Thursday, September 27, 2007

Thanks a lot

Like most people with kids (or I suppose people with pets?) our screen saver on our computer is a slide show of cute pictures of the Adorable Donovans. Jude likes to call out the names of the people in the pictures as they scroll by. "Bophie!" He'll screech. "Daddy!"




He was watching the show go by this afternoon and this picture appeared:





It was taken in Niagara Falls in the lobby of the Guinness World Records museum and it shows what Sophie would have looked like were she the world's fattest man. It's kind of hard to even see that it is Sophie, as the background is so busy and the stomach is so unbelievably huge. When this shot came up Jude pointed excitedly at the computer screen and yelled, "Mummy!"

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

edit

This post has been edited to add text. As requested.

Taking care of little sister

So unlike her brother, Buppy isn't such a fan of the cereal we've been feeding her. The first spoonful goes into her mouth with a big smile. The next one needs a bit of coaxing to get in there... All subsequent tries are met with resistance. Until Monday.

I set out Jude and Justin's dinner on the table. I went back to the kitchen and made Sophie's cereal and then brought that out to the table. I went back in the kitchen again to get my dinner and I hear Justin asking Jude where he's going. Jude says very matter of factly, "Bophie." He climbed off his chair, got Sophie's cereal and went back to his seat. Justin gave him a hand up and he sat and fed Sophie her dinner. And if Jude's aim was better, it probably would have been the most she had ever eaten. She opened her mouth wide at Jude's "Umm!" prompting and didn't even really get upset when the spoon slipped a little too far in the back of her mouth (Justin spent most of that meal saying, "Careful Jude! Not too far!").

The downside to this of course was that Jude didn't eat his own dinner. If we could only figure out how to get Buppy to feed Jude...

Saturday, September 22, 2007

I guess the other reason that it's hard to write these days is that I have two kids. One is slightly more mobile than she used to be, demanding more stimulation than a simple teether can offer. Right now in fact she is sitting in the computer room with me. I have her parked in front of the mirrored closet doors and she is shrieking with joy and camaraderie at the adorably charming gal she sees in front of her ("Oh you're just so cute!" I imagine she is saying, "I just LOVE your outfit!" As she yells and screeches away at her own reflection).

Oh. And the other other thing is that every time I sit down to write, I forget what it was I was going to write about.

But how's this?
Thursday I was reading a blog entry by another woman who was describing how her daughter (who is a month older than Jude) had just asked to sit on the potty and then proceeded to actually pee in it. Well, needless to say I was a bit jealous. I'd always heard that boys took longer and were harder to train than their female counterparts.

And then (was there something in the air?) a few hours after my reading that Jude suddenly wants his pants taken off. Um, okay. And then off with the shirt - the diaper came off next. Jude ran over to the bathroom door and yells, "Mummy! Door!" So to open the door I go. And Jude climbed up on the toilet and sat and strained and then stood up and waved his groin in the general area of the toilet (Justin assures me this is not how he pees) spit into the water and then flushed the toilet, waving, "Bye-bye poo-poo."

So he didn't actually 'perform' on the toilet, but he sat there. And since Thursday we have repeated this scene about 5 times. Last night we went out and bought him a potty. He quite enjoyed sitting on it. And every time the urine deflector fell off (10 minutes into owning a potty and we're already thinking about getting a different one, one with a more sturdy urine deflector) I had to reach in and secure it back in to place or else put up with , "Mummy! Broken! Mummy! Broken!"

Well, Jude is awake now and Sophie has turned herself around so she is no longer amusing herself with that fascinating child in the mirror. Have a picture!
Clean clean clean!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007







I haven't written anything in a while, because I'm not sure what to write. I guess there are some new things: Sophie is getting not one, but two teeth (the two on the bottom). Sophie ate her first meal (not a huge fan, but we're pretty sure she's had more flavourful things pass her lips courtesy of her big brother). Jude is talking a lot. I asked the doctor at Sophie's 6 month check-up how many words he should have by now. She said she'd be happy with 50. Justin and I sat and ticked 100 off the tops of our heads one night in the span of a couple of minutes. Then we kept adding to the list as the night wore on, or as we heard Jude come out with something we hadn't previously listed. I figure he's easily in the 200 hundred range.
He recognizes things. When we pull into Grandma Noreen's driveway he yells, "Gan-ma!" When we pull into my parents' he yells, "Nan!" (and when we get inside Nan's house he walks over to the top of the stairs and yells down at my dad who is almost always there, watching tv, "Hi Gan-dad!" And is confused if Grandad isn't there, "Where Gan-dad?"
He points to pictures and tells us who he sees, "Kate! Bup! Matt!"
The other day we were out of the house for a good 12 hours. We had a play date and birthday party the same day. At one point, tired and faced with more strangers bending down yelling, "Hi Jude!" in his face, he turned to me and lifted his arms up to me, "Home?" he said. As a baby, he would cry and fuss when we were away from home for a long time. He missed the smell of home, the comfort, the familiarity. And I used to make that excuse for him, "He just misses home." Saturday my suspicions were confirmed. He does miss home when he's away for too long.
Sophie is sitting up on her own, moving around a bit (mostly backwards - but she does seem to scoot herself sideways while remaining in a sitting position).
I will leave you with a couple of pictures, cause those kids are so cute.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

One more example:


Of why I call my son a nutbar. I was cutting his fingernails the other day and he wasn't happy about it. He was screaming and crying and wriggling every which way. Finally, I finished and I stood him up and said, "All done!" And sent him on his way. He sniffled a couple of times and turned to me and said, "Thank you." And then ran off to play with his toys.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Let's Go To The Ex


Most of the rides at the CNE were either for kids a little older than Jude or had long prohibitive lines. We weren't prepared to wait in them with an infant and a toddler. The petting zoo on the other hand proved to be lots of fun for Jude. He got to feed the animals (though Justin thinks he got nipped at one point - he suddenly refused to feed the animals) and saw up close what Old MacDonald's farm animals looked like.



The Canadian Army had an area where you got to explore the inside of tanks and air crafts and various army vehicles. This is one of Justin's favourite shots of Jude. The tattoo was a nice touch. And apparently a prerequisite for being in the army.


The farm pavilion had a sort of scavenger hunt where kids were sent out with buckets and had to "plant seeds", "milk cows" "pick apples" and such before they were given a chance to ride in these neat tractors in order to take their treasures to the market. Jude had fun. Justin wished the tractors were made for people his size.


We got the CNE around 11:00 am. This picture was taken at about 6:00 pm. They were so exhausted they didn't even wake up when we took them out of the stroller and put them in the car seats.



Unfortunately, the catnap proved to be energizing for the kids. We on the other hand, were completely wiped out.

A few pictures from our trip to the CNE on Friday.