Who's so pretty?

As promised - pictures of Joan in her dresses. This is one from our friends Jim, Joan and their family.

This is the very popular yellow sundress from Mike's grandma. Shockingly, both dresses - and indeed most of Joan's clothes - are 12-month size. There's the pink one from the cat photo, too, but my batteries gave out on me. I'll get it later. She has a pair of overalls from Mike's parents, too, which fit perfectly, but it bothers Mike because everyone mistakes her for a boy when she wears them. We just play along, to make them feel better, but one lady asked her name. When we told her Joan, she got a bit embarrassed, but it doesn't bother me that people can't tell. She's just a baby. It's impossible to tell, unless she's dripping in pink.

And who can leave out John. He's sporting his blue Canada T-shirt from Grandma Phillips. It's not new, but it's still in high toddler fashion. It doesn't get better than planes. Except maybe trains, or monster trucks. (He was actually butting in on me trying to take pictures of Joan. If you look hard, you can see her little feet back there to the right. What a ham!)

summer travel

Joan taking a "spin" in the Jolly Jumper. Not a happy experience- John kept spinning her around and around. But he took a break from his fun to snap this photo - I'm off to the side - she's giving me that "why me" look.

Ah summer. How it comes out of nowhere. Now that it's here, we've been discussing John's vacation plans. Life here is a little crazy until the end of June, but after that I am free to escort him to Dryden for a visit. We've been exploring our options. Bus is obviously the cheapest, but not even Mike is that cruel. Surprisingly, the plane and train are comparable, because kids ride free on Via this summer. Otherwise, plane would have been much cheaper.

Obviously, I'm favouring plane. Mike thinks it would be cool for John to take a train, and unfortunately, John agrees strongly. When I ask him if he'd like to fly on a plane, he screams "no!" and practically bursts into tears. I wonder what Mike's been telling him to make him react that way.

I don't know how much weight we should give John's vote, though. Technically, when asked, his first choice would be to travel by monster truck, with train a distant second, followed closely by tractor, then concrete mixer.

I must admit, when the idea of a 24-hour train ride with two kids was first proposed, I was pretty horrified, and more than a little peeved at Jer for first suggesting it, but maybe it would be fun, in a masochistic kind of way. Both times I took a train, it had tons of kids and babies on board, so it's not unheard of. And it would plop us in Sioux Lookout, which is a heck of a lot closer to home than Thunder Bay or Winnipeg. But we'll see. I guess I should be phoning home to work out dates and such. It's not like John, Joan and I have schedules to work around. If it weren't for a newsletter and community BBQ that I'm somehow in charge of organizing, we could leave this afternoon.

Anyway, speaking of the association, I had better get back at it!

Good news!

Joan sharing some tummy time with Mary. This is one of the dresses Mike's Grandma sent. Very cute. And it's been so freaking hot the last couple of days, I'm sure she's grateful for the bare legs. When we go out, I accossorize with her frilly pink socks and pink lamb Robeez, from my mom. Ugh. Blue sleepers are so much easier. It's going to take me a while to get used to this whole "girly" thing. It's strange dressing her in girl clothes. She looks so much like John did at this age, it's like seeing John in drag.


Well, the fireworks didn't go as planned. Joan seemed pretty amused by the whole thing, but John was tired, and in no mood for loud noises and bright lights. He covered his eyes and screamed that he wanted to go home for the first quarter. He watched the rest in sullen silence, but plugged his ears. But we made it up to him at the midway. We weren't going to go, because we've been so dirt poor, but John asked to check it out, so we did. Last year, he could only go on the merry-go-round, and he hated it. But this year, he was actually big enough for the kiddie train, and a ride just like the kiddie train, only with Jeeps. We just couldn't resist, and we bought him a few tickets. It was worth it to see the look on his face! He had so much fun! On the train, he made train whistle noises, and on the car, every time he looped around to us, he squealed "I'm driving car!" At one point, a teenager leaned over the rail and gave him a high five. It was like the best night of his life.

