get out running, biking and swimming this weekend. The clock is ticking! I can't waste any time getting ready for my race events.

Before I sign off for the night, here are a couple of little anecdotes about the little guy.

- This morning he came downstairs wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I told him it was too cold to be wearing shorts (it was only +1 this morning!). When I told him he'd have to wear long pants he got really upset and said, "But that's a terrible thing to say!" That's one of his favourite lines these days when he doesn't get his way.

- I'm not sure how we got on to the subject of Jesus, but somehow his name came up the other day. Hubby and I are not religious people and have not done much in the way of supplying the little guy with a good Christian education. Which is why we gasped when he turned to me and said, "Mom, Jesus was a man. He was a MAN and he DIED! He really DIED! But a few days later he came back to life....he REALLY did!" Hubby and I just about fell over. How did he know all of that? It took us a minute to realize that they had been talking about Easter at school.

That story kind of reminded me of the time he came home and told us he had learned about Eid in class. I asked if there were any students in his class were Muslim and celebrated Eid, to which he responded "I am, and I celebrate Eid."

I love that his teacher talks to the class a lot about different cultures and celebrations.

I've said it before

2010-03-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

I live with Destructo. Today, I cleaned the house from top to bottom. But every time I turned around there was a new mess to contend with. It kind of makes me feel like Ali Sard from the Dr. Seuss book,"Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" Poor Ali Sard has a job mowing his cheap uncle's fast-growing grass. The faster he mows, the faster it grows. In my case, the faster I clean the faster the he messes things up.

We've been toying with the idea of hiring a cleaning service. We used to have someone come every couple of weeks but I never felt I got my money's worth. And with Destructo in the house I doubt that the cleaning would last more than a day or two. It wouldn't take long for the trails of crumbs, toys and mystery sticky stuff to take over.

I think a Nanny would be a better option. Especially a Nanny that would shop, cook and clean. That would be heavenly.

This is the part where I have to pinch myself awake from my lovely daydream. My mom is coming for a visit on Thursday so I guess I better start cleaning some more!

Spriderman, Spiderman

2010-03-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

Spiderman is very popular these days, as is the theme song. He's pretty well memorized it, but he sometimes gets the words mixed up. Here is the little guy's variation.

"Spiderman, Spiderman, your lovely neighbourhood Spiderman." Heehee

*****************************

We are hearing a lot of talk about blood, guts and weapons lately. I think he's picked up this language on the school bus.

The other day he told me that the only way to kill Spiderman would be to "Cha-ching" him will a sword. "Why would anyone want to do that?" I asked him. "The bad guys would," he told me. I'm really getting sick of the bad guys he's always telling me about.

When I picked him up from daycare the other day he said, "Mom, I drew you a picture." I was delighted until he told me it was a picture of a "blood weapon." Apparently he had gone to great pains to find the perfect red pencil crayon to draw it with. My disappointment was compounded when I found out that he drew a picture of a flower for his caregiver.

While riding the bus

2010-03-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

I took the little guy on a bus ride adventure the other day (at his request). On our travels, we happened upon a couple of very cool toy stores. Normally we just go in and "look" but, because it was our special day together, I told him we could buy one new toy. After a great deal of deliberation he chose a sperm whale to add to his whale figurine collection.

On the bus ride home, he asked if he could take it out of his bag.

"Of course," I said, and handed it to him.

The bus was very crowded, which makes the story I'm about to tell all the more embarrassing.

"Mom," he said a little too loudly, "I think I'm going to name him Spermy."

"Uh huh," I said, pretending to only be half listening.

"Sperm whales are called sperm whales because they have lots of sperm," he told me.
"The sperm comes out of their blow hole."

At this point, my face turned completely red and I wished I could hide under my seat.

For the record, he has no clue what sperm means!

Overheard at the playground

2010-03-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

- Today, the little guy finally got up the nerve to go down the BIG, twisty slide. Even I find this particular slide a bit intimidating. He was wearing his slippery, fleece pants. When he got off at the bottom he told me his tummy felt funny. I'm pretty sure he was trying to describe having butterflies in his stomach. He said, "The slide made my blood hurt!"

- After making it up the climbing wall all by himself, he said "Wow, that is so much cool!"

Regression

2010-02-27T17:58:00.000-08:00

So, the little guy has been toilet trained since the summer time. At first we had issues with bed wetting about two or three times a week. Now, he never wets the bed (knock on wood). His track record for making it to the toilet on time has been phenomenal....or at least it was until a couple of weeks ago. All of a sudden he is regressing. Virtually every day we find pee in his underwear. Today, he had three accidents.

Today we got very frustrated with him, which probably didn't help things. I'm ashamed to say that I asked him if I needed to go out and buy him some diapers since he was peeing in his pants like a baby. That was pretty low, wasn't it? Maybe so, but it caught his attention. He's adamant that he does not want to wear diapers because he's not a baby anymore.

Everything I've ever read about toilet training has said not to get upset about accidents. All literature on the subject warns that getting upset makes the situation worse. This may explain why he had so many accidents today....

In any case, I took him out for a walk to night and we had a heart to heart. I told him that he's been doing so good at listening to his body and always putting his pooh in the toilet. He was delighted when I heaped on the praise. I asked him why he was having so much trouble remembering to go to the bathroom to let his pees out. The explanations he gave me made no sense at all -- like how his elbow hurt.

So tomorrow I told him we were going to watch Elmo's Potty Time to remind him about the importance of listening to his body. Also, I asked him to try his very best to not have anymore accidents. I said that it's okay if it happens once in a while if there is a good reason, but that he shouldn't be having wet underwear all the time.

I thought we were done toilet training. Has anyone else run into regressions like this. What did you do?

Quote of the day

2010-02-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

This morning the little guy told me all about a show he watched on Discovery Channel last night. He went on and on about how the octopus got trapped and was pulled out of the water. He concluded his story by saying, "If you take too many octopuses out of the water they get restinked."

When I told him the word was actually "extinct" he said, "ex-inked is bad Mom."

Big weekend with the cousins!

2010-02-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

We had a full house this weekend. The little guy was thrilled to have a two-night sleep over with his cousins.

On Saturday the kids played non-stop from 10 am until bedtime. We didn't even bother to take them out because they were having so much fun. On Sunday, poor little AK was sick with a fever and missed our trip to the children's museum. The boys had a fantastic time playing with the real crane. Afterwards we went out for burgers and milkshakes. When we got home AK was feeling much better and the marathon playing continued.

I think AK gets the prize for best quote of the weekend. We were talking about the characters in Lady and the Tramp and she said, "that movie has Siamese if you please cats." So cute!

Be my Valentine!

2010-02-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

Instead of buying a bunch of pre-packaged Valentine's cards, the little guy made his own. We cut out hearts and decorated them with sparkles, stickers, decals etc...It was so much fun! There is one very pretty heart with a flower decal that he has reserved for Katrina, the little girl in his class that he has a big crush on. I sure hope she likes it!

The only difficult part of this project was getting him to sign the back of all 18 cards. Thank goodness we started this project early! Since the weekend I've been getting him to sign three or four at a time. Of course I'm not sure that anyone will actually be able to figure out his name. He writes up and down and puts the letters in the wrong order....I think this is pretty typical of kids his age.

Blood, guts and all that other yucky stuff

2010-02-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago our dinosaur books arrived from Scholastic. We've been reading them non-stop ever since. And in reading these books, the little guy became quite fascinated with the idea that some animals eat other animals. One of the books talks about how T-Rex was a "meat eater" and has a picture of it chomping on another dinosaur.

"What's meat mom?" the little guy asked.

I explained to him that meat comes from animals, including the chicken, beef and pork that we eat. I told him that we buy meat at stores but that lots of animals hunt other animals and eat them.

"What is T-Rex eating?" he asked, looking down at his book.

"He's eating another dinosaur."

"You mean the blood?"

"Well, yes, there was probably some blood. But mostly he was eating meat."

This led into a series of other questions about dinosaurs, including wanting to know how come the dinosaurs are now just bones. "Where did their blood go?" he wanted to know.

And wouldn't you know it, today he had a nosebleed. The sight of his own blood sparked a whole new line of questions. Why is blood red? Is the blood going to come back? When I lived in mommy's tummy was there blood there? Can my skin come off? Does my skin not come off because it's glued to the blood.

I sure hope that he moves on to some other topics soon. This one is making me queasy!

Training for the winter Olympics

2010-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But the little guy is becoming a very good skier. Last weekend we signed him up for two, full-day skiing lessons and what a difference it has made. He can now turn and stop and get to the bottom of the hill on his own.

We plan to put him in some more lessons this winter to hone his skills. By next season I think he'll be ready to accompany us on some of the easier runs. I can't wait!

A room of his own

2010-01-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

The little guy has officially moved out of our bedroom! Yay!

For the last couple of years he's been sleeping in a "big boy bed," pushed up against our bed. We really never intended for him to bunk with us for this long but we really dragged our feet when it came to renovating his bedroom. Up until recently, his room was a dumping ground due to the fact that our condo has no basement and completely inadequate storage space.

