Intense Face

I'm not sure if you remember, but back in the day, Max played the Serious game. We'd say "Serious!" and then get our serious faces on and Max would attempt to mimic before completely cracking up. Full disclosure: in the end, this game wasn't so smart/funny because when we tried to get serious with Max, he would just end up laughing. Oops.

Anyway, I had always been wondering what wacky thing Leo would end up doing to make us laugh like this. Enter INTENSE FACE.

It all started in late October, possibly while Leo was squeezing something in his hands. I can't even remember at this point. Leo would squeeze his hands into fists. So hard in fact that his eyes would get wide, his mouth would stretch open and his face would quiver. The big breakthrough came on Halloween night, when Nana and Auntie Karen were over. Everyone was laughing at Leo's shenanigans so much that he started doing it on command. The phrase "intense face" was definitely coined that night and now, Leo can't hear "intense" without busting it out. Even the other day when Max said "In ten seconds...".

It's hilarious. It's a little creepy. I kind of wonder if he'll be doing it into his teens.

I present Intense Face for your viewing pleasure:


We also managed to take one still photo that captures Leo at his intense best:

Merry Christmas!

A photo essay of Christmas Day . . .


Max opens pure Santa paydirt: a fire truck!

Leo got the hang of opening presents pretty quickly.

Somehow, Max has yet to teach Leo that sharing is pure evil.

While Max was off doing something else, Leo snuck some time with the fire truck.

As Daddy assembled Max and Leo's new art easel, Max gave the paint supplies a whirl.


A couple of pictures of the boys enjoying some quiet TV time in Nana and Auntie Karen's basement.

Family portrait; yes, Leo is saying "cheese".

Leo tackles his first ever drumstick.

Max gets some help assembling some construction Mega-Bloks.

My boys

Yes, the Christmas spirit is finally starting to hit me. In the absence of office parties and due to the fact that I already celebrated a chunk of Xmas in Winnipeg in November, it's taken me a while to rev up the engines. But now we have a tree (with the ornaments arranged out of Leo-reach so that it looks like the bottom ornaments were eaten by deer or something), lights are up, cookies are baked and I'm getting all schmaltzy. Although I've still had enough of Christmas music, which has been playing since Nov 1st, I swear.

This past weekend was a busy one, involving a lot of parties and running around. But we managed to sneak in a little time as a family to go out and stroll in the snow. The weather was warm, the kids loved being dragged on their sleds and it was a great time to be together. Together with all of the merriment of the season, this time together really got me thinking about my awesome little boys and how much I've been enjoying this time off with them.

Max is definitely growing up. He's in underwear almost all of the time now and I don't think he has any clue how much older that makes him in my eyes. Every time he gets a haircut, he comes out looking about 5 years old and it repeatedly blows my mind. It's also getting a lot tougher to get things by him anymore. His steel-trap memory is still reminding me every now and then that I promised him X or Y so I have to be a lot more careful about announcing tentative plans to him these days. He's also starting to process things faster now, making distraction a little bit tougher. It's hard to dupe him into having a nap he doesn't want to take. All this to say that he's definitely giving our negotiating and diplomacy skills a workout.

I'm really glad we chose to enroll Max in preschool. I think he's gotten a lot out of the more structured setting and the social interactions with his classmates. When he comes home, we spend a lot of time talking about his music classes (he loves to sing the latest class song for us!), the friends he gets to play with during the day and his teachers. He says he already misses school, but I'm sure the Christmas break will have enough going on to keep him busy.

One other thing about Max that just kills me is his vocabulary. He uses a lot of words that I never expected a 40-month old kid to use properly, but he's also picked up some expressions that have surprised me. Every now and then, he says something that sounds so grown-up. Like "actually", "I feel like...", and "so I guess...". While we're on the topic of Max's words, I suppose I should treat you to a few more funny Maxisms we've jotted down:

MAX: I don't like the sun.
DAD: That means you don't like the summer. Is that right?
MAX: I like summer! I like the construction!

MAX: Why did Bob put his hammer in his lunchbox?
DAD: Because he's a forgetful guy and sometimes he puts things in strange places.
MAX: Just like Dad.

(At 7 a.m., two months ago)
MAX: I thought it was nighttime. It seems that it's not.

DAD: So are we going to play or what?
MAX: Can we do a little scoochy over here to where I am?






