sushi and cousin fun

Julio took me out to Wasabi for Mother's Day, my favorite sushi place in Winnipeg. It was so great. We hadn't been on a date in a while so we kind of went crazy and ordered way too much and ate for sure way too much and it was wonderful. I remember going to bed that night still feeling full and we had eaten hours earlier. So here are some shots of before, during, and after. For sure my favorite moment of the evening was watching Julio eat a massive hunk of squid. We ordered mostly rolls but like getting a few sushi pieces too (hunks of raw fish on rice) and they had a "chef's collection" thing where we get whatever the chef wants us to eat. So the tray of it comes and Julio and I check it out and started eyeing the squid rather suspiciously. It was white and bumpy and looked like an albino hunk of rubber and didn't appeal to either of us very much. But Julio, being the man he is, dove in. I could tell from the first moment it was in his mouth that he wasn't having that glorious let-me-savour-ever-bite experience. It was more, what do I do with this unchewable mass. I don't think I've ever seen him chew so long in his life. I kept asking "is it good?" "do you need to spit it out?" and eventually "are you okay?" to which he just continued chewing with a disgusted look on his face. I couldn't help but laugh and feel like I was watching "Fear Factor" but eventually he did swallow it. The rest of the meal was definitely amazing, hence the "I'm so full I'm going to burst" picture of me at the end. We were going to go out to a movie or go for a walk or something afterward but I was so full all I could think about was lying on the couch. Definitely not the squid moment. He's smiling.On Saturday I watched Luke's cousin Eli for the morning and it was so cool to see Luke and him interact. They're 4 weeks to the day apart and it's fascinating to see the similarities and differences in them. I'm so glad he has a cousin so close in age. I was actually kind of looking forward to having him over as Luke usually does better when he has someone to play with whose ability to sit on the floor and play for hours or run circles around the island is far superior to my ever decreasing ability. So they had a blast. I realized when he was over that having more kids isn't more work, it's different work. You're off entertainment duty and more on clean-up messes duty. And strangely enough, I think I'm okay with the clean-up mess duty! I vacuumed once and swept three times while he was here and was totally glad to do it. Because Luke and Eli were just so content and having such a great time. Maybe having another kid won't be so bad...except that they won't be any fun for Luke for, hmmm...years maybe?!?!?

Basement renovations

I'm happy to report that our basement renos have really been taking off these days. We found a guy to do our mudding and taping of our drywall and have booked him for an exact DATE even, and so the pressure is on to get the drywall up. Julio has been working really hard at it and it's coming along great, although I don't really know much about drywalling, so just seeing walls up in any form makes me more than happy. I think this whole basement reno thing has really deepened Julio and Luke's relationship. He's asking for "daddy" more than "mom" these days and will often say to Julio as he's waking up first thing in the morning, "daddy? stairs?" (as in, downstairs). And often throughout the day he mentions "daddy" and "nails" or "tools" or "hammer". I've been feeling a little left in the dust, so the last few days I've been trying to up my status with Luke and have taken him downstairs to do some hammering with him. He looks at me with such admiration when I get that nail to stick in the board that I can't help but be somewhat proud, even though the "nails" we're using are actually drywall screws in a piece of scrap 2x4 that only goes in a quarter of an inch. But he's impressed.
Today my status really got bumped up a notch as I cut out my first sheet of drywall. I got to use a drywall level and one of those chunky flat pencils and an exacto knife. I kept the pencil behind my ear for a good hour afterward, just reveling in my new talent.

Luke is downstairs right now with Julio and "Tata" (Julio's dad) and I've heard a few "touche pas" so I should probably go give Julio a break. But not before sharing a few pictures of our family work day:

twinkle, twinkle

I couldn't believe he did this for me on video, he usually gets camera shy. Had to share.

And a picture.

Toddler translation

I have a few new favorite words. They are, of course, all thanks to Luke. I have always loved the way kids mispronounce words and have adopted their version as my own on many occasions, and now, to my great delight, I have my own little person to imitate. So here are a few of the latest: pumbers = cucumbers, broccolideli = broccoli, peek kee goo = peekaboo. Those are topping the charts but I find everything he says quite witty and cute. One of my favorite Luke moments this week was one day at lunch while we were all three outside and Julio and I were eating strawberries on a blanket while Luke had a hammer and was doing something important with his tricycle. Julio asked him if he wanted a strawberry and he said, "No, I working". I think I laughed for five minutes straight, I had to ask Julio if I heard him right because I couldn't quite believe he said that. Another common Luke phrase these days is "I'll help you" which is really his way of asking for help because if he's in a jam I usually say "I'll help you" so I guess it works both ways in his mind.