After much de-cluttering, bookshelf and drawer building and general organizing we finally finished his room a few months ago. We told him that when he was ready he could move into his room. His response to this idea was lukewarm at best.

In order to make him feel more at home with the space, we moved all of his toys into his bedroom. Admittedly I had more selfish motives for moving the toys up there (like reclaiming our living room!). For a long time the room became more of a play room than a bedroom. I was beginning to think that he was never going to move out when a few weeks ago, out of the blue, he said, "Mom, I want to move my bed into my room."

The words were barely out of his mouth before hubby and I had hauled the bed down the hall. (We also did a little happy dance and some high fives when he wasn't looking).

The little guy was thrilled with the new set up!...errr....at least until bed time arrived. I guess he hadn't thought about the fact that he would be sleeping all alone in the dark.

"Mom, put my bed back!" he begged.

No way, I thought.

I told him that if he was really scared he could sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor next to our bed. So he did.

Since then we've been letting him fall asleep on our bed and then carrying him to his own bed. Usually he sleeps through the night no problem. Occasionally he wanders down the hall in the middle of the night to join us. But hey, it's progress! Our next step is to establish a bedtime routine in his own room. Wish us luck!

Tomorrow

2010-01-24T17:30:00.001-08:00

It never fails. Every single time I talk about what's coming up tomorrow, the little guy says, "That's the day after today" or "Do you mean the day after today?"

It cracks me up.

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He's been begging us for a Spiderman lunch box for months. All of the kids at school have lunch boxes so he feels really left out. We told him that he would have to earn one by practicing his French words. At first he protested loudly (he has an aversion to all things French for some reason) but then he realized that we weren't going to cave in.

This week he started enthusiastically using all sorts of French words, much to our delight! While he was taking ski lessons today I happened to wander into a store that had the perfect Spiderman lunch box. As a reward for his French speaking accomplishments and for his skiing bravery this weekend, I decided to get him one as a surprise. At first he was thrilled! Overjoyed, actually. But after spending some time examining the lunch box in the car on the way home, his tone seemed to change a bit.

From the back seat he said, "Mom, Spiderman has angry white eyes..."

I tried to explain that Spiderman was a good guy and that he was just wearing a mask. Underneath he is just a person, I told him.

"No Mom," he replied. "His eyes are really angry and white."

It's funny he should say that because I was more than a little freaked out by Spiderman when I was a kid too. I vividly remember being scared to go down the basement because I thought that Spiderman lived under the stares and would pop out and start chasing me. There is something very creepy about that mask....

Hopefully those angry looking eyes won't stop him from bringing his lunch box to school!

A tribute to Goldie

2010-01-21T17:47:00.000-08:00

Sadly, our Siamese fighting fish died while we were on vacation last week. Our friend and house sitter did everything she could to try to nurse him back to health but, alas, poor Goldie was on his last fins.

Trying to explain death to a 4-year old is not an easy thing. He really doesn't get that Goldie isn't coming back. I'm hearing a lot of, "Mom, when Goldie comes back can we get him a present?" and "Mom, what's Goldie going to do now that he went down the toilet?" I've been trying to explain as best as I can, but it's really tough!

To help with the fish grieving process our friend gave the little guy a book called "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney," a story about the loss of a family cat. I started bawling on the first page. It made me remember the day we had to put down my beloved dog, Fred. Although sad, the book provided me with some good ideas about how to talk about death.

So, without further adieu, here are the 10 good things about Goldie. May he rest in peace.

1. Goldie was a beautiful, dark shade of red
2. When we would walk in the door he would always swim over to greet us at the edge of his bowl
3. Goldie could blow bubbles like nobody's business!
4. He could do tricks -- like puffing out his cheeks when you flashed a mirror at him
5. Goldie was as quiet as a mouse
6. It was always fun to watch him swim inside his cave and do laps around his plant
7. At exactly the same time every day, Goldie would stare at us to remind us it was dinner time
8. He never once tried to jump out of his bowl (unlike other fish I've owned in the past)
9. Goldie seemed to genuinely like us and always seemed happy when we were in the room
10. The tenth good thing about Goldie is that, now that he's been flushed down the toilet, he'll go back into the environment (just like Barney in the book) and help the flowers to grow.

We've promised the little guy a new fish, which is definitely helping with the grieving process!

The snowman invasion

2010-01-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

There are snowmen everywhere I look, littering every surface. Every last scrap of paper in the house has a snowman drawn on it. This morning the little guy said, "Look Mom, a Frosty snowstorm" as he kicked a large pile of of his artwork across the room.

I think I'm going to need a shovel to clean up this mess. Don't get me wrong -- I love getting artwork. But we are all a bit Frostied out, if you know what I mean. :)

Dinner conversation

2010-01-05T17:19:00.001-08:00

After a horrid two-hours of driving in rush hour traffic (long story!), we decided to eat out tonight. Neither of us had the energy to cook.

The little guy kicked off the dinner conversation.

"I'm getting to be a big boy," he said.

"Yep, you're getting big," Hubby replied. "Pretty soon you'll be a man. A big, tall man."

The little guy thought about this for a moment. His face brightened and he turned to hubby and said, "Yah, and then I'll get to drink beer!"

The little guy's worst fear

2010-01-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

Monsters under the bed? Waking up to find all of the toys gone? Going to the doctor and the dentist the same day? No. The thing that the little guy fears the most in this world is missing the school bus. The very idea makes him get all panicky. We've never actually missed the bus, but we've had a couple of really close calls. Both times he was so relieved the driver waited for us. I'm not sure what he thinks will happen to him if the bus left without him but, whatever it is, it can't be good.

I'm using this fear to my advantage. I've discovered that uttering the words "hurry up or your going to miss the bus" helps to get him moving in the morning. If he won't sit down to eat his cereal I utter these words, and he literally leaps towards his bowl and says, "I won't miss it now?"

The same strategy works for getting him dressed and out the door.

For the record, if he did miss the bus, hubby would drive him to school.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T06:37:00.001-08:00

Wow, it has been ages since I've updated my blog. I'm in a real slump right now. Which sucks, because virtually every day the little guy says or does something that is blog-worthy. My resolution is to update my blog more regularly (even if they are only short entries). I think that by writing more often I'll eventually get my groove back. So to ring in the New Year, I thought I'd start with remembering some of the highlights of late 2009, from about the time that I stopped updating my blog.

- He got his first report card for JK. The teacher thinks he is doing very well despite our concerns about him being one of the youngest in the class. The only "Needs Improvements" he got were in asking other kids to play (something he's never had to do before) and painting. Yes, that's right, painting. Since September the teacher has been encouraging him to paint but he refuses. Last year, we ran into this at nursery school too. We'd tell him it was time to go and he'd say, "Okay, but I'm not going to paint."

Miraculously, a couple of weeks after he got his report card the little guy turned over a new leaf. Suddenly he wants to paint all the time!

The teacher says he's made amazing progress at putting on shoes, jackets etc....At the beginning of the school year he struggled and was always one of the last ones to be ready and out the door. Now, he's usually first and proud of it!

The teacher observed something we've always known: that he's extremely cautious. Instead of just going with the flow, he likes to hang back and observe. He'll only try something new once he feels confident and comfortable. In gym class the teacher tries to match him up with a buddy to get him trying things, which is working really well. Also, he's starting raising his hand to answer or ask questions in class, to his teacher's (and our) delight.

- The little guy still can't keep a secret. At the giant garage sale at his school (all new, donated items) the kids all got to purchase Christmas gifts for their parents for 50 cents a piece. What a great idea! When the little guy got home he announced, "I got you a candle mom! I got daddy a candle too!"

- In the last few weeks he's become a budding artist. Instead of scribbling, he's drawing snowmen, treasure maps, fire trucks, forests, roads etc... Some of his artwork is really good for a 4 year old. I think he may be taking after his dad in that department because he certainly doesn't get it from me!

- Last year he hated snow. This year he loves it. The other day he told me he wished it was winter all the time. I hope his wish doesn't come true.

That's it for now. I'll give you a Christmas update soon!

Photo sharing time

2009-12-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

The little guy turned four a few weeks ago. We took him to kid paradise for his party. As you can see, the event was a big hit!

Better late than never! Here are a couple of pics from last spring. He's changed so much since these photos were taken!

Better late than never! Here are a couple of pics from last spring. A couple of ducks just flew down into our friend's yard to hang out. So we pulled out some bird seed and fed them a snack.

Boys will be boys

2009-12-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

What do you get when you mix two 4-year olds and a 2-year old? A whole lot of mischief!

While the adults were all socializing on the main floor last weekend, the three little rugrats went upstairs to our newly renovated play room. Not five minutes later, the little guy yelled down the stairs, "Mom, we fed the fish."