In other news, my cold is getting better. I can hear again! Well, pretty much. It's getting better, at any rate. And my ear doesn't hurt anymore, which I'm pretty happy about. It's still a bit swollen, though, but I think I'm winning the battle. :-)

In other news, our mortgage is up for renewal next month, and it looks like we're switching companies. The CIBC has our mortgage now, but we're switching to TD. They offered us a pretty awesome rate - .85 below prime for variable (5.15 as of today) and 5.1 for a fixed five year. Our TD lady got us preapproved a month ago, to get us that low fixed rate. CIBC offered us 5.29 for a fixed rate, and .85 below for variable. It's comparable, but we'd also lik to have everything with one bank, and she thinks she can work some financial magic with our line of credit, so TD wins hands down. When we left, Mike said to me "You know you're with the right financial institution when you want to reach over and hug your banker."

All that's left to decide is fixed or variable. We know there's a recession coming, but Mike's debating whether it will be "stasgflation" of the 80's, in which case, we should lock in, or a regular recession with low interest rates, in which case we should continue with the variable. Decisions, decisions. The banker pushed the variable, because historically, it's better, and they've been advised it will likely be a low interest recession. Variable has definitely saved us a bundle over the past five years. But Mike has heard some economists predict another period of stagflation, so he's not sure. (something to do with energy prices) I'm sure whatever he decides will work out fine. Even if it it is stagflation around the corner, how high can it really go? (Famous last words.)

life chugs on

A day of fun at the park with mom and dad on Mother's Day. He only let me take one photo.

At the height of John's cold - he wanted so badly to play, was was too pooped.

John's doing much better now. He's not napping in the day anymore, has a good amount of energy, and just gives a cough or two in the morning. It gives me hope that one day, my cold will end, too. I feel well enough to work hard though, but that's probably working against me in shaking the last little bit. The worst part is that it's still in my ears, so I can't hear much. I think one of them is getting infected, but it doesn't hurt enough to go to the doc. It's just plugged and sore. It will probably go away on its own. I remember getting a cold just like this when John was 3-months old. I guess it's the stress of having a newborn around.

Things here have been alright. Mike is back in school. He's using the summer term to knock off his humanities requirement - a full credit of philosophy, in 10 weeks. It's two three-hour classes each week, and the marks come from two essays, two exams, a weekly quiz, attendance and class participation. I think he's overly concerned about his first essay. He lives with a journalist and an english grad. I read one of Jer's essays - it was very good. I'm sure he can give a few pointers. And obviously, I'll help however I can. I think my expertise will come in handiest for the exam - it's a takehome exam, all with essay answers. But the catch is a word limit. Mike is the master of using 100 words where ten will do. My training is to trim that down to five, so I think I can help.

A bit thanks to Mike's grandma and my parents for their recent packages. I think the new potty book is responsible for John's potty success. The last line is "do you wamnt to be a big boy, like me?" The night before he used the potty, we read that book, and after that line, he got this very determined look on his face, and he nodded his head. I didn't think anything of it, but I think that was the turning point. Peer pressure from a cartoon boy in a book. But whatever works!

Everyone loves the little dresses that Mike's grandma sent for Joan. I put the yellow sun dress on when Mike got home fro work, and it got a round of ohhhh and ahhhh, and "who's so pretty?" in babytalk. I'll take a picture for everyone. I always swore I'd never dress up my daughter, as though she's some kind of doll. But it is a particularly cute dress. All of John's stuff fits, too. One pair of pants is big enough to fit for some time, which is good. The granola bars (aka cookies) were a huge hit, as always. He can't control himself around those things.

Joan's doing great. She hasn't been sleeping, like, at all, for the past few days. She sleeps better in with me, but I don't think she's cold. It's been warm here, and she has very cuddly blankets. She's stopped falling asleep after nursing, so I thought that she may be ready for food - John started waking up in the night when he was ready. But I gave it a try with baby oatmeal, and it was a no-go. Though, were eating beans a few days ago, and she was getting way overly excited watching the spoon go to my mouth. I put some on my finger for her, and she practically attacked it. But a proper meal of oatmeal? No thanks. She stuck out her tounge to block the spoon. Perhaps she's actually ready, but oats just aren't the right thing. We wound up starting John on banana way back when, because he didn't take well to cereal. Maybe she's the same. But I don't think it helped that while I was trying to feed her, John was beside me, wide eyed in horror, screaming, "No Mommy! Don't feed that to baby! That a yucky supper! That yucky! Yucky!"

