1 is better than 2!

Me and W in the morning, lots of cuddles.

For the last three days I have had 2 kids. I had W as usual and I had his "cousin" L. L isn't really W's cousin, he's J's mother's cousin's son (or something to that effect) but since L's mom is close in age to J they grew up as cousins. Therefor L, being 6 months younger than W, is W's cousin.

Scoot, scoot, scoot!

It's crazy what difference 6 months does at this age. W is almost 19 months now and L just turned 1 on December 25th. I know W was always ahead of the curve and he was pretty strong and sturdy right from the get go and I don't remember him ever being so fragile and weak as L is. L can stand up but he just doesn't, when we try his legs just gives way under him and he sits right back down again. He doesn't crawl but scoots around on his bum, which is very cute actually, especially when W is copying him and they scoot alongside each other.

Holding hands while watching TV.

Having L around also made me realize how much personality our little ones have right from the get go and how different they are.
I guess you can say I've been blessed with the most awesome and fantastic little boy in the whole wide world. He is strong, he has cried but it was always for a reason and never for any real extended period or time, he's funny, he's a quick learner. He is good with food, people, animals and other kids. He's easy to bring along with you, he even handles trans-Atlantic flights with stop-overs (he's a pain but I've seen a lot worse on those flights). He sleeps good (knocking hard on wood), he loves reading and he's very cute.

I'll make a great older brother one day. I can do the feeding of the baby already!

L is not the same as W at all. It's somewhat weird the way he holds himself and what he can and cannot do. It's like he's developed all of his fine motor skills but skipped over the gross motor skills. He doesn't hold on to things or people for one which is what I think is the root to why he's not standing up. I mean he's not gonna go from sitting to standing without holding on to something. He doesn't seem to be able to get up to sitting from lying down either but I can be wrong about that one, I found that it was just easier to help him then to let him cry long enough to see if he could do it by himself. Now I'm sure he's probably gonna start doing the standing and the walking soon enough, certain kids are just late, but what baffles me is how good his fine motor skills are. That kid can handle a spoon like an adult. W can't handle the spoon as well as L can and he's got 6 months on him. In another way it's weird because L clearly has the brain of a one year old but he lacks the skills to perform the tasks he want's to do, so he gets frustrated and whines and cries.

Playing in the tub. Splish splash!

This is obviously not his fault, since he's just a tiny little baby still, but it makes it less pleasant to care for him when he whines. It didn't really help that he was with us for 3 hours longer than originally planned on the last day and that W had a fever of 39.9°C (that's 103.8°F).

Standing up with a bit of help...

Poor little thing has really dry skin too but I showed his mom what products we use on W and after 3 days his skin was so much better so I thought I'd share my skin care advice with you too.

If you or your baby has dry or sensitive or irritated skin you should use A-Derma. It's a French company and they use Rhealba oats in their cleansers and creams and that stuff is great. For W I use the soap free gel cleanser for hair and body in the A-Derma pediatrics line, then I moisturise his entire body and face with A-Derma Exomega cream and if he gets any kind of diaper redness or rash or very ry cheeks for instance, I use the A-Derma pediatrics Dermalibour stick on it and it's gone in 24 hours. Here in Quebec you can buy all those products conviently at Jean-Coutu.

W with a very high fever, resting on the floor.

Now I'm off to prep for dinner.

hmm

I've been working on a post for a couple of days but it's about a sensitive subject so you guys might have to wait a little longer for it. At least until I find a way to use my words so I don't offend anyone.

until then just read this

Woow-eeee!

In the past couple of weeks W has gone from sweet little boy to tape recorder. He hears everything I say and he repeats it back to me (us). This is awfully cute most of the time. He's gotten so good at the communicating business that it sometimes hard to understand that he understands us so well. I swear he understands French a lot better than me already the little bugger.

Watching Sesame street in the comfy chair.