And now for a little video, some outdoor fun and giggles.

I have to say, this great weather has been wonderful for all of us. I think we (Luke and I) spend more time outside than inside these days. And I'm finally getting off my butt and doing some walking which is great, I had quite a lethargic winter! Although I must say, with my ever growing belly and a busy kid, the ten minute walk to the park is often a twenty minute walk on the way home. But I can't stop, I still have three months to go and we can't live in our backyard! We are actually seriously contemplating buying/making a sandbox. I think we need to make our backyard a bit more exciting so that Luke has stuff to do back there, because once this baby comes I can't imagine that I'll have as much time to go to the park and I'm already feeling more fatigued due to my size with three months to go! So yes, that's our new excitement, a sandbox.

Another exciting event was receiving a package from Switzerland! We got a whole bunch of great wooden animals from our friends out there as well as a musical French book. I told Sandrine (my good friend from there) that I was teaching Luke French and now she has taken it upon herself to provide us with music, books, etc in French. She is lovely. Did I mention there was amazing swiss chocolate in there too? Yes, truly lovely. So, here's Luke enjoying his new book, this is mostly for their benefit to see him using his new gift in action, but I thought his moves were good enough to post: (Actually, after re-watching this I realized it wasn't quite so exciting...but the grandparents will approve I'm sure...)

And finally, a few pictures:

A day at the park

The wooden toys & new book

Self-portrait

Current events...

I haven't updated in a bit so I thought I'd put some recent pictures up. Sadly, most of our pictures are in our house because I always forget to bring our camera along anywhere fun. Once in a while, believe it or not, we do leave the house and do fun things! In fact, with the current warmer weather, we've even gone on a couple of picnics, one of our favourite things to do. Of course, this year there isn't much lounging on a blanket, reading books all afternoon and maybe taking a nap. But toddler chasing is fun too...I keep telling myself that :). Luke constantly amazes us with his stamina...we were at Assiniboine Park for about 2 hours yesterday and Luke walked about 90% of the time, which Julio figured was at least a kilometre, and when we finally got home and tried to convince him that a nap would be a good idea we had the following conversation, while all lying on our bed:
Me: Okay, Luke, let's lie down and take a nap
Luke: ni-night
me: yes, ni-night
Luke: I seeping (sleeping)
me: good
Luke: halleluyah...bear? ni-night...I seeping!
me: close your eyes Luke
Luke: eyes? daddy? eyes? (poke poke) cose eyes (1 sec eyes closed) I seeping!
me: good
Luke: ni night. DAD!!!
Julio: shhhhh
Luke: shhhh (loudly, finger to mouth)
This went on for about half an hour. He did not quit talking. Eventually he started looking at my stomach and saying "baby" and giving the baby kisses, and trying to learn the art of touching the baby gently. (Side note: The other day while looking at my belly, he got frustrated and said, I want to SEE!!! I think he's figuring out that babies aren't just stomachs and there's something more to this baby thing than just a growing stomach. Although I'm not sure, he saw a magazine in the store of a girl in a bathing suit and said "baby" so I think all bellies are babies to him. Even his and his dad's.) So, after much negotiation on his part, I said he could go play and he quickly jumped off the bed and went to play. Thankfully, by 7pm he was more than ready for the night and slept for 13 hours...
In other news, this week was a big one for Luke, a new tricycle and a haircut, not to mention a birthday party where he got his very own helium "manoon"! Very exciting.

So, here are a few pictures.

Luke getting into freshly baked cookies.

The new tricycle.
The new haircut.

A new favorite game which he discovered with his friend Rachel. This is how it works: throw stuffed animals and blankets into the crib, climb into crib, throw animals and blankets out of the crib, ask for help out of the crib, repeat. Many, many times. When he plays with Julio he just stays in the crib and screams : I'm weady!!! (ready) and Julio counts to ten and Luke says 2,3,6!!! and Julio throws all the stuff in for him. This could go on for hours I'm sure if we would indulge this game, but I, for one, don't have much stamina for it. I much prefer "pool" where I can lie on the couch with my "pool cue" (a broom) and try to hit balls that Luke arranges on the coffee table. Much more relaxing.

