Saturday, October 20, 2007

The other night I took Jude to Toys R Us to buy his birthday present. He's still young enough to buy presents in front of. I assume this will get harder as the months pass. We were driving home and Jude suddenly ran out of the candy that he got as a treat from the candy machine in front of the store - the very machines designed to ensure that children throw temper tantrums both going in to and coming out of the store.
Cue temper tantrum.
Unfortunately we were driving so there wasn't much I could do (Daddy and Sophie were at home). The only thing I could think of to end the needless misery happening in the backseat was distraction:
"Hey Jude!" I yelled over his hysterics. "What sound does a cat make?"
"Meow," came the sniffled reply.
"And what sound does a doggy make?"
"Meow," he said again with a little more enthusiasm.
"A doggy doesn't say 'meow'," I said to him, in a kindergarten teacher type voice. "What does a doggy say?"
"Woof! Woof!" He yells back.
"Right!" And so on we went for a while, I'd name an animal, he'd yell out what sound the animal makes and then we'd make that sound a few times until I moved on to the next one.
At this point we were stopped at a red light. I happened to look over and noticed the guy beside me was really belting out a song.
"What sound does a ... (grasp for animal that we hadn't covered yet) ... monkey make?" I unrolled my window a little bit out of curiosity to see if I could make out what song he was listening to - Nickelback, Rockstar.
Jude mumbled something that sounded distinctly like a falsetto "Hi-I'm-a-monkey" in response to my earlier question. I looked at Jude in the rear view mirror, he was smiling devilishly. I looked over at the Nickelback guy one more time and thought to myself, man that's an embarrassing song to get caught singing so passionately to - doesn't he realise people can see him? Then I turned back to Jude.
"No, silly! A monkey says, Oooo oooo oooo" I called over the back seat to him as I lifted my arm and scratched my arm pit. "Ooooo oooo ooo!"

Friday, October 19, 2007

Minding his Ps and Qs

So I've mentioned that Jude is very polite. He always says "thank you" he mostly says "please" (although sometimes it's in a whiny bratty kind of way, "Peeeeeeassssssssseeeeeeeeee") and recently he started to say "excuse me" when trying to get by other people or inanimate objects (it winds up sounding more like "soosfee" or something similar, but when you move and he gets by you, he always turns around and says "thank you").
Lately though, he's been taking it a bit far. Like the past few days, when he climbs up or down the stairs he's always careful to stop at the end and say, "Tank You! Tank You Stairs!"
Thank you stairs? Thanks for allowing me to move from one level of the house to the next with ease? Thanks for not making me trip and fall down? What a character.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

It's Sophie's Turn!

Finally, something about Sophie!

Sophie has been able to sit up unassisted for quite sometime now, as long as you put her down in a sitting position. Of course, inevitably she would reach out for something or someone and manage to work herself onto her stomach. She would roll around down there happily for a while until she realized that she couldn't get back up. Then the tears would come.
Over the weekend it occurred to me that even though she still sometimes cried on the floor, it was more because she noticed that everyone was in the kitchen and she was still in the living room. Or perhaps it was because her big brother yanked a toy away from her.
But yesterday while I was typing the goose post I sat her down in front of the mirror. And then I looked over at her and she was lying on her stomach trying to get a hold of the vacuum cleaner nozzle. And then I looked again and she was sitting up? What?
So I watched her like a hawk all day. And finally right before bed, she did it. She sat up all by herself! I am trying to remember how Jude did it, but I can't quite picture it. I think he went from his stomach and sort of rolled over into a sitting position. Sophie gets up on all fours rocks back and forth a bit and then just sits on her bum. Congratulations Sophie! October 15th is your official sitting up day!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Once bit



We like to go feed the ducks. Jude gets a kick out of it, and it's a nice family outing, an hour or two down by the lake. Unfortunately with the ducks also come the geese. And Canadian Geese are mean. Nevertheless we try to aim the bread over the geese and into the waiting beaks of the ducks. When we first started doing this, Jude would throw entire pieces of bread into the water. It didn't take him long to figure out that you were supposed to dole out smaller bite sized pieces.

Now neither of us actually saw it happen, but if I know Jude (and I'm pretty sure I do) he was handing out small little pieces, no bigger than a crumb. Anyway it was pretty cute, watching him stand there throwing the bread over to the ducks and so I was fiddling with my brand new camera phone so I could get a picture and holding Sophie at the same time. Justin was just behind Jude, but wasn't exactly looking at him.

And then we heard a shriek. And I pushed Sophie into Justin's arms and rushed over to see Jude. There was a possibly guilty looking goose right in front of where Jude had been standing. I picked him up and he held out his finger to me.

"Mummy! Goose! Bite! Finger!" Jude cried.

I hugged him and kissed it better and said, "Bad Goose!" in my stern-ist Mother Voice and at some point Justin and I traded kids back. After all there wasn't any broken skin, I couldn't even tell which finger had been bit and there was still some bread to hand out. Except by this time, the geese had gotten restless. We were standing there, with bread in our hands, and we weren't sharing.

Those damn geese started getting belligerent. They started honking. Justin tried yelling and stomping to get them to scatter. They just looked mildly amused and continued walking towards him.
We basically emptied out the bread and ran. Those geese are mean.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

When Sophie was born, Auntie Kate gave Jude his own baby to take care of - so that he had a new baby just like Mummy. Jude goes through ups and downs with Baby. There are entire weeks where Baby does not leave Jude's side and you better make sure you have Baby with you when you go out because when Jude realizes he left Baby at home, well, there's a major meltdown. Other times he can take or leave Baby. Like, he'll take Baby on a walk with us and then if Baby should happen to fall out of the stroller, oh well. Bye-bye Baby. Justin said one day Jude was at the park with Baby (who was waiting patiently in the stroller while Jude played at the park) and one of the neighbourhood kids (that is to say, someone we know - not some random kid who happened to be at the park) picked up Baby. Jude ran over, grabbed Baby and shoved the little boy, who despite being a bit bigger than Jude, fell down with a thud. Don't mess with Baby.

So today I was putting Jude down for a nap and Jude was dancing Baby along the bars of the crib, making Baby say, "Hi Mummy!" (in a monster voice, it was actually pretty cute) and so I reached out and I patted Baby on the head and said, "Hi, Baby."
Jude snatched Baby away from me and furrowed his brow, "Gentle, Mummy! Gentle!"
This coming from someone who doesn't think twice about running over to my baby and tackling her and then rolling over on top of her.