Anyways, in the beginning of December to get into the Christmas spirit we started watching the advent calendar on SVT online (Swedish TV) every day and J started watching "How the Grinch stole Christmas" with him. At first we weren't realizing that we were actually making him watch TV since all we were doing was watch YouTube. But now we know that our plan to keep him TV free at least until he's 2 failed.

We console each other and try to make ourselves feel better by saying things like: "He only watches movies and limited clips we show him, not any TV", "We always watch it with him, so if he has questions or he points to anything we can explain to him" and "We don't use it as a babysitter". But I think we both feel a bit like failed parents.

At least he's got a healthy snack!

The good thing about the things we make him watch is that he loves it. He asks constantly for "the Goou" (the Grinch) and "Woow-eeee" (Wall-E) and the other day when he realized that there's a picture of Elmo on his diapers he pointed and said "La La La" (as in "Elmo's Song").

He has also as you can probably understand graduated from "Feist on Sesame Street" to "Wall-E", "101 Dalmatians" and "Howl's moving castle". He even watched an episode of "Sesame Street" since we just got PBS.

So cute my little man.

He's talking up a storm now, he repeats everything. J taught him to say "kickass" the other day so he's now walking around saying "kickack". It's fun when they start talking. I can listen to him all day. He's so cute, and he's got the cutest voice. Unfortunately most of his words sounds the same, they all sounds like "Bambe" bambe, means water, Bamse, blanket, poopoo and many other things so sometimes you have to guess.

Tomorrow we're off to the museum with Julie, we're gonna see the Warhole exhibition before it leaves Montreal on January 18. I think W will like it but we'll see tomorrow.

Playing in the snow

Don't know what to think of this new year yet. So far it's been a bit up and down. It's been very cold too.

Since I hadn't taken W out in like over a week or so to play I decided to take him to the park even though it was like -15°C (that's 5°F for all of you who know that scale better). I could not feel my toes when we got back in and W had deliciously red cheeks. We stayed out for like 15 minutes all in all and I swear it took longer getting dresses and undressed before and after. That's life with a toddler.

I finally booked mine and W's tickets to Sweden this week too. We're leaving here on January 29th and land there on January 30th and we go back on February 9th so mark your calendars and send me your requests for days. I'll be making our schedule shortly and I would really like to squeeze as many of my lovely friends in there as possible.

I'll leave you with a browsing tip and an old photo of W from last winter since I didn't have any recent ones of him sitting in snow.

Happy New Year!!

For this post I stole an idea from my favorite blogger Girls Gone Child's Rebecca Woolf.

In 2008 I spent the first hours of the new year hugging my sleeping 6 month old baby since he was the only one celebrating with me since J had to work.
I watched my baby say his first word, take his first steps, celebrate his first birthday, make his first joke and, one scary night, struggle to breath in a hospital bed.
I flew to Sweden twice, had my mom over twice, had my friend Emma visit for the first time.
I went to Ottawa and saw the parliament.
I laughed, I cried, I loved, I fought.
I made a new friend (Julie) and became closer to some other friends.
I worked as a dialogue editor (my first paying job doing sound editing!)
I celebrated my 26th birthday and my 4th wedding anniversary

I can't say that 2008 was a great year... it's been a pretty rough year actually. Not with W, with him this year has been fantastic with all the new things he's learned and the person he's growing into. But me and J had our most difficult year so far as a couple. We fought more than ever and I thinks it's in many parts due to the pressure of parenthood and not spending as much quality time together just the two of us as we should. But things are looking better already so I have hopes for 2009 to be a great year.

I hope you all had a fantastic year and that 2009 will be even better.


Happy New Year!

A hairy issue.

check out my cool bird that I can barely see through my hair


If you've ever seen any photos of my little man you've probably noticed his hair. My W has long, luscious hair (for an 18 month old at least) and has never ever in his life had a haircut. Me and J toy with the idea of getting his mane shaped up a bit sometimes but we always decide against the scissors. Why you may ask... well there are many reasons.

1) I like the fact that you can still see the slight change in colour at the tips of his hair that was the black hair he was born with and I can't bear to cut it off.

