Food! Glorious food!

Ruby-doo will be six months old this coming Friday. For weeks now, she's been watching us like a hawk at mealtimes, following our forks from plate to mouth with eyes gleaming with curiosity and intent. She even kicks up a fuss when relegated to the bouncy chair on the floor; nothing less than the front row seat of Mom or Dad's lap will do. She's also mastered the knack of grabbing things and passing them back and forth between hands, and bringing them to her mouth.

So we figured she's ready to try her hand (and mouth) with real food.

First, we had to test her high chair readiness. Though she's getting there quickly, she's not quite sitting up on her own yet, so we had to make sure she she'd be comfortable in her high chair.



Okay, I'm good! Bring it on.

Next up: dinner time! I cooked up a few pieces of sweet potato so they were nice and soft. Ruby was very excited to join us at the table, and curious about the potato. She immediately began man-handling the goods, and got it to her mouth without delay. It was when she managed to actually swallow some that she became a little... uncertain. And decided it was time to stop playing this game. But it was the first time in her wee little life she'd ever swallowed something solid, so you can't really blame her.

You guys sure about this?

 

Okay, I'll give it a whirl.

 

Not bad, not bad.

Errr...

Um, no.







Let the adventures begin!



Child('s) play

I have a confession to make: I don't like playing with my kid. There. I said it. (Does that make me a terrible stay-at-home-mom?)

There are a couple of reasons I don't like playing with my kid. First, kid games are kinda boring. I totally appreciate observing my child learn and discover, and I'm happy to learn with them. But take the simplest concept (say, falling down in a funny way, or doing somersaults), and repeat x 1000 times = ugh! Enough already!

But more than that: my kid is a bitch. He doesn't always play nice. He's kinda bossy. I usually get bitched at for doing it wrong (even when I'm imitating him exactly; other times, I can't understand wtf he wants me to do). Or heaven forbid, I try to bow out due to fatigue (usually mental), or the baby is screaming. Like today, we were playing -- apparently -- belly flop. And throwing myself horizontally into the air and landing spread-eagled on the futon mattress on the floor was painful, especially as I was still in my pj's (ie: no bra, still lactating). So I fell knees first, instead of full lay-out. Cue TimmyTantrum™.

Fun.

Luckily, Tim has an accomplice on the horizon.

Miss Ruby cannot keep her eyes off her brother. Better still if he's moving. She's DYING to play those boring, physical games. I can't quite tell yet whether she'll be the type to happily take his shit, or definitely take no shit... But I'm confident it will be one or the other.

Then all I'll have to worry about is keeping them in peanut butter and jelly sammiches.

Growing up

Ben just came up with his laundry and needed to "have it done" asap, because he had no pants left. I suggested h throw it in himself -- something he hasn't done here before. I sent Tim in to supervise.

Tim showed Ben where the soap was, how to put it in the machine, then turned the washer on for Ben.

I've been saying lately that sometime it feels like I'm living with two 3-year olds. Today, I guess it was more like two 12-year olds. :-)

Holiday pot pourri

I have been trying to steer away from calling Ruby "Rube" as a short form or nickname. It's just a little obvious and not particularly becoming. I have been trying to get "Ru-bijou" (or Ruby-jou, if you like) to stick. That's cute right, a sweet little pun en français? Instead, we've started calling her Ruby-dooby-doo... Which is kind of cute, but not exactly a short form. Guess what the short form of Ruby-dooby-doo is?

Meet my daughter, Doob:

Happy news: little Doobie is a good sleeper... by my (admittedly quite low) standards. She's recently been insisting that her bedtime is 8 pm, and I put her down in her crib. Her crib. (All right, it's a playpen, and it's in our room, but it's the concept that counts.) She then typically proceeds to sleep for 4 to 6 hours. Combine that with Tim's new 8 pm bedtime (it used be 9, back when he napped during the day), and voila! We have an hour or two of FREE TIME in the evening.

Last time I had a kid, that didn't happen for well over a year.

We actually went out last night to a party for a few hours, without the baby. Granted, it was next door, and Baba could have just called us to pop home if she woke up. But she didn't, and we drank beer and stayed out too late. Yay Dooby-doo!

Appropos of nothing, tonight Ken asked Tim: "What is your favourite thing to do?" Tim answered, without missing a beat: "I like to hug, and to go to the green tennis court." Well, of course.

And some Christmas clementine fun:

Let it snow

Before the Xtreme cold wave hit, we enjoyed some good playtime in the snow. It is hilarious watching a toddler play in the snow! I let Tim loose in the backyard, and the snow itself was the toy/activity/play structure. He just stomped around in the six fresh inches of white stuff: stumbling, falling, making angels, throwing handfuls in the air... Whatever, it was the most fun ever!