Poor Goldie. The entire surface of his fish bowl was covered in fish food (normally he gets 4 pellets of carefully measured out fish food per day). While I was scooping the extra food out of the bowl with a net, the boys played quietly behind me. Too quietly.

When I turned around I discovered them tearing apart the little guy's special Playmobile advent calendar. The advent calendar that I had spent over an hour putting together (and wasn't nearly finished)! This calendar had 25 individual boxes that I had taken great pains to fold together. Into each box I had carefully sorted and matched miniature sized toys. Just as I was getting ready to assemble the calendar with the boxes, Hubby asked me to run to the store to pick up a missing dinner ingredient. I put the calendar pieces on top of the dresser (but obviously not out of reach) and promised the little guy that I would put the finishing pieces on his surprise together after the dinner party.

So much for the advent calendar. Better luck next year I guess!

Show and tell

2009-11-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'd like to remind everyone that the little guy is still 3-years old. His birthday is fast approaching, but he is still pretty young to be in Kindergarten.

Today was his turn for Show and Tell. The topic was "What do I want to be when I grow up." We had to prepare him to talk about his dream job, why that job is important, the tools he would need to do the job, and what he would need to learn before he could do the job. The teacher requested that the kids bring props to assist them with their presentations. Getting him ready for Show and Tell was no easy task, let me tell you. It was actually pretty stressful (for me, at least).

First he had to decide what job he wanted to talk about. Normally he wavers between firefighter and astronaut. But out of the blue he decided that what he'd really like to be is a train engineer. Doh! We have tons of props for firefighter and astronaut but zip for train engineer (except Thomas, and we didn't want his presentation to turn into a discussion about fictional trains).

So we went on the internet and found some cool pictures of different kinds of trains (the royal "we" that is). Then we talked about how driving a train is important because the engineer carries "coal and toys and people" to where they need to go. Afterwards we made a list of the tools he would need for the the job. His list included:
- A train
- An engineers hat (very important!)
- A whistle
- people and seats
- controls and a radio (this got added to his list with some prompting)

He decided that he would need to learn how to drive a train in order to do the job, which I thought was a very good answer to the last question.

So....after a couple of hours of preparation (mostly me doing the preparing) we rehearsed his presentation. From my perspective, It didn't go so well. From his perspective, it was brilliant. What do you think?

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Little guy: A train Engineer

Me: Why is that an important job?

Little guy: Because I want to drive a train.

Me: But why is it important that someone drives the train?

Little guy: Because it's fun.

Me: Is it important because you need to carry people and things to where they need to go?

Little guy: Yah. But it's important because I like to have fun.

Me: What tools would you need to drive the train?

Little guy: A train, an engineers hat, people and seats.

Me: What else?

Little guy: Remote controls

Me: And what do you need to learn before you drive a train?

Little guy: (totally distracted, playing with his cars)

Me: What do you need to learn before you can drive a train?

Little guy: Mom, can I watch Franklin?

Sweet tooth

2009-11-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

The little guy has inherited my sweet tooth. I'm constantly telling him that sugary treats are bad for his teeth.

After finishing a lollypop from his Halloween bag he ran into the bathroom.

"Mom!" he yelled.

"Yes," I replied.

"All my teeth are still here. I checked!"

Remembrance Day

2009-11-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

The little guy came home from school this morning wearing a poppy and told me "I'm wearing a flower because some people died."

"At school did they talk about who died?" I asked.

"I'm not sure....But I think maybe it was students at my school."

"I think the people who died were soldiers who died in a war."

"Maybe they will feel better now."

I tried to explain, but he doesn't quite get it yet. But it's good to at least start the conversation.

Halloween & Catching up

2009-10-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

Boy have a been lazy about updating my blog lately. Blame it on Facebook (I now have a cafe, 2 farms and an aquarium to look after every day). That and life has generally been busy between renovations, birthday parties (3 in the last 3 weeks), my volunteer work etc....

So to catch you up on the wild and crazy adventures of the little guy, I'll start with Halloween. Costumes are very much on our minds lately because he has been to not one, but two costume birthday parties in October. He's had to settle for wearing last year's little dragon costume (which is pretty darned cute!) instead of this year's costume, which we still haven't made. Unlike the other kids who will be wearing off the rack super hero, pirate, and firefighter costumes, the little guy has decided he wants to be a blue heron.

Yep. A blue heron. Nothing else will do. He's told us a million times.

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Speaking of Blue Herons, the little guy brought the Birds of North America field guide to show and tell. He made a special point of showing his classmates pictures of his favourite birds, most notably the blue herons, ocean seagulls and mergansers.

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We think that he may have had H1N1 last week. He had all of the symptoms (sudden onset of fever and cough, chills, muscle aches, runny nose) and was away from school for the majority of the week. Several other kids in his class were off too with exactly the same illness. Luckily he had a very mild case. It sucks that I can't verify if it was in fact H1N1. Now that the vaccine is available it would be nice to know if he actually needed it or not.

I'm very thankful that neither Hubby or I caught it. It's a miracle actually, considering the number of times we were coughed on or had to wipe a wet, drippy nose. The little guy even fell asleep on our bed and drooled all over my pillow!!!! Yuck. No amount of hand sanitizer or disinfectant could have warded off all of those germs. We must have built up some sort of immunity. All the same, I think I may get the vaccination in a few weeks once the line-ups die down.

That's it for now. I've got lots more to tell but it will have to wait for another day.

Life's little details are killing me

2009-10-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know me, I am not a "detail" person. I'll remind you that I once forgot to order chairs for an event I was planning (oops!). I've never lived that one down.

Junior Kindergarten is all about remembering details. Just this week I had to:
- Order name labels
- Label all of his stuff
- Make snacks every morning
- Prepare for picture day
- Buy new "backup" clothes to account for all of the stuff that goes missing
- Track down three missing items
- Pack extra rain gear
- Pack and unpack the backpack countless times
- Send back the scholastic order
- Make pancakes for the family breakfast
- Send three notes to his teacher
- Sign several forms and return them to the school
- Go to the school program night
- Make sure he returned his library book (which I'll have to remember every single Friday)
- Read several memos from the school
- Coordinate field trip volunteer days
- Transfer important dates into calendar (i.e. show and tell schedule)

I'm sure that I've missed several others. Did I mention that it's killing me?

The marshmallow experiment

2009-09-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

I had never heard of this experiment until my colleague sent me a link to this hilarious video. It's an experiment that you can conduct on 4-year old to find out about their ability to delay gratification. Even though he's not quite four yet, we decided to try it out on the little guy. We sat him down at the dining room table and gave him one marshmallow and told that he could eat it right away of, if he could wait for a little while, he would get two marshmallows.

"I want two!," he cried excitedly.

"Okay, but you can't eat that marshmallow until we come back in the room. We are going to leave for a little while so remember, you'll only get a second marshmallow if you wait."

We then left him alone in the room for approximately five minutes. Of course I was spying on him the whole time to see what he would do. He did everything short of eating the marshmallow. He sniffed the marshmallow. Threw it. Mashed it with his hands. Licked it. But he never actually tried to eat it. After five minutes of him yelling, "can I have my other marshmallow now?" we finally gave it to him. The fact that he was able to wait bodes well for his future. Of course in the real experiment the kids had to wait for 15 minutes, so I'm not sure if the results are very accurate. Also, licking the marshmallow could be seen as cheating. Plus, when he demanded that we repeat the experiment again the next day, he ate the marshmallow after waiting only a few minutes and didn't seem to care in the least if he got a second one.

When this experiment was originally conducted 40+ years ago, they did a follow up study with the same kids 15 years later. The children who ate the marshmallow right away (2/3 of them) scored an average of 250 points lower on SAT tests than those who waited. Also, those who were able to delay gratification went on to be higher achievers, were more successful and happier in general.

I'm thinking that once he's four we'll do the experiment again with M&M peanuts, a treat he likes much more than marshmallows!

Fortune cookies don't lie

2009-09-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

The little guy just opened up a fortune cookie and pulled out the the little sheet of paper. Daddy asked him what it said.

"13 means giving a hug to love mom."

:-)

I know I said I wouldn't talk about toilet training anymore but...

2009-09-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

The little guy won't pee at school or at nursery school! This means he's holding it for roughly 5 hours every morning. No big surprise that he's been wetting his pants pretty much every day when his caregiver comes to pick him up.

I've asked his teachers to encourage him to use the toilet. But it's like the saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can't force him to drink (or in this case, pee).

We've promised him a Franklin DVD if he starts doing pees at school. He really wants a Franklin DVD. Really, really wants one. But like everything we've gone through with toilet training, promises of gifts don't work. Nothing will work until he makes up his own mind.

Picture day is next week. I'll remind you that it took at least six tries to get him to sit for a passport photo. Oh, and did I mention that he refused to have his nursery school picture taken last year? I've already started strategizing with his teacher on ways to encourage him to cooperate....I'll let you know how it goes.

Trying to fill in the blanks

2009-09-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

Getting information out of an almost 4-year old is like pulling teeth. I never quite get the full story.

