Project 365 - May 15th

It rained today.....just as it has every day for the last two weeks....so we made a "tent" in the living room (Isabel just learned about camping at school this week, so my fort became a tent immediately upon her viewing it). We had great fun; we made shadow puppets against the roof with a flashlight and read books and played instruments(both of which were far more entertaining due simply to their being transported under a blanket suspended on kitchen chairs) among other things.




OMG! It's a Sasquatch running into our campsite! Run for your lives!!!!!


Oh....no...I take that back. It is simply the most hilarious photo I've taken of this child to date. He was cranky because I was taking pics instead of picking him up (he is teething and, therefore, moody). This is the result.

Project 365 - May 14th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISCHIEF!



She had visitors....whom she was not actually allowed to interact with...

a doe (who has been by previous springs as well)...


and her sweet fawn.

Project 365 - May 9th-13th

We are going to take this week's pics a few steps at a time. The week was kind of quiet, but I've taken oodles of pics this weekend, so brace yourself for multiple posts.
Here are Monday through Friday's pictures:

On Monday, I had PD and Orin and I each had a doctor's appointment. Below is a summary of his measurements. We are SO pleased he is doing well at maintaining weight. Also, take note at where the discrepancy in proportions lies with this child as well....hats will never be popular in this house.


Orin has been making leaps and bounds in his communication lately. When the doctor asked on Monday if he is talking, he was impressed by my claim that Orin has 5-10 words. I wondered if I was exaggerating, so I've been counting them and I realised I actually underestimated. At last count, he regularly uses 12 words and 3 signs (he recently added "done" to this repertoire) and he learns new multiple new things daily now. It is amazing. Anyway, below, Isabel is teaching him an alternative meaning for "cheese".


On Wednesday, I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Bill Clinton speak. I really wasn't sure what I was in for and tried to keep my expectations low. Well, I am SO glad I went; I had a really great time and found him really inspiring.


Orin (don't worry...Isabel will show up soon...it has just been a big week for this guy) has been using soft-spouted sippy cups for a while now. We transitioned him relatively easily from bottles (which leaked like sieves) to these in order to keep his bed from getting so wet. Well, we've hit the same problem with these because he is damaging them by using them the way he does (biting) and I can't find the spouts ANYWHERE in Fredericton...as a matter of fact, the stores that carry the bottles themselves are phasing them out. So we've realised we need to work on moving him to the hard-spouted sippies that we have around. He's been a bit stubborn about it, so the fact that he started using it on his own this week was a big deal. We are going to start phasing the hard sippies into daytime use over the next couple of weeks and hopefully take the leap to using them at night too in June. Wish us luck.


Friday was kijiji day! Well, one purchase was made Thursday night and then two were made on Friday. Here is the loot.

Project 365 - May 8th

IT'S A PICTURE EXPLOSION!!

We went for a walk by the river today because it was beautiful and because it is always interesting to be down near the river when it is swollen in spring. Enjoy the resulting photoshoot :)

Project 365 - May 3rd-7th

Since neither my photo of the TV as results came in or my photo of Twitter as people #tweet(ed)theresults all over the place turned out, you get this - a disturbingly blue map of Canada.


This photo is going to have to cover Tuesday and Wednesday since I inadvertently deleted the much better photo of deer from Wednesday :( The cool news though is that they've been in our yard several times this week. It is lovely to see them so close :)


Isabel's dance class had photos on Thursday. Here she is all dolled up and in her raincoat after photos had been taken and we were back in the car on the way home.


Yet more kijiji fodder. I have oodles of baby stuff to list. Here is the cloth diaper stash I've sold most of already.


Yet more wildlife. The story behind this starts early in the morning when I saw a bird soar low over the yard and land in a tree directly beyond the kitchen window. I thought little of it until late in the afternoon when I saw it again and, upon looking closer, I noticed a nest had been built (literally, over the course of the day) in that spot in the trees. The bird has disappeared, but I am hoping that he's just off finding a young lady bird to bring back to his really impressive nest.


BONUS VIDEO!
Isabel's dance class performed at the FredKid Fair this past weekend. Here's a snippet of video from the show.

Project 365 - May 1st & 2nd

Yesterday, we went for a walk in our spring coats.


This morning, I irritably scraped frost off my car (which was moved out of the garage yesterday while we were tidying it and digging out spring/summer stuff).

Let's start things off with some childish fun!