Though, for all I know, she's just teething.

On the John front, potty training is going quite well. I have him weaned down to chocolate chips as a prize. No poop yet, but he's very good with the pee, as long as I keep the chocolate coming. Problem is, he won't do it if he's covered in any way - even underwear. He doesn't think to pull it down - he just treats it like a diaper. And if he needs to poop, I find he asks for a diaper to be put on. Hopefully, it will all work out in time. (As in, in time for September, when preschool starts.)

Well, I had better go. He's up, and wants to watch the trucks outside. Our neighbour is digging a new driveway, so there's a backhoe and a dump truck right outside our house. Toddler heaven. Oh, and yesterday, we had two police officers, too. We were witnesses to a crime of sorts. A shady looking character threw something white in our back ally. We thought it was drugs or something, so Mike went to investigate. It was a stack of cards from a stolen wallet. So we called the cops with his description. He had gotten on on a bus near our house, and because of our tip, they were able to track him downtown by calling the bus driver, but I'm sure he got away after that. Twenty-year old black kids in baggy tee-shirst don't exactly stick out downtown. We wished we'd gone out sooner - we called a few minutes after he'd vanished, because we were worried he might be armed. If we'd called sooner, maybe they could have cought him on the bus. But we weren't sure if it was something illegal, or if he was just littering, until we went out and saw the cards. Nevertheless, two cops showed up here to interview me and collect the woman's cards, which John found very exciting. As the second one arrived, he said "Look! Police! He going to shoot!" I was so embarrassed.

Tonight, we're packing up the family, and probably Jer, to watch the fireworks! John's going to love it! Not sure about Joan. She scares a bit easier than John did at this age, but hopefully, she'll enjoy it, too.

Anyway, better go. The trucks await!

It happened!!!!

Oh my goodness!

HE PEED IN THE POTTY!!!!!!!!!!

I AM SOOOOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!

What a great moment. He came tearing around the corner yelling "Mommy, I peed potty!" I checked, and sure enough, there was pee in the potty! Woohoo!

However, there's a downside. I had promised him a piece of chocolate if he peed or pooped in the potty, so of course, I delivered. But then, as he was eating it, he ran back to the potty, and managed to squeeze out a couple more drops. The first chocolate wasn't even gone before he was asking for a second, as a reward for his miniscule little dribble.

I don't know if he'll accept that going potty is its own reward. I guess either I'll have to wean him off chocolates, or stock up. But for now, I don't care - HE USED THE POTTY!!!!!!

Woohooooo!!!!!

The cold that won't die

Yup, still sick.

Sorry no photo. I didn't plan to update, but have a minute to kill while I feed Joan. John's still sleeping, but I don't think I'll have time to download the camera before he trudges down.

Poor little guy is still sick too. He wakes up with a hacking wet cough every morning, and often through the night. Mike and I have it too, but not as severe. It's really wiped John out. He's actually back to napping in the day. Last week, I realized that the house seemed a bit quiet, so I went hunting for him. I found him fast asleep in his bed. He was so tired, he'd gone up and tucked himself in. I have a picture to download of him asleep on his slide from yesterday. He called me to come play with him, and rested his head to wait. In the time it took me to get there, he'd fallen asleep, and stayed asleep for an hour.

I don't remember having a cold last this long, ever. It's terrible. It's in my ears. I haven't been able to hear in ages. But my cough is going away, so it should ease off for John soon, too. Mike seems to be pretty much over it.

Shockingly, Joan is still OK. She woke up stuffy a couple of mornings, and was a bit sneezy and groggy for a day or so, but other than that, is perfectly fine and healthy. No wonder I'm so sick - I've given all my antibodies to her.

Other than being sick, life chugs on. We have pink tulips!!! Five of them. They're very pretty. They came with the house, but the boys next door never let them bloom. They'd always come so close, and then one of them would trample them, or whack off the heads. So in five years here, this is the first time we've ever seen what they are. Unfortunately, we had to lose our neighbours to be able to see them. The single mom and her four kids up and left one day. They didn't even say goodbye, even though they spent a lot of time in our backyard. I know she had trouble paying her gas bill (we can obviously sympathize) so she needed to find a place where heat was included. Apparently, according to Paul-the-corner-store-guy, they found one, but it's further into the inner city, in a much rougher neighbourhood. Hopefully, her kids are OK.

