Mothers Day

I've always been confused about whether there's an apostrophe in Mothers Day or not. This calendar in my hands says no. Whatever. (Note from Holly: Um, I've never seen it without an apostrophe so now I'm confused too.)

This past Mothers Day, I was sick as a dog and had to duck out of a special brunch invitation from the boys' Auntie Laramie at the restaurant where she works. It sounds like it was a heckuva good time and that the food was really good (endless shrimp! dessert buffet! omelette station!). Dang. Here are a couple of pictures from the brunch.



After the morning of rest, I rallied a bit so that Holly could hang out with some friends at a local art festival (super cool) and then, after nap time, it was time for our annual Moms Day ritual - heading on down to Dow's Lake to take some pictures with the tulips. Well, this year was something else. After that 30 degree Easter weekend, there were more hot temps in early May and all this coaxed the tulips out of the ground quite a bit early. Mothers Day Weekend is usually the time for tulips to shine. Instead, we had this:



Yes, those are toques and mitts we are wearing. There were snow flurries! All was not lost though; there were plenty of other tulip beds that were still in full bloom and we had the run of the place. No waiting for everyone else to take their pictures - we just snapped away. The gray day also made for good light.





Another bonus of the chilly weather was that we pretty much had the displays all to ourselves so we could talk to the staff and have a little fun with the Dutch and WWII artifacts:




On the way home from the tulips, we grabbed some pizza and had a nice quiet evening. All in all, it was a really nice day despite the frigid weather. We are pretty lucky to have the Tulip Festival in town and it is a nice way to spend part of Mother's Day. It is also a really cool opportunity to take some photos of Holly and the boys as Holly spends more time behind the camera than in front of it.

Random May stuff . . .

Quite a few things happened in May that we haven't really touched on yet. I'm only going to cover a couple of things in this post...it's time to get some pictures out there! Given that it was the first month that Max was out of daycare since late 2008, it was a great opportunity for him to do a bunch of neat activities with Leo and Holly. One of those special adventures that I have yet to take part in is Cosmic Adventures, a giant kid-oriented play center featuring play structures, ball pits and the like for kids to clamber on, in and around. There's also a baby area for the youngsters, so Leo and Max have been able to share in the fun. Here are some visuals:



In fact, Holly and the boys have had so much fun that we've roped some other friends of Leo's (um, and their parents) into going



The other really cool event for Max last month that I want to cover in this post was his friend's birthday party. One of the boys with whom he spent all of his time in daycare turned 4 and invited Max. We weren't entirely sure how it would go - Max has always been kind of possessive about presents and opening everybody else's at all events...but he was a real gentleman in letting his little buddy have his moment. And a little bit of cake is always a big plus. Leo got to attend too and both boys had a blast with their loot bags. A big thanks for the invitations!

We're alive

I promise, a lengthy post or series of posts is pending.

I just logged on and saw the title of our previous post, that Leo was now crawling. Man, that feels like an eternity ago. May was a crazy month, filled with visits from afar and the end of work for John. On the last day of the month, we left on a two-week tour of British Columbia to visit family and friends. We got back earlier this week, but have been primarily concerned with realigning the sleep situations of our little ones, who were locked into Pacific time for a bit there. The ship seems to have been righted at this point, so perhaps tonight or tomorrow night, I'll sit down and finally put some thoughts and pictures down in the blog.

Just to give you a taste of what's new for Leo, though, he has two new teeth, can climb up stairs (but certainly not down), is eating pretty much everything but citrus, shellfish and nuts, has suffered through two ear infections, has learned to point, is infinitely happier/smilier and has probably spoken his first two words (mama=mom and nana=banana). Wow, that's a lot.

Anyway, I promise there's more to come soon.

Crawling update

See, I was going to post a little something on Tuesday to let everybody know that Leo had officially slept through the night for the first time since that first day post-swaddle. But, with 2.75 years of experience behind me, I'm pretty aware of what happens when one tempts fate with blogging. So I let it go and, sure enough, Leo slept poorly Tuesday night and then caught a cold on Wednesday. So we're back to square one for a while, but we know that given good health, Leo is capable of pulling an all-nighter. We're both looking forward to a couple of those in a row:)

The main purpose of this post is to give all of you an update on Leo's crawling escapades. I was editing my May 1 post today and it struck me as funny that just 7 days ago, he was crawling for the first time. Four days ago, he was a total pro. Two days ago, he started to help himself up to his feet and yesterday he started sidling on tables and things (cruising). Seven days. Unbelievable. He's so into moving around that it's getting difficult to keep him in his Exersaucer or highchair for any length of time. So, for a little while at least, we're going to miss out on being able to turn our back on Leo for any real amount of time. I'm curious as to whether he'll be walking before his birthday. Max was an almost-13-monther so that's kind of what I'm anticipating. It will be interesting if things develop much differently for Leo.