Watching Leo grow up at this point has also been amazing. When Max was 1 to 1.5, he was in full-time care so I only had evenings and weekends with him. Watching Leo full-time as his brain explodes and slurps up all sorts of new tricks is really something else. I'm pretty sure that Max is responsible for teaching Leo a lot too (these days, he's trying to get Leo to say "Merry Christmas", as in "Leo? Can you say muh, muh, muh? Merry Christmas!!"). Leo doesn't need any assistance to walk around anymore and, in fact, is a crazy climber. His favourite thing to do is to climb on the dining room chairs, which leads to either a) grabbing things on the dining room table or b) getting on the dining room table. Needless to say, we spend a lot of time pulling Leo, crying, off the chairs. I've even been known to stack the chairs on the table to keep them out of reach.

Leo has also learned to indicate yes and no by nodding and shaking his head. This has been super helpful, particularly at meal time. It's so nice to get some information from Leo when we don't know what he wants. He's also picking up some more words, particularly those starting with B. At this point, he has Bob (Bob the Builder and all others wearing hard hats), ball, balloon ("boon"), bye-bye, baby, more ("mo"), mama, dada (although he still doesn't always associate me with dada), dump (dump trucks and all other heavy machinery...as well as the act of dumping out), jump (easily the cutest thing he says), moo, nana, and attempts at barking, roaring and gorilla-grunting.

Finally, Leo officially weaned earlier this month and so we've been able to work him into a much better sleep routine. This makes our night-times a lot easier and makes Leo much more baby-sittable at night. In the mornings and after naps, when we pick Leo up, the first thing that he does is wrap his arms around our necks as tightly as possible and serves up some super hugs. It's really cute!






I feel really lucky to have a pair of kids who are well-mannered and socially adjusted enough that I'm not really concerned to have them in any situation. Restaurants, museums, parties...they're a real treat to have around.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Macs are awesome. If for no other reason than the Photo Booth application.

Merry Christmas!

Love, the Bizarro Stardoms

Gingerbread Mayhem!

A quick post to show you one of the things we were up to this past weekend. My colleague and friend Stephanie invited us over to her place for a gingerbread house decorating and assembly party. Max was absolutely thrilled to attend as he is a major gingerbread fan. We were the first to arrive so we had some fun decorating spare pieces of gingerbread and stuffing our faces with candies and egg milk (egg nog for those of you not fluent in Max-speak). The adults enjoyed their egg milk with amaretto - a new twist for me and definitely something that I could see us repeating! Assembly began just as we were leaving but we were able to participate in putting the base walls up.

I should add that this was no ordinary house that we were assembling; it was THE House.

Here is the spectacular finished product:


The apple is there to give you a sense of scale.


In case you don't recognize this Ottawa landmark, here is a link.

I think my favourite part is the Library of Parliament on the back of the structure. I don't know the weight of this whole thing but it was four batches of gingerbread, oodles of homemade Royal Icing, and lots of candies.

Both the boys had an absolute blast. We asked Max to tell us three favourite parts of his weekend when he was getting ready for bed last night and his first and only response was "Stephanie". Many thanks to Stephanie and Chantz for inviting to such an awesome party!

The Peg

I just noticed that we went 0-fer in November. That's a little embarrassing. Oh well, hopefully a few of you are still reading.

The main reason that we didn't blog in November was because we were having too much fun visiting family in Winnipeg for the bulk of the month. Given the number of times Max made it to Winnipeg before he hit two years of age, I seriously had to keep reminding myself that Leo had not yet seen my old stomping grounds. Leo's Winnipeg grandma, aunt and uncle had all made it out here to see him since his birth, but I still had other family members who had yet to lay eyes on the little smurf. Although he's not so little anymore...

We went down on the 11th in order to attend a family wedding on the 13th. The kids were great on the plane and gave me hope that my trip back (solo) was going to be OK. The wedding was really nice and kind of brought Holly back full circle to her first trip to Winnipeg in 1997, when she saw my cousins married at the same place. The boys' BC grandparents were in town for the wedding, giving the kids a bonus visit with them too. I imagine it was weird for Max to see them somewhere other than on their farm.

It was also a great opportunity to see Auntie Kathy's burgeoning baby bump. Max and Leo will have their first cousin in March! The baby has been named Cousin Fred, who is the cousin in the Berenstain Bears books.

The first week, Grandma took some time off work and the five of us spent the week seeing the sights in town. We checked out the science gallery at the Manitoba Museum (free, thanks to our ottawa museum membership!), Fort Whyte Nature Center, the local shopping center, and the Assiniboine Park Zoo, where Max was enrolled in "B is for Bird", a workshop for preschoolers to learn all about birds. We also got to eat at Dingo's Wild 'n Crazy Dogs, kind of like a hot dog version of Ottawa's The Works. This was a big deal as the boys' Uncle Murray had recently designed their September Dog of the Month (Chili + Mac 'n Cheese) and, while we weren't able to sample it, we got an idea of how crazy it was, based on the normal menu offerings.

