down below her knees

the secret is out: soleil has sticky feet. not stinky. not sweaty. just slightly tacky all the time. and not in the fashion sense, either. now you know.

keep talking happy talk

we can't possibly even begin to record all the amazingly cute goings-on around here, but i will try and give you a sample based on some of today's events. in spite of all of the various frustrations and difficulties of growing up, faz remains one of the sweetest, kindest, and most confident and thoughtful little people ever, especially to his sister.

at church yesterday, someone asked him his name. "i'm forest amitai and this is my baby sister (big smirk) soleil fluffy-nuffy zapf. nice to meet you!"

in other amusing, but somewhat distressing, news, it seems like the nickname fluffy-nuffy (or fluff-nuff or fluff) has stuck, and now all of us call her that frequently. but most often it is just soleil or soleil-olay-olay-olay.

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me: fazzy bear, you are just so cute. how did you get so cute?
faz: well daddy, i've been practicing a lot.

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in the middle of blowing bubbles with jenny in the yard today while soleil was napping, forest said "mama, now it's a good time to pray. i like to pray under the apple tree." so he goes under the apple tree, kneels down beside his tire swing and prays really quietly in a lilting voice: "dear jesus, thank you jesus. i know sometimes i'm mean but i need your help to be kind. and i know that i want to be a good friend and sometimes i do things that aren't nice. and i know that you can help me, jesus. . ."

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then tonight i was reading him a dennis lee poem from nicholas knock. and the emotional basket case that i am, i was near tears throughout the whole thing as so much of it described our relationship. here's some parts:

". . .a person needs a pal alot
and a pal is what i'm glad i've got. . .
. . .you make me laugh till we trip on chairs;
one day we nearly fell downstairs
but i think you're kind of brave, i guess:
your no means no, your yes means yes,
and even if it makes you shrink
you say the things you really think.
in fact your mouth is never closed-
your tonisls blush, they're so exposed
and your tweety voice is never quiet:
they must put birdseed in your diet. . .
. . . you choke me up, you make me sneeze,
i've caught you like a rare disease. . .
. . . and let's go play in lorne street park
there's still and hour before it's dark.
cause some things last and some things end -
i want you always for my friend."

and there i was looking straight into his eyes and jenny and soleil are cuddling beside us and our life is perfect. and then fazzy whispers:
"daddy, did you know that we can be friends with jesus forever? and we can hang out and play with him always? and we never have to die like he did?"

jenny and i just about lost it. one of the greatest moments of my life.

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and maybe i've mentioned this before but sometimes the poor boy just can't sleep because he is SOOO EXCITED about life. he recently discovered games (not just free-play with game pieces) and was thrilled to learn that there are different games to be played at different ages. so he was tossing and turning because just before sleep he got me to list the various games he can learn when he is five, and then eight and then as a teenager. and question after question after question (what games did you play with christy when you were a young boy? what games did mama play with her family when she was an older girl?). now he continually asks when we can try playing "chest" and he makes plans: "now soleil can have a castle and i will have a king and we can all have knights and mama needs two bishops and then we will make them all hop up and down and land on different spots and then all our castles can cuddle together. . ."

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"ok daddy, now i'm ready to sleep because i had my night pee so that i don't pee in the middle of the night and get a rash or have my bladder explode and i'll be strong and healthy now because it's good to pee and have a healthy sleep so i don't get sick and vomit and i was scared of vomit because of germs and i didn't like vomit but now i know that vomit takes the germs out of the tummy and i need strong muscles so i can help soleil with everything because she's a baby."

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and then tonight:
"are you fluff enough to be my baby?
are you sweet enough to be my mama?
are you daddy enough to be my daddy?"
(to the tune of 'are you strong enough to be my man'.)

happy canada day

went to barrhead on tuesday afternoon. everyone in edmonton decided to drive down 137 ave at three o'clock, which meant almost an hour to get out of the city. which wouldn't be a big deal except for soleil who is maturing into full-blown carseat hatred. however, once we made it to jenny's grