Friday, June 22, 2012
Photos!
Well, we got our camera back (Leo threw a shovelful of wet sand at Holly while she was taking his picture at the beach). The repairs were more than expected, but not the cost of a new camera. I also managed to put our memory card through the washer AND dryer...but the contents seem to have transferred over to the computer OK. So here is an overdue photo post. This might be long...
A new family tradition: topless fondue night. Holly, unfortunately, is out of the frame. And I seem to be exempt.
In case you were wondering what colour Henry's eyes were...
Maddie's folks lent us this cool water-filled tummy-time toy for Henry. This was one of the two days we had it before the older boys popped it. Frankly, it's a miracle it lasted that long.
The Queen Bee visits Leo's hair salon. Royalty only.
My goodness! This is how old the pictures are. I see this one and think "why were we over at Vieda's that day?" Oh yeah, she was still Leo's caregiver at the time. Duh. Here are Vieda's monkeys on Leo's last day before starting with REKSAP (Max and Leo's current daycare).
We've been fairly remiss in not posting pictures of a visit from the Winnipeg Stardoms at the end of March. The boys' Uncle Murray and Auntie Kathy brought cousin Hannah for her first visit to Ottawa and we had a blast. She was very interested in Henry, his baby toys, Bumbo and Exersaucer.
Hannah points out Henry's wicked socks
These three pictures are from our family trip to the new monster Ikea in town. We had food...
...made bedroom eyes in the lighting department...
...and tried some of the goods on for size.
Uncle Murray test-driving three kids. I think Max is actually playing Angry Birds. He *may* have inherited the gaming gene from me and his uncle.
We had another family caravan to the local mall where some woman was posing for pictures as the Easter Bunny. We made ears for the kids and Mommy, and I think we have some pictures on a CD somewhere. Free carrots were also handed out.
We also hit the pet store to get some real bunny action.
I feel like this is back when Henry holding his chest up like this was novel. Now he crawls. Memories...
Springtime this year actually meant the start of getting rid of some of our baby and maternity things for good. These were our hands-down favourite baby shoes given to Max by a dear friend of ours. Not bronze-worthy, but pretty darn close. At least they got a new life with cousin West.
Another picture that feels like a total relic. This is back when Leo was just getting started. Over the last two days he has let us know that he has done a #2 and both times, he had gotten himself to the potty, stripped down and let 'er rip without assistance. For all intents and purposes, dude is potty trained.
This past Easter marked the start of a couple of trends: holidays at our favourite dim-sum place (mom's day and dad's day followed) and bringing Playmobil to the restaurant. Max is very much into the stuff Playmobil markets for boys while Leo seems more into the stuff they market for girls.
Yeah, this is pretty indicative of what it's like to take a family shot these days.
Leo, looking for eggs very seriously. Smile, kid!
The Easter crew on Nana and Auntie Karen's deck.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Another update
Wow has it really been a month? Crazy. An awful lot has happened since our last post...I'm just hoping I don't forget too much. So when we last spoke, Henry was sleeping pretty horribly, the older boys were sleeping pretty well and a wave of sickness had just finished ripping through the house. Let's start with Henry - he's the baby so it always seems like so much is happening with him.
Shortly after our last post, right around when Henry hit 7.5 months, he popped his first two teeth. This is a couple of weeks before Leo had sprouted teeth and over a month before Max. So, early teeth. Better than early walking, I guess. Once the teeth came through, the sleep got a little better too - lots of nights where Henry only got up once or twice. There have even been two nights in the last month where Henry slept all the way through the night. And then he reverted right back to 4+ get-ups like the last two nights. Maybe some more teeth are inbound? We'll have to see.
Henry's been putting his teeth to good use too, starting to introduce himself to all sorts of food. Vegetable purees are a big no while fruit purees are a big yes. Especially when mixed with cereal and heated up. Mum-mums are (of course) a big hit. Henry also likes Cheerios and gnawing on sticks of cucumber and red pepper. Recently, he has also started nibbling on chunks of banana and melon and has even had his first fish - he loves salmon! Looking back at the amount of puree Max ate, we've really changed our approach to feeding a baby over the past 4 months. Our current approach is kind of in line with Baby-led weaning and is supposed to help babies get used to real food right away instead of teaching them to like purees and then reteaching them to eat something else.
Holly and Henry have been keeping up with the standard play groups and Hush-a-Bye classes. However, they've also made a routine out of getting together with Auntie Laramie and Cousin West for gym dates three mornings a week. They all go to the gym, the babies are left in care for 30-60 minutes while the mommies get smoking hot and then everyone goes out for lunch. Sounds like a good deal to me.