Frenglish

Non't pas! (Combo of no, don't and pas - as in "touche pas")
That's just one of the things that has come out of Luke's mouth, our little "Frenglish" boy. He can also frequently be heard saying "I want lait" (milk) or "I want banane", etc. Today when we went for a walk it was "hi chat" (cat) and "bye chat". It's a funny thing teaching two languages to a child! Another common "Frenglish-ism" in our house is something I'd love advice on, for anyone out there teaching two languages to a child...often I'll say to him "Dis merci" (say thank-you) and he'll reply in English "hank-you" (a slight improvement from the previous version - "huck you"). Now, do I try to correct him and get him to say it in French or just be happy he gets it? French seems harder to say, he seems to naturally gravitate to English words, but it could just be because he hears more English. "S'il te plait" (please) is another hard one to say and so when he responds to my "s'il te plait" prompting with a "pease" I'm thinking that's good enough for now! I'm actually just so pleased when any French word comes out of his mouth that I'll be happy with whatever I get. Anyway, I just thought the "non't pas" was too cute to not share...

Vacuums, Dishes & Brooms...

Here's another (vain!??) attempt to post a video. Luke is dedicated to housework lately. It could be that he's noticing that it's not always happening and so he feels he has to pick up the slack. Or else we just have a really great future ahead of us. Anyway, he LOVES vacuuming...the other day he vacuumed his room and the bathroom and probably did a better job than I can do. He's also quite into doing dishes. Mostly he likes eating soap (gross) and making a mess with water everywhere. But we have fun. I'm finding him to be at such a cool age...he's starting to feel like a little companion to me; we chat throughout the day and I ask him if he likes certain things and he always has a "yes" or "no" ready. It's great fun. And of course there's always his broom obsession...mostly he thinks of it as a pool cue, but I had to wonder if our child was somewhat different from the norm when I went into our office to find him watching "Baby Einstein" hugging his broom...That's totally normal right?!?!

The last two pictures are me at 22 weeks and Luke doing puzzles in a box...I wonder when the box novelty will wear off?!?

Here's another video I thought I'd try, seeing as I've been hearing that this first one actually worked! Luke and his favorite lunch...

pool and an ultrasound

Luke and I went to Robyn's for a bit this afternoon and his new favorite game is "pool". It always goes the same way; he takes two balls, places them at either end of a coffee table, grabs a broom (kid sized preferably although not exclusively) and cues up! I can't figure out if the goal is to get the one ball to knock the other one off or to just hit the nearer ball and try NOT to hit the other one...but in any case, when a ball falls off he nearly always says "shucks". He never says this at any other time, just when playing pool. Goofy kid.

In other news, we had ultrasound number two today! Much fun, minus the one hour/full bladder wait I had before I got to go in. (For those of you wondering why I'm mentioning my bladder, you have to drink a litre of water an hour before an ultrasound.) It's amazing how "good attitudes" are harder to maintain with a full bladder. A lady sitting beside us came an hour early for her ultrasound, and then some kind, worried looking man came up to her and asked if she realized she was so early and she didn't realize she was THAT early, but seemed very okay with waiting for an hour before having her ultrasound. No toddler in sight, by the way. He assured her that he would do his very best to squeeze her in if he could. At this point we'd been waiting nearly an hour. Then, a minute or so later he escorts her in and she smiles away. My full bladder did not allow me to completely take this all in stride and so I inquired (for the second time) as to when they thought I might get in and is there a reason why some people wait and not others? About 5 minutes later or so I went in...
So, the baby looks good from what I can tell! Brain, spine, feet, hands, beating heart...all good signs! She spent an awfully long time on the brain however...that's normal right?!?! Anyway, Julio, Luke and my mom came in after she did her lengthier assessment and Luke surprised me by saying "baby" when he looked at the screen! I could hardly recognize that it was a baby! She showed us the face and it basically just looked like a skull, a bit scary really. I don't remember Luke looking quite so alien like at his ultrasound, but the ultrasound tech seemed smiley enough and unworried looking so we just oohed and awed at the funny face in front of us. When she got to the feet, the baby put one foot right up against the screen like a footprint...very cute! Even the ultrasound tech seemed enamored by that. And then she showed us the legs and the baby had his/her ankles crossed and it was also very cute. Our baby weighs 9 oz right now, which is about the weight of half a block of butter for those of you (like me) who can't visualize ounces. All in all, it was a very exciting day and I'm glad for the second sneak peek!

The musical preferences of our little one

We have a situation which I am unsure how to remedy in our house. My child is addicted to a certain rap video. Rap is probably an outdated 90s term and I should probably be saying "hip hop" or "r & b" or something, but I don't know what those things mean so bear with me. My sister sent me an email link to a touching, thought provoking video called "happy birthday" by some group called Flipsyde. (That's like "flip side" for those of you that don't know. I thought it was flipsy de for a while...I'm slow, I know...) Here's the link if you're curious.
http://video.google.com:80/videoplay?docid=3858369431186397914&pr=goog-sl
Anyway, first wrong move was to watch this video with Luke in the room. He loved it. There's kids playing ball in it which of course is a hit because he's crazy about balls, and he stands in our office and dances away, fists in the air, elbows up, bending his knees and grooving. Very cute, the first 5 times. Maybe even the first 10 times. But when he comes up to us approximately 15 times a day, starting to dance, saying "happy birthday" (happy but-day, as he says it) and then pouts if we don't put the video on, there's a potential for things to get ugly. And I have to say, I'm often strong and don't give in and think that maybe having my child watch rap videos over and over again isn't the most normal thing. But sometimes I am weak and think what's the harm and there he goes, dancing away singing "happy but-day", happy as a clam. Usually as it starts he says, yeah, yeah. Like, good move mom, you finally get it. Well, today I was ready to mix things up a bit so we checked out a few of the other videos on the site and there was a video of a girl and a guy lip sync-ing to "Barbie Girl". I don't really know the song and didn't realize it got a little raunchy at times, so we watched a bit and then when I started getting too grossed out I turned it off. Bad move. The boy LIKES barbie girl. He would probably like to be in a barbie world, as long as it involves much dancing. Anyway, I found some other music on our computer, some French pop music, but that was a no go. We finally settled on Lenny Kravitz and he was happy again. Is this normal? Should a 19 month old child have such musical preferences at this age?!? I tried veggie tales but that was met with less enthusiasm. If there's anyone out there that knows of toddler "rap" or "r & b" or "hip hop" I am very willing to take suggestions. Especially if they come on video.

Mr. Luke, High School Teacher

So today was a funny day. I had no plans and wasn't totally sure what the day would hold but never quite expected the day to turn out as it did. I got a call at around 11am from the school I used to work at, TCI, asking if I could sub in the afternoon. I said no, I didn't have childcare so it wouldn't work out. They called me back a few minutes later saying they were desperate and that I could bring Luke, and besides, it was a couple of family studies classes so he would fit right in. So, slightly unbelieving what I was really doing, I packed Luke up and we headed out for an afternoon of subbing.
I walked into the staff room with Luke and I think everyone in there just thought I was visiting, but there were a few interested expressions when I told them that we were there to sub! We headed off to get room keys, I saw a couple of former students who they were excited to see Luke, and then as we walked down the hall we got a bunch of comments about "oh, look at the baby!" (I still find that odd...he walks and talks...yet is he still considered a baby?!?!) and "what's his name?!?" etc etc. I wish the actual class time was chocked full of interesting tidbits but it all was amazingly normal and not too weird in the end. Some of the kids played catch with Luke, but both classes were in the computer lab working on a project so they mostly just worked away and Luke and I wandered around. I suppose the one weird moment was sneaking away to change his diaper on the teacher's desk (sorry Gina, if you read this!!). At the end of the day, all the kids had left and I was leaving a few comments for the teacher and Luke was just wandering around the room. He went right to the middle of the room, climbed up onto a chair and put his elbows on the desk, just waiting there for the longest time. It's funny, every time I substitute teach I look at these high school boys and wonder just what my little Luke will be like all grown up, which one of these boys will he ressemble. Maybe today was my sneak peak.


I'm going to also include a few pictures as I've been meaning to do so for a while.

Luke with his friend, Belen.

We like to call this picture "Friends in Boxes".

My pregnant belly at 18 weeks...the first picture of me yet in this pregnancy...we're not as keen as we were round 1...

Luke eating tomato soup. And I thought I was being smart by taking off his shirt. His pants, the buckle, even his diaper were soaked in lovely red soup afterwards. Why did I think this was a good lunch choice?!?

Our little Mr. Fix-It. Julio comes home from work and before he even gets a hug, Luke is usually digging into his toolbag to find some treasure. This picture comes complete with audio of Luke pretending the screwdriver is a drill. Very convincing don't you think?!? What? You can't hear it?!? Turn up your speakers...that's right...louder, louder...why don't you just test your system by playing a song...just kidding, there's no audio.

