Tuesday, June 26, 2007

We're melting...

Uck. It's so hot. Sophie doesn't care for the heat. It makes her sweaty and sticky. Jude doesn't complain, but when you ask him if he wants to go outside and play on his new slide in the backyard and he runs and gets his shoes and then gets visibly annoyed with you when you have the gall to ask him to put his hat on and you finally let him out in the back and he runs excitedly towards the slide.... and then the heat hits him and he runs back and bangs on the door and then pushes you out of his way so he can get in - you know the heat is getting to him too.

This weekend was busy for us. On Saturday Nan and Sophie and I went to Buffalo to look for clothes for Sophie Girl. I bought a few things, but not much. Jude hung out with Daddy all day. I hear they went out for breakfast, then to visit Grandma and then they tried to get a free boat ride down by the lake, but over slept their nap and missed it.

On Sunday we went to the zoo with some friends. Jude seemed more excited by all the food then the actual animals themselves, but he's still young. I guess at his age a Lifesavers Popsicle is more thrilling than a giraffe.
This is Sophie shopping in America.
And this is Jude. In the jeep. Hmph.
The zoo. Jude is much more interested in the piece of corn in his hand than in whatever is swimming in that tank.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Time machine

If you were to hit the rewind button on this funny thing called life, if you were to go back one year to last summer, you would see a very different nap time routine.

Last year naps were more of a battle. There was a lot of crying (from both of us) a lot of begging (again, from both of us) and just a lot of misery. This morning Jude took me by the hand, led me into his bedroom and stopped in front of the crib. He held out his hands and said, "Up?"

I fell all over myself trying to get him ready for his nap before he changed his mind. A quick mental list formed in my head: diaper, milk, Blue (Blue is his animal blankie who was currently on my bed because he saw Sophie with her teddy bear blankie and immediatly demanded Blue). I rushed downstairs and put a bottle of milk in the microwave (uh, because I thought the nap would last longer with some milk in the belly), then I ran over to the diapers and wipes (!#$&) and remembered Jude had taken all the wipes out of the box after breakfast and I had just crammed them all back in in a very disorganized fashion. I grabbed a wipe and called Jude over but he was too busy staring at the microwave from where his milk would soon emerge. So I changed his diaper in the kitchen with him standing, laughing at the absurdity of it.

We got upstairs and sat in the rocker while Jude drank his milk. As I was putting him in the crib I realized I had forgotten Blue.

As Jude would say, oh cap (he would mean "crap"). But wait! The blankie with the mouse in the center was also in the crib!

And so, in less time than it would have taken me last year just to change his diaper (he was in the wiggley-I-don't-want-my-diaper-changed-phase), Jude was in bed. Asleep. Of his own asking.
Oh. And the bonus? Sophie had quietly fallen asleep as well by the time I finished with Jude.

The first sleepover

Jude and Sophie survived their first sleepover at Nan's. Possibly because I was with them. We cleared out of the house on Monday (well, pretty much we had spent the last 4 days there, but we were coming home to sleep) in order to give Daddy both a quiet place to study and so that he would get a nice peaceful uninterrupted sleep before his big exam.



As we usually do when we are there, we took a trip to the park. It is a very happening park, much more so than our boring old one here. On Friday there was a grade three gym class running laps around the soccer field and when Jude caught sight of them he raised his arms up in the air and yelled and went running as fast as his little legs would let him. The arm raising was the toddler equivalent of pumping his fist and shouting, "YES!". We had to chase him down and quite cruelly hold his hand while we walked past them.



On Monday evening there was a girls soccer game being played and Jude didn't notice them until the game was over (thank god, I said to my mum on the way down, all they needed was Jude rushing on to the field to try to pick up the ball) but when he saw all those young girls (I'd guess they were around 11 or 12) in their soccer uniforms he got super excited. His eyes actually bulged out of his head and he started running around in circles talking gibberish. He was so excited his shoes kept falling off and he couldn't decide which way to go as all the girls walked past him on their way to the parking lot. I finally had to hoist him onto my shoulders. It was either that or stay until every last straggler from the soccer game had left.


Sunday, June 17, 2007

It's Father's Day

And I just want to say on behalf of Jude and Sophie, Happy Father's Day!


Thursday, June 14, 2007

A bit about Sophie

We three were sitting on the couch this afternoon reading one of Jude's books. I had Sophie on one knee and Jude on the other - Jude was holding the book. Sophie kept reaching out and touching Jude's arm. At first I thought it was just involuntary movement, but I really think she wanted to touch him. Each time she grabbed at his arm, Jude would exclaim, "Oh!" (Like, "Oh! I didn't know you were capable of reaching out like that!"), and he would smile at her and she would grin her chubby little grin back at him. It was very cute.


Wanna see something else that's cute?






Now we're fishing for mention?

If you read the comments on the previous post you, like Erin, will be wondering what the other remarkable thing Jude just learned was... Well, what with the time difference and the fact that I don't have Auntie K's new work number, I can't call her to find out what she is referring to.

But I think I have an idea:

As is often done in the Donovan house, I predialed the phone the other night and handed it to Jude. When Jude is crying about something (in this case his father shut the door to the office to study without his study partner Jude), we will hand him the phone so he can call his favourite aunt. It's called distraction. And it works.
This particular evening I cut the call short, because I was watching the semi-finals of Top Chef season two (which I have not seen who wins yet, so don't tell me). I told Jude to say "Night night aunt Kate," and Jude, clear as day said, "Night Kate."

This is remarkable as it is the first name (other than a garbled "Jude" and possibly "Nan and Grandad" and of course mummy and daddy) that Jude has ever agreed to say. I use the term "agreed to" because I believe that Jude is selective in what he will and will not allow us to hear him say. Last night he said "chicken" but he refuses to say, "Sophie"? In fact, when I tried to get him to say "Sophie" yesterday, he said, "Bup." This is what he calls her, "Bup". And I'm supposed to believe that he can't say "Sophie"? He's clearly just playing mind games with me.

Anyway, is this what you are referring to Auntie Kate?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

BIG problem at the Donovan House:

Jude has learned how to take off his diaper. All by himself. This spells trouble.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Just called to say I love you: Part Two

The other night, I was talking to Auntie Kate while lying with Sophie and Jude. Justin came in to take Jude off to bed and before he picked him up, he told Jude to say night night to mummy and Sophie. So as per usual, Jude came over and gave Sophie a nice big wet kiss on her head and then gave me a pretty good smacker on the lips. Katie, listening to all this over the speakerphone, said, "Night night Jude!" and bless Jude's little heart, he came running over and kissed the phone.



On an unrelated note, last night during the same ritual Jude gave Sophie her kiss, then held my face between his hands and gave me my kiss, then rushed over to the bottle of Avene Mineral Water Spray that I have been alternately spraying on his diaper rash and then on his face because it makes him giggle (incidentally, it really works on the diaper rash), and kissed it as well.