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!!!!

Christmas chez nous!

I had an hour and a half long conversation with my dear friend, Sandrine, from Switzerland today, hence the bit of French. Well, Christmas at our house (chez nous, in other words) is pretty much celebrated, with bellies full of chocolate and cheesecake and turkey and a house full of new gizmos, gadgets, and toys, and oh right, a couple of new things for the kids, ha ha. We celebrated Christmas, Silvestri style, earlier in December which was a much fun and far too much food as every Christmas celebration should be, complete with games which is another Corinna fave. What Luke remembers the most from that event was Julio's aunt, as she has a side business where she dresses up for parties and so she came as a clown and put on a magic show for the kids. Luke clung to us whenever she was around and for days afterwards said, "Auntie Angie scare me, Auntie Angie too much make-up!" He also found the Santa that sings by the ATM machine in Superstore scary so it doesn't take much. Come to think of it, that Santa kind of scares me too. (Jake and Josh, Luke's heroes of whom we hear a lot of)(Guess who?!? She's so great, and every other child was completely enamored with her...)(Lovely Grace...she's getting so grown-up!)(Luke and Eli had their own private dinner that night...WAY TOO CUTE!)

Anyway, I digress...since the train event we have spent some time with my dad's side of the family with cousins who love games and always have new ones so I got to play a new card game called "Mamma Mia" where we all make pizzas. Very cool. Then on Monday, Christmas Eve Day, it was our little Silvestri family's turn to celebrate together. We opened presents in the morning, of which Luke was more excited about the super cheap hockey stick than the basketball hoop that we actually spent some money on. Go figure. I'm sure if Josh or Jake gets into basketball it will be an investment. So we played, we got to put baby Jesus on the advent calendar which was a big deal to Luke, Julio started his ridiculous run of good luck beating me at "Carcassonne", a game he bought ME for Christmas...feels like the other way around somehow...and Samuel napped and chewed on toys. Then, in the evening after supper, Great-Gramma and Nannie came over for birthday cake and we all sang happy birthday to Jesus and we had a helium balloon and a candle and good moods were abounding. It was great fun, very much what I wanted for Luke for this Christmas...where the focus was less on the toys and more on Jesus.(I love that we have 2 whole children, they're so great).("I'm tired but have to look chipper and excited for the kids sake...or is that for Corinna's sake?!?)("I really am chipper and excited just don't zoom in on the bags under my eyes!")("I love hockey. I wonder what Jake and Josh are doing right now...")("I don't know what's going on but Dad is smiling at me so I guess I'll smile back!") (Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Jesus...)

(Great-Gramma and Nannie and the boys).

The next day we went to my parents place for our get together. My mother exudes keenness in every way and for the third year in a row, due to having the youngest children, Julio and I got to have the leads in the pageant once again as Mary and Joseph. This year at least we got scripts so it wasn't totally ad-lib as that makes Julio crazy. It was that day that my mom informed him that he gets to do it all over again on Sunday at a gathering with her side of the family...please pray for Julio's relationship with his mother-in-law these days, things are tense. Actually, he's coping quite well in his old age with my mother's antics.

(I suppose this is our family picture for this Christmas. Very normal for Mary and Joseph to also adopt a shepherd and for Jesus to be 4 months old and Joseph to wear a Roots shirt, right?)

All in all it was a good time, and since then life has consisted of a two-day failed potty training attempt, some trial skating moves in the living room and a lot more Carcassonne. I've completed bombarded this post with pictures and a video attempt, I hope you enjoy!

s,

The Christmas Train...