Mike and John had a cute conversation yesterday. It started when Mike said "I love John," and it sparked a five minute back and forth about what things each loved. I wish we had a recording of it. Some of the things John loves are: birds, dad's van, the house, the green flowers that fall from our maple tree, the baby's race cars (on her sleeper), the moon and of course, candy.

We got the garden in this week. Nothing exciting, We actually scaled itback quite a bit. No pumpkins, even. Mostly salad stuff, and a few herbs for Jer. Though, we're going to try watermelon again, just for a good laugh. Last year, we got one to be about half an inch long. John has been enjoying his spring mucking about in the garden. He keeps standing in the middle, with a pitch fork or a shovel in one hand, proclaiming "Mommy, I farm chickens." No idea where he's getting that from, or why he keeps saying it, but it's entertaining all the same.

Well, I'd better go. I have a newsletter to make for the association. It's a daunting task, so I've been avoiding it for way, way too long.

school's out

This was taken the same day as the video. I asked him to wave hello.

Sorry for no really recent photos. Things have been a little crazy around here. Mike's been busy finishing up school, and I've been helping him. He had two labs and an essay due Monday morning. We got them done, but it took a tough all-nighter to pull it off. We had endless problems. First he'd done the calculations wrong, and had to almost start from scratch for one of them. Another one got lost in our computer, and when a version was finally found in some temporary folder somewhere in the bowels of our hard drive, we'd lost hours and hours of progress. It was awful. Each lab takes about 20 hours to write up at the best of times, so these aren't small whip-em-off reports. We'd worked on them for weeks. And try proofreading 16 pages of formulas and physics terms, written by someone who doesn't know what a period is. Not fun. Not fun at all. But it's worth the extra work - he's gotten 11/10 on every lab so far this year, with comments like "I wish I could give you more."

Complicating matters is a wretched cold or two. If it's two, they're identical, but I have a feeling it's all the same one. I've had it twice, but I think it's just a relapse of the same virus. It's horrible. I've been working hard and pushing myself, with late nights working on homework with Mike, but I just don't have any oomph. The laundry and dishes have piled up, but it's not like I can take a sick day, and Mike's been way to busy to take up any of the slack. John's got it, too. I can hear him hacking away on the baby monitor. Mike started getting it last night. The only ones who've escaped are Adrian, probably because he isn't here enough, and Joan. Though she's been sneezing the last day or so, so she may be next. But hopefully I'm giving her enough antibodies, to boost up what she's making herself, to pull her through unscathed.

As much as I hope she pulls through, I have to admit, it's been kind of fun being sick with John, now that he's older. He's been a bit of a snarly bear towards everyone but me, which is a pain to deal with. It's hard to know where to draw the line between disciplining "bad manners" and pitying him for being a poor kid who just feels yucky and wants to attach himself to mom and push the rest of the world away. I feel bad for Jer, who's been the target of some aggression. But for me, it's been days of Treehouse and cuddling in bed, surrounded by books, so its been a nice break. This has been the closest I'll ever get to "time off". I feel bad about the house, but I just can't do it all. I really, really need a rest. So instead of slugging through housework, John and I cuddle and play lots of games. In one game, he gets me to hide under the blanket, which he calls going "in the egg". (We watched chicks hatching on youtube one day. Since then, he's been hiding under blankets, then bursting out of them screaming "I broke egg!") So anyway, I go in the egg, and he pretends to be a monster looking for me. He says "Hmmm. Where Mommy? Hmmm...Where Mommy?" And then he says "raaaarrrr" and "boings" on top if me. Yesterday, we were playing this game, and it was making him tired, so he climbed into the egg with me, snuggled in and said "I a tired monster." It was very cute.