It all started off innocently enough. Isabel received some adorable window decals as part of an Easter gift from a family friend. The set includes this:


Once Isabel forgot about the decals (the shapes all got stored away in a container on her craft desk, but the letters were left out for some reason), things went downhill fast. Dave started things off strong.



I called and raised.


This was less successful than we'd hoped. As a matter of fact, not only has it not deterred people from coming to our door, but there has been an influx of Jehovah's Witnesses and Snake-oil salesmen...I mean, Conservative canvassers.


These guys are like a combination of therapy dogs and electroshock therapy. Everything's all cuddles and purring when you behave appropriately, but at the first sign of deviant behaviour, the "therapists" tear your arms off. Now, THIS is a deterrent.


I imagine a shriveled and angry chain-smoking Peep sitting next to a large green glass ashtray from 1972. Dave pictures an ashtray made of wailing peeps having cigarettes put out on their backs. Neither is all that festive.


Everyone loves a party sheep!


Such good advice for so many!


This gem was Dave's. We feel sorry for Paty. Not only does she have a "pee rash", but she also has parents who can't spell. And this one inspired the one that had me snorting hours later....


This poor fellow was the butt of so much silliness.
Cleatus: "WOOO-EEE! What's that gall-darned smell? Somebody gone dun fertilized thar garden?"
Bobby-Jean: "Heck no! That's just Peety Rash Pa. He ain't dun smelled right for years."
I could go on, but you get the picture.

Paralyzed, no more.

You know how that happens, right? Where you get so far behind on something and so overwhelmed by the idea of catching up that you start avoiding and become "paralyzed" for lack of a better - frozen in time. That is what has happened to my blog.

April was one wild and crazy time. Between illness and dance practice and preps for the long weekend away and spring cleaning, my blogging and Project 365 took a distant backseat. Well, no more. With the beginning of May, I am recommitting myself to my blog. I enjoy it too much on a personal level to let so many things push it aside.

So consider this post warning of the continued bombardment of blog posts on your Facebook feed. Enjoy ;)

Expecting him to steal the keys and crash the car next!

Babies go through these brief periods of huge change. I remember Isabel doing something similar, but because she was methodical and cautious, it wasn't quite as dramatic as the phase Orin is currently in. In the last 24 hours, he's been an absolute whirlwind of change.
First, he decided walking is super awesome just before supper yesterday afternoon, when he took about six steps from the kitchen island to me (I was doing something else, so he wasn't even being coaxed). Up to that time, he'd take a couple of steps if coerced, but certainly not of his own volition. Now, he is doing it all the time and getting a real kick out of it.
He also started drinking successfully out of his Klean Kanteen this morning. This is a big deal for us because the water bottles he currently uses leak like crazy, meaning that his bed and clothes get much wetter than need be, so we've been trying to convince him for a while that the KK is where it's at.
He's shown incredible comprehension in a few instances today. First, he toddled over to the fridge and started waving his empty water bottle at the water dispenser. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most, but since we've never gotten his water out of the dispenser (too cold), this suggests that he has paid enough attention to what we've gotten ourselves and Isabel and the talk surrounding what comes out of the dispenser to know that it is water. Pretty impressive, in my opinion. The second instance was after supper. Isabel and Dad were heading upstairs to start prepping the bath while I cleaned Orin up in his highchair. He peeked around his chair at the two of them, so I asked him where they were going. He looked at me curiously. I then asked if he wanted to go too and he immediately started wrestling with the buckle and leaning out of his chair. I had no idea he would understand that question, but he evidently did and followed them happily up the stairs.
Lastly, his communication skills themselves have blossomed. He has been saying mama, dada and "cuh" (cat) for a while now. He recently added "nana" (banana) to his repertoire and I am quite sure there are more real words in that vast amount of babble he produces that we just aren't hearing. Most significantly today though was the fact that he is finally signing with some consistency. We have been using the signs for "more" and "all done" and, occasionally "water" with him for a couple of months now and, as a rule, he just looks at us like we are nuts or makes his own crazy hand gestures. Well, at snack today, he used "more" consistently until he was done, at which time, he threw a fit (alright...not exactly progress on "all done, but baby steps people). He used "more" again through supper. The hilarious part, which also indicates that increased comprehension I was talking about was when I put him on the potty prior to bath. After a bit, I asked if he was all done and instead he signed "more". We all had a good laugh at that.
Anyway, if I wake up in the morning and post a Facebook status about my car being missing, you'll all know what happened.