Vocabulary

In the last few weeks Luke has really taken off with his words, so I'm going to try to compile a bit of a list so I don't forget. This may be more for my benefit than yours, but at least it's a peek into Luke's current stage.
Words that have been around a while:
dad
hi
hi dad
bye
uh-oh
upela...how do I spell this?!? It's a French word meaning "whoopsy daisy", he pronounces it "up-it-a"
ow, owie
papa (what he calls his grampa)

stuck

Newer words (in the last few weeks):
mom, mommy
hallelujah (more like ah-yay-yu-yah)
cock-a-doodle-do(de-do-de-do!)
chat (cat in French)
baa baa
book (clear as a bell!)
sure (so cute...I love how he says this!)
attempts at "Nannie" and "gramma"...not too clear, gramma has come out "baba" quite frequently
milk
encore...more like "co...co" when he wants me to do more of something, like read a story, feed him grapefruit, etc.
duck
amen
thank you...not much of a th sound there, but somewhat recognizable!
Luke...more like "uke" or sometimes "guck"
up
off

Liam (sounded kind of like "lemon" one time!)

Tricia (quite clear actually!)

fish (I didn't even know he knew this word! The other day I joined my mom and aunt and uncle for breakfast at Aalto's and there's a little fountain with fish in it a little ways away, in the hotel part. My dad usually takes him for a walk there if we join them for breakfast but he was away, so I went with him. The whole way to the fountain he kept saying "fish fish" clear as a bell!)

push

brush (no real "r" sound)

yes

hat

hug

cheerio

more

uh huh, along with good inflection and head nodding...so funny! Last night my mother-in-law was over and we were talking over supper, and then one or the other would say "uh huh uh huh" while we were talking, and Luke would completely copy us, nodding and saying "uh huh uh huh"...we could hardly talk at times we were laughing so much! And then of course he knew he was funny so he kept doing it. I loved it.

I may add more as I think of them! I have to say, this journey into language is amazing, I'm loving it. He's so delighted when he repeats something and we're smiling away. His receptive language is quite good too, he's good at throwing things in the garbage for us, or giving things to people when we say "donne a Dad/Mom" (give to Dad/Mom). This morning he surprised us, as Julio was looking for his cell phone, he was asking me if I knew where it was, and then Luke walked into the office and came out with it just as Julio was calling himself to find it! Of course I think he's practically a genius. Yesterday he surprised me too, I was trying to get him to lie down and take a nap, so I sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him, thinking it would calm him down. I've only sung it to him once before that I can remember, and didn't remember any actions so I would just flutter my fingers in the air, and he immediately sat up and started doing that once I started singing! I couldn't believe he remembered that! And then the "up above the world so high" part became a favorite, mostly I think because he knows the word "up", so he started singing "up up up..." and I just loved it. The top of my list for sure is "hallelujah" and "cock-a-doodle-do" though...usually accompanied by the world's cutest smile.
So, that's Luke at 18 months!

Ultrasound

Today we had an ultrasound to determine what week I am in my pregnancy, and I must say, leading up to this day has brought with it many emotions. After having gone through a miscarriage, being pregnant again is a scary thing. I didn't realize it would be at first, I just thought, hurray, we're pregnant, but then as the weeks progressed I started to fear that things may not go well again.
Well, I am very happy to report that today we saw our baby. Heart beating, legs kicking, arms waving...it was wonderful. At first the ultrasound technician was just doing her thing and I was trying to get any information out of her that I could...first of all she said, there's just one in there in case you're wondering! (Relief! I am feeling much larger already than I did with Luke and this did cross my mind!) Then she told me the heart rate was 167...more relief! A heartbeat! And then she told me I was a little over 11 weeks...about what we thought. All good signs. And then finally she brought in Julio and Luke and we got to take a look...and when I saw that little one kicking and the heart beating I just couldn't help but cry. And as we drove home there were more tears, tears of relief, tears of joy...I know the journey isn't over by any means and anything can happen still, but today I rejoice that the little one inside me is moving and existing and I am so excited.

