100 days of Henry

Yes, it's true. My littlest boy is 100 days old today. He has been such a great kid (not better than the rest of you sons if you're reading this when you're older, just different) and has really helped keep things on track despite the population explosion underfoot. Over the last two weeks or so, he has added another couple of weapons to his arsenal of cute: eye contact (a brutal heart-melter) and cooing/squealing (actually, he does this in a very chatty way and will do a bit of call and answer sometimes).

There have been some sleep blips lately, but Henry has at least taken to allowing himself to be fed back to sleep rather quickly instead of the old practice of hanging out with one of us, quite awake, for a couple of hours in the middle of the night before passing out again. This new schedule keeps us from needing emergency sleep in the mornings, so we're very VERY thankful for that.

I also feel like I'm getting a better sense of his rhythm, knowing when he's hungry-cranky and when he's tired-cranky. His stamina during the daytime is a little less impressive than before - he at least grabs 20-30 minutes every three hours - and he's even let me take care of him and his brothers on my own a couple of times to get Mom a smidgeon of time to herself out of the house, including a whole movie!

I feel like the best part right now is how smiley Henry gets just by putting him down on a surface and making silly faces at him. Yesterday, he started the Stardom tradition of going to Hush-a-Bye classes so over the next little while, he'll probably start giggling when we start sharing songs and dance with him. "Charlie Chaplin went to France" is already a big hit, as is "Zoom Zoom Zoom". Henry and his smiles definitely make every day better.

It feels like Henry's first three months have whipped by. I'm really looking forward to the things coming over the next few month: rolling over, more productive tummy time, more smiles, more dances, more song recognition, time in the Exersaucer, Tebowing and solving differential equations.

Here are a few recent snaps of our little dude:

Side by side with a photo of child actor Erik Per Sullivan, whom Henry sometimes bears a resemblance to, depending on the photo.

Happy half-birthday, Leo!

Leo is officially 2.5 today! We celebrated with a pizza dinner, a mini-cake (a Jos. Louis - a classic Vachon cake for those not in the know) with two and a half candles, and lots of singing:


Leo is a really interesting boy these days. He is super cuddly and gives great squeezes around your neck when you hug him. His vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds and he is saying some pretty funny stuff ("I very like it" was one of my favourites from this past weekend). He still runs everywhere rather than walking. He's developing one heck of a stubborn streak but he is still incredibly good-natured, sensitive and sweet. If Max is crying about a toy that Leo has, Leo will most often give the toy to Max to make him feel better even though the vast majority of the time, it is Leo's turn to have the toy. It is quite fascinating to see empathy in a toddler. Hopefully, he keeps that trait later in life because it is awesome. He is still super tough - he rolls with most spills and tumbles (two big head bumps tonight, in fact. Total crying time: 3.2 seconds).

Here are a few awesome Leo photos from the past few months:







Happy half-birthday, my beautiful boy. We love you oceans.

A visit from Uncle Rick

Yep, we're trying to clean out the fridge now. Alllllll those posts we wanted to put up over the past couple of months, along with a couple of new ones, should pop up over the coming weeks. Call it a New Year's resolution of sorts.

Anyway, right after Halloween, the boys' Grandpa Wayne and Uncle Rick (Holly's dad and brother) came to visit - Grampa Wayne from Kugluktuk, NU, where he is working now, and Uncle Rick from Yellowknife, NT. From what I can tell from photo albums, I think this was Uncle Rick's first visit with his sisters in something like 10 or 11 years. Max and Leo were very excited to meet him and Auntie Melody put on a big spread at her place for the occasion. Here are a couple of picture of Uncle Rick with the boys, Max and Leo at their first kids table together and Grandpa Wayne with an upset Henry.

And because that first dinner just wasn't enough food, we went out again the following night to what used to be Ottawa's very own Gourmet Burger Bistro, The Works (they've franchised out across the province). As per usual, everyone ordered way too much food, ate like pigs and had a great time. The boys also got some surprise presents at the dinner: a lunchbox and some books from GG and Linda (thanks!!!) and their first true Lego set from Auntie Laramie and Uncle James (thanks!!!). It was a really nice evening.