2) He looks awesome and supercute in his long hair

3) We always said that if we had a little boy we would keep his hair long at first cause it's cute and we really don't like the short "boy haircuts" all the other little boys are sporting.

Hanging out on the toilet with my hair in half a ponytail



On the other hand there are some arguments against our decision too...

1) I can't remember all the times people have called him a girl and looked shocked to find out he's a boy.

2) It's in his eyes all the time and he has now made a habit of running his arms over his face to try to get rid of the hair.

3) I have to resort to putting his hair up with bobby pins and hair ties so he can eat.

with daddy and all my hair in the ponytail



Maybe we're making the wrong decision with keeping his hair long... but did I mention he's sooooo very cute with his long locks!

My mom said to me today that she hopes I don't take him out with his hair in a ponytail. I told her of course not, it's only for at home so he can be more comfortable. Does this mean that as soon as we leave the house my son has to be uncomfortable just because I can't bear cutting of his hair that he was born with?

on the toilet again so cute. guess the red shirt doesn't help the "I'm a boy" cause


Maybe I am a selfish and superficial mom after all... who knew.

I threw in a photo of W dressed like an otter too because he was tooooo cute at the Biodome. Even though I swear never to go there again during school holidays we had a pretty good time. Especially at the interactive part at the end for kids under 7 where you could dress up as said otter or beaver or Inuit.

Look at me! I'm an otter and I caught two birds!!

Hanging out in the nook under the stairs in the new playroom/guestroom/potential bedroom.





Opening gifts with mommy on Christmas morning





F with the worst Santa ever at the Christmas party with the family.




At the party, hanging out by the gifts.





After opening gifts on Christmas morning...





W's new playroom/guestroom/ potential room if he ever gets a sibling





Wearing Daddy's ugly Christmas sweater. He looks a little like he should be in the Harry Potter films. He loves the sweater, he points to the bears and says nanne (Nalle in Swedish is teddy bear)






In his new and improved bedroom.

Merry Christmas

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday whichever one you celebrated. We had a good Christmas this year, I promise I'll write a long post about it tomorrow when I have some more time. I'll tell you all about the party, the presents and the getting lost in Verdun part.

I just wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season.

Well this is one of the 3 million posts I attempted to write over the holiday and then got interrupted before I had a chance to post it. This past week has been madness. I've baked for 50 plus people (with the help of my lovely niece F) and I cooked, entertained, partied and gotten lost. And we opened many gifts, so many in fact that W didn't want to open some after a while, he was too overwhelmed. He's pretty happy with his new toys now though, and with his new room.

I'll post some photos of the madness tonight after W's gone to bed. So later everyone!

holiday blues

I started the day today by crying a little. Don't get me wrong I love the holidays and everything about Christmas but it also reminds me of how far away from my family I am. On top of all that emotional stuff W no longer loves me the best. He is now a daddy's boy through and through. He does not want to be with me if Daddy's around and when Daddy leaves he asks for him constantly. My afternoons and evenings now consists of me saying "Daddy's at work, Honey, he'll be back again tomorrow once you wake up" and "Daddy misses you too baby"

I love my Daddy...




It's really not that I don't love that W loves his Daddy as much as his Daddy loves him, but it's hard not to feel rejected when he cries and reaches for Daddy as soon as I try to cuddle him.

To make matters worse he has recently started hitting me too. Not by accident or anything, no. He will pick up a hard item, such as a book, phone (how very Naomi Campbell of him) or a toy and struggle to get it up to my face and then hit me with it. When me and J tell him "No! We do not hit, you have to be gentle with Mamma" he laughs and hits me again.


... and my Daddy loves me!


He did all of this first thing in the morning today and on top of me already feeling homesick and overwhelmed with Christmas prep and worries over how the actual party will turn out, I started crying... which made W cry. So this morning was not a good morning.

So do any of you have any advice? How do I deal with my 18 month old rejecting me and hitting me with hard stuff??

18 months

Happy 18 month birthday W.

I love you.

Thank you for bringing so much joy into my life.