Tonight felt like a holiday. We ventured out into the cold, drove down Corydon to some lovely property just past the zoo which was transformed into a little winter wonderland. It was beautiful. Arched lights and narrow pathways and bridges and rickety old bikes laying against trees also lit up all leading up to a mini train station run by old men with headsets and loud voices keeping order as hoards of people lined up for their chance to ride the magical winter train. I had Samuel snug against me in a carrier and my jacket around him with a blanket around us both and once he settled into his cozy spot and fell asleep, I relaxed and just took in the crisp winter air and magical feeling that comes with the season and the lights and the people. We went with our friends, Stan and Tricia and their two girls and inched our way closer and closer to the little trains while trying to keep warm and not think about cold toes. The actual train ride was great too. I was grinning the whole time, I think, it went relatively fast and through a couple of tunnels and I was just exactly in the right mood for it all. Luke rode with Julio and I couldn't wait to find out what he thought of it. He talked fast and excitedly the whole way home about it all, so much so that we could hardly understand what he said so I know he had a good time. It was amazing too, because I didn't see one Santa Claus, although Julio said the guy he bought the train tickets from looked a lot like him, but rather a quiet, snowy little nativity scene as we stood in line, Peace on Earth and Christ is Born in lights, and Christmas carols, the kind I grew up hearing in church, on some non-intrusive sound system. It was quite refreshing, to say the least. And then we came back to our house for hot chocolate and poppycock and good conversation with our lovely friends as the two older kids played downstairs and the younger ones stayed with us upstairs and everyone just content as can be. It was truly a blessed night and I already cherish the memory of it.
Here's wishing you enough coldness as you step out your door to make you feel alive and enough warmth as you come inside to make you feel loved as we draw ever closer to the celebration of Christ's birth. Stayed tuned for birthday party news...we are throwing Jesus a birthday party on Monday to celebrate his birth, complete with cheesecake and balloons, and it promises to be a fun-filled day. How else does one explain the meaning of the season to a two-year-old?!?

Soon it will be Christmas Day! In the meantime...

Sammy and Luke and Julio and I went to Bethlehem Live tonight at Gateway Church. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the tour, where there were live animals and people in period costumes, etc, so this is them in the line waiting to get in. Very cool event, unless you're two and people dressed up and screaming aren't your thing and so you cling to your parent with a death grip. And why is Sammy's eye so weird in this picture?!? I just noticed that now...
I'm back from my mini blogging break and hopefully have some noteworthy things to share. I keep thinking about all the things I want to blog about and I'm sure I'll forget most of them now that I'm sitting here. Since dedications, proud grampas, hero cousins in skates and wonky trees, what have we done...hmmm...This first video shows what I feel like consumes a lot of every day. The ABC song. Over and over again. There have been a few times when he's done it completely right from beginning to end but there are many versions of it. This is one of the best I've got on camera. (Now I have two versions...the first is better than the second but since I went to the trouble of doing both I thought I'd leave them...long story.)




The next video I'd like to call "The Pre-Game Show". Ever since the first week Luke went to see Josh, hero cousin, play hockey, he is a) very into hockey and pretends to skate around the house all day long and b) constantly playing with "Josh". He tells us that Josh is downstairs doing this or that, or that he and Josh just did such and such and he talks all the time when he plays and there's a lot of Josh talk there too. It's borderline obsessive or something, but mostly cute. I told Josh on the phone the other day how enamored Luke was with him and he seemed kind of amazed so I hope he takes it as a compliment. Anyway, I digress. This is Luke about an hour before watching Josh play hockey again.

And now for other news. Julio is at home these days due to tennis elbow so we are all bumping into each other all day long and mostly loving it. What is nice is being able to get out here and there for a bit, kid free or with just one of them. The other day Luke and I went shopping for Julio while Samuel napped at home, and while we were out I got the lowdown on my Christmas presents which was kind of a nice sneak peek. Luke said to me, "daddy buy mommy presents, daddy buy mommy jammies! Daddy buy mommy shirt, daddy buy mommy pants..." It was great fun, although I'm hoping he won't spill the beans to Julio about what I bought. I tried to buy really complicated things that he wouldn't know of anyway so hopefully that will help. (That last comment is just to throw Julio off...or is it...ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! I love Christmas secrets!) And on that note, Julio is probably entering his least favorite season of the year entitled "Corinna's unknown expectations". I'm turning 30 on January 3rd and so not only does Julio have to deal with Christmas but that ever looming 30th birthday is just a hop, skip and a jump later. I have to say, having him home is not all bad because it's giving him time to shop! The other nice thing about Julio is he doesn't love secrets so I could get a present every day if I wanted. I have, so far, received two gifts this month. Both of them kitchen appliances, much to my pleasure I'll have you know! The first one was a toaster oven which may not seem that exciting to most of the world, but when you're a celiac and haven't really had toast in two months and you've seen mouth-watering nutella on soft, fluffy, gluten-laden toast, trust me, it's a good gift. We toaster oven everything now. It's so great. Tuna melts on rice cakes abound around here, and today, for ultimate weirdness and wonderfulness, it was brie and blueberry jam on toast. I admit that's a bit odd but I've made a baked brie with peach chutney on crackers before and this was as close as we could come today. It's sort of the trailer park version, you should try it. The other gift was a slow cooker. We've wanted to exit the slow cooker dark ages for a while now and actually get one with a removable inside, and now the incentive has been even greater as my ever keen sister has read and bought this new cookbook called "The Big Cook". The idea originated with 3, far-too organized women, from AB who make a bunch of prepared meat marinades, etc which can be frozen and slow-cooked and so Robyn's keenly made a bunch of meals and I've joined in to the slow-cooker way of life. I think these are my only two appliances coming though, the rest promise to be much less practical and much more personal. Oh the stress. Sadly (for Julio), I'm not low-maintenance when it comes to my 30th birthday. And really I should be because this year, more than ever, I'm so grossed out with all the consumerism and Wal-Mart and China and the works. My best two shopping experiences have been at ten thousand villages, where I walk in and go straight for the fair trade coffee, have a few sips, walk around all the beautiful displays of international Christmas and beautiful rugs and then gag as I read every label and see how much it all costs. It makes me wonder how willing I am to embrace fair trade and ditch low-cost deals. And just to spoil any Christmas shopping fun you may be having, check this out! I felt very "big box-mart-ish" the other day, walking into Wal-Mart with a cart to purchase my $40 piece of plastic in the form of a basketball hoop for Luke. I felt a bit better knowing he got an ornament from Ten Thousand Villages and that I had sewn Sammy's only little gift for him. But only just slightly...And if you're not skipping over this paragraph yet, either due to boredom, conviction, annoyance or anything else, check this out for another great way of celebrating Christmas... www.buynothingchristmas.org. Doesn't that have a lovely ring to it?!? As long as the year we do it doesn't coincide with turning 30 of course...