Christmas and our funny kid

Another funny Luke story and a couple of pictures of our day.
Luke is a climber, loves climbing onto anything, chairs, tables, you name it. A current favorite game is to go behind the couch, climb up on my guitar case which is behind the couch, and then flip over onto the couch, get back down and repeat, usually about 5 times. Another fun game which he has invented is "trust fall". He gets up onto our coffee table, extends his hands out to us and wiggles his fingers, USUALLY waits until our hands are extended and then just leans forward so that we'll catch him. Very cute, with only a few scary incidents so far! A couple of times he hasn't waited for me to be ready to catch him, and once when I was on the couch, lying down, he basically just started diving and I caught him from my lying down position. Another time we were at the back door getting ready to leave and he again wanted to play his little trust fall game with me (there's a few stairs there so it makes a good diving spot) but I was in the process of getting my gloves on, so that was a bit of an adventure. So far, no blood, no tears, but we'll see. I would hate for him to learn the hard way that we can't always trust everyone in life...!
And now for a few pictures...
Here's our family Christmas morning portrait...we took two, in the first one both of Julio and Luke's eyes are glowing and they look a bit scary. As do I in this one as I'm still in my pyjamas, but Julio is just modeling his new sweater. For those of you that read one of my earliest entries, the pictures above us are those canvases I wrote about that I finally painted in summer.














Luke opening his stocking... He got a book about Hippos and their belly buttons, as he's just recently discovered his.



















A visit to great-gramma where my parents thought it would be nice for Luke to open a gift in front of her to give her the full experience. They're rewrapping it tonight to give it to him again tomorrow.














My gramma, Luke's great-gramma. I figure my gramma never thought she'd make the internet in her old age so why not prove her wrong. Plus, doesn't she look great?!? I thought it was a nice shot of her. It's funny, my gramma doesn't have the best memory these days, but she always remembers my husband, Juli-A, and sometimes Luke's names, but rarely mine lately...hmm...



















Our little Luke, climbing around...

Corinna, the substitute

Finally, a non-parental thought! Here goes...
I started subbing a little bit this past month, and I have to say, after being out of schools for a while, it's eye-opening going back. I sure hope this doesn't become a "what has our world come to" kind of entry, but it was a bit of that kind of experience for me.
Day 1 - My first half day of subbing was spent replacing the new "me", the person who took over my position at TCI. Her position is slightly different as she does some drama, so my afternoon was a grade 10 French class and then a grade 9 Drama class. It was great to go, after having spent the morning in my pyjamas until 10am, for just the afternoon, chat a bit in the staff room with former colleagues and see some of my former students as well, all grown up and smart looking. That was a definite highlight, seeing my former students...they were all just smiling as big as ever and were so glad to see me and seemed so smart and full of potential. I have to admit, being the high school basic French teacher you do get the cream of the crop, as it's an elective and usually only the ones that want to be there are. So most of my former students are truly lovely and were a ton of fun to teach. So there I am, feeling on top of the world, students love me, staff loves me, how great is this going to be?!? Ah yes, that lovely, ignorant arrogance of the moments before actual substitute teaching begins. How quickly that feeling faded! Actually, the first class was quite nice, but when I told them to go pick out magazines to read for the first few minutes of class, one girl said to me, boy, you have a quiet voice! Teacher voice, right! I forgot! Thankfully I had this class first because boy did I need teacher voice for the next class. The French class went well, nice kids, not too many cell phones or head phones that I saw and not an insane amount of noise, so all in all, a decent class. The next class however, was grade 9 drama. Now technically this class is an elective but all grade 9s have to take a certain number of electives and a lot of them just need to fill up a timetable, so let me tell you, they were not all there to be enthusiastically playing drama games. Which they were supposed to be doing for 70 minutes. Lovely. For starters, the school doesn't have enough space in their building so the class takes place in an adjacent school in a massive room with risers, a few chairs, and lots of room to roam. Taking attendance was an adventure in and of itself. Kids cannot be quiet for more than 10 seconds in an environment like that it turns out. Anyway, we got through that and all the other activities I was supposed to do, but not without a couple of ipod confiscations and one cell phone confiscation and threats of more. But the main thing that got me that day was these girls...dressing so provocatively, acting crass and saying things I wouldn't have dreamed of ever saying out loud. I had just finished reading the book "The Cross and the Switchblade", an old autobiography of David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge. I was so glad I had just read that, because instead of seeing obnoxious, inappropriate girls, I really saw a lot of brokenness and kids just not knowing how to cope with life and the culture that's been thrown at them. I prayed for as many kids as I could remember names of for several days after that, and by God's grace I hope some of those girls find some more self respect before it's too late.
Day 2 - half day, morning, doing Guitar, grade 10 and 11. Not much to say here, except that never have I loved long-haired, band-loving, rocker-type boys so much. As geekish and out of touch with today's lingo as I may sound, they were the best, so into practicing. You could see a real love for guitar, or maybe they were just imagining themselves being rich and famous and idolized by teenaged girls everywhere someday when they make it big. Regardless, that day I loved them. I did not, however, love the cute girls who were just there to look at the boys or (yes this happened!) show them their blue panties. Again, what's going on with these girls?!?! Please, Hollywood, find some self-respecting women out there that stay that way for some duration of time so that these girls at LEAST have that to compare themselves to. I don't know what the answer is, but again, I was shocked by their clothes, their attitude, their crassness...unbelievable. There was this one girl, though, who sat for almost the whole period with another girl and just strummed away on her guitar, so I know there's hope. Mostly, however, the morning was an exercise in boredom, and how to pretend to not look bored in front of 20 kids at a time. Wow, fascinating poster of a trumpet, must of stared at that for at least 5 minutes. The next time I brought a book.
Day 3 - Full day Math subbing. Pretty good day on the whole, major thought from that day was, if Luke grows up to be one of these boys, which one would he be?!? I was hoping for many examples of intelligent looking, witty, interesting young men eager to take on the world. I found a lot of ipods. It turns out girls chat, guys listen to music. Not many gleaming examples of male teenage greatness, but there was one grade 12 IB English class that I subbed for that day as well which had one example of the kind of boy I was looking for. One in about 100 faces I saw that day...do I really like those odds?!?! Lord have mercy!!!
All in all, the subbing world is definitely interesting and I pray that in some strange way God will be able to use me with these kids. It's so tough when I know exactly how kids view subs...low life teachers who can't get a real job and aren't the real deal so they don't really deserve respect. With all that being said, I still know that teaching is in me and there were parts of each day that I did really love, something about seeing kids on the brink of making future life decisions and feeling like they really can do something important in the world that makes me hope that they will, and that maybe somehow I will too.

