un

One of my favourite things about watching my children grow and develop has been observing their understanding of language. It has been both fascinating and hilarious to watch our two older children learn to speak and then to engage in conversation (particularly with each other). I will never forget the way that my oldest used to say “all my-by-self” when he wanted to do something independently or “all-yours-by-self” if he wanted me to do it. I’ll admit to a pang of sadness (mixed with pride) when he learned how to say it “properly”.

Lately our daughter has been depending on “un” to explain herself with many comical results. The other day she spilled some milk. She jumped up and ran to get a towel so she could “unwet” the table. When I asked her to clean up her lego she responded that she needed to “unbuild” it first. She’s also had to get unhungry, ungrumpy and undirty her hands after she coloured on them. So cute!

Now I must go and unfuss the baby!

ironic

T (looking at our baby): I just don’t get this little guys personality.
Me: What do you mean?
T: He seems so laid back but he is so unbelievably stubborn.
Me: Annnnnnnnnnnnnd YOU find that confusing?

gong

Somedays I swear I can hear a gong in the background of my life. Most of the time life is fairly normal and routine but every now and then things get off kilter and we have a regular $h!t show on our hands! Like Tuesday, for example. I was making supper for a family at our church. Baby J was napping upstairs and Her royal Highness was playing quietly with her dolls. All of a sudden the meat I was browning started smoking which set off the smoke detector that woke up the baby and sent G into a whining frenzy. Oh, and then my phone started ringing. In 12 seconds we went from relative peace to blaring sirens, screaming baby, whiny 3 year old and ringing phone. Just a touch of chaos! Thank goodness T works from home. He came downstairs for 5 minutes until I could restore some semblance of order.

In other news, we started our day today with the discovery of an abandoned pair of scissors and a pile of long blonde hair. Turns out that Little Miss Thang wanted her hair shorter and took matters into her own hands. She cut off CHUNKS of hair. There are some places where the hair is only about an inch long. Lovely. Just in time for our Christmas photo. The only redeeming factor is the most of the ravaged parts can be covered with her remaining hair. She looks a little thin on the right side but I’m not about to cut it all to the shortest length. Personally, I think it’s kind of funny (but don’t tell her that!) but T is not able to laugh about it yet. Whoever said that the 2’s are the challenging years never had a three year old!

pat-a-bum

What’s up with babies liking it when someone pats their bum to put them to sleep? Quite frankly, if someone was patting my butt, I’d have to throw them out of the room before I could fall asleep.

On the other hand, I wish I still had the ability to fall asleep in the middle of a crowded room when I was feeling kind of tired, bored or fed up with the people around me. I’m not sure people would find it as cute if I was to conk out mid conversation for 30 minutes or so.

imagine

When my husband and I were busy falling in love and planning our future together, we never imagined the day we would cheer out loud because one of our kids pooped spontaneously. Oh, how life has changed!

car conversation

G: BREAK IT DOWN, DOOOODE!
T: (laughing) Where did you learn that?
G: You know, from the rock stars.
T: What rock stars? (whispering to me, “Does she know what a rock star is?)
G: The ones that PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR (and then she breaks into a song she made up about partying like a rock star complete with air drums and head banging).

And then N requested a song by Bonnet.
T: Who?
N: Bonnet, the singer.
T: I don’t know who you mean.
N: You know that guy in that band that does the song about his dad? That band you listen to.
T: I still don’t know.
N: The band I like who sing that song.
And then it registers that he likes to listen to U2 in the van (you know, when he’s not listening to Mississippi by the Red Hot Chill Peppers).
T: Do you mean Bono?
N: Yeah, Bonnet.
T: It’s Bon-ooooooooooooo.
He looks on his ipod and puts on “Sometimes you can’t make it on your own”.
N: That’s the song I wanted. I like Bonnet.

Our children are SO random!

found

I have found the following items recently. If you know who the rightful owners are, please let me know!

1. 2 dirty rocks and one snail shell found in my light blue fleece sweatshirt pocket.
2. A teddy bear and two dolls stuffed between the sheets in the linen closet.
3. A small pile of sand and dead wasp on the family room floor.
4. A Cabbage Patch doll found in the baby’s bassinet with two used breastpads over her eyes to “help her nap”.

overheard

Did you just poop?
Yup (in a very happy sounding voice)!
Sooooo, how ’bout if you don’t wipe your bum with your fingers?
Oh, ok.

christmas lights and exterior paint

With the Christmas (and I do mean Christmas!) season quickly approaching, our neighbourhood is alight with thousands of twinkling lights. We really enjoy walking around our community after dark, checking out the various light displays. Most of our neighbours get into the spirit of the season and put, at very least, a string of lights across their eaves. Ikea would be pleased with the number of strings of star lights visible on our street alone! The result of everyone’s hard work is an almost magical effect that should warm even the Scroogiest of hearts.

When it comes to any kind of decor, I know we all have personal preferences. In terms of lights, I prefer to keep it simple with small white lights. Simple and elegant, so so like me! I admit that I don’t really care for all red or all blue displays but I still enjoy the overall effect on the night sky. Here’s the thing, there is such a thing as overkill. Cramming as many lights as you possibily can onto any surface that will hold one is, quite simply, WRONG! Your exterior should never look like an elf or worse, community of elves threw up all over it! Please, for the sake of city’s electricity supply and my eyes, less is really more.

While I am on the subject of exteriors, I would like to add that electric blue, pink of any shade, lime green and mauve are simply not colours that are meant to adorn the outside of any home (barring coastal cities where the general population participates). If I ever become mayor, my first objective will be to institue architectural control and ban such shades.

Thanks in advance for your kind co-operation!

saturday morning wake up

This morning I was lying in bed half awake when N came barreling into our room and yelled, “Dance party! Music’s on!”. He proceeded to plug in his gettoblaster, crank his favourite dance tunes and then dance with frantic abandon all over the bed, T and I. Despite not wanting to wake up, it was a pleasing way to start the day (and continued to improve when T went downstairs with the kids to keep up the party and I fell back to sleep).

Rock out!