After awhile though, it inevitably came time for sledding. Wherein Mommy pulls kid on a sled around the snowy block. Again. And again. It was good exercise for me, as most sidewalks weren't shovelled at all. And on our jaunt, Tim made an astute scientific observation (perhaps his first). Looking up, he exclaimed:  "Mommy! The 'no is coming out of the clouds!"

Bad day gone good

By all rights, today should've sucked. We woke up this morning to discover that the refrigerator wasn't working; the fact that both the milk and cream were already sour told us that it had likely been failing for days. (Which would explain the previously inexplicably too-soft ice cream the past few nights. Retrospective lesson: kids take way more ice cream per serving when it's really easy to scoop.)

So, drinking black coffee (espresso at least; it was still pretty tasty, though we drank so much more of it), we spent the morning unloading the contents of the fridge to the freezer downstairs (it's new, another benefit of buying a side of pork!) and a cooler. And wondering if we'd be able to get it fixed (how soon?!), or need to go shopping for a new appliance (an even lengthier process).

Then, it's the first beautiful day out in ages, but we have to stick around the house for the repairman to come.

And later, Tim went down for his nap as usual. And slept for exactly four minutes. Cheating Mommy out of her two-hour "break". (The time during which I normally eat my lunch, make supper, fold laundry, get ahead of the burgeoning clutter-disaster. Etc.)

Sounds like a disaster, right?

But jeez, if all the kids weren't great moods first thing in the morning. Tim had slept ALL NIGHT (a rarity these days.) There was happy happy, frolic frolic; they were practically daring us to be cranky. Tim with his "villain" face and voice, motioning with his fingers saying "Coooommme to me, git-a-car".

And hey! A repairman is coming! Within hours of the breakdown! Sweetie McPie had found some back door to an immediate appointment, and dude even spoke English. Sort of. He was from Abitibi and had a crazy eye, but was a 60 year old rocker and appreciated Tim's Cute.

Then, stuck indoors with no nap in sight, Tim and I got up to shenanigans. Or rather, Tim shenaniganed, and I took pictures.

Left alone with the kleenex box: "Mommy, I got lots!"

Playing doh. Kid can hold this squat for hours.

Trying on Mom's glasses. Very studious, no?

A little bit of core workout on the "liday backet bah".

And my very favourite, his own invention: Elevator in a Can*!

Beyond the ridiculousness of him being able to actually fit in this can, I love the fact that he's got no pants on. (Seriously, he was pretending he was in a hotel elevator. Later on, he went for a bucket of ice.)

The day went on to include a stroller run to the grocery store to replace the bad milk (Tim had a mini nap on the way); a delicious** and hitch-free supper; and all kids being chatty at supper time and cooperative about lunch-making (actually, this is not a surprise).

And I painted my nails. Constance picked out a funky lime green colour from her massive collection. I tried to take a picture to complete this narrative, but all the pictures made my hands look old and gnarly. And this is supposed to be a happy story.

So I'll end it here: not too late to go to bed and do some reading.

* Constance's laundry basket. This very same can -- from Ikea c. 1991-- also served as my laundry basket when I was a teenager. An heirloom!

** Rice pasta. I'm still off the wheat.

P.S. The fridge is fixed. It was a small flukey thing that didn't cost a lot of money. AND I CLEANED THE DAMNED THING. Fridge, freezer, inside and out. That, perhaps, is the point of this story.

Magical cookery skills

Ben just returned to the pot to help himself to another bowl of chili. He told me, "Wow, it's super good." (I haven't tried it yet; he's eating early so he can go off to kin-ball.)

I told him it was vegetarian. He said "What? There's no meat in it? It tastes SO meaty."

Slurp, slurp, chomp.

Ready to go to the Ball

What happens when you leave a two-year old boy alone with a 13-year old girl.

Rather elegant, wouldn't you say? He's even nailed the nonchalant princess pout.

From the list of "Don'ts"

Um, no Tim. That's NOT allowed.

I love naptime

One of the best things about staying home with my "baby" is getting to put him down for his naps. It used to be a dreaded time of the day: will he go down? How much will we fight? Will he stay asleep?

Since we consolidated into one nap a day (a year ago?), and in particular since we stopped nursing (March 18), afternoon naps have been predictable and the routine for going to sleep pretty straightforward -- though time consuming. The thing about it taking a long time is: is doesn't matter! We don't have anything else to do but wash hands, choose stories, read stories, one more story Mommy, cuddle up, chat, toss and turn, wata  [water] Mommy, again wata, cuddle up, toss a bit more, cuddle, Zzzzzz.... It can take an hour from the time we start up the stairs until I come back down to eat a quiet lunch by myself.

