finger thumb

another reason why I love my husband

Because he was 'cleaning up' his studio the other day, and I noticed this, as he was getting organized:

Hm, broken doll house table, clock, headphones, china music box and toy trailer.

All slated for repair. I don't know what exactly it is about his little handwritten notes, but they make my heart swell. That he took the time to write the dot-dot-dot at the end of this phrase is what I love the most. The way the directive sort of peters out, that kind of sums him up. Like he has big plans to repair these... but he's not quite sure when that's gonna happen.... dot, dot, dot. So perfect. So him. 

I also love that he uses shallow fruit box lids, picked up from the local grocery store, as a sorting mechanism for all the detritus of his life. They are like in-box, out-box trays, but more capacious. Proving that he's not only a pack rat, but also thrifty. Check, and check. 

ps: the music box plays 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head' and was one of my greatest treasures when I was little. The Little Dude also loves it, and that's how it got broken. But as I now know, it will get fixed... someday. 

pond

Up in the top ten list of 'Things the Little Dude Likes' after 'diggers', and 'tractors' and 'apricots' and 'shovels' is 'nets'. Specifically fishing nets. Especially green ones. So he was more than happy over the weekend when Grandpapa rummaged around in the garage and found not one, but TWO fishing nets. And one of them was green. Or at least it had a green handle. Close enough. His cousin was visiting, so with Uncle Matt and Grandpapa in tow, they headed off to the pond to see what good those nets were for. 

Good thing they had some buckets....

...because they found some stuff to put in them. 

FROGS! And also some minnows. And a few water bugs. But mostly... FROGS!

His cousin Sarah had a bucket with three little frogs in it. One so young that it still had its tadpole tail.   She was very attentive to her wee captives. Unlike the Little Dude who kept darting away to investigate other things.

Most notably the crazy toys that Daddy and Grandpapa were playing with.

What could be so interesting?

A remote control speedboat that we kids gave to my dad for his birthday this week. Its not just for playing with, but has the practical purpose of being the tool with which my father will scare those pesky Canada Geese off the pond when they try to settle here and stay. Pretty they may be, but generally speaking, they are kind of a pain in the butt and they poop everywhere. Apparently a noisy little remote control boat is just the thing to make them think better of staying if they should be considering it. 

Anyhow, Sarah kept watch over the frogs, while Hubs kept watch over the Little Dude at the water's edge. 

I'm not sure if she was trying to feed him, or just give him a friendly jab with this blade of grass. Either way, she was not nervous about him at all. Just a little worried that he might escape. 

And he did indeed make a break for it several times. That's what those nets are for; capturing back your wayward frogs. 

Eventually I felt that Mr. Frog (or Ms. Frog, but I'm no amphibian expert so who can say) had put up with enough for the sake of educating and entertaining the littles, so I suggested that we return him from whence he came. The idea was well met and off we went to find a nice spot to put him back. 

Dumping a bucket full of frog and water makes a very satisfying noise. I could tell the Little Dude would have gladly done it more than once, but he only had the one frog, and Sarah was by no means ready to part with hers.

 It must be what an alien abduction feels like. There you are minding your own business when a powerful force drags you from the comfort of what you know, and you spend an indeterminate period of time in a small contained space being observed by beings that you cannot comprehend. Also, there may or may not be probing. Its bright and confusing. You are scared, but somehow can sense that they mean you no harm. And then as abruptly as it started, it is all over and you are safely back home in the pond. Just imagine the story he will tell his friends. 

After we were done with the frogs and ran the battery down on the RC boat, we got out the real boats. What I especially love about this picture is how tilted this little paddle boat is. See how hubs is leaning over to the Little Dude's side in an effort to keep them balanced. So funny.

I'm not even such a big fan of canoeing (I don't dislike it, but it just never occurs to me to go out of my way to do it) but I love this picture. Matt gliding across the little pond, so tranquil. Its almost a cliché, but still so peaceful. After I took this picture I even went and hopped into the canoe for a short ride as well. And it was nice. Very nice. Relaxing too. It's like the Canadian version of yoga. You get a bit of a workout, but feel calm and happy once you're done. Maybe I should do that more often.

last bit of birthday

Really, this is the last post about the Little Dude's birthday. I promise. I know, he's had, like three or four different birthday party/celebrations, but you know how it is. With a large family scheduling is very tricky, so you end up having a lot of little parties, so that everyone can be involved. 