Okay, enough of that nonsense. How can you tell it's late and I'm just waiting for the video to load and I should be in bed. A couple more pictures before I stop. Here's Samuel in his first jolly jumping attempt. We absolutely loved this stage with Luke and I had major deja-vu putting Samuel in there, right down to knocking his head around and making him mad trying to get him into the contraption. A part from the entry and exit, I think he had fun. We'll have to keep our eye on Luke, though, when he's in it, because he just wanted to push him around and "help" him. Samuel is going to be one tough kid, between Luke and myself. Can you say jolly jumper therapy, anyone?!?

Well, in case I don't get back to blogging before Christmas actually rolls around, a Merry Christmas to anyone who takes a minute to look at any of this. I am really looking forward to this Christmas, just seeing it all over again through Luke's ever-inquisitive and observant little eyes. We're planning a birthday party for Jesus, complete with cheesecake and balloons and do a little advent calendar every day that sets up the nativity scene, so I feel like there's hope for us yet to find a little taste of what Jesus might want us to celebrate this year.

Hunting, Dedicating, Playing, Partying, and Christmas treeing (in no particular order)

I just downloaded a bunch of pictures from the past while and realized I had a few blog-worthy things to say, so here I am.

The first couple of pictures are from my worthy hunter, Julio. They (as in his brothers and dad) went hunting for a couple of days and Julio was the only one who managed to get a deer this time, at 7:30am on the first day. I imagine after being out there for less than an hour and getting the first deer, optimism is at its prime and so they came home a little disappointed that they hadn't been more successful, but I'm proud nonetheless. I think I already mentioned Luke's hunting enthusiasm in a prior post and so he too was proud of his hunter father.

All that orange just looks like a good time, doesn't it?!?The above picture was taken at our neice, Sofi's, 5th birthday party. She absolutely adores Samuel and can't wait for her own little baby to arrive, so I think the best gift we could give her was to let her hold him for a bit. She has quite good baby stamina for a little girl!! So here is Sofi and Leah with our little Sammy...This picture is only here because of Dino's expression...