In other news, Henry is also now able to sit by himself for very long periods of time. Eventually, he ends up tipping over occasionally. But most of the time, he can ease himself down to the ground and roll or drag (yes, drag!) himself to whatever he wants to reach. This is all fairly new, maybe within the last 10 days, and we are learning that this has been the "hands-on" turning point that we've been waiting for - Henry can now be left in many places around the house under distant supervision, rather than being stuck on one of us around the clock. The new problem that this poses is that the older boys have to be A LOT more careful about their small toys (Lego, Playmobil, etc.) lying around. Good thing that Max keeps getting the idea in his head that he can tidy up certain rooms of the house for pocket change in order to save up for $300 Playmobil sets :)
Leo has also had an exciting month. Five weeks ago, Leo's daycare introduced him to sitting on the potty and trying to get him out of diapers. We moved to pull-ups for a week or so but then the daycare decided that it was time for underwear. Definitely way before we were ready for underwear at home. The first couple of days, there were a ton of accidents, but then Leo decided it would be best to just hold on to it all day long...and then have a mega-accident in the classroom just before pick-up, or in the van :( However, Leo seems to be putting stuff together the past couple of days. He still has a late-day accident every couple of days, but now he's starting to routinely use the potty at home, which makes it possible to have dry nights. Last night he even let me know that he needed a diaper for the other business. Fine by me! Yesterday was Leo's first dry day, wire-to-wire, so we're definitely going in the right direction.
Leo's vocabulary is exploding too. I get so much more out of chatting with him these days. He's using a number of mannerisms and descriptive words now that are really helping him communicate how he feels. This is, of course, when he's not absorbed in potty talk. I did want to take a second to commemorate a couple of my favourite things that Leo says before they disappear forever. First, instead of saying "I am", Leo instead says "I'm am" - this sounds completely adorable. The other big one comes up when Leo and Max are pretending to be certain people or Playmobil/Duplo figures: Leo always asks in a really plaintive voice "Who I can be?". Unfortunately, Max can be a bit of a jerk and seconds later, we hear Leo whining "Max says I can't be nobody!". Before I forget, I also love how Leo feels the need to put all Playmobil/Duplo people's arms straight up in the air, like they're in the middle of doing the wave. He sometimes even gets mad at me when I'm holding a person without putting their arms up. I wonder what it is he sees in real people that makes him think that people should have their arms up in the air...
Max has started playing soccer with the Fisher Park Rec Association, the same crew that ran his skating lessons. This is cool, particularly because every week he seems to be playing against at least one child he knows or has known. He also plays on a team with our former neighbour's daughter so there's some familiarity already on the team. The downside is that while other kids are playing for the Grizzlies, Canucks, Cobras or Tigers, my four year-old is playing for the Zombies. The Zombies. Four year-olds. Four year-olds don't even get dying, let alone dying and resurrecting in order to eat brains. Oddly enough, a couple of days before we found out about this whole Zombie business, Max had asked about this Threadless shirt of mine (that I once most awesomely wore while greeting Jehovah's Witnesses at the door) and I had to try to explain the commonalities between Jesus and zombies. So maybe it was karmic. Max futzed around the first couple of weeks, not really paying attention to what was going on, until the coach put him on defense. I'm not sure what the coach said to him, but he turned Max into a psycho net-protector. Yeah, sure, Max ends up almost standing on top of the goalie, but at least he's focusing a bit more on what's happening now.
The last broad highlight worth mention was that Max got his first ear infection in a long time about 10 days back. Not that Holly and I fully believed him at the time - Max has been telling an awful lot of stories lately and he was ridiculously tired at the time (state of being, actually) so we decided to wait for the verdict from the doctor. Thankfully, it turns out that Max did a really great job of identifying what was going on and totally nailed it. I think he finishes up his meds tomorrow.
You'll have to forgive us on the absence of photos for now - Leo threw a shovelful of sand in the lens of our camera at the beach last week so we're waiting to take it in before extracting the memory card. We'll post pictures ASAP.
Shortly after our last post, right around when Henry hit 7.5 months, he popped his first two teeth. This is a couple of weeks before Leo had sprouted teeth and over a month before Max. So, early teeth. Better than early walking, I guess. Once the teeth came through, the sleep got a little better too - lots of nights where Henry only got up once or twice. There have even been two nights in the last month where Henry slept all the way through the night. And then he reverted right back to 4+ get-ups like the last two nights. Maybe some more teeth are inbound? We'll have to see.