Which, when you think about it, is a method that suits toddlerhood very well. One huge party with tons of people can be overwhelming. But three little parties; much easier to manage. I find that is especially true in terms of gift giving/receiving. I feel like when there are more than three gifts on any one occasion, it gets to be too much for him to absorb, and some of the good things get kind of lost in the shuffle. There's not much you can do about it, but we have recieved some gifts in the mail, and instead of trying to open them all on his birthday, or at the party, I've been saving them and giving him one a day. This works out really nicely, as he gets to savour each individual gift then. However, the downside is that he is becoming accustomed to getting a new toy every day. Today, I excitedly called him down stairs, saying "OH! come look what I FOUND!" because I'd serendipitously located a toy he'd been looking for the other day. He came running, responding with glee "Its a new toy for me?" er. nope. No new toys today. He looked at me as if to say "what's up with that" and quickly recovered saying " I will I get my new toy later then." as if stating the obvious. hm. 

So at the birthday party on the weekend, the final birthday party, we had lots of family. All my siblings and such, and also as I mentioned yesterday, Hub's sister and brother in law and their kids. There was cake (although this time I cut myself some slack and served a bought cake. From the good Dutch bakery in town so the icing doesn't taste like chemicals, but still) and we had lunch together. I had planned a few games, but same as at last years party, we were all so busy talking and eating and playing that we never got around to the games. I'm always worried that people will be bored, or children will be restless, but I should know that my family are all way too 'type A' to find themselves at loose ends. Plus also, we're chatty.

The Little Dude received cars and construction toys, but also lots of books, which is good because I enjoy the books along with him. Whereas I'm not as into the little cars as he is. Though it was quite cute, because a clear favourite was a little set of Hot Wheels from his Uncle Lemur. They were all souped up little hot rod/construction hybrids, and amongst them was what the Little Dude refers to as a "Doin' Buggy". A Dune Buggy that is. But I just love how he says it. I always reply "What's that Doin' Buggy doin'?" He doesn't get it of course, but that's ok, it makes me smile.

Oh, and that "Are you a Horse?" book in the picture above is quite funny, if you are into little kid humour. I recommend it. 

Another fun surprise was this:    A wearable tow truck! Totally unexpected a very fun. It was sent for the Little Dude by one of our regular blog readers who also happens to be a friend of my sister (thanks Mary!). Apparently she saw it at a garage sale and just felt it would be right up L.D's alley. And she was right. It took a bit of persuading to get him to put it on (all the birthday guests eagerly watching), but once his cousin modeled it for him, and more importantly showed him that it could crash (softly) into other people, he was in.

Also, she allowed herself to be 'towed' around the room by him. So cute. 

He was much happier to wear it around the house the next day, when there was less of an expectant audience to make him self conscious. 

And it was such a special treat to have another 'little kid' around for his birthday. He always enjoys time with his 'big cousins' who are able to reach the high shelves and help him build with leog and pick him up and keep him safe by the pond and big kid stuff like that. But it was really fun to have another toddler there too. They have the same energy you know?   Yeah, that kind of energy. Somersaults off the couch, spin around till you fall down and make loud noises just because you can energy. 

******

ok, this is completely unrelated, but I read this blog post/story about a little girl and a fish this evening, and I laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth to keep from waking the baby. The whole rest of the blog is very funny too. Enjoy.  

babies!!!!!

All right people, get ready to have your computer screen implode due to sheer cuteness.

But before I lay the cute smackdown on you, I'll give some context. Hubs' sister, and brother-in-law and their two adorable little girls came to stay with us for a couple of days this weekend. It was awesome. So fun, and so good to meet their two lovely daughters, as the last time we saw them was about two and a half years ago. So we'd only met their oldest little girl once as a baby, and had never laid eyes yet on their new baby. Darn you Canada, and your sea-to-shining sea largeness! Anyhow, I have much to show you from the weekend; there were birthday celebrations and fun outside and of course, some critters. But I'll get to that later in the week. Today I'm just going to share the babies with you. 

This here is the best shot of the bunch. I know its odd to start with the best, I always feel like I should work up to the best shot, but hey, they are babies, there is no bad shot. So here it is:

Wha-bam! See? What did I tell you? Did your computer screen just get a little fuzzy? That's probably because its melting a bit from all the cute. But wait, there's more!  They were just hanging out on the blanket together while their big sibs got up to some fun by the pond with their Daddies. 
It was so fun to watch their interactions. Jazzy (the one in pink) is much older than our New Baby. She's about 10 months old, compared to his 4 and a half months.

She's very engaging and super responsive to her environment and the people in it. She's also getting to be quite a little mover, and during the past couple of days, while they were staying with us, has just learned to 'scootch' around; not quite a crawl, because she's not up on her knees, but she definitely gets around. I think they call it a 'soldier crawl'.

