Another little story

Luke is getting more interesting every day. Today, he was playing in the living room and I went to our bedroom to clean up a bit, and I heard him go downstairs, walk around, and then come upstairs. He finally came into our bedroom and looked at me and said, "I go downstairs, I look for you, I come upstairs, I look for you, I find you!" I love his long version of stories.

A sibling moment

This morning Luke was running around with his hockey stick and I went to do some dishes in the kitchen, and when I came back, Samuel was in his exersaucer (he had been there before, Luke didn't move him for the record), a hockey stick in hand, and Luke kept saying "shoot the puck!". For the next 20 min or so, Luke would keep putting the hockey stick in Samuel's hand, patiently even, and was saying things like, keep your stick on the floor, shoot the puck, etc etc. He must have picked that stick up 10 times or so and placed it back in Samuel's hand!!!

I thought this was cute...

We were driving home from Superstore today and Luke says to Julio and me: "I am thinking about buying hockey sticks for the kids and Josh". Those were his exact words.
Lately I feel as though it would be cool to have photographic memory or auditory memory or something, to be able to remember all the funny things Luke says in a day. Granted, 90% of what he says has something to do with Josh or hockey, but even that makes me laugh. The other day I came downstairs and he had a plastic fork and all kinds of flat circular food items that he was flipping, and Bear was sitting at a chair at his little table and chair set and he told me he was making pancakes for Bear. And another time, he took his wooden burger (bun, burger and bun all separate), brought them upstairs and told me they were pucks and started playing hockey with them. He's a great kid.

Where's the love...?

Luke and I had the following conversation this morning:

Me: Luke, I love you.

Luke: No, daddy loves me.

Me: Daddy and mommy love you.

Luke: No, daddy loves me and Sammy.

Me: Who does mommy love then?
Luke: Auntie Angie!!!

We seem to argue a lot these days about who loves who. According to Luke, sometimes I love Sammy and Julio loves Luke and sometimes we all love each other and sometimes I don't (apparently) love anyone. Let's not psycho-analyze this or anything, I think it goes as deep as my athletic abilities, as Luke's love for people seems to revolve around how well they can handle a hockey stick. On a totally different topic altogether, has anyone heard of a 30+, never played before and can't barely exercise for more than five minutes women's hockey league? Just curious...

And to further the love for Joshua saga, he came over the other day after his hockey game, with his entire family, and I went downstairs where they were all playing at one point and Luke was just holding on to Josh, hugging him and not really letting him go. Josh eventually sort of pushed him away as I tried to explain "smothering" to Luke. I don't blame him (Josh) in the least.

A few pictures and a video of Sammy this time. We've got him bouncing now!

I took about a dozen pictures this morning of Luke and Samuel together but we have the red eye reduction double flash thing and Luke hates anything "bwight" so he's squinting or looking away in all of them, so even though they were smiling and having a great time, it was impossible to capture on camera. Here's an attempt to show brotherly affection...

And here's a shot of some gluten-free cinnamon buns I made. They actually tasted quite good. Butter and sugar go a long way in the gluten-free world...!

"Jake and Josh and lotsa guys!"

Luke's obsession with his cousin Josh continues and is now expanding...instead of just telling me stories of what he and Josh are doing ("Josh and me kick a ball at school" is a common phrase, for example), he has now decided to include Jake. So often it's Jake and Josh do such and such, mostly playing hockey in the basement or doing a variety of sport related activities "at school". (An aside - Luke will get scratches or a bump on himself and when we ask him when that happened he'll most often say, "at school" and when we insist that he doesn't actually go to school he just gets mad. Gotta love toddler logic, what an oxymoron.) Luke has been to a few more of Josh's games and I think has finally clued in that there are more people than just Josh on the ice, so now when he plays or tells me what he was doing downstairs when he comes up, he'll say, "Jake and Josh and lotsa guys..." And the other day his prelude of explanation was "Jake and Josh and lotsa guys and Claire..." so his circle of imaginary friends (who happen to exist) is expanding nicely. He makes me laugh.

