this is a list

i saw a post over at lucky fish with a list of 15, perhaps a truncated take on the dreaded list of 25 that is all over facebook. i realize that it is kind of cheating, writing without writing, but that will have to do as i don't feel compelled to be here anymore, not since my camera up and left me, and yet at the same time i feel it is important. pushing and pulling, the essence of life.


15 things about cohen

1. he is obsessed with trains, i mean it, obsessed. when he is sleeping he sometimes mumbles and often, when i hear it, he is saying "tracks, trains, tracks, trains". i am not certain this is at all healthy.
2. he loves to help around the house, forever asking for "his turn" with the broom, and pulling his chair up to the counter to help cook (cracking eggs by squeezing his fist really hard while the egg is in it is his specialty!) or clean dishes.
3. he has a thing about open gates and insists on closing them when we are out walking. if the gate won't close properly due to improper installment or age, he appears to get agitated but he usually lets it go.
4. he loves tunnels, this mostly relates to number 1, but the interesting thing is what he calls a tunnel. first it was when we went under overpasses and now, when we are out walking, he insists that any sidewalk that has trees overhanging it is a tunnel, AND THAT IS THE WAY WE MUST WALK (preferably while singing "tunnel, tunnel, TUNNEL, tunnel").
5. he can pedal his tricycle quite well. for the longest time he couldn't do it, no matter how much we practiced, then one day he was on it and bamn, he was off. i am beginning to realize that much of raising a child is like this, wait and it will come.
6. he is having trouble learning his colours (what did i just say, something about waiting...). we are still not entirely certain if he is colour blind or just being a little stubborn. i thought he didn't know the alphabet, or his numbers, until i walked in on him singing the alphabet or counting to ten. i think colours might be the same. he knows it, he just doesn't want me to know he knows it. a man of mystery, that's cohen.
7. he has taken to climbing into our bed every night. at first he was discovered creeping in and promptly hugged and placed back into his own bed, but through practice it would seem he has perfected the skill of stealth. he somehow sneaks his way in to our room, lifts the covers, and then snuggles in beside me. that is where i find him every morning, his breath hot on my cheek. this sneaking and sleeping coincided almost exactly with ada starting to sleep in her crib. i am beginning to think it is territorial.
8. he loves the word and the practice of snacks. no, SNACKS! 4-5 times a day he gleefully announces that it is snack time and then proceeds to rifle through cupboards or the fridge (new fridge, tough seal, thought we could keep him out but he figured it out within two weeks. now he pulls so hard the door swings open and he flies into the stove). luckily he is happy to accept healthy snacks, no question though, he is going to be one of those teenagers that eats you out of home.
9. he hasn't shown any interest at all in making decisions when it comes to what he is wearing. i ask him if he wants to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt and he shrugs and says "yes?".
10. he has a sweet tooth and acts irrationally when cake, ice cream, gelato or cookies are involved. it is like a little monster awakens within him and demands "more!" he gets this from his father.
11. today we got a free bag of play kitchen stuff off craigslist and one of the first things cohen did was grab himself a mug and sit down by us, we asked him what he was drinking to which he happily responded "beer!" and then he reached out his mug and tapped it on mine with a boisterous "cheers!" i guess our home brewing is starting to wear off on him.
12. he most often uses his left hand for colouring and eating. marko is left handed, but i think it is too soon to tell if he is going to be in the end.
13. he calls my dad papa. nothing interesting there except that no one told him to call him that, in fact we always called him grandpa, but then one day out of nowhere he decided he was papa and now that is all he will call him. i still haven't figured out where he even heard the word?
14. he calls me grandma. seriously. he also calls my mom grandma. it has been going on for nearly 2 months. every day, 20 times i say, "i am not grandma, i am mommy", to which he responds with a "hurry grandma, come quick, trains off the track". i am trying to not make a big deal out of it and hope that it passes. i mean i know i have some grey, but really?
15. he is incredibly affectionate, insisting on hugs and kisses. he gives the best hugs of anyone i know. tight arms around the neck and a squeeze with a little nuzzle into my neck. hands down this is the thing i will miss the most when he grows up and doesn't feel like hugging anymore, because of that i take as many a day as i can.