Henry's been putting his teeth to good use too, starting to introduce himself to all sorts of food. Vegetable purees are a big no while fruit purees are a big yes. Especially when mixed with cereal and heated up. Mum-mums are (of course) a big hit. Henry also likes Cheerios and gnawing on sticks of cucumber and red pepper. Recently, he has also started nibbling on chunks of banana and melon and has even had his first fish - he loves salmon! Looking back at the amount of puree Max ate, we've really changed our approach to feeding a baby over the past 4 months. Our current approach is kind of in line with Baby-led weaning and is supposed to help babies get used to real food right away instead of teaching them to like purees and then reteaching them to eat something else.
Holly and Henry have been keeping up with the standard play groups and Hush-a-Bye classes. However, they've also made a routine out of getting together with Auntie Laramie and Cousin West for gym dates three mornings a week. They all go to the gym, the babies are left in care for 30-60 minutes while the mommies get smoking hot and then everyone goes out for lunch. Sounds like a good deal to me.
In other news, Henry is also now able to sit by himself for very long periods of time. Eventually, he ends up tipping over occasionally. But most of the time, he can ease himself down to the ground and roll or drag (yes, drag!) himself to whatever he wants to reach. This is all fairly new, maybe within the last 10 days, and we are learning that this has been the "hands-on" turning point that we've been waiting for - Henry can now be left in many places around the house under distant supervision, rather than being stuck on one of us around the clock. The new problem that this poses is that the older boys have to be A LOT more careful about their small toys (Lego, Playmobil, etc.) lying around. Good thing that Max keeps getting the idea in his head that he can tidy up certain rooms of the house for pocket change in order to save up for $300 Playmobil sets :)
Leo has also had an exciting month. Five weeks ago, Leo's daycare introduced him to sitting on the potty and trying to get him out of diapers. We moved to pull-ups for a week or so but then the daycare decided that it was time for underwear. Definitely way before we were ready for underwear at home. The first couple of days, there were a ton of accidents, but then Leo decided it would be best to just hold on to it all day long...and then have a mega-accident in the classroom just before pick-up, or in the van :( However, Leo seems to be putting stuff together the past couple of days. He still has a late-day accident every couple of days, but now he's starting to routinely use the potty at home, which makes it possible to have dry nights. Last night he even let me know that he needed a diaper for the other business. Fine by me! Yesterday was Leo's first dry day, wire-to-wire, so we're definitely going in the right direction.
Leo's vocabulary is exploding too. I get so much more out of chatting with him these days. He's using a number of mannerisms and descriptive words now that are really helping him communicate how he feels. This is, of course, when he's not absorbed in potty talk. I did want to take a second to commemorate a couple of my favourite things that Leo says before they disappear forever. First, instead of saying "I am", Leo instead says "I'm am" - this sounds completely adorable. The other big one comes up when Leo and Max are pretending to be certain people or Playmobil/Duplo figures: Leo always asks in a really plaintive voice "Who I can be?". Unfortunately, Max can be a bit of a jerk and seconds later, we hear Leo whining "Max says I can't be nobody!". Before I forget, I also love how Leo feels the need to put all Playmobil/Duplo people's arms straight up in the air, like they're in the middle of doing the wave. He sometimes even gets mad at me when I'm holding a person without putting their arms up. I wonder what it is he sees in real people that makes him think that people should have their arms up in the air...
Max has started playing soccer with the Fisher Park Rec Association, the same crew that ran his skating lessons. This is cool, particularly because every week he seems to be playing against at least one child he knows or has known. He also plays on a team with our former neighbour's daughter so there's some familiarity already on the team. The downside is that while other kids are playing for the Grizzlies, Canucks, Cobras or Tigers, my four year-old is playing for the Zombies. The Zombies. Four year-olds. Four year-olds don't even get dying, let alone dying and resurrecting in order to eat brains. Oddly enough, a couple of days before we found out about this whole Zombie business, Max had asked about this Threadless shirt of mine (that I once most awesomely wore while greeting Jehovah's Witnesses at the door) and I had to try to explain the commonalities between Jesus and zombies. So maybe it was karmic. Max futzed around the first couple of weeks, not really paying attention to what was going on, until the coach put him on defense. I'm not sure what the coach said to him, but he turned Max into a psycho net-protector. Yeah, sure, Max ends up almost standing on top of the goalie, but at least he's focusing a bit more on what's happening now.
The last broad highlight worth mention was that Max got his first ear infection in a long time about 10 days back. Not that Holly and I fully believed him at the time - Max has been telling an awful lot of stories lately and he was ridiculously tired at the time (state of being, actually) so we decided to wait for the verdict from the doctor. Thankfully, it turns out that Max did a really great job of identifying what was going on and totally nailed it. I think he finishes up his meds tomorrow.
You'll have to forgive us on the absence of photos for now - Leo threw a shovelful of sand in the lens of our camera at the beach last week so we're waiting to take it in before extracting the memory card. We'll post pictures ASAP.
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