Bob

I've been wanting to write about a couple of cute things Luke's been up to lately but haven't managed it, so I think there may be a bit of a boost in blog entries...if I can manage it now! Here's one funny moment I had to share...
For the past forever I've been trying to get Luke to say "mom". His favorite word by far is "dad", I hear it all day long, it's cute, it's great, I'm so glad he loves his dad, loves to pretend to call him and say "hi dad" as clear as day, but really, with all the hours I put in, a little bit of "mom" vocabulary would be nice!! So anyway, yesterday morning he wakes up in his usual chipper and chatty mood, and starts blabbing away, going up to Julio and saying "hi dad", "dad, da, dad" etc etc. So then after a stream of lovely dad conversation we try to get him to say "mom". We say "where's mom" and he looks at me and it's all very nice, but of course we're still hoping he'll SAY it! Julio is becoming almost as preoccupied with this as I am, mostly to get me to shut up about it probably. Anyway, finally I say to him, Luke, I'm Mom! And he says "Bob". And I say "Mom". And he says "Bob Bob Bob". We laughed quite a lot which I think just encouraged him because he just kept smiling and calling me Bob. I can just picture kindergarten, walking into class and the teacher asks him, "who's in your family?" and he replies "dad and Bob!" Lovely.
Well, I must admit, after all those Bob shenanigans, I got the best Christmas present EVER this morning. Luke called me mom about 5 times in a row, clear as a bell. So, I think I'll forgive this little "Bob" episode and just store it away as one of those great toddler memories...

Proud moment

The other day, Julio and I were chatting and happened to look over to see what Luke was doing. Well, to our amazement, he was building a tower out of his MEGA blocks. This may not seem like a big deal to the average person, but I had never seen him put more than two blocks together before this point. So, Julio and I spent the next 20 minutes or so watching our little architect at work...the tower would grow, almost topple, Luke would steady it (as I tried to refrain myself from helping!), and if it fell, he would laugh, sometimes even clap and start all over again. We got it on video, which I will try to post here but sadly, my last attempt wasn't so successful so I won't count on it working! At the very least, I'll post a picture of the final attempt, the one where he managed to get every one of his MEGA blocks (granted, he doesn't have many!) into his tower. Amazing! (to us at least:)