15 things about ada

1. today she took her first unassisted steps. it was only two in a row but she kept getting up to try again and again. any day now she will be off and running.
2. she loves to eat. the only thing she doesn't like so far is green beans. her preference is little pieces on her tray which she can grab by the handful and stuff down her gullet. when she really likes something she claps.
3. speaking of clapping, she starts clapping whenever you play music (well that and bopping up and down) or if you sing paddy cake (she is even working on her "roooooollll it"). she loves music.
4. she waves goodbye only it is this more like a wiggle goodbye, she takes her fingers and crunches them into her palm and jiggles them, not moving her actual hand at all. it is significantly less weird looking then how i just described it.
5. she is in love with her brother. he climbs in the playpen and puts her in a headlock to smush her against the side mesh and she bursts into the loudest laugh, sometimes verging on squealing. she admires him in a way i wasn't sure was possible. they are going to be good friends.
6. she loves the bath, but insists on standing up, so they are usually much shorter than she would like.
7. she can let out a seriously loud fart for such a small thing. cracks me up every time.
8. she says mama and dada and tonight it sounded like she said ba ba (bye bye) on her way to bed. fingers crossed she ends up being a early talker, i think it would be much less frustrating for everyone.
9. she is wearing size 12-18 months clothing now. based on the way clothes fit her, i think she has really long legs for her age.
10. she is a pincher. i am pretty sure that she shows her affection by hurting the people she loves. my tummy and chest are covered with little cuts from her nails, kneading away as she drinks milk. grandma and baka have also been covered in cuts, necks, faces, arms. her love knows no bounds.
11. she loves to hang out with the shoes by the front door. she will pick up hers or cohen's shoes and try and put them on her feet. when she is not there doing that, she is often found dragging someone's shoe along behind her as she travels around the house.
12. she is shy and will play strange with new people. this took me by surprise as cohen wasn't shy at all, he has always been pretty outgoing, ada is more of a thinker. she needs to assess you before committing to anything like a touch. her affections are all the more sweeter though for having to be earned.
13. she sleeps on her tummy with her bum in the air and snores a tiny delicate snore. galena,who sleeps every night under her crib, also snores. it is the sounds of these two that lulls me to sleep.
14. she is fairly even mannered, not overly happy, but not miserable either, kind of like a pessimist with hope. her smiles don't come easy. she gets that from her mother.
15. she is coddled far less than cohen was and is permitted to do so much more, because of this she is growing up so much faster than he did. that makes me sad and yet also excited for the future.

38 weeks

some of you may have seen these photos on my flickr page. the reason i did the bare belly shots again was to compare with the shots i did of the same almost 2 years ago now when i was 38 weeks pregnant with cohen. in my mind i thought i was much smaller this time. i am not sure why that is, probably because last time i had a much tougher time physically at the end of my pregnancy, or at least that is how i remember it. thoughts of not believing i could possibly get bigger come to mind, but this time i don't feel that way at all. i still sleep ok at night (although i take up much more room) and for the most part have been able to stay mobile. i guess it comes with experience though as these pictures clearly show that i am not only not smaller this time, but possibly a little larger (what do you think?). still, it fills me with wonder at just how similar these two bellies look, does this mean that it is going to be a boy then? i guess we will soon see if all the wives tales are true.

as for nearing the end, i don't feel the same way at all that i did with cohen. there hasn't been any obsessive paying attention to movement (mostly because i have someone else whose movements keep me on my toes instead), nor has there been anxiety about when i am going to meet him/her and what is it going to be like. the truth is that i might not ever be pregnant again and that moment passing isn't lost on me. it is because of this that i feel a need to savour these last moments, the way it feels to have someone inside you kicking, the fullness, for soon it won't be here anymore and i will miss it.