Mayday! Mayday! Leo's crawling!

Yes, it's true. Leo is fully all-fours-mobile. The experience was totally different this time than it was with Max - by the time Max was crawling, he had already been dragging himself around on the ground for a couple of months. So we were already used to having to keep a bit of an eye on him. Leo, however, was content to sit in one spot and get the thing he wanted by reaching and pivoting (and crying, I suppose).

So last Sunday, when he took his first tentative hand-knee-hand-knee crawls (three for Holly and then two for me later in the day), we had forgotten what kind of transition it would be to life with a mobile baby. By Wednesday, he was able to cross about half a room non-stop (if there was something REALLY worth having in his line of sight). Today, I looked up from my dinner three times: once he was at the fireplace, then the burgundy chair across the living room and then he had our Ikea lamp in his death grip. YIKES!

Leo's also capable of kneeling up (on his knees, body vertical from the knees up) and holding himself there for a while. He can pull himself up into that position, but not further...yet. We're going to have to revisit the child-proofing around here to make sure it's adequate.

Here's video proof:

A really cool girl indeed

A few months back, I was talking to Max about who was coming over that night and trying to get him to guess who our mystery guest was going to be. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Max, guess who is coming over tonight?
Max: Ummm, Nana?
Me: No, Max, not Nana. It is a really cool girl.
Max: (no hesitation) KERRY!

I love, love, LOVE that Max's immediate and heartfelt answer was Kerry. For the record, I was referring to Laramie but I would use these same words in a heartbeat to describe Kerry. We celebrated Kerry's birthday with her today at a lovely dinner hosted by her parents (shout out to CoCo and Allen!) and it got me thinking that it was high time that Kerry got her very own post on this blog. Hopefully, she will take a bit of sappy prose in lieu of a pile of gifts.

For those of you that don't know Kerry that well, here is a quick primer. Kerry is one of the smartest and funniest people I know. John and I met her way WAY back when we were all studying together at Trent. Kerry is passionate about (in no particular order): bacon, reading, chocolate, carbonated diet beverages, puzzles, John Cusack, her friends, shopping, Matt Damon, crafting, dance movies, pulpy novels, lemon desserts, smart people, music, supporting other people to achieve their dreams, politics, quilting, lifelong learning, writing, cribbage, Justin Timberlake, good television, steak, her family, and traveling.

Kerry, you are one of our very favourite people and an AMAZING friend and I don't know what we would do without you. Although I love that you are a traveler extraordinaire, I miss you terribly when you gallivant around the world. I love going to movies, brainstorming craft ideas and talking pop culture with you. John loves playing cribbage and talking smack/music/sports/more smack with you. Max loves reading books with you. Leo likes drooling with you (don't worry, he'll have his own special thing with you in good time).

Thank you for everything you do. Thanks for taking Max on his first overnight without us so I could surprise my mum in San Francisco. Thanks for buying Max super cool underwear; he'll make you proud and wear them soon. Thanks for so many nights of babysitting and advice-giving. Thanks for being there for all of us.


Kerry with tiny, 11-day old Max.


Kerry and Max engaged in their favourite activity.


Super Bowl 2010 - Kerry teaches Max all about healthy eating.


Kerry with Leo on his birth day.
Happy birthday, my friend, and I hope that this year brings you everything you wish for. I look forward to many, many more years of adventures with you. It has been one heck of a ride thus far.

Funny what makes your kid polite

Just a tidbit today.

Yesterday was a nice day. Warm weather. Happy kids. After I got picked up from work, we decided to treat Max to a little ice cream (and take advantage of DQ's "buy a Blizzard, get the second for 25 cents" deal). So we went out for dinner. Max kind of understood that he'd be getting some ice cream (it actually came with his kid's meal), but he didn't get any at first while he was eating. He got through most of his dinner when, for reasons of getting Holly to her volleyball game on time, we had to get the dessert. Max actually got to choose between an ice cream sandwich, a soft serve cone or a Dilly Bar (kind of like a massive, hard chocolate-dipped vanilla treat). He went with the Dilly Bar - unexpectedly, it was so big that I'm pretty sure he'd never seen that much ice cream at once before.

All of a sudden, Holly and I were hit with a barrage of "thank you", "please", "no thank you" and "I love you" utterances. Who was this child? Sitting quietly, plowing back mouthful after mouthful of ice cream and being super-polite. In fact, when it was time to go and I suggested that Max stop with the ice cream and save the uneaten portion for later, he agreed fully and he left with us right away to go to the van. If they weren't so darn unhealthy, we'd certainly be ordering up a lifetime supply of Dilly Bars tomorrow.