Fall

This fall has zoomed by, bringing with it a blur of different occurrences and emotions. Luke is forever entertaining us with how he views life and explores it, and so I must include some pictures and stories of course of that. I know that I write and talk a lot of Luke, but he is my full-time job and so I'm not going to apologize for it! Watching a little person explore and develop is quite a marvel and to all of you childless ones that can't understand how amazing it is to hear your kid say something that has meaning for the first time, or climb to unimaginable 2 foot heights, or run circles around the kitchen island, I do apologize (oops!) for what seems a little mundane, but it truly is incredible to me. So here you go, a glimpse into the current version of Luke.
First of all...walking has gone from taking a few steps to running, although he often has more momentum than balance and ends up on his butt, but for the most part he is now an upright creature. He seems so much more grown up now, like a real little boy, and whenever I hear people refer to him as a baby I feel like they must be talking about someone else. He is no longer a baby to me. I actually love it, I love seeming him cruise around and explore, like last night when we went to the mall for Halloween with his friend Liam, and when we put him down to walk, he seemed to embrace the experience to the fullest, running in every direction without a care in the world. My favorite moment of the evening must of been when he heard some techno music in a shoe store and had to just stand in the entrance to listen...at first just standing there, then swaying from side to side, and then eventually practicing his newly acquired talent of a twirl...if you can call it that. It's more like a slow motion turn, very deliberate, but enough to make him dizzy if he does enough of them. Eventually I had to drag him away, but it was far too entertaining.
Then there's talking...favorite words "Hi Dad" said many times a day, the odd "Mom", "beep beep" when we touch his nose or he touches ours (more like "bop bop" however), and many little monologues where he looks very intent, and we're sure that what he's saying has important meaning, but we haven't quite bridged the meaning gap yet. Sadly, however, in this past week, the boy has learned a new word. We're not sure where, we're thinking of interrogating his little friends' parents, or perhaps the grandparents that babysit him, but the new word of the week is F***. Yes, it's true, it's THE f word, out of our little, 14 month old boy's mouth. The first time it happened we laughed fairly hysterically which was probably our first mistake. The other day my mom was over and he looked at her straight in the eye and said "f***". Luckily my mom took it in stride and just said, well, it's better for him to get it out of his system now! True enough! Still not quite sure what to do about it though...
There's more that could be said, but for now I'll leave you with these pictures.
































The other happening in our life is that we had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. I don't know what to say about it, and have had trouble even knowing how to process all of this myself, but I will say that we're doing alright and that, if anything, it's helped us appreciate our little guy so much more and life in general. And, as crazy as it sounds, I feel like I'm more able to trust God now with my life and with the lives of my loved ones than ever before. So maybe I'll just leave it at that. We do talk about having a dozen kids though now...someone please stop us if we get too out of control!
So that's been our fall. Along with a few trips to the park, walks to the store, time spent with friends and family, a birthday basement work day, many nights of reading, and trying to crunch as many leaves as possible before the snow falls. Which it has now, so I suppose it's time to embrace this next season...

funny picture

I just had to post this picture, this was such a funny moment. Both Julio and I were home, and Luke and his friend Liam decided it was climbing time. Luke got up there completely on his own, with much encouragement from his dad! I'm sure we'll regret encouraging this kind of stuff someday, but for now, we just think it's way too fun.

Socks and other (mis)adventures

It's a funny thing, watching you kid try to do something you know they won't in a million years be able to accomplish. Like putting on socks, for example. Today I was watching Luke trying to put on his socks after he had just pulled them off, and as he sat there and dangled the hole of the sock over his toes, and sometimes managed to get one little toe in only to have it bob off again, I thought, is this cruel of me to just sit here and let him fail? But then I had to laugh as he just giggled while trying and eventually just abandoned the project. I love how he handles failure, it's awesome.
And then there's dirt. Julio was working outside the other day, putting dirt all around our house and so Luke and I decided to go out and "help". Luke had a blast. He just giggled and crawled around on each new pile of dirt Julio laid down, and eventually just had to have a taste...here, see for yourselves...




And then there's walking...our boy has now successfully taken 23 steps, but mostly he thinks walking is one big joke. He'll only do it when we prop him up and get him to walk in between us and then it's usually walk walk walk...dive! (and we usually get a good squeezer hug out of it!). But he eagerly turns around again and keeps going, until something more fascinating captures his attention. Mostly his crawling is just so incredibly fast that I don't know why he'd ever be motivated to walk. But I now do find myself urging him to walk, even though I always thought I'd be so low-key about it, if he didn't walk right away. Especially knowing that he can do it! Of well, you can't rush these things I suppose.
So, there you are, an update on our little Luke. Did I mention he's going to be a big brother in April?!?

Boy in a Box

Luke loves boxes. Ever since he has been mobile, boxes have been an awesome toy for him. Just today, I was busy doing something and I looked over to find that he had flipped over a big storage box, pushed it toward the door, and was sitting on it, looking out our screen window. And often we'll find him contentedly playing in one of his little toy boxes while rummaging through another. And then there's the odd moment where he lets someone else join in... So here's a glimpse of our boy in (or on!) a box.