We've been drilling him with questions about his first week at school. So far he's told me about snack time (he talks about that a lot!) and that they have a French teacher. He played baseball one day. The bus drivers are nice. And he told me that they have a library inside the school (which, of course, I already knew).

The details we get are sporadic and sometimes don't make a whole lot of sense. A good example of this is when he told Hubby that he sometimes has to help the kids that are "sad and mopey." Presumably these are kids that are having a difficult time adjusting to Junior Kindergarten. When Hubby asked him what he did to help he said, "I did them around." When he asked him to elaborate he said, "I gave them band-aids and poured gasoline on them." I'm sure that cheered them up!

And then there is all the stuff that has gone missing from his backpack. Two days in a row he came home without a jacket. On the second day I got pretty concerned because 1) it was bloody cold outside and he came home wearing a t-shirt and 2) we don't have a lot of spare jackets on hand. The little guy, of course, had no idea where his jackets has disappeared to. I sent a note to the teacher, and one of the jackets made its way home the next day. The other one (his MEC fleecy jacket) is still missing in action. Which sucks, because it is his favourite jacket.

I always pack a change of clothes in his bag in case he has an accident. His spare clothes have also gone missing. I'm beginning to think that by the end of the first month I'll have to buy him a whole new wardrobe! The teacher suggested I call the bus company to see if he's been leaving things on the bus. But why would he take his clothes out of his bag? It doesn't make sense. My guess is they've probably been sucked into a black hole never to be seen again.

Between the missing pieces of information and the missing clothing, I'm definitely not getting the full story about his school day.

His passport

2009-09-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sigh....Last year we tried six times to get his passport photo taken. Then we gave up. He refused to sit on the stool or look at the camera. He just cried bloody murder. Even with promises of post-passport photo ice-cream treats, there was no way he was going to allow his photo to be taken.

Fast forward to this week. We are planning to go to Seattle at the end of October so we decided that it was time to try again. It took quite a bit of convincing (in the form of Smarties) but we finally succeeded! Whoohoo!

This morning (while we were in a rush, of course) we had to weigh him and measure him for his passport application. No big deal, right? Wrong! At the mere mention of stepping on the scale he started screaming, "No! I don't want to." When I told him that he needed to in order to ride the airplane to visit Amma, he pouted "I don't want to take the airplane!" (Liar, liar pants on fire). After about a 15-minute struggle he finally agreed to be weighed. In retrospect I should have just wrestled him into my arms and stepped on the scale with him....

Measuring his height against the wall. Pretty easy, right? Once again, wrong! Another drawn out scene ensured where we tried to get him to cooperate to measure him against the wall.

The little guy is honestly the most pig-headed kid on the face of the earth. Getting a passport isn't supposed to be this hard.

Quote of the day

2009-09-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

When I asked him how French class went today he said, "Mom, it's a waste of my tongue!"

First day of kindergarten

2009-09-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

It went pretty well, all things considered.

On Friday morning he cried and cried for a good 45 minutes straight, repeating over and over again that he didn't want to go to kindergarten. As he cried all I could think was, "How on earth are we going to get him on the school bus?"

After he ate some breakfast he settled down. He even helped me pack a snack to bring to school. When I gave him the 5-minute warning about leaving to catch the bus he had a mini-meltdown. But as soon as his shoes were on his attitude changed. It's like he had accepted his fate and figured he might as well embrace it. We arrived at the bus stop well ahead of time (video to follow). And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. The bus didn't show so we rushed him to school in our car. What a let down!

We hung out with him on the playground for a good 20 minutes to help him acclimatize. He was too nervous to interact with the other children and, although he was intrigued by all of the cool playground equipment, he just stayed on the sidelines. Finally we were able to settle him into the sand box with two other little boys. There was a pretty cool steamroller there that he simply couldn't resist. Once he was playing comfortably, we decided it was time to go. This idea wasn't so cool with the little guy. He clung to my leg and begged for us to stay. The teacher (bless her heart) came over to give us a hand. She said, "It's time to say goodbye to mommy and daddy. You will be together at the end of the day, just like every other day."

After a quick goodbye hug and kiss we walk out the gate. The look on his face just about killed me. He looked so frightened. So abandoned. So lonely. Did I mention he is still only 3 years old?

When we rounded the corner I burst into tears. And I burst into tears again when we drove by the school yard and I saw him standing alone against a wall looking all sad and scared.

Hubby dropped me at work and then drove back to the school later to spy on the little guy boarding the bus for nursery school. One glance at the little guy told him that things had gone just fine. He boarded the bus with a big smile on his face and then made his way to the very back of the bus. Hubby followed the bus and observed him standing up from time to time to peer out the back window. When he arrived at nursery school he hopped off the bus and ran excitedly into the playground to play with his friends.

The teacher called me at work that afternoon and gave me a recap of his day. He did very well, except for one small incident. When the French teacher (a new stranger) came in to give a lesson, he got up and left the group. The teacher lost sight of him momentarily and then quickly set off to find him. He was sitting in front of his cubby hole, holding his special blanket (tee-tee). "Do you need a little self time?" she asked and he nodded yes. After a minute he put his blanket back in the bag and rejoined the group.

When I asked him about his day, he was absolutely glowing. He did a craft, sang some songs, played with a castle. I asked him what the best part of the morning was and he said, "I liked having snack time." (No big surprise there!). When I asked him what he thought of his teacher he said, "She's really nice Mom!"

So far so good. Let's just hope the bus shows up tomorrow!

Easing into Kindergarten

2009-09-09T19:16:00.001-07:00

So Friday is the big day. The little guy has expressed to us that he is very worried about taking the bus by himself. He's also worried that he won't know any of the other kids. We've been reassuring him that all kids starting school feel nervous, just like him. I really hope that he doesn't cling to me and freak out on the first morning....

Tomorrow we are going to do a dry run. We're going to get up earlier than usual, and get dressed before breakfast instead of after. I want to time it out to see how much time we really need to give ourselves to make it to the bus. My suspicion is that I'm going to have to change my routine a lot in order to get out the door by 7:23. I'm going to have to shower, iron my clothes, and make lunches in the evening.

Life was so much less complicated before Kindergarten!

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We had a great visit with my brother and family over the long weekend. The little guy was so excited to see his cousins! On Saturday we went to the country fair and all three of the kids went on the rides for the first time. As you can tell from the pictures, they were all smiling from ear to ear.

The weather was beautiful so we spent most of the weekend outside wandering through the Market, at the beach, eating ice-cream, playing at the park etc... The cousins had such a blast running around and playing together. Of course, the adults also had their fair share of fun too!

The nudist

2009-09-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

He's a nudist. What can I say?

Today at the park he stripped all of his clothes off and proceeded to stride about doing his very best blue heron imitation.

"It's time to put your bathing suit on," I told him.

"But blue herons don't where bathing suits," he replied.

"Yes, but they have feathers to hide their private parts."

He couldn't argue that point so on went the bathing suit!

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So the little guy is terrified of dogs. Even the tiny rodent-like foofoo dogs. If he sees a dog - even in the distance - he starts trembling uncontrollably. The other day he actually ran into the road to avoid a pug dog. When I got upset at him for running into the street he said, "But mom, there was a dog!" as though his actions were justifiable under the circumstances.

Today I tried to talk to him about his irrational fear of dogs, but he would have none of it. Here's what he told me:

"Dogs should always stay in their cages. Cats can go outside but not dogs."

Then he said, "I'm a cat person and daddy's a cat person, and you're a dog person."

He said this as though I was the scum of the earth or something. How could he have developed such a loathing for dogs when I'm the biggest dog lover in the world? It doesn't make sense! I think we might need to get a dog if he keeps this up much longer. I think it's the only way to cure him.

Hmmmph! Cat people. What's with them anyway?

Pump up the volume

2009-08-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you know what's been bugging me lately? The volume. It's unbearable! I have to tell the little guy at least a hundred or more times a day to keep his voice down. Jeez, he reminds me of my Uncle Harry!

And he can't stand it when I try to talk to other people. The second I start a conversation he talks over my voice and tries to get my attention.

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with this?

Kindergarten Prep

2009-08-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

We have been doing our very best to prepare the little guy for JK. His official start date is September 11 (although we do a visit with his teacher this coming Friday). I'm not sure who is more nervous - the little guy or me. Probably me.

I keep reading and rereading the package of information that the school gave me back in the Spring. Things like, "your child should be able to put on their own shoes" keep jumping out at me. Sure, he's a pro at putting on crocs and rubber boots, but he sometimes need some help with his runners. After all, he's still only 3 years old. Being a late November baby he's going to be almost a year younger than some of the kids in his class. I really hope that they'll take pity on him when it comes to doing up shoes and things like that.