After a whirlwind week, we settled into holiday mode and celebrated an early Christmas on the Saturday. The tree was put up and decorated...I should mention that it was redecorated over the following week by Leo, who proceeded to rip all of the ornaments he could reach from the tree in order to play with them, hide them, or place them in the toilet. Needless to say, these shenanigans had us rethinking the tree options for our own house this year - the tree is now up and decorated but it looks a little strange with no ornaments on the bottom two feet of the tree! Max and Leo were both spoiled rotten and are still busy playing with/reading all of their new things.

Sunday, Holly bid the boys adieu and returned to Ottawa to work. The boys got to spend lots of quality time with Grandma in the mornings of the second week, including visits to the main gallery of the Museum and KidCity, a recently-opened Winnipeg version of Cosmic Adventures. The kids also took part in an open swim in the pool where their dad learned to tread water - that was a really neat moment for me. That and being able to show them my old house and schools. Leo probably didn't care, but Max obviously thought it was interesting.

Then, finally, it was time to come back home. Everybody saw us off at the airport and then the three of us got on the flight. I had been dreading the flight for a while, but once you're seated, what are you going to do? As it turns out, the kids were amazing. Both were kept happy watching cartoons, reading books, playing with toys and nibbling on snacks. Leo even fell asleep on me as we were landing. Lots of post-flight kudos from the families around us - some didn't even know that Max was there. SO AWESOME. That's two A+ report cards for Max and Leo; thanks a lot guys!

It was a wonderful couple of weeks, reconnecting with the rest of my family and getting some face time between the boys and their Winnipeg folks. We all enjoyed the family dinner hosted by Uncle Murray and Auntie Kathy, the farm tour at my cousin Wendy's, the great pre-Christmas Christmas, a visit from Grandma's cousin Joyce, an aquarium-viewing visit with my aunt and uncle, a great opportunity to see our Grand Forks family, and so much quality time with my Mom. It was a great trip overall and now that the kids travel so well, I suppose it's time to think about where the next one might be :) :)

Here are some pictures:


A preview of things to come: Leo was a crazy clambering monkey throughout our entire visit. Holly also adds that Uncle Murray was closely supervising nearby.

These next pictures are from the wedding we attended. A couple of highlights: Max may have found a future wife (Robin) and I apparently looked like a bureaucrat.




Here are three pictures from Fort Whyte: two of the amazing indoor Kiwanis-sponsored touch-some-taxidermy display (initially, I thought it was a bit creepy, but then again, where/how else are you supposed to find out what polar bears, skunks and wolverines feel like?) and one of an old sod house outside.



And now for some family pics: a Jeannie's cake (if you were from the Peg, you'd know), my Dad's side of my Winnipeg family and a picture of Max helping Grandpa, who was struggling with a 24-piece Cars puzzle. I swear that's contempt on Max's face.




Now, to confuse everybody, I'll switch to below-photo captions. This is Max and cousin Wendy after some hard work in the tractor.

Leo and lemurs. I don't really need to explain more, do I?

Uncle Murray, famous Dog inventor.

Dingo Dog's "Baba" dog. Like a hot dog and pierogi all wrapped up in one.

The size and the quality of the drippings take these dogs over the top.

Grandma and the boys digging trenches on a massive water table at the Manitoba Museum's Science Gallery.

There's a joke in here about Holly answering a science question of Leo's, but I won't go there.

The kids, playing with a vintage Fisher Price Little People village set that Grandma kept around from when I was a youngster.

This is such a weird picture to me now. Not because there are diapers all over the Christmas tree, but because Max doesn't really wear diapers anymore except at night. It seems so long ago...

Leo, in the midst of his weeklong ornament-stealing rampage.

Mom and the fans decorate their first gingerbread house.

Leo learns to rip wrapping paper.

Max loves Christmas crackers!

One of the malls in Winnipeg had a play area set up for kids 0-5 right in the middle of the mall. Max and Leo both loved the slide.

Grandma did a lot of reading while we were in town, especially from this Richard Scarry compendium.

Uh-oh. It's official. The kids are officially attracted to swimming pool lockers, just like every other kid. Seriously, what is it about those lockers?

Just before the flight home, the boys took some time to scope out all of the vehicles zipping around the airport.

Max killing himself laughing at some YTV show on the airplane. Kid vs Kat I think.