Nannie and Samuel hanging out at the party...On Sunday Samuel was dedicated at our church. It was all lovely and I'm so grateful for my father-in-law taking pictures of the event or else we would have none. Being there, relatively on time and dressed adequately was enough for us, taking the camera along was far too advanced for us. Luke was a little distressed with having to leave Toddler Zone just as the snacks were coming out, so I found some super sticky granola in my purse and gave it to him just before going up to get Samuel dedicated. His face had granola all over it and he was covered in stickiness right when they called us up so I got a wipe and Julio did as well as he could but time was not on our side. So Luke stood up there with sticky goo all over his face looking a little shell-shocked. But during the prayer he touched Samuel's hand and was all sweet with him so all in all we'll count it as a success. And Samuel, the sweet little stoic that he is, just took it all in, calm as can be. Man, I love that kid.This is Luke after falling off a chair and getting a scratch on his chin. Band-aids are a new novelty, the first one he had he just kept looking at and touching and sort of liked it and sort of didn't and it ended up coming off fairly soon. This chin one didn't last very long at all but I sure love this picture...what a little bruiser, hey?And here are the grandfathers. You will never meet a pair of prouder grandfathers in your life, they both just love our boys and so we love them. This was the first time Tata had held Samuel and he was proud to report that he got him giggling.And here's my dad, Papa Ron as he's known in these parts, hanging out with Luke. This picture is just so very Luke. Intent and content with his tools.Hanging out...for those of you yet to see our mostly finished basement, here it is!This picture I'd like to call "Ode to Josh", Luke's hockey hero. I few weeks ago we went to watch Josh play hockey and Luke has not stopped talking about it. He loves his big cousins Josh and Jake and talks about them daily. This was actually taken with Tata's camera, but due to the prominence of Josh skating in our lives these days, it had to be included.
Setting up for Christmas. The erectile disfunctions of this tree have been rectified in case you were curious... This is our first year having a Christmas tree and it was so much fun setting it up with Luke. Once it was all up Luke said, "daddy, get sawsall, cut tree!!!" And the next day he was playing with the balls on the tree and Julio said, "should we take the tree down? No more Christmas tree?" And Luke, enthusiastically, said "YES!" We'll have to work on his Christmas spirit a little. He did really like the lights though, and kept playing with the adapter that changes the twinkle setting (does that make any sense?). He pretended it was a phone at one point and said, "yeah, lights, a tree, yeah...". This picture was more lovely in real life but the flash made it too bright and the flashless version was too dark...but after it was all lit up, we just sat by the tree for the longest time in the dark with only the lights twinkling...I love Christmas season!!!And not like I haven't written enough, but I have to share a few more Luke moments. I've been thinking that I need to be teaching Luke a bit more about God and Jesus, etc, and so at lunch one day I was saying how God is so awesome, Jesus is so great, etc, etc, and Luke started to get that God was pretty cool and he added, "yeah, God has a BIG hockey stick!!!" And then today, Luke was looking at the Christmas tree and then said to me, "Jesus isn't talking much". Who knows what's all going on it that boy's head. He amazes me daily with what he all comes up with!!

What I saw when I came downstairs part 2

Why is it that when Julio goes away things have to be a little more on the wild side. Julio went hunting for 2 days and was quite excited about it and for days before that was talking to Luke about it. So my sweet little two-year-old has been walking around the house saying, I want to go hunting, I want to shoot a big deer! But that's not the wild part.
On Wednesday we had a fairly uneventful day, went to my church's MOM's group in the morning and on the way home I asked Luke what he did. He said, I have snack, I have movie, I have train! And then he told me about all the kids he played with, saying I have Rachel, I have Ethan, etc etc. It's so fun that he's at the age now where he can tell me things. I guess the flipside to that is that he's so aware of what I'm saying I wonder what he'll say to other people. So far there haven't been any scarring events but I'm sure it's just around the corner.
I invited ourselves (me and the boys) to my sister's house for supper on Wednesday evening which was great. But the wildness didn't really happen until Thursday.
Thursday morning started out just great, the kids slept quite well, we got up around 7:30, ate breakfast and then Luke and I proceeded to have a one hour fight about the banana Luke refused to eat right after asking for it. I was ready to call parenting 911 to get some advice. Does anyone have the number?!? I was trying to recall all the clever advice I'd heard lately but it all conflicted...don't sweat the small stuff, be consistent, give them an inch and they'll take a mile, don't force feed kids or they'll have food issues forever...In the end we just hugged and he played in his room for a bit while I did something else. I think we both knew we needed space from each other...and the banana.
Then my friend Colleen came over with two of her kids which was great. The best part was that Nicole ate Luke's banana so I at least felt good that SOME child was eating fruit in my house. I made Luke thank her too which he seemed kind of confused about but did anyway.
All this and it wasn't even 10:30. At 10:30 Colleen had to go and as she was heading out the door my manager with Norwex walked in with her son and a 15-year-old girl she was hanging out with for the day. So Jax and Luke and Michelle had a blast playing while Jill and I talked about Norwex stuff and then I decided to run downstairs to get something from our office. I walked into the office AND A BIRD WAS FLYING AROUND IN THERE!!!!!!! A WHOLE ENTIRE BIRD! I am apparently afraid of birds, I found out yesterday. So I ran upstairs like a little wimp and told Jill and was kind of screeching and saying, there's a bird down there! And so she took control because it was obvious I wasn't going to, and she and her 3-year-old son went downstairs and proceeded to chase the bird from the office, into the recroom, down the hall, it spent a bit of time in the bathroom, and finally (we think, although it was only mostly confirmed by the 3-year-old) flew out the back door while I stood at the top of the stairs holding a blanket over the doorway so it wouldn't come into the kitchen. That was a legitimate bird-chasing role I felt. I told the 3-year-old that his mom was very brave and he said, I know. I told him that he was brave too and he said I know. And then I said, yeah, I'm not all that brave, and he said, yeah, I know. Oh well, you can't win them all. And the whole time I'm thinking to myself, what would I have done if Jill wasn't here? And why does this happen when Julio's away?!? I think I would've just packed us up and moved to my parents' place until Julio came home. I am an official bird wimp.