He's going to have to take the bus to school -- all by himself! At the suggestion of his elementary school we went to a school bus orientation session last weekend. I'm really glad we did because it provided the little guy with a "dry run" of what it would be like. We actually rode the bus and went through all of the safety rules. He's pretty nervous about getting on the bus without mommy and daddy but we've been working really hard to calm his nerves. On day 1 we are planning to follow the bus to school, so that we make sure he gets settled into his classroom. Hubby is going to take the day off so that he can also follow his bus to nursery school too, again, to help him with the transition.

The countdown begins!

Muffin tops are in

2009-08-25T18:34:00.001-07:00

Which is good news for me I guess as I struggle to lose a few pounds. I've been working out several times a week and I've cut down my calories but my damn stomach still looks fat.

People always tell me how tiny I am (well, maybe not as much lately). But the definition of "tiny" seems to have changed a lot since I was in high school. I remember there were only a handful of overweight students in my school. Now overweight seems to be the new norm. And obese seems to be fairly normal too. If you ask me, it's an epidemic that we're all going to pay for in the not so distant future. More hypertension leading to more diabetes, heart disease and who knows what else. Our healthcare system is going to pay the price.

You know what has also changed since I was in high school? Clothing sizes. Stores like to lead consumers to believe that they are skinnier than they really are. This is wrong in so many ways. I often fit into a size 2 at The Gap. How exactly is that possible? There is no way in hell I am a size 2. What does that tell the kid who fits into a size 8 who actually has a weight problem?

Before baby boy was in the picture I decided to stop eating processed food. In a couple of months I dropped 10 pounds. Tells you something, doesn't it? Processed food is just plain evil. And it's everywhere. I'm always amazed at the crap people have in their grocery carts. It all comes out of a box or a can. It's full of sodium and sugar. The "lunchable," devoid of any nutritional value, has replaced the apple and carrot sticks that kids bring for lunch. Match those with a granola bar (they aren't healthy people!) and a juice box (packed full of sugar) and suddenly it makes sense why teenagers are now sporting those trendy muffin tops. Not to mention that many of them don't get enough exercise....

So why am I telling you all this? Because tonight I saw hundreds of overweight teens shoveling crap into their mouths at "The Ex". It kind of freaked me out and made me think about my own eating habits. I'm just as guilty of eating processed food as anyone else. I think my weight issues have a lot to do with my food choices which are not always the best.

I think I'm going to cut processed foods out of my diet again (except occasionally on weekends) and see what happens. Wish me luck!

Quote of the week and other fun stuff

2009-08-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

The little guy continues to think spitting is funny. When I got a little stern with him about it this weekend he said,

"It's against the rules for adults to be mad at children."

I reminded him that it was also against the rules for children to spit.

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Things the little guy is into these days:
- Spiderman (even though he's never even seen a Spiderman cartoon)
-Talking really really loudly, like he thinks I'm deaf or something
- Eating "corn on the bob"
- Reading children's encyclopedias. He wants to know everything there is to know about everything (especially about the ocean and outer space)
- Saying, "Yuck I don't like that." Doesn't he know we are a family of foodies?
- Couch wrecking (note to Hubby: I am no longer the only couch wrecker in the house)
- Wrapping up toys and giving them to us as presents. Gee honey, I loved the really realistic rubber snake you gave me this morning :-) Heaven knows how much I love snakes.
- Playing Farmville and Happy Farm on Facebook (he gets to pick the seeds we grow)
- Hiking and biking (he'll hike up to 5 km!)
- Frog and fish catching (we bought him a pond pail and net)
- Helping himself to stuff out of the fridge
- Putting on his clothes by himself (mostly backwards)
- Bragging about what a pro he is at using the toilet
- Telling jokes. The other day I asked him where my purse was and he told me that he ate it.
- Photocopying pictures, colouring them, cutting them out and laminating them with tape (he could do this all day long!)
- Making "lunches" for himself and packing up his backpack
- Going out for real lunches (his lunch of choice: burgers and fries, avocado rolls and edamame, or pho)
- Constantly trying to sucker hubby and I into buying him toys or treats
- Bird watching (every day his caregiver takes him to the "duck park" and we get a full report about all of the birds he saw. More often than not his bird tales end with the line, "but I didn't see the Blue Heron today."
- Playing games on daddy's iPhone (great for long, boring car rides)
- Motorcycle helmets and goggles (when we go out he sometimes insists on wearing his skating helmet and ski goggles. A nice look for summer).
-Emergency vehicles (those never get old, do they?)
- Carrying stolen change in his pockets. (Our poor washer and dryer)
- And, of course, farting on me and then running away laughing (He gets that from my side of the family. His uncles are very proud!)

News flash!

2009-08-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

I promise this will be one of my last posts about toilet training. I'm just so amazed at how fast things have been moving these last few weeks that I just had to share the good news. Here are the latest milestones:

- No more potty. He's moved completely to the big toilet. (Although you can't see it, I'm doing a happy dance right now!)
- He's eager to learn how the toilet paper works so we've started "Wiping 101."
- The toilet seat attachment will soon be going the way of the potty. He's figured out that balancing on the seat isn't as difficult as he thought.
-The diaper bag is gone. It has been replaced with a big boy backpack that he has to carry himself.

With the money we're sure to save on diapers we bought a new mattress. Our old one was about 12 years old and well past it's prime. With hubby's bad back, we decided that we couldn't put off this purchase any longer. Instead of buying a widely available toxic, formaldehyde-filled mattress we decided to get an organic mattress. The one we selected is made out of cotton and latex and has a 25 year warrantee. At 40% off, it was a screaming deal! It arrives early this week.

In other news.....Amma (hubby's mother) flew back home after a week long visit. The two of them were very busy while hubby and I were at work last week. One day we came home to a house decorated with balloons and streamers, and the smell of freshly baked carrot cake. They decided to throw us an early birthday party (hubby and I are both September babies). What a nice surprise!

Another night Amma kicked hubby and I out the door for a date night. We went to this amazing restaurant that we've been dying to try for months. The restaurant served mostly local, raised/grown in Canada dishes that were prepared in the most unconventional way imaginable i.e. creme fraiche frozen in liquid nitrogen (the dry ice gently gliding across the table really made for an interesting ambiance). I believe the term to use is "molecular cooking." It's hard to explain. You really have to go there and experience it. The kitchen, which we got to tour after our 12 course meal, looked more like a science lab than a kitchen. There was no menu. You just sit down and they start bringing you food. Each dish was in itself a piece of artwork. Just check out the gallery on their website.

Fun times!

Today was my "lucky" day

2009-08-06T17:31:00.001-07:00

I have to carry around a Blackberry during the week. Occasionally (once a month) one of my clients will call me on it if they have something urgent to talk about. So you can imagine my surprise when my Blackberry was ringing off the hook this morning.

The first call was really strange. When I answered the man on the other end of the line (who sounded old and perhaps a little intoxicated) told me his name was Joe. I asked him why he was calling. He said, "My friend gave me your number." I knew then and there that he had the wrong number. I asked, "are you calling for communications advice?" He hung up on me.

Not five minutes later the phone rang again. A different number. When I answered using my name, the male who was calling said, "Oh sorry, I must have the wrong number."

When 10 minutes later I got yet another phone call from another strange number, I realized something weird was going on. The man I spoke to this time said, "Is Lucky there?" Hmmmmm.....how many people do you know named Lucky? And how many people do you know named lucky who work for the government? Definitely the wrong number. I asked him how he got my number and he was reluctant to answer. After fumbling for a second he said my number was left on his answering machine. I told him that I was wondering who had left the number on his machine because I had already had a few other wrong numbers this morning. He repeated the line about the answering machine and quickly hung up.

I checked my phone log. It turns out that I had also received calls at 2:00 am, 3:00 am and 4:00 am -- all from different numbers. Let me guess that they were all calls from lonely men?

Half an hour later, caller #2 rang me a second time. When he realized that I wasn't "Lucky" he hung up. I did a search on Canada411 and discovered he was calling from a Zeller's store. A boring day at the office, maybe?

Whoever Lucky is, she sure missed a lot of calls today. 10 or 12 at least.

I'm pretty sure that someone accidentally printed my phone number in a personal ad. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I answer the phone in a sexy voice? Pretend that Lucky wasn't here right now and take a message? Pretty tempting but frankly I wasn't getting any work done with all of the phone interruptions. So I called the Help Desk and asked them to change my Blackberry number. They were very understanding about the situation.

So tomorrow I get a new number. Guess those guys didn't get "Lucky" today :-)

Oh happy day!

2009-08-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's always nice when a happy day follows a sad one. Why am I so happy? The little guy has adopted the diaper free lifestyle at daycare as well as at home. I was so worried that he might revert back to his old ways. Guess I worried for nothing.

Over snack he asked his buddy SM, "Do you know how to use the toilet?" knowing full well that the answer was "No." What a little show-off! It's only been a little over two weeks now and already he's acting like an expert.

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So we're back to work this week after a glorious 2-week vacation. Photos to follow shortly! We especially enjoyed our trip to the cottage, despite having a few rather wet and rainy days.

Once the photos are uploaded I'll tell you more. In the meantime here is a funny story.