And she rolls like an expert, it almost goes without saying. She was very interested in the other Baby. 

She got right up on him to see if she could give him a friendly poke in the eye. Luckily, the Mommies were on hand to redirect.

He returned the favour by wedging a hand under her armpit.

I can't even tell you how many pictures I took of these two. It was really the most adorable thing, and I just kept snapping away. Thank goodness for digital cameras. This would have cost me a fortune otherwise. 

It was so good to see the two of them together. And though most of a very large country separates us, it is nice to think that over the years we will get together, and put these little cousins side-by-side and take pictures, exclaiming over how much they've grown since they were last together and basking in the glow of family. 

cake!

More birthday celebration pictures. These were from the actual birthday, you know the one where we spent the morning at the hospital getting his croup treated. I still can't believe that happened on his birthday. While he and Hubs were a the aformentioned hospital I took the time to bake him a cake. Because I told him we'd be celebrating his birthday when he got back. With presents? he asked. Yep, I told him. And Cake? *cough, cough*. Absolutely. 

So I decided to really pull out all the stops and make a much more decadent cake than I usually do. For the cake part I made a banana cake, and then made chocolate sour cream frosting, very rich, and for good measure added a generous helping of raspberries and strawberries in between layers.

There it is, half built, showing the berry middle.

And here it is completely covered in icing, and topped with more berries.

I thought to myself, "this cake is going to blow his mind".

So that night, we went over to my parent's place with some take-out sushi and the cake. After many, many helpings of avocado maki, I presented the Little Dude with his cake. He blew the candles out and then very much enjoyed cutting into it himself.  And then, he didn't eat a single bite. Not one. I put this down to his general poor health and the copious sushi he's already consumed. And the next day, at mid morning snack time I busted out the cake again and gave him another piece. And he ate it. But only the cake part. After one little bit with icing, he scrupulously avoided it. Which was funny, because he's had chocolate before, so I know he likes it. After he declared he was done and started to get down from the table, I said, "hey bub, don't you want to eat your icing?"

"Where dat icing?" he asked.

 "That icing, right there." I said, pointing to his plate.

"Dat not icing, icing is white!" he said.

Hunh. So what he wanted was my healthy(ish), sugar free cream cheese and agave icing that I make for our not-so-sugary cakes. Go figure. 

So I ate his icing. Good compromise.

party time!

We had a little belated birthday shindig for the Little Dude today. It took him awhile to get over the lingering cold/cough of the birthday croup that he had, and I didn't want to have another little kid over until he was free and clear and no longer contagious. So today he had one of his little friends over and we had some party fun. Baloons, streamers, a present and of course, cake.

We did a sugar free carrot cupcakes with sugar free cream cheese frosting, garnished with fresh berries of course. I'm wringing every last good drop out of strawberry season. But despite how good they looked, these were the cupcakes that the Little Dude was looking forward to:  Robot cupcakes! Yeah!

Its a set of four silicone cupcake molds that you bake the batter in, so they look like little robots. Cute eh? (Made by Fred) Same cupcakes inside, but with feet.

The gusto with which he tucked into them was truly heart warming. 

Then we went outside to play some games. Hubs has spent his evenings in the last week or so working on this lovely surprise for the Little Dude. 

   A fishing game!

Complete with poles! It was a big hit. 

Hubs and I had talked about making this game for awhile, and I had an idea in my head of the 'little wooden fish' that he talked about. I'd imagined a uniform fish shape cut out of plywood maybe. But this, of course, totally surpassed my expectations. So beautiful! The little fish are made out of cedar. And each one of them is different and gorgeous. Plus also, they smell good.

He cut them out freehand and roughly with a band saw and then used a sander to take the hard edges off and contour them. That man! He continues to impress me with his mad skills on a regular basis

Next time we play this game we'll use a slightly bigger pool though. There was too much line tangling. But the little guys were good about being patient and taking turns. Also, we started out with blunted hooks to catch the fish by their eyelet eyes. But that was a bit too hard. So we quickly added some magnets to our fishing hooks and that worked just fine. It was a lovely morning, and a good time was had by all. 

sandpile

Could it get any better than this?    If you are a three-year old, I mean. I myself don't go in so much for big piles of sand, but I'm telling you, the Little Dude cannot get enough of it. 

My dad recently had a big pile of sand dumped over by the old little barn. I believe it will eventually have a new home as a beach at the edge of their pond, but right now its little kid heaven.