Grampa Wayne having a bit more luck than the night before.

Laramie having even better luck!

Legoheads putting things together.

I have the feeling Leo is going to live life in fast-forward, as compared to Max. There were so many things we could control when Max was younger, in terms of the shows he watched, the toys he played with or the things he knew. Leo? Well, we can't really put a filter on Max and it's hard to keep toys separate so he gets exposed to everything about 2 years before Max did. We'll see if that's a good thing.

Halloween

Yes, we're talking about Halloween in January. We really wanted to make sure that these pictures made in onto the web though...
This was the first year that I got the sense that Halloween is going to be a real undertaking for the next little while. We need a costume for school. We need a costume for trick-or-treating. We need a costume for friends' parties. Some costumes need to be suitable for outside, some for inside. Throw in some flip-floppiness from the kids and this all gets a little crazy. Excerpt from Max this year: "I want to be a fireman! No, I really want to be a pumpkin! Mommy, I told you, I'm NOT being a pumpkin this year! I want to be a fireman! Daddy, can I be a doctor? I was Bob the Builder before, can I be him again?"
Strip all that away, though, and the kids had a really great time. Max and Leo were both really into pumpkin-carving (well, they were into scooping the seeds out and choosing insanely hard designs for us to carve before running off to play) and Leo was really REALLY into trick-or-treating.

Our adventures this year started with a visit to the Agriculture Museum for a big Halloween party. This involved a mini-pumpkin decorating session, a presentation on making apple cider, a visit to the dairy barn and a stop by the kitchen to sample some yummy baking. One particularly funny incident happened in the barn where the dairy calves are kept: Leo went to feed hay to one of them and then the calf went bonkers and starting licking the heck out of Leo's costume. Leo thought it was pretty funny. I never really thought he'd lose a hand or anything so I took a couple of pictures instead.

On Monday, both of the kids got spiffed up in their indoor costumes (that's Leo as Diego, for those of you who might not be familiar with the character) for their parties at daycare and school. Henry also got in on the action.

Auntie Laramie and Uncle James came over to trick-or-treat with the kids and they were rocking some seriously awesome clown costumes. The weather was pretty great (unlike last year's brutal cold) so the kids could pretty much wear whatever they wanted. In the end, the marauding party was made up of Laramie, James, Holly, Leo and Max while I stayed home with Auntie Karen and Henry to give out candy. Our neighbourhood is AWESOME for trick-or-treating - almost every house on our street had pumpkins and several houses had more elaborate displays including one place a few doors down that had a whole driveway full of Halloween stuff with a smoke machine, faux animals in big cages, and sound effects!!!!

This last picture was our attempt to capture the moment when Leo lost all self-control and started running around screaming "I HAPPY! I HAPPY!". The next day, when I asked the boys about their days after I got home from work, Leo said "No good." I asked "Why not? What happened?". Leo replied, "No tricktreating." Awesome.

Brotherly Love

We had a lovely pre-Christmas dinner at Auntie Melody's last night and my sister snapped this photo of Leo and Henry.

Leo's girlfriend

I remember my first crushes. Crushes of varying degrees, obviously depending on my age. I don't remember any of them really predating grade 4. So I'm having a little bit of trouble relating to Leo's current crush at the age of 2. It's been going on long enough now that it's pretty serious. Leo's starting to bring her to dinner, take her with him on the way to daycare and even wanted to bring her to Nana's this past week. Admittedly, she is a bit of a looker; however, I find her a bit hollow.

May I present to you, "Mermaid":

Mermaid came into our lives many months ago, when Holly met her in a bin of Mega Bloks at a garage sale. At the time, Mermaid was pretty cliquey with her buds Flounder and Sebastian. But when they were introduced to the boys, Leo only had eyes for Mermaid. Flounder has been invited along for a couple of things this past week, but Sebastian has been left at the bottom of the bin more often than not.