Project 365 - Mar 22nd to Apr 4th

Once again, I haven't got a pic per day, but given what's been going on, I'm lucky to have gotten anything. I promise I'll pick up the slack.

You know how some kids grab grapes and cookies and crackers out of the cart? Not my kid...he rips hunks off the romaine lettuce to munch on.

This crazy snowstorm kept drifting in and out while I did bus duty. One minute it would be snowing and the next it was so sunny, I wished I had my sunglasses.

Notice the look of disdain and desperation on Mischief's face.

Mmmm....death by pepperoni.

More fun in the playhouse.

Hey, girls....remember this guy?

Rat tail! Oh yeah! Jordan Knight was hot baby!

Thanks to a team effort on the part of Aunt Ruby and mom and Mike, Isabel has her now-beloved doll house. She spends hours happily playing with this thing.

A photo of Orin's first steps.

Wrestling after bath!

Helpin' Mama at work.

Poor tired and sick wee baby.

Some video footage to accompany the photos:

Catalogue of Izzy #9

{We are all sitting at the table toward the end of supper. David has his head resting on his arm on the table thanks to our less-than-restful weekend.}
Isabel: "I know you don't feel well, daddy." {Stands up, walks over to him and starts rubbing his arm.}
David: "Thanks, Izzy."
Isabel: "You take care of me when I don't feel well and I take care of you when you don't feel well." {Starts stroking the side of his face} "I will keep you safe."
David: "That's very kind of you, Isabel."
Isabel: {Strokes Dave's nose} "Zurg's not here, Daddy. Don't worry."

Catalogue of Izzy #8

According to Isabel, this box reads "Crackers for Babies and Isabels".

Products are far more specific today than I remember them being.

Still playing catch up.

The only thing that would REALLY deter me from having a third kid is what we are dealing with right now - the CONSTANT barrage of viruses and things when they start daycare/school. We just can't seem to keep up. We all had that TERRIBLE respiratory virus at the end of February/beginning of March...that took each of us about a week (overlapping) to get over.
Late the week before last, just as I was marveling at our entire family being well for a whole week, we all, again in succession, got fevers and various degrees of congestion/sore throat. I am the last one recovering from that and, after being told repeatedly on Thursday how terrible I looked and sounded (despite feeling 1000x better than I did with the last virus, I was feeling on the mend Friday morning.
Isabel projectile vomited at 2am Friday. We cleaned it up and decided that the most sensible thing was to have O go to daycare and me go to work in the morning since I am still #1 when it comes to his care (it comes with the territory when you are breastfeeding) and we wanted to minimize the chances of him getting it, given how serious it could be for him.
Around 7:20am, the call that I half expected and definitely dreaded came. Daycare is closed because her son has the same thing. We know no one locally who doesn't work, so I was now needed to care for Orin. A little too late to call our regular supply teachers, I took him to work in order to tie up loose ends and see if we could get someone off the list. I stayed for period one and Orin was as good as gold (and received no shortage of attention).
Orin fell asleep in the car, so I figured that we'd come home so I could get a few things, eat some breakfast (~10am...so hungry) and he could sleep in the car, thus avoiding infection. Well, when Dave and I talked about it, Isabel seemed fine at this point, we thought we'd done a good job of containing it (used rubber gloves, washed extensively and tried to keep all dirty laundry contained to garbage bags). We decided that so long as we kept them apart physically, we should be alright, so Orin and I stayed home for the day.
At 1:30am, Orin projectile vomited four times. We cleaned up, spent an hour trying to get water into him slowly and monitoring him closely (and packing an overnight bag just in case we needed to take him to the hospital). We thought it was safe to head back to bed around 2:45. While we were trying to get Orin back to bed, something crazy happened with the power (Dave figures it was as a result of a blown transformer or a lightning strike) and it went out. NB Power said they wouldn't get to it until sometime in the day. PERFECT! Beside the regular annoyances from a power outage, no power while on a well means no water pressure, which means no flushing of toilets and no laundry and no handwashing. Did I mention that my tummy was now churning and cramping?
The ending to this story is good though. We've all made it so far without any further throwing up. The power came on at 9am, so laundry is running again. And most importantly, Orin kept himself hydrated and seems just fine after challenging one of the more serious "minor" things that can happen to him.
Here's to an uneventful weekend.