He and Joan have been bonding. A few days ago, she was in my lap, and he started playing peek-a-boo with her. We never get a reaction from her when we play it, but she giggled at John every time he uncovered him face. She adores him. She watches him all the time. Studies him meticulously. she'll follow every bite of food to his mouth. She'll watch him run around, and the expression on her face really looks like she wants to join right in. When he talks to her, she grins from ear to ear. The other day, he sang row row row your boat to her. He started to dance, then he said "dance, baby! Dance!" When he's "boinging" (jumping on the furniture) I hold her up and bounce her up and down, so it's like she's boinging too. It makes them both laugh. He likes to "read" to her and tell her what all the things are in his books. Yesterday, we were heading out, and Joan was in her seat by the door, and John was waiting for us beside her. I happened to glance over, and he was bending down to gave her a kiss. It's been fun to watch him warm up to her. I think once she gets mobile, they'll have lots of fun together. There will be fights too, obviously. But I really hope they'll be friends.

John's passed into a "what's that?" phase. Mike thinks it's great, but it really grate on my nerves sometimes. Now, instead of reading his books, it's a half hour of him pointing to each minute detail in every picture, and asking what it is. He's been getting a lot of mileage out of his Richard Scary books because of this phase. (He loves Lowly. When we dig in the garden, and he sees a worm, he says "look, mommy! A Lowly! He's found an ant hill, too. He likes too lay on his belly and wach them work.)

Mike laughed at me the other day, because one of the pictures in one of his books is a bunch of frogs, and he was pointing to each frog one by one.
"What's that"
"A frog."
"What's that?"
"A Frog"
"What's that?"
"A frog."
"What's that"
"A frog."

It can get mind numbing sometimes. But I try to spice it up. I ask him what things are, and he knows most of them. I don't know why he's asking me. Lately, I've been trying to add details. We talk about what colour it is, what kind of shape it is, and what the object is for or how it works. He seems to like it. Though every now and then, if I get bored, I give him the wrong answer for things. He'll point to a cat, and ask me what it is. I'll say "that's a tractor." And he always gives me this withering don't-you-know-anything kind of look, and says "No mommy. That's not a tractor! It's a cat!"

On the Joan front, all is well. She's a pretty happy kid. She had a doctor's appointment yesterday. Two more shots, and a quick once over. He says she looks great. Still growing well, though she does seem to be slowing down a little. She was just over 18 pounds, and 66 cm long. There was some concern at the pediatrician's office that her head was growing at a slower rate than the natural growth curve, but he checked, and said she's right on track. So she must have measured wrong the first time after all, like she thought she had. He siad her heart seems to be healing. He said it's much, much fainter than the last visit. He said it's barely audible now, and should be gone soon, which would suggest it was a small hole of some sort, which he said is very common, and won't have any impact on the health of her heart later in life. Good news all around. He gave us the green light to start cereals, if she seems ready. But I know she's not; Mike tries to feed her stuff like pudding and things, and she still pushes it out with her tongue. Babies aren't developmentally ready until that reflex vanishes. I'm in no rush, but I know Mike really enjoys the food phase. And I think John will get in on it, too. He tries to feed her stuff all the time. I'm happy that he wants to share with her, but it's a little alarming to find him trying to stick a spoon he'd loaded with peanut butter into her mouth, which happened just a few days ago.

I'm glad she's not growing quite so crazily anymore. People look at her strangely when I tell them she's only four months old. At the doctor's office, there was a woman there with a five month old daughter. Her baby was this teeny tiny thing compared to Joan, and she leaned into her daughter and whispered "watch out for that baby - she might eat you!" People are even more surprised to find out she's breastfed exclusively. They think I must be stuffing her up with cereal. (But actually, breastmilk is like 16 per cent fat, or something crazy like that, so she wouldn't gain much on cereal.) But the doc isn't worried, and his is the only opinion that counts. She isn't fat at all. She's tall enough to make the measurements in proportion to each other, so she's perfectly fine and healthy. Just really, really big, and the doc says it's a good sign that she is. What I don't understand is how she's gaining so much weight, even though I'm not losing any.

Well, John just staggered downstairs and wiped his nose on my leg. He doesn't look very good today. He was at a sitter's yesterday, because we had an association meeting. She took them to the park for the evening. He enjoyed it, and it tuckered him out, but it looks and sounds like it made his cold quite a bit worse, so I'd better go look after him. Poor kid.