It turns out that Mermaid is actually quite popular and has been featured in a couple of films. Recently, there has been a pile of merchandise available with Mermaid's face all over it. Needles to say, Leo is pretty fond of these things. The other day at the bookstore, Leo squealed three times: when he saw a toy helicopter, when he saw the Thomas train table and when he saw a Disney Princesses compendium. He's going to grow up so metro.

Anyway, I just thought I would make some introductions. No need to buy her any gifts this year for Christmas, but maybe next year...

Been a while

Hello. Yes, we're still alive. Just very, very busy.

It's been a crazy month since our last update. I've returned to work and the boys and I have tried to hammer out a reasonable routine for the mornings. Holly and Henry are unknown quantities in the morning - sometimes we get to see them, sometimes we don't - so we try to a) get out without help and b) not wake any sleeping mommies or babies.

Henry still sleeps well at night, but is getting a little bit harder to coax to sleep. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how or when he'll knock off...rested or tired, happy or wailing, Henry makes his own terms. During the daytime, though, we have had a major breakthrough after a close friend of ours lent us her swing. This is not just any swing, but a MAGIC swing. Seriously. We plopped Henry in the swing at the party and unlike our old one (instant dislike), Henry chilled in the swing for quite some time. Now, most mornings, he's most happy to hang out in the swing (and sometimes even sleep!!!) for 30-60 minutes, giving Holly a bit of a breather to get some chores done at the start of the day. Henry also likes the mobile we got when Leo was born, but it's nothing like the swing! The other big highlight for Henry is that he is starting to smile. Yay!!

Max is really getting into school. He is really engaged in writing and drawing and is starting to find some motivation to trace letters and colour - two things he was never particularly interested in doing until recently. He loves working in activity books, has really gotten back into puzzles after a short hiatus, and likes taking grown-up board games and turning them into kids' games. Max got his first mini Lego set the other week and that has been a monster hit with the boys. Also, we've been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Finally, Max has been doing some extra-curricular activities as well, such as a marimba workshop this past weekend and his weekly independent swim classes. He's such a good kid at swimming: Leo and I go into the pool at 8:10 and Max sits quietly with a book on the deck until 8:30 when he goes in with his class. I have a feeling Leo won't be so trustworthy at 4.

Leo has turned into one hilarious little dude. While his letter sounds still aren't quite there, he is communicating up a storm and is really starting to use his manners. Leo is really loving his time with Vieda and the morning drop-off blues finally came to an end about 2 weeks ago. Leo is obsessed with wooden peg puzzles these days as well as magnet boards where he can stick picture magnets to make tableaux. He has also gotten into the habit of plunking himself down in front of a bookshelf and then pulling books out, one at a time, and leafing right through them until there's a pile of 20-30 around him on the floor. Sure, he doesn't pick them up, but he sure loves to look at them!

My favourite Leo story from the past month happened at a pumpkin-carving party (the same night Henry found THE SWING). Leo and another 8-year-old girl were in the basement watching Beauty and the Beast. I heard the TV getting a bit loud so I went to check on the volume. Not only was the movie loud, but it was at a fairly scary part. I went to the front of the couch to go sidetrack Leo only to find him snuggled right up to the 8-year-old who was taking great care of him. Leo rode out the scary part in the arms of his love (but not his true love, that's James) and then when it was over, he nonchalantly sagged back into his corner of the couch like she wasn't even there. What a dude!

Here are a few pictures taken over the past month:

Leo rocking his awesome hand-crafted sombrero, lovingly transported from Mexico by Auntie Laramie and Uncle James.

The boys at their very own table enjoying some Swiss Chalet at Auntie Melody's place.

Is it just me or do babies look really, really good on Auntie Laramie?

Baby foot!

Henry and the octopus. Max also enjoyed this seat with the octopus - check out the similarities here.