Procrastionation - or Why You Should Never Speak In Front of a Toddler

Let me first address the beginning of this post's title: Procrastination. We are hosting two Christmas dinners back to back starting tonight. And Justin currently has the kids at work with him. Which means I should really be doing prep work in the kitchen or cleaning the living room or even something more self centered but nonetheless on my to-do list, such as straightening my hair.
I'm on the Internet.
Now to the second portion of the title. Jude has taken on the personality of a teenager. He's two. It started in the mornings. I would go in to wake the little guy up and Jude would roll around pulling the covers over his head, moaning, "Nooooo, sleeeeeeping." And then I would finally drag him out of bed and he would sulk around like a 15 year old who didn't study for a test that day.

But let me share little snippets of conversations actually taking place in the Donovan household on a now daily basis.
"Jude, it's time for bed." (For example, said by either myself or Justin).
"Sooooo?"
"So come put your jammies on."
"Nah," very dismissive, with a shrug of his little two year old shoulders.
"Um. Yeah. Come here, now. It's bed time." The parent starts to sound a little stern. A little exasperated, a little shocked to hear the previously sweet little boy being so disobedient.
"You're ridiculous!" Jude will yell, at which point Justin and I will turn to each other.
"Did he just call me 'ridiculous'?"
"Yes."

This little conversation might play out two or three times in a day. Always ending the same way - with Justin and I unable to stop smirking at the cheeky little monkey and probably a pretty good tickle session where we repeat over and over "Don't tell me I'm ridiculous, YOU'RE ridiculous. YOU'RE ridiculous!" while Jude screams with laughter.

I mean really, ridiculous? Where does he get this stuff from? It's ridiculous.

The Doctor is in

Jude started playing an adorable game of alter egos. He started pretending he was Major Bedhead one day and he's been a bunch of different names ever since. Some days he's Roger, other days he's Donald, our next door neighbour. Last Friday he up and decided that his new name is Doctor.
We know he's the Doctor when he walks around with a pencil in one hand and a stack of papers in the other. If you should dare call him "Jude" he will get a little belligerent, "No!" he'll yell, "Name Doctor! Name Doctor!" as he jabs his thumb into his little chest.
Sophie is sick today, she was awake at 5am, throwing up all over the place and she hasn't stopped since. I had her resting in the infant seat while I ran up to replace her "back-up" outfit for the third time that morning and when I came down, Doctor was leaning over her, pencil poised above his papers saying, "Matter, Bophie girl? Matter?" and then he gave her a little kiss.
What a sweet little doctor he is.

Quick update

Much too late I will inform you that Sophie is crawling. She is also cruising. At this stage, it's probably not that surprising, but she started this about a month ago (I believe it was the weekend of my mum's birthday). Also, she just started waving. And not the open hand close hand wave that most babies seem to do. Her wave is more adult like. And very friendly. Her wave makes you imagine she is very excited to see you! or perhaps she is very sorry to see you go! but she loves you so much that she is going to wave her little heart out!
She has 5 teeth and we are waiting the 6th to come in, to even things out a bit on the bottom. She is pulling herself up and cruising along the couch and from the small piano to the small rocking chair (that wasn't pretty, she had a black eye for a few days). She LOVES the song, "The Grand Old Duke of York" which is handy in situations where, say, she is crying uncontrollably in the car. However, then you have to sing "The Grand Old Duke of York" repeatedly for miles on end which can be a bit well, repetitive.
She is also the most beautiful baby in the world.

pictures from halloween

A late post on Hallowe'en

So we (by "we" I guess I mean "I") went the cutesy route for Hallowe'en costumes this year. Jude was a chicken, Sophie a baby chick.
(This post just got a whole lot shorter, I'm typing one handed now)
Justin took the kids out trick or treatin' while I stayed home and handed out candy. Jude apparently caught on very quickly what was expected of him. Sophie was so cute people gave her candy too - all the more for Daddy- I mean Jude.
I think we're over the candy thing finally... in that he's given up the begging for "one piece? one piece?"
Typically, Jude seemed to have as much if not more fun giving out candy when he got home.

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!"

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.