Grandpapa also picked up some hardly-been-used toy trucks and diggers at a garage sale earlier this spring, with the express purpose of using them for playing in this sand. 

I love it that he's a grandpa that gets in there and plays for real. And the Little Dude loves it as well. 

It was really such a perfect summer day when we last played in the big sand pile. The sky was just ridiculously blue and bright.

And there was green everywhere you looked (except the sand pile, but you know what I mean).

 I love this tree. It is one of my favourites. I keep meaning to take a really good picture of it, (which this is not, as I just took it with my point and shoot, and had to use the zoom) but I'm just never out there with my camera and some time on my hands. One of these days I'm going to make a date and go ahead and dedicate an hour to taking pictures of it. Anyhow, its not a tree in my parent's yard, but across the road on a neighboring farm. This picture does not do it justice. It catches my eye every time I drive by it. Gorgeous.

This was the first time we played in the sandpile, and it was a full body experience. He dug...

...and dug....

...and shoveled to his heart's content. 

And after he climbed up to the top of the pile...

...there was an exuberant and unfettered display of sand throwing. Pure joy. 

And of course, he got good and dirty. 

It took these pants two runs through the washing machine to look like their old selves again, after this. But it was totally worth it. 

soakers!

Or rather, soaker, singular, because I've only knitted one so far, but I've started a second one and I think there will be more. 

If you are not familiar with the term soaker, its basically a knitted woolen cover for a cloth diaper. I know, I know, it sounds like a terrible idea. Wool plus urine cannot be a good combo. At least that's what I thought. But lately I've been doing some reasearch and experimentation and apparently its a good thing. 

Back in the day when the Little Dude was born I knew we'd use cloth diapers, but there is a lot to learn about cloth diapering that I did not know. We used cloth prefolds with waterproof covers (often called a two part system) and all-in-ones from bum genius. (This seems like a lot of lingo, so I'm linking to sites that explain these things so that I don't have to do so much writing) Both of these options worked well for us, but I'm always open to learning something new. Or old, as the case may be. Because for those of you reading this blog who had babies back in the 40's, 50's and even 60's soakers are not exactly news. They were the mainstay before laminated cloth diaper covers and, eventually, disposable diapers. 

Because here's the problem. You have a baby. It pees. A lot. You need to soak up the pee, and not have it leak everywhere. You use a cotton diaper to soak up the pee (because cotton is absorbant) and you use a wool soaker to keep the pee from leaking out because wool repels moisture. Crazy, right? Who knew?

I got a lot of good information about soakers from this site. For example, it was news to me that the wool soaker would keep the baby cooler. But its true. I've noticed that the New Baby's bum was quite red when I take his laminated diaper cover off. That, of course, is because it doesn't breathe at all. I thought that was our only option, because I didn't want him to leak. Somehow I just could not wrap my head around a porous, knitted fabric that doesn't leak. But after I read a bit more about it I figured I'd take the leap and try making one myself. It'd be cheaper than buying one of these lovely ones. Someday when I have a little more disposable income I'll invest in a set of those. But for now I went and found a pattern at Little Turtle Knits. Its the Ribby Wrap, and I chose it because it was not a pull on, like many of the soaker pattern I saw, but instead its one that you can do up like a regular diaper. And I'm very pleased with it. Not only do I like the finished product, but it was a good pattern to knit from too. Nice and clear, I'd totally recommend it. And the best thing about buying knitting patterns from the internet is that they are usually available as a pdf download, so you get it right away. Total instant gratification.  See, you open it flat like this, and then lay the cotton cloth diaper into it, and then put the baby on top of that and fold it up and do up all the buttons and voila! 

 Adorable comfy baby, all ready to go. And his bum is not all red and hot when I take the diaper off. And we have yet to have a leak (though its only been two days, but I'll keep you posted.) Plus also, they are so freakin' cute! I want to make them in tons of colours, and I can imagine doing some sweet things with stripes and checks too.  Hubs jokes that its his nightmare garment (knitted pants garnished with buttons, ie, everything he hates about clothing) but does concede that the Baby looks pretty darn cute in them. And I've promised that I won't be knitting him button fly pants any time soon. 