But whatever. It's so cozy, up there lying on the bed reading stories. Tim's starting to read along, filling in the words to his favourite stories, pointing out things in the pictures, telling me the ending. It's actually... fun.

And lately, when we've turned out the light and I lay down to cuddle up, Tim (sometimes after a bit of tossing and turning) squirms right into my chest, puts his cheek on my cheek, wraps both arms around my neck, sighs quietly and falls asleep like that. It's heaven.

Freedom for all

We have recently re-discovered the bus. And guess who LOVES the bus? We all do!

Tim and I took our first ride together last week, destination Byward Market. He was very excited as we walked over to the bus stop; very patient as we waited for the bus; and thrilled to sit a seat beside the window looking at everything.

Lucky for me he loved it all -- as soon as we were too far from home to walk back, I realized I'd left my wallet at home. I had return fare in my pocket, but no wallet nixed any plans we had for treats and shopping. Since Tim seemed so content, we just stayed on the bus for the whole route (about 40 minutes) -- through downtown Ottawa and back to our house. We got off, I retrieved my wallet, and we went back to the bus and waited for another. Tim couldn't have been happier to get on ANOTHER bus! Once in the market, pizza for lunch and gelato for dessert was just icing on the cake.

The next week, Constance finished her exams and began contemplating the summer ahead of her. She takes public transit to school, and has taken it a few times to destinations nearby, and all her friends live around here. But every other week, she'll be in Aylmer -- seemingly far, far away from friends and accessible shopping while her mom is at work and unable to chauffeur. So, we hatched a plan to figure out how to bus it to Aylmer and back. I agreed to accompany her on a round trip to Les Mamans. It was perfect for all of us. Constance had the security of a parent, and I had an excuse for an morning activity, and Tim was about to enjoy Public Transit Nirvana: riding the bus with his beloved CoCo.

The adventure was an all-around success. The trip was easy, we were served coffee and snacks at the other end, and we made it back in one piece. Constance is now confident of her summer independence, and I know I can take Tim places like the market, the Children's Museum, or Maman's place without having to book a car and lug a car seat, while keeping the young fella entertained.

Enjoying some tasty juice:

This was Tim's expression for most of the trip. It belies his enthusiasm:

Nodding off a little:

Steelguts

So, I bought a package of dulse a few weeks ago, having heard about it's wondrous health properties and thinking that it might offer new and exciting snacking possibilities.

But dulse? Is disgusting. I am the furthest thing from a fussy eater, but my god is that stuff grody. I tried it out on the kids, and they were on board with the revulsion.

Except Tim. Dude will actually EAT that stuff! Okay, not many bites before saying "all done" (it's quite salty). But when offered on later occasions, he'll happily munch a few bites.

Given that he'll eat his bodyweight in smoked oysters or sundried black olives, I probably shouldn't be surprised.

I am not a tea-drinker (or a fun playtime pal)

I really want to be a tea drinker. The idea is both cozy and romantic. But every time I make myself a cup of tea, it's too hot to drink so I set it aside... and inevitably forget about it until it's too cold for consumption.*

Okay, this happens 99% of the time. I actually just finished drinking a cup of jasmine green tea, and this success was so major in my little world that it seemed worth writing about. Yes, that is about the size of my world these days. Tiny, but happy.

Beside tea success, I also had some toy success today. Lately, (as in since always), Tim hasn't been too into playing with toys. We've never seemed to be able to get the good ones. Or I'm not very good at facilitating his play with toys without having to be a constant and active participant which is not handy when supper needs cooking. Tim's favourite activity is Mama reading a book to him, and while I do enjoy this and we spend plenty of time throughout the day thus engaged, Tim is certainly old enough to enjoy "alone time" and use his little brain for solo play... freeing Mama up for such exciting activities as "laundry time" and "bathroom cleaning time" or even a little "eyebrow plucking time".

And frankly, the contents of the tupperware, utensils, and pots and pans cupboards being strewn all over the house is getting a bit old.

So, I thought it was time to try getting Tim a good toy. However, I hate shopping for so many reasons, including the stress of thinking I'm about to spend good money crap that going to go to waste. (Maybe this is why Tim doesn't have many toys to begin with.)

Long story shortened slightly: after painful perusal of the aisles at Toys R Us, we settled on a toy drill. Battery-powered seemed to be the key. The fact that a simple button-push causes it to make a noise similar to the coffee grinder and hand blender (Tim is obsessed with both - morning smoothies are a big event) was a big selling feature.

So far, so good. Tim actually refused to stop drilling for lunch, so the new toy is now sullied with tomato sauce.

* Somehow this does not happen with coffee, even though the milk AND the coffee in my latté are heated within an inch of their lives. Perhaps because I'm so in love with coffee that I'm willing to risk burning all the buds off my tongue rather than wait 3 more minutes for the blessed nectar? Or because once coffee is made my mind refuses to think about anything else until that first sip has been taken?

Our little elf

I picked up a seasonal topper for Tim at the dollar store today. He had it on for half an hour before a) I realized I should take a picture, and b) he realized he had it on. Of course, he realized he had a hat on his head the moment he saw me trying to take a picture. I was too quick for him, though!

But he continued to be cute for the rest of lunchtime.

Charades

When Tim turned 19 months and still wasn't saying any words, I figured I'd better teach him some sign language. McPie's band members had given us a baby signs book for a shower present before Tim was born, but I never really used it. I liked the idea, but could never remember the signs on the fly in order to use them and teach them when he was a baby. But as a toddler, Tim learned them faster than I did.

A month later, he speaks with his hands. Please, thank you, drink, eat, milk, cookie, more, all done, book, home, coat, hat, Wii, Mum, Dad, dirty, sit, look, ouch, dog, cat, bird ... and many more. Some are official (ASL) signs, and some are ones we've made up intuitively. He even signs when he wakes up in the middle of the night: "milk" and "please". First thing in the morning, he can't decide which he wants first, and signs both alternatively: "book!" "milk!" "book!" "milk!"

Tim does vocalize quite a lot (um, constantly... in fact, his sign for "drink" has a slurping sound effect), and seems to be -- maybe, finally -- on the verge of talking in words. Today, I found him on the couch holding a framed photo of McPie's mom (which he'd scoffed illicitly from an out-of-bounds shelf). I said, "Oh, you've found a picture of Nana." And Tim said "Nana!" I thought it might be a one-off, but it turns out that after some coaching, he got that it was a picture of Nana, and now he will say "Nana" when prompted. Finally, an actual word.

And Tim sings. He loves, loves, loves songs. Between us, grandparents, and the music class we attended in the spring and fall, we have a lengthy repertoire of kiddie songs (many of them singable nursery rhymes, you know the type), and he just LOVES songs. He has actions for all of them, to the extent that the action for songs have become the sign for the thing in the song when it's mentioned in a totally different context. And he's started singing along. Not in words -- just tunes.

Tonight, we celebrated the last Sunday of Advent. We're not a religious family, but over the past few years, we've developed a new tradition (in a patched-together family like ours, all the traditions are new) of getting together at alternating parents' houses for Advent Sunday suppers. (Then we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning together for supper and brunch.) One of the sub-traditions of Advent supper is that we sing Christmas carols around the dinner table as a prelude to dessert. The only family member not keen on this is Ben, who tends to mouth the words in a feeble attempt to earn his dessert. This year, Tim sang along. The only song he knew well was The Huron Carol (we have an illustrated book that he makes me sing to him a half dozen times a day), but after singing along to that one, he got into the swing of it and just sang along to most of the songs from his perch on Constance's lap.

It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

For posterity

Constance started high school this September (in Quebec, high school = grades seven to ten). She was very anxious about starting, but it's been going well, to say the least. Just now, we are sitting at opposite ends of the dining table at our respective laptops, and had the following exchange:

H: "Uuuggh. Thank god for Friday."
C: "I'm not grateful for the weekend. I wish it was school."

Ah, the idealism of the young.

Slim Jim

The day after Tim turned 18 months, we went to see Dr. Oliver for his well-baby check up. Tim is extremely healthy (two colds and a couple of minor fevers so far; no allergies; no extra limbs), so scheduling this check up is mostly just for me to show him off to my doctor.

So, besides being an obvious genius, Tim measured in the 75th percentile for height, and the 25th for weight. He's a skinny minny! Or, as Dr. Oliver so astutely observed: you've got a runner there. No kidding? Where on earth would he get that from?

And seriously, this kid is all legs. He can scale vertical surfaces like nobody's business -- just swings one of them foot-long legs up and voila! He's on the dining room table. Or sitting on the barstool at the kitchen counter (which is where he insists on eating breakfast now -- a bowl of cereal or pb toast, depending on what his brother and sister on either side of him are eating.)

Language, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. Although it's clear to me that he's a genius because he's created his own language, in which he chats constantly, Dr. Oliver says he's "delayed" because he doesn't say five words fairly clearly. I'm not sure what to think of this. Tim doesn't say any English or French words yet, but has many words, gestures, and facial expressions that he uses consistently for a variety of things to the extent that it's pretty easy to figure out what he's telling us or asking for. (Cutest: when he makes the motion of swinging a tennis racquet to indicate that he'd really like to play Wii. Which actually consists of Dad or Ben playing Wii golf or tennis and Tim watching, rapt.) And Tim often looks at us like we're just stupid when he babbles a question and we stare at him dumbfounded. Like "people! What about gaw-gi-gaw-gi buggla-bug don't you understand? I'd like to eat berries on the porch chair, duh!"

My theory is that he can't be bothered with these simple individual words and has skipped right to full sentences, existing language be damned.

Or he's delayed. Whatever. This weekend we're heading out to Nova Scotia, where Tim will hang with his cousin Lucas who has way more than five words in his English vocabulary. Maybe Tim will learn a thing or two (and maybe teach LuLu to scale hutch). Though from what I can tell, Lucas is more of a car and truck dude, while Tim is a dog and cat guy.

Chomp, slurp, lick

You know you've made a kickass meal when the 12-year-old asks if it's okay if she licks her plate, and when she's finished doing so (you let her because she's old enough to know not to do it in public, and also you're flattered), she asks you if you're going to lick your own plate, because if not, would you mind...?

It was only eggs benny, but with cornbread and smoked prosciutto rather than english muffins and ham, and a lemony homemade hollandaise. (The cornbread was left over from the previous night's supper of moosemeat chili. Also a hit.)

What can I say, my family loves butter and whipping cream. Of which there was plenty in the cake I made for dessert: white butter cake with chocolate buttercream icing. A totally rich and yummy and super-simple cake. Sweetie McPie said "Can we have cake?" (Said not asked, because I don't think he thought it was possible, and didn't dare actually ask.)  But I whipped one up right then, right under his nose, just what he requeste: white cake with chocolate icing. I do take my job as a homemaker seriously!

Out and about

I have to say that, although I will never admit to ever being glad that summer is nearing an end, I am feeling pleasantly welcoming toward the onset of autumn. September and October, and the anticipation of Grey November, is such a nostalgic and invigorating time of year. A time for new routines, old rituals, putting away, taking out, spending that last bit of energy before hunkering down and cozying up for the long winter months.

And I will admit that that last heat wave of summer, just last week, was pretty inhibiting. We stayed indoors most of the week - it was just too stifling to venture forth. So this week's whiff of autumn is very literally a breath of fresh air, and Tim and I have enjoyed putting on our long sleeves and hoodies and getting out into the neighbourhood.

First stop, the Children's Museum at the Museum of Civilization. Okay, not strictly in our neighbourhood, but we did walk there and back. And Tim went to town while there, showing off how advanced he is. ;-)

Tim drove a bus.


Played chess.


And wrote some important things down.


Today, we headed down to the park at the end of the street, where they replaced the rickety, old, and too-high-for-toddlers play structure with an awesome new one that requires much less intervention on mom's part.

There was much climbing and sliding.




And, of course, some resting. (In the horseshoe pit, where else?)


Strangely, Tim refuses to go on the swings. Which, to my mind, are the funnest part of a playground. As far as I know, he hasn't had any disastrous or scary swing incidents. He'll sit on my lap on the big-kid swings, but absolutely revolts at the idea (or forced insertion into) the little-kid swings. Weirdo.

Toddler-ese

Tim is a chatterbox. He talks constantly -- to himself, to us, pointing at things, asking about things, asking for things, or just letting us know. Thing is, none of what he says comes out of his mouth in a language that we recognize as English (nor French). It's pure Timguistics. Whatever; it's damn cute. And because he uses quite specific syllables for specific things, we've been able to decode quite a lot of what he's saying so far.

Most spectacular is his "word" for berries. (Strawberries or blueberries interchangeably; they are among his favourite foods.) Most simply it would be written phonetically as "bugga-bugga-bug". But listen closely and there's actually a subtle "L" sound in there: buggla-buggla-bug. But even that doesn't do it justice, because the way he forms that hard "g" sound is complex and fantastic. It sort of starts at the back of his mouth near the throat, rolls out along the tongue where he flips it against his teeth and rolls it back to where it started. Try as we might, none of us can quite replicate it. It sounds so crazy and wonderful that we feed him more berries than any child should reasonably eat, just so we can hear him say it.

And I managed to capture him asking for berries on video (because I taped a whole lunchtime the other day). If I ever manage to find the cord for my video camera, along with the time to edit out the clip of Tim's pronunciation, I'll share with you the glory of buggla-buggla-bug.