Hubby's fishing rod snapped after an unfortunate tangle in the weeds. It was, however, fixable (or at least temporarily). The little guy watched the whole repair job with great interest. A couple of times he also made himself useful by climbing up to the cottage to fetch supplies.

On his first supply run he said, "Mom, I need Daddy's little knife" (swiss army knife).

"Where did daddy say he left it," I asked. "On the kitchen counter," he replied.

I fetched it and off he went to find hubby. Not two minutes later he was back again. This time he said, "Mommy, I need the sculptate."

"The what?" I asked.

"The sculptate," he repeated.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Can you say it again?"

At this point he became very frustrated with me. "Sculptate!" he yelled over and over.

As I tried to figure out what he was looking for hubby yelled up the hill to us, "Did you find the scotch tape?"

:-)
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He's suddenly become Mr. Independent -- helping himself to snacks, brushing his own teeth, using the toilet and getting dressed all by himself.

The getting dressed part is quite humourous. Most days he puts his shirt on backwards and/or inside out. Often he underwear is on the wrong way too. When I point this out to him he says, "That's the way I like to wear them, Mom." Hey, who am I to judge?

He is, of course, just as skilled at taking his clothes off as he is at putting them on. If he had his choice he'd be naked all the time. Luckily our friends think it's really cute when he performs his little striptease act. Apparently I was a little exhibitionist when I was his age, so I guess he comes by it honestly.

Sad news

2009-08-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

When I was in university I spent my summers taking children with disabilities to camp. I was an outreach worker and my job was integrate my "clients" into regular camping programs. Every week I worked with a different child. Sometimes I accompanied them to day camp, other time to overnight camp. I did this for three summers in a row and, in that time, met some very remarkable kids. Being an outreach worker was incredibly rewarding at times. I watched children get on a horse, paddle a canoe and sleep in a tent for the first time. For many of these kids, I was sharing in the best week of their entire year.

The job was also very stressful at times, particularly when working with children with more severe disabilities. My most difficult child was a boy with ADHD. He locked me in a closet in an empty building and then ran away laughing, leaving me alone in the dark. I should really get some therapy for this --- I still have nightmares.

The job was physically challenging. I did a lot of lifting and transferring and pushing wheelchairs over rugged terrain. I didn't mind the physical part. It was the emotionally challenging part that I couldn't deal with. The part I still can't deal with.

People often ask me why I didn't choose working with people with disabilities as a career path. For one, the pay sucks. But the really big reason is that I can't handle the tragedy. At least 3 or 4 kids I've worked with directly or indirectly have died. And those are just the ones I know about.

I took a teenaged girl to camp two years in a row (she had a rare disease that she picked up while living in India). The first year she could easily walk by just holding my hand. The second year, she appeared to have advanced Parkinson's Disease and required a person on each side to help her walk. Although I lost touch with her (she was in foster care) I can only imagine she is no longer alive today judging from the rapid progression of the disease. All she wanted was to be a normal teenager! It was so heartbreaking to watch.

And then there are the children with cystic fibrosis who all die young. And the ones who have succumbed to other illnesses.

Today I found out about the tragic death of my favourite little camper of all time. His name was Rodmond and I first took him to camp when he was 6 years old. This child was the most energetic, outgoing and enthusiastic kid I've ever met. He had Spina Bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down. Technically he was "disabled" but you would never know it if you spent five minutes with him. This child integrated himself into the camp program with very little help from me. Within hours of arriving at the camp, he was the most popular kid around. We couldn't go anywhere without him high-fiving councillors, or him calling out "What's up dude?" or "I'll catch you later okay?" to passersby.

Rodmond couldn't swim but he was too proud to admit it. He flailed himself across the deep end of the swimming pool. When I could see him struggling I'd reach out to grab him and he'd get so mad. "No,no, no" he'd tell me. "I can do it myself." I remember throwing him a flutter board and saying, "Hey, let's pretend we're sharks." This allowed him to save face in front of his peers while "swimming" to safety.

Rodmond had the most incredible family. His mom was an absolute inspiration. Talk about a mother who would not for one moment let her son feel sorry for himself. Rodmond was like every other kid and that was that.

On the last day of camp that first year, Rodmond cried his eyes out. He was so afraid we'd never see each other again. That night his mom called me at home and asked me to be his respite worker. I gladly accepted the job, which allowed me to visit him occasionally throughout the year.

The next year we went to camp again for two weeks. I couldn't believe I was being paid to work with him, he was such a joy. He made me smile and laugh all day long.

I think you know where this story is going... Rodmond died on June 24th but I only just found out today when my mom told me about an article in the paper. It was a story about how the health care system failed Rodmond. His parents took him to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday. On the way home they missed their connecting flight in Denver. While at the airport he became very ill and had to be hospitalized. His condition improved slightly but, due to a bureaucratic nightmare, missed his opportunity to be flown home. A few weeks later he died of an infection in Denver, with only his mother by his side. His dying wish was to go home, but his wish was never granted.

I read his obituary and didn't make it past the first two lines before I was in tears. Even with all of the health issues he faced, he had an incredibly life. Reading about what he had accomplished made me so proud. It may have been a short life but it was a life well lived.

I'll miss you forever Rodmond. You are always in my heart.

The no-diaper vacation experiment

2009-07-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

WARNING: The following blog entry contains pooh content. Don't read any further if you don't want to hear about it.

Starting at exactly 4:30 pm on Friday, we started our diaper-free vacation. Everything was going well until the little guy had to poop. Instead of just listening to his body and sitting down on the potty, he decided to hold it in. All weekend long. Even after feeding him a dozen or more prunes. By Sunday night he was walking around holding his butt and complaining that it hurt. We kept encouraging him to sit on the potty. A few times he sat down on it but then refused to go.

On Monday morning we decided that since we weren't in a rush to be anywhere, we would stay home until he pooped. It was a battle of the wills. Hours passed. Nothing. He got crankier and crankier. Then the moaning and groaning started. I couldn't bare to see him in so much pain so I went to the pharmacy (no, not to buy diapers!). The pharmacist recommended using a suppository. He said that because he had held it so long, his stools were probably impacted (sorry for being so graphic). I wasn't sure I like that option so I also bought some oral medication too.

When I got home I told the little guy he had two options - he could take the medicine by mouth or bum. To my amazement he chose the latter! I was really afraid that the experience would scar him for life so, before I gave it to him, I put on my communicator hat and came up with a really good story line. I told him that the suppository had to go talk to his pooh and tell them that it was time to come out. I said that it might be uncomfortable for a few minutes, but that it would be all better just as soon as they finished talking. Five minutes later he was sitting on the potty and voila! All was good in the world again. The little guy was delighted with himself and told us that he was a big boy now etc. We of course heaped on the praise and rewarded him with ice-cream.

Today, the whole scene all over again. Again he just held it and held it.

Our new strategy is to feed him tons of fiber so that he gets lots of practice over the next couple of weeks. We figure that once he gets over his fear, the whole potty training thing won't seem like such a big deal anymore. We've also told him that letting the pooh out is his job -- a job that he has to do everyday. I read some advice online that using this kind of language really helps. So far he's responded really well to us saying this, and likes the idea of having an important responsibility.

We're going camping tomorrow. I'll report back on Friday.

Two big steps back

2009-07-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

Do you even need to guess what I'm talking about? I am officially past the end of my rope.

This morning he peed all over the bedroom carpet and refused to help clean it up. Then, tonight, he left pooh and pee piles all over the bedroom carpet again refusing to help clean it up. (Note to self - time to install hardwood). When we asked him why he didn't use the toilet or the potty he said it was because he was mad at us (presumably for not giving him a diaper).

Leading up to the pooh incident he begged me for a diaper. I told him he didn't need one because he was a big boy now. He yelled, "I don't want to be a big boy!" I calmed him down by putting his potty in front of the television and putting on his favourite Caillou video. To sweeten the deal even more I gave him a lollypop to lick while he sat on the potty. I then left the room to give him some privacy and told him to call me when he was done. A little while later I heard a whizzing noise following by the door slamming. When I went upstairs to investigate, it was like walking into a crime scene -- there was pee and pooh everywhere within a three foot radius of his potty.

I'm not sure how to deal with this type of behaviour. If I get mad, he rebels even more. If I'm nice about it, he thinks I'm giving him a ticket out of potty training. If I tell him I'm disappointed he laughs at me. Should I go on?

I have no more ideas. I've tried everything and nothing works. I'm trying to be optimistic about our diaper free vacation but it's hard. Am I the only mother on earth who has a kid that refuses to toilet train. HELP!!!

Drawing inside the lines

2009-07-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

The little guy's artwork has evolved rapidly over the last couple of weeks. Instead of scribbling, he carefully tried to colour inside the lines. Also, his drawings now resemble what he is trying to depict. The other day he drew an amazing rocket ship with fire shooting out of the bottom. Well, amazing for a 3-year old in any case.

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His favourite new line is "For goodness sake!" I hear it at least a hundred times a day.