What I saw as I came downstairs...

Luke was sitting at his little table, drawing with one hand, holding his hockey stick up to his ear with the other talking to "Gramma Anne". He was saying, "yeah, I am...". He's really into this "I am" phrase, I'm not really sure why...
Sorry there's no picture, but I have to record these things that make me smile or else the things that don't make me smile make me crazy.

Toddler School

Lately I've been thinking more about "educating" Luke a bit and I've found him to be a little bit "teach resistant". You can't teach an old dog new tricks and you can't teach a stubborn 2-year-old that not all circular objects are balls and not all colours are green. I was going through one of his books with him which had a few shapes in it and every time I got to circle he would say, no, ball! And so I'd say, yes, balls are like circles, they are round like a circle, and he'd say, no, ball! So, because we have enough things to argue about these days I'm letting him win that one and for the time being, circles are balls. The ABC song isn't happening around our house either, I think I mentioned in a previous post that the song always morphs into something else. Today it was Luke, Sam, Mom, Dad which was a nice version. Sometimes it's just whiny babble which I could do without. And then there are his colours. Ask him what colour anything is and it's always green. He looks so smart when the thing is actually green, but that doesn't happen too often. And then there's counting. We've been struggling to get Luke to eat more healthily and so we're bribing him with M&Ms. As I'm writing this it seems sort of counter-productive but whatever. At least he's eating more than just beige food (The boy loves his carbs). So after lunch today Julio asked him, do you want one, two or three M&Ms, to which he responded, one, a green one. So he had his one M&M and because I ate almost all my lunch I got a bunch of M&Ms (purely for modeling sake, I've got to set a good example). So, of course Luke wanted some of my M&Ms and so I asked him, do you want 1, 2, or 3? He was onto us now and wasn't going to mess up by just asking for one, so he said, I want LOTS!
So, although he hasn't mastered his abcs or 1, 2, 3s yet, he has a very positive image of school. All of his cool, older cousins go to school and so it is obviously the cool thing to do. We talk a lot about Alexandra or Claire or Jake or Josh going to school and without fail he'll say, kick a ball? He's convinced that all kids do at school all day is kick a ball. I've started to tell him that kids read books, sing songs, etc, and then he'll usually ask me, kick a ball? Thank goodness for gym class, at least I know Luke will like ONE subject! Luke has often had trouble enjoying childcare at our church, but we've almost licked that this year by referring to it as "church school". Who would guess that by calling something "school" it would be more appealing?!?
And then there is music, Luke loves the piano. We have a digital piano which plays a variety of classical pieces and Luke knows how to turn it on and get it to play. I think we all know the first "demo" song far too well. And he always wants me to sit with him, so a few weeks ago I thought I'd give him his first piano lesson. We played all the C's and then all the F's and he kind of got it I think. And then a few days later he asked me, do C's?
My mom came over the other day and was playing some songs on the piano for him, and after playing song and after song and after song, she paused and he looked at her and said, What else? So, there's a little glimpse into the academic life of our sweet Luke.

Our Pasta Making Bee

I don't know what constitutes a "bee", but we have had some serious pasta fun this morning. Julio has been determined to find a way of making rice pasta, so yesterday he borrowed his mom's pasta maker and today is experimentation day. We've bought some rice pasta at the store which tastes reasonably good, although it's about 6 times more expensive than regular pasta. So Julio thought we could save some money (plus it could be fun) to try making our own. I can't say we were major pasta eaters before I got diagnosed with celiac disease, but I suppose the italian in Julio can't let us have a pasta-less house, so here we are. Enjoy the pictures.