now that i have said that you wait, i will end up with an easter baby! (there is that power of positive thinking again)

no more monkeys jumping on the bed

wow, that was so much easier than i expected (knock on wood). as you can tell from the picture, we decided to go the bed route instead of the tent. there were a couple of days of serious debate, but in the end the bed seemed like the right solution for us. partly it was because the only store that was selling the tent wanted $100 for it and many reviews had indicated that the tents didn't last, that holes in the mesh were not uncommon. then there was also the fact that sooner or later we are going to have to move him into a bed anyway, he doesn't have the luxury of being one of those kids that stays in the crib until he is three, the new baby is going to need it within 6 months. we talked about how if we do it before the baby then it won't seem like the baby took anything away from him, and many sources sited 8 weeks as enough time to make the transition before the new baby arrives, so we took the plunge and went today and bought a bed.

cohen helped dad put it together, his help mostly involved keeping tabs on the screws and by keeping tabs i of course mean walking around with his mitts full humming with delight. once it was up he quickly climbed on to get a better look and then clapped (cohen's way of saying "all right!"). everything was looking good.

we did the usual bedtime routine, bath, milk, story, teeth and goodnights all around, and then marko set him in the bed and pulled up his sheets. miraculously, he closed his eyes and stayed in place so marko came back out into the living room. as one would predict though, we soon heard the pitter patter of little feet and then a boisterous laugh and clapping as he rounded the corner to say hello. i told marko he was crazy if he thought cohen would just stay put, he said "you never know", and so he held his hand and walked back into the bedroom, helped him back into bed, gave him another good night kiss and then left the room again. it has been twenty five minutes now and there has been no more pitter patter, no crying, no nothing. those of you that are parents may be saying "ahh ha! silence then huh? i bet he is in there pulling all the clothes out of your drawers". don't worry, it was the first thing i thought too, but peeking in i can see that he is still in bed and all is calm.

so that is the beginning, not bad at all. i wonder how this story ends?

where one door closes...

i meant to get to this last friday but i was asleep before 9, a true sign that i am pregnant (and perhaps getting a little old). then there was saturday, but it was snowing and there was fun to be had so that didn't work either. monday i went to a concert with catriona, and last night was nicole's 30th birthday dinner...yummm! all this to say, excuse me for the delay.

what i would have said last friday is that it was cohen's last day with his nanny and dante, the little boy he shared the nanny with. don't worry we didn't quit because things were bad (although they were a little, but more in a minute), we quit because we didn't need it anymore. you see, marko has to take some vacation time before the end of the year and silvja (aka baka, or my mother in law) will be here on december 23rd, so with grandma still taking two days a week and marko taking on the role of stay at home dad, we seem to have it covered. no doubt baka's days will happily be spent tending to cohen's every need and spoiling him like any baka is prone to do. she is here until the end of february and then i am on maternity. maternity, wow! it is coming up so quick. i can't wait to get back to spending my days with cohen and the little monkey to be.

it was a tough day, knowing it would be the last. sure there had been some issues, often being sent home in a dirty diaper that had been left on way too long causing the occasional rash, and the insistent on snacks at 4:30 even after i stated i didn't want it (he never would eat a proper dinner after), but cohen loved amy and always had big smiles when saw her in the morning. plus, there is dante the seemingly perfect friend for cohen. we don't have a playmate replacement at our house, over here cohen just has us. still, now he has unlimited cuddles and one on one attention, late breakfasts with dad and soon to be long walks with baka, and that ain't bad either.

we have decided that it would be nice to keep in touch, so every second wednesday we plan on meeting up at the open gym at the mt. pleasant community centre. we went last week for the first time, it was great fun, if not extremely chaotic. the boys seems to really like it.

here are some pictures of dante and cohen both at dante's home and at the community centre. it was quite the challenge to get one with the two of them together!




that is amy on your left in this picture, she hates having her photo taken so i don't have any better!