I should give you a quick little update on our adventures with EC'ing. (If you are wondering what the heck I'm taking about, I originally posted about it here). We've just had a little breakthrough with it. I was beginning to wonder if I should keep at it, as we weren't having much success lately. The Baby's elimination patterns shifted a while back and I was having a lot of trouble both reading his signals and predicting his timing, so I just wasn't catching many pees or poops. When he was very new it was much easier, and I'd catch most of his poops. But lately I've also been tired and not bothering to put him on the potty much. But lately friends of mine in Montreal had inspired me to keep at it, and I've been just trying to put him on the potty after each feed. And what do you know, but he really seems to have caught on! For the past couple of days, he's been peeing almost every time I put him on the potty. Which is really awesome. After he's done that, I just put on his cloth diaper and little wool soaker and I don't really worry about EC'ing him until his next feed. He will definitely pee in the diaper, but that's ok. I'm just happy that he and I are communicating about and catching one pee per feed cycle. That feels like enough success for me for the time being. 

Because then I get to watch my active little Baby (or as L.D. calls him 'the wriggler squiggler'; he's very into rhyming these days) wriggle around in his wooly soaker. Forget crawling, it looks like he's trying to fly. 

Canada Day fun

This is what you do on the holiday long weekend when you are too lazy to camp:  You have a picnic in the backyard!

Yes, someday we will camp, when the boys are a bit older and everyone knows how to use a toilet. I know, I know, lots of people with infants and very small children go camping, and more power to them. But by the time the weekend rolls around we are all just looking forward to relaxing, and camping just feels like work. Plus, we live in such a beautiful spot, surrounded by green and trees, that why wouldn't we just stay here, with our comfy beds, reliable plumbing and refrigerators?

And besides, Hubs packs a beautiful picnic. And we had only a short walk out onto the back lawn to sit under the shade of a maple tree. A perfect Canada Day picnic spot.

Just a little picnicking with toddlers tip, a cutting board makes a great little portable table on which to put your tippy cups and food. (I love how the Little Dude is reclining oh so suavely in this picture. Its like Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, but with more clothes. 

His favourite part about picnicking is being able to get up and run around in between bites. There were bugs to find and lawn tractors to sit on and swing sets to do laps around every few minutes. He doesn't get as much eating done during picnics as he does inside, but he certainly has more fun. And that's what holidays are for. 

more Jamie food

Thanks so much for the kind support yesterday. It means a lot to feel connected to people who are far away when times are tough. And yes, we got more sleep last night. Only one wake-up, and that was from the Baby, who comparatively speaking is a piece of cake to get back down during the night. So our night was better, but out day was worse. It must be very hard to be a sick little person who cannot really communicate what and where it hurts. Instead it just comes up as a sort of emotional overflow, that is really hard to soothe. Anyhow, everyone is in bed now, and hopefully will get the healing sleep that they need (mama and daddy included).

So on to something completely unrelated. Food! When the day has been a total shambles, I do often try to make something good for dinner. I know its pretty ephemeral (food doesn't really last, is you know what I mean) but if I make a good dinner it feels as though I've accomplished something in a day that otherwise just felt like treading water. So I cracked out the Jamie Oliver Meals in Minutes cookbook again and made another of his set menus. Today it was Cauliflower Macaroni, Belgian Endive Salad with Insane Dressing and Lovely Stewed Fruit. I wasn't so impressed with this one. The best part was the Stewed Fruit. Just some plums and apricots baked in the oven with orange juice, and then served with ice cream. Its pretty hard to mess up something that simple. And it was quite good. But the Macaroni was a disappointment. A bit too watery and not cheesy enough. I think its because I usually make a Martha Stewart mac and cheese recipe that is just stupendous and has set the bar really high in term of home made macaroni. Jamie's is probably much healthier and I can definitely see adding cauliflower to my Martha Stewart recipe in the future. But her sauces is just SO MUCH BETTER. Sorry Jamie. Oh, and the endive salad was... meh. The dressing was good, but only after I tweaked it to my tastes. Anyhow, I have no pictures because mealtime was truly chaotic with much crying and very little eating. But earlier in the week I did another Jamie Oliver menu which was waaaaay better, and of which I also have pictures. 

Behold: Steak Sarnie, Crispy Baby Potatoes, Cheesy Mushrooms and ....

Beet Salad.

This was all pretty good. I overdid the steak a bit, but that was my fault. The seasonings were great. I really need to get on it and plant my herb garden because fresh rosemary and basil are really improving my life lately. 

The best item of the four was the Cheesy Mushrooms. I'm a sucker for portobellos, but these were ridiculously good. I'm totally going to make them again. 

Oh, and also, neither of these took me 30 minutes. More like an hour. 

All right, I'm off to sleep. Blessed, sweet, sleep. Thank goodness its Canada Day tomorrow, and not just because I'm patriotic but also because that way I have Hubs' extra pair of hands around so I won't have to juggle two sick, cranky kids at the same time. Oh, because p.s. the Baby has a cough now too. Sigh.