Like this morning when he said, "For goodness sake Mom, it's time for breakfast."

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Do you want a toilet training update? Sigh.....

Every single day this week he peed his pants at daycare. I swear he's doing it on purpose because he never does that at home. First day of school for him is September 11. Tick, tick, tick.

Our holiday starts at 4:00 pm next Friday. After that all of the diapers disappear.

30 second update

2009-07-05T06:29:00.001-07:00

- After much anxiety, the little guy successfully pooped on the potty last night! Afterwards he asked if he could have some candy as a reward. I told him I wasn't sure if we had any candy and he replied, "We have some candy in the kitchen, in fact." And, in fact, he was right!
- This potty training success was quickly erased this morning when he peed all over the kitchen floor (and did I mention he's been peeing all over the bedroom carpet lately and not telling us? We keep stepping in puddles)
- A new stage has begun: the violent temper stage. He's like a volcano and when he blows he really blows. And you never know what's going to set him off. We've been hearing him yell the following phrases a lot lately:

"No! You're being rude to me!"

"That's not fair!"

"I'm going to knock you down!" and other statements to this effect.

- Of course hubby and I are the only ones who are witnesses to his violent temper. Everyone else reports him as being so well-behaved, gentle, nice, cooperative etc...He's the model child outside the privacy of our home. Oh well, I guess everyone needs to blow off a little steam once in a while.

- We are finally able to sleep in again on the weekends. In the morning he just trots downstairs and quietly plays with his toys. If he gets hungry he just helps himself to some crackers and fruit and pours himself a glass of water.

- This morning he drew some pictures and we said, "These are great!" He replied, "Yes, I'm a great drawing boy!"

- Our new couch suffers so much abuse. The pillows are constantly being cast around and turned into forts, water slides, dens etc...And there is no point making the bed because no sooner as the bed is made the blankets and pillows are sprawled out across the room.

- Daddy bought the little guy water pistols so when the weather is nice it's game on! Even some of our neighbours have been joining in.

- What is it with little boys and spitting? Enough already!!!!

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

It was free admission at the Aviation Museum today so we decided to check out the Canada Day festivities they had planned. Areas of the museum that are normally closed to the public were open for viewing. The little guy got to sit and "drive" some of the airplanes including one that was used to train Snowbird pilots. Pretty cool!

Speaking of the Snowbirds, they put on a show overhead. When we pointed into the sky and said, "Look, the Snowbirds," the little guy replied, "Those aren't birds, they're airplanes!" And since we got home he's been going on and on about how he saw the "snow planes." :-)

In the afternoon we wandered down to the market for a late lunch on the patio. I love people watching on Canada Day while sipping on sangria...People really went all out this year with the red and white attire, Canadian flag tattoos etc...

The fireworks should be starting very soon. Hubby and I are going to watch them from our rooftop balcony.

The poop on Kindergarten

2009-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I took the little guy to a lemonade party/Kindergarten orientation. They had all sorts of fun activities happening on the playground, the teachers were friendly and nice, the kids welcomed the little guy with open arms. When we left, both of us had dreams of junior kindergarten dancing through our heads. It was until I opened up the orientation folder that night that my bubble burst.

One of the sheets included suggestions to help your child prepare for kindergarten. There were a bunch of handy little tidbits and then in big, bold writing it said:

Practice personal habits such as:
- going to the bathroom unassisted (wiping, flushing, turning on and off faucets and washing hands)
- blowing nose
- sneezing or coughing into sleeves

Guess which one I'm worried about? Granted we have made some progress in the last few weeks. He's been pooping in the potty at home but won't go near the toilet to save his life. And if memory serves me correctly, they don't have potties in kindergarten.

And wiping? We aren't even close to wiping lessons yet.

Today he pooped in his underwear at daycare and was absolutely mortified. I think he really, truly wanted to use the potty but was too scared. He waited too long to ask for help and, well....poop happens. Can you imagine the humiliation he would experience if that happened to him in Kindergarten?

The clock is ticking so it's time to step up our toilet training efforts. Otherwise he might be sitting JK out this year and heading back to nursery school.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-24T18:02:00.001-07:00

A little late...but better late than never right?

It's hard to know where to begin paying tribute to hubby. He is the best dad in the world to our son and has been since the very moment that the doctor lifted him from my womb. I was on the operating table with a curtain shielding my view of the operation. The only thing I was able to see were hubby's eyes as he watched the surgery. It was by looking into his eyes that I knew our son has been born. His eyes suddenly became very wide as he witnessed the most incredible miracle he'd ever seen. But as I watched his eyes I saw more than that -- I saw him experience love at first sight.

We got separated for an hour (which felt like an eternity) while I got stitched up after the c-section. It was the loneliest hour of my life. Thankfully baby boy was safe and sound in his daddy's arms. They snuggled skin to skin and got to know each other while I lay on the operating table yearning to hold our baby. What they shared in that first hour was truly magical. It was the start of a close bond that has continued to grow stronger and stronger each day.

Our son lived in a sling for the first three months of his life (when he wasn't nursing, that is). He demanded to be carried around constantly. Hubby would wear him for hours, inside the house and out. He often comments about how he misses those early days when he was a little "pouch-a-rino".

Obviously a lot has happened in the last three or so years. And in that time, the nature of their relationship has changed. They are now the best of friends. I've never seen two people have so much fun together! They are constantly playing, reading, building, cooking, surfing the web, crafting etc...together. Either that, or they are off on wild father-son adventures. Whenever he can, hubby takes days off work so they can do cool stuff together. They go to museums, explore the wilderness, stop at toy stores, eat sushi....Hubby is all about making sure that the little guy has the most enriching life possible.

I loved hubby with all of my heart before our son came along. Now he's given me reason to love him even more.

Happy Father's Day sweetheart!

Our first Youtube post

2009-06-21T06:03:00.001-07:00

Check out what the little guy caught in our own backyard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgiWI7OyzjQ

Fun in the sun

2009-06-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

It has been the most amazing weekend. Sunny and hot, but not too hot. Perfect weather for hanging out at the beach. On Saturday we explored a small town about 45 minutes out of the city which just happened to have the nicest little beach for wading and throwing rocks. The town was also home to a cozy cafe that specialized in freshly baked scones. Yummy!

In the afternoon we took a stroll down to the market to celebrate the little guy's toilet training accomplishments with some ice cream. At the same time we picked him up a butterfly net so he could catch fish in his kiddie pool. That evening he hauled in quite the catch. Dolphins, sharks, whales, fish and some assorted cars and trucks.

This morning, butterfly net in hand, we decided to bike down and check out one of the beaches inside the city. We met up with our friends there and had a great time splashing around in the water.

I can just feel that Vitamin D kicking in. Bring on the summer!

Target practice

2009-06-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cheerios. All this time they were the key to getting the little guy to pee in the toilet. You just throw a few in the bowl and let the fun begin. What 3-year old could resist the opportunity to aim and shoot? Standing up pees are now so popular that I don't have to drag the portable toilet seat with us anymore. Nice! And he's even doing standing up pees at daycare.

And newsflash! He pooped on the potty twice this weekend! Finally he's decided on his own that he wants to be a big boy. Let's hope that he keeps up the good work.

Hooray for progress!

An 11th toe?

2009-06-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

The little guy and his female friend SW were playing in the kiddie pool yesterday. At one point he decided to strip out of his bathing suit and streak around naked (he's a bit of an exhibitionist). SW, who had never seen a little boy in the nude before, started giggling and staring. She turned to her dad and said, "Look, he has a toe!"

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If the 2s were terrible, the 3s are even worse in some ways. The little guy has developed a terrible temper and just flies off the handle at the smallest thing. Sometimes in his attempt to hurl angry words at me, he ends up saying something hilarious. Like last night, when he yelled, "You better stop that you little guy or you can't come to my birthday party!"

Or earlier tonight when I wouldn't let him have a piece of pie before dinner. "You smack that pie right here, Okay?

Parental advice

2009-06-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

Even if you don't ask for it, you sometimes get it. Like last night, when I was talking to my mother on the phone about toilet training. I told my mom that we had tried almost everything to get the little guy to poop on the toilet but nothing seems to be working.

Her advice: baby suppositories.

My reaction: I think not!

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There is a little cheese thief in the house. Every morning when I'm packing the lunches the cheese mysteriously disappears from the room.

When I ask the little guy if he's seen the cheese, he starts giggling.

"I smooched it!" he says.

He's also into "smooching" oranges and apricots.

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You can lead a horse to water

2009-05-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

I think they should change this saying to, "You can lead a toddler to the toilet, but you can't force him to poop." The drama around the BMs never seems to end.

Whenever I talk to people about it, they don't understand why he's winning and we're losing. I'll tell you why -- his #1 dominant personality trait is stubbornness. I can't even begin to tell you how stubborn he is. If he doesn't want to eat something, do something, try something etc... there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to change his mind. He has to come around to the idea on his own terms. Eventually he does, but it's an extremely frustrating process.