So here's our hockey star for the first time on real ice with real skates...not quite the "go hard" attitude we see at home on our kitchen floor, but he is only two, and they are real skates, and I even found it cold...wow, is his complaining genetic or what?!?

(I tried to upload the Sammy eating for the first time video, but no luck. Oh well, it's not exactly an action flick so you're not really missing out.)

The birthday is over, Julio can relax.

The big 3-0 has come and gone and all in all it was a great birthday, truly no complaints. My actual birthday didn't start out quite like I imagined, waking up at 7:30 or so with Samuel and having Luke come out of his room, whining for whatever reason, making me feel a bit annoyed (how dare he whine on my birthday!). Anyway, I told him, "Luke, it's mom's birthday today!" To which he replied, "no it's not, it's DADDY'S birthday" in kind of a sassy tone. Nice, thanks. Finally Julio got up, told me to go back to bed and I was able to sleep until 9am, which was beautiful. At about 9am Luke walked into my room and said, "It's your birthday now!" which was ever so generous of him :). Julio had made me breakfast in bed, homemade pancakes and fruit, but it was so sticky and messy that I decided to eat it at the table instead. ("Breakfast in bed" at the table)

The rest of the day was filled with lovely birthday calls and emails, a trip to the mall to meet my sisters and parents for lunch and a wonderful dinner out with Julio at a place called Joey's. They had a separate gluten-free menu which was great and I had a ferocious appetite that day which was also great so I ate and enjoyed an absolutely delicious meal. The day was truly great, but after all of my hints at wanting SOME kind of party, I was kind of wondering if this was it. I feel like a complete brat writing that even, and kept telling myself to ease up on the expectations and just be thankful for all the great birthday wishes, etc, and be done with it. But on Friday, the day after my birthday, or birthday boxing day as my family refers to it, I asked Julio, "Is my birthday over?" He didn't really answer directly and I was kind of unsure of what that meant...again, trying to keep expectations in check but also sensing that maybe there was something more there...Anyway, all that to say that on Saturday evening we went to our friends, Jeannie and Trevor's place to play Wii with another couple and when we opened the door there were more people there than I thought I even knew. There were a few people that I hadn't seen in a long time there too, so it was wonderful to chat and catch up with them all, although I would've loved to have broken my party up into about 5 nights to have been able to chat with everyone. SURPRISE!Some of the crowd...And then some more of the crowd...Colleen and Jeannie, two friends who I've known and loved forever and who are amazing party planners. They teamed up with Julio to make it all happen.

Julio had encouraged people give me "30" of something, whether it be words, or M&Ms, or whatever, nothing too complicated or expensive but something unique. One of my favorite "30 somethings" came from my sister Robyn, on my actual birthday. She sent me 30 emails the morning of my birthday, some of which were hilarious. Here are a few links she gave me:

The subject for this one was "my disease is better than yours"

Proof:
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=celiac&word2=MS

The next was a link to frogger, an old video game we used to have on our atari. Oh the days.

The next had the subject "oh the 80s were good to us" and had this link.

The next: "Here's a nice hobby for you" with this link. She said it was appropriate for a French 30-year-old.

Then there was "birthday addiction for you". Tetris with 6 different versions. Highly addictive.

Those are the highlights. There were also some ultra lame knock knock jokes and she googled each member of my family to see what came up. Julio turns out to have a secret life as a lacrosse star.
So, all in all, expectations were met, Julio is relieved, and I am 30.

I also just wanted to include some pictures of Luke's first time on skates on ICE. It was at hero Josh's house but Luke wasn't as into it as we hoped. Mostly he sat by the fire and watched, but he talked about it later like he was a big hockey star, so at least his ego didn't suffer at all.

Also, we started Samuel on solids this week and he's LOVING it! The boy just eats and eats. So here's a picture and maybe eventually a video, stay tuned...(or don't, it's probably only entertaining to us)

On the ice at Josh's house.Sammy and I watching.
Luke and, oh my, can you believe it, the one and only, JOSHUA!!!!