in other news, i have been very crafty lately. there has been much sewing and decoration creating and soap making. hopefully i will get to an update here with what i have been doing and some pictures (but not too many as much of what i am doing is for gifts, gifts for some of you!) soon.

in the meantime i am looking for suggestions. what are a few of your favourite children's books? i know there are many of you that read this from time to time and never comment, so now is your chance, let your voice be heard!

rubber ducky you're the one

cohen has graduated to the big tub now. it isn't the best tub for little people, it is much too deep and the edges too rounded and slippery, but he seems to have figured it out. much like the baths he would take in the double sink in the kitchen, or the swims in the pool, he loves to hang out in there splashing and singing. i have started putting him in sometime in the afternoon. i bring my laptop and a stool into the bathroom, usually opting to start a movie or tv show to occupy me while i keep an eye on him as he plays. some days it is only 20 minutes and sometimes closer to an hour. it doesn't matter how long though, he always pitches a fit when it is time to get out. he has mastered the trick of sticking your arms straight in the air so that when he is wet and slippery it is almost impossible to get a good enough grip to get him out. this means that i have to resort to a a variation of a full nelson with his head tilted slightly down towards the floor, my arm between his legs. he flails and screams and then, when we get into the bedroom and i swing him up and he lands with a bounce on the bed, a fit of laughter. i am going to miss all this. this endless amount of time that opens up for us each day. just him and me and whatever we choose; long baths and sunny day walks, watching cartoons while eating crackers and playing peek a boo on the floor. i wish it didn't have to change.

dearly departed

it will come as no surprise to those of you that know me in real life that i don't much care for violent movies. i can often be found turning my head away or covering my eyes like the sissy pants that i am. horror movies are something i can no longer even fathom, a genre completely lost on me and my wimpy ways. the only exception to all of this is gangster movies (and the occasional kurosawa).

i don't know why they appeal to me, but they always have. i suppose it is the attitude, or maybe the accents, but my teenage years were filled with them and with me fantasizing about growing up to be a gangsters wife. hard to imagine i know and yet still it is true. like many others of my generation reservoir dogs was probably my favourite, but goodfellas was only slightly behind. so when i heard that scorsese had finally won a directing oscar i was filled with glee. sure it would have been nice if it had happened earlier, preferably before he started making credit card commercials, but he deserved it after all these years.

then i saw the film.

i am not going to try and be jennica (although i do wonder what she thought of it) as i am not only lacking the wit, but alas the movie intellect as well. still, something ought to be said. some of you may remember my opinion about crash where i suggested that it was perhaps my high expectation that ruined the movie for me. in retrospect i was too kind. i won't make the same mistake twice. so please someone tell me, what exactly was the departed about and why is it i cared? i mean there wasn't even a bank robbery...sheesh. oh, and the rat scurrying along the ledge at the end was such a nice finishing touch, so subtle and "artistic".

in other unrelated news, i just read my last post and i want to clarify that "better" does not mean that here is bad, just different didn't sound right. i love where i am and how things are going, it is just taking some getting used to is all, the loss of one thing in order to find something new. this having faith in faith.

let it ride, let it roll, let it go

i am wasting time in an incredibly impressive way this evening and in my travels i came upon this which i wanted to share here because i think it is great and well written and speaks to me in a very familiar way.

"I’m not sure what advice I would have for our friend. Maybe none. Maybe just the acknowledgment that some decisions are a bitch, and that’s the truth. That you can’t really be sure that your feelings and choices won’t change from one day to the next, because that’s what life is all about, growing and adapting, hopefully for the better. But if you’re really, really lucky, the hardest choices you ever make will pay out, like some great fucking slot machine hitting all three winning reels, raining joy and laughter into your life."

these days it is easy to focus on the difficulty of the change, the pain of growing, even when the slot machine is preparing itself for alignment. it was nice to have this reminder that feeling like that is ok, it is all part of the journey from here to somewhere better.