That's my weekly bitch on the topic...

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I've been trying to get rid of toys. Lots and lots of toys. The nursery school is having a kids yard sale and fair next weekend I've being putting together boxes full of donations.

There's just one problem....Every time I set aside some toys, you-know-who finds them and starts playing with them again. Toys he hasn't looked sideways at for months have suddenly taken on a new life. I swear he can sense when I'm about to chuck something! Has anyone else experience this? I'm not going to let this phase me though. All of his babyish toys have got to go. Same goes for the old Playmobile toys that have millions and millions of little pieces. I have a love-hate relationship with Playmobile. The toys are very cool and spark a lot of imaginative play, but good lord are they messy! I'm constantly tripping over little parts and pieces. They drive me nuts! When he's older and better at keeping track of the pieces we'll get him more Playmobile but, right now, they have got to go.

I'm going to load up the car tonight so he doesn't see them leave the house. My guess is that he's never miss any of those toys. He probably won't even notice they are gone.

Negotiating

2009-05-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

We've figured out a way to get the little guy to pee on the toilet on command. Just offer him one dollar.

"One dollar?" he asks in disbelief, as if he's just won the jackpot. "Can I have one dollar if I do a pee?"

When he asks for payment we just tell him we owe him and will pay him next Tuesday. He seems okay with that.

I wonder if this strategy will work for poops?

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Speaking of money....On Saturday we hit a giant neighbourhood garage sale. I gave the little guy five dollars in quarters to spend. After a great deal of house hopping looking for the perfect toy he stumbled across a large sack of emergency vehicles. It was packed full of some really nice fire engines, ambulances and police cars. They were bundled together with the price tag of $5. When I told him that he had just enough money to buy them he was overjoyed.

I helped him count the money and give it to the vendor. He was so please with himself and his big purchase!

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So we've gone back to diapers at bedtime after FOUR nights in a row of bed wetting. Maybe we'll try again in a few weeks.

Just stick it in the IV

2009-05-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

The little guy has a new Playmobile toy - an ambulance complete with driver and medical supplies. One of the little pieces is a miniature IV. He's been asking us tons of questions about what it is and how it works. I was pretty sure he had it all figured out until he he told me today that the IV had soap in it, not medicine.

"Why does it have soap?" I asked.

"At CC's house she uses IV soap," he told me.

It took me a long time to convince him that she really used Ivory soap. :)

Toilet training update 1,543,209

2009-05-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Two days ago we took all of the diapers away (except for at daycare). He doesn't even get one at night anymore. For a few months now he's been wearing underwear full time when he's at home so it seemed like a natural thing to do.

When I told him there were no more diapers, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'll do my poohs at CC's house (his caregiver)." Pretty soon those diapers are going to disappear too. Once nursery school is out for the year I'm going to ask her to put away the diapers too. It's going to be underwear all the time this summer!

Other than the poohs, toilet training has been going really well. He's even made some progress using the potty at daycare. I'm feeling optimistic that the worst is over.

Stay tuned

Long weekend: the final chapter

2009-05-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pictures from the weekend.

Did I mention that the purpose of our visit was to celebrate my big brother's 40th birthday? I was impressed by how he embraced this milestone. He has had no less than five birthday parties to date, including a trip to New York with nine of his best buds. On Saturday night my family marked the occasion with a swanky dinner out for just the adults.

Three peas in a pod.

Going for a little spin.

So cute!

My nephew loves to play with these little pylons. He was kind enough to make a wheelchair zone for Grandpa :)

Long weekend part 2

2009-05-18T16:34:00.001-07:00

We made history this weekend. It was the first time that all six of the cousins were all together in one place. As you can see, capturing the moment on film was a bit of a challenge :-)

Wait a minute....Where's JK?

Okay, Grandma's got him. Quick, take the picture!

We have an escapee. Let's try that again.

Lining up pre-schoolers is like herding cats. Believe it or not, this was the best shot I was able to get.

Too funny!

Long weekend fun!

2009-05-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend the little guy had an awesome time hanging out with his cousins JK and AK. Here are a few pictures of them playing with the hose at the park on Saturday. They didn't let the fact that it was cold and miserable get in the way of their fun. They had a blast building a river in the sand, getting very wet in the process!

Soccer: Night 2

2009-05-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

This weeks soccer practice started off on the wrong foot. The little guy was so nervous that he wouldn't let go of my leg. He just stood there yelling, "I want to go home!" Hubby and I calmed him down and then took turns escorting him onto the field until he felt comfortable. We weren't alone. There were at least three other kids who were just as nervous.

It wasn't until they played some really fun games started that the little guy forgot about us completely. They played hide and go seek soccer, which was a big hit. This was followed by a game called "kick the ball at the coach." Every time that a ball successfully hit one of the coaches they would pretend to be hurt. They would yelp and cry and roll around in the grass feigning pain. The kids thought it was hysterical. I've never seen my child so engaged in an organized game. He must have kicked the ball at his coach 50 times.

What a goof!

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T13:13:00.001-07:00

I was one spoiled mom this year. On Friday, I was invited to a Mother's Day brunch at nursery school. Virtually everything on the menu had been prepared ahead of time by the kids. My little guy took all of the credit for the pancakes (which were, of course, delicious). Even the butter was homemade.

In honour of Mother's Day all of the kids were asked to create a portrait of their moms. Beside my portrait was a description of me that the teacher had transcribed. Here is what it said:

My mom is called J****.
She's not at school she is at work.
She is having lunch with me.
She has brown eyes a nose and a mouth.
She looks like my mom.
She has feet.
She has toes.
She has socks.
She has a belly button.

I'd say that was a pretty accurate description, don't you?

On Sunday, I had a full day of culinary delights. In the morning, hubby and the little guy made me french toast with strawberries. Later on they took me out for lunch. And for dinner, hubby made one of my favourite Thai dishes. My boys know that the way to this mom's heart is through her stomach :)

A real nail biter

2009-05-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the little guy and I had to drive hubby to the train station. While we waited in the car for him to grab his suitcase I started biting one of my nails (a terrible, lifelong habit).

The little guy yelled, "No mommy." At that moment I was totally unconscious of the fact that I had been biting my nails and had no idea why he was saying no. So I shrugged my shoulders and continued to gnaw on my nail.

"Mommy, you stop that!"

"Stop what?" I asked, still completely clued out.

"Stop doing that to your hands," he said. "If you don't stop doing that right now I'm not going with you to see daddy's train!"

Well I sure learned my lesson. Maybe he'll help me to kick my habit for good :-)

First night of soccer

2009-05-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

There were 15 kids at soccer tonight. Most knew enough to chase and kick the ball in the general direction of the net. And then there was my son, forever beating to his own drum. If the coach said run, he would stand still. If the coach said kick the ball, he would pick it up and carry it.

He was the one who excitedly called one of the coaches over to show him a rock he found in the grass. The one who abandoned a fully charged game of What Time is it Mr. Wolf in favour of kicking up dust clouds along the chalk line. The one who switched teams intermittently and shot at the wrong net.

At one point he decided to just run off the field to come see us. The coaches called after him, "Where are you going? You're supposed to sit with the team." He casually replied, "I'm going to have a nap now."

He may have completely missed the point of soccer, but he sure had fun!

After 30....

2009-05-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

It was my friend's 30th birthday last night (spring chicken!) and it really got me thinking about how different you become as you get older. For example, we went to a nightclub for drinks and to listen to a celtic band. All of us 30+ year olds got there early so that we could find a table. Because when you're over 30, who wants to stand in a cramped bar all night?

As the night drew on, I couldn't help but notice a huge serpentine line-up winding around the building. The wait to get in to the bar was at least 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure that all of the people in line were in their early 20s. After all, no one in their 30s (or even mid-to-late 20s for that matter) would ever wait in line to get into a nightclub unless, of course, they were total losers. When you are a 30 something you just shrug your shoulders and say, "oh well, let's go somewhere else." Another way I could tell that the people in line were much younger than me was by their choice of clothing. Many of the females were scantily clad (I've seen a handkerchief provide more coverage!) despite the frigid temperature. We live in Canada for crying out loud! In the very unlikely event that a 30+ year old did decide to wait in a long bar line-up they would at least be smart enough to wear a jacket.

When the bar closed at 2 a.m., I would hazard to guess that there were very few people in their 30s left in the establishment. Why? Because people in their 30s go home when they are tired (unless, of course, they are hanging out with a younger crowd and trying to keep up)! I got home at midnight which is pretty good for a 34-year old don't you think?

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Last night when the little guy asked where I had gone, hubby said, "Mommy went to a nightclub with SB."

"Oh," he said. "Why did SB want to go with mommy to her book club?"

My lack of a lively social life really shows through sometimes, doesn't it?

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Today, the little guy and I both learned something the hard way while on a wilderness hike.

He learned that there is a good reason why we tell him to not get to close to the edge of a stream. And I learned that I should never leave his change of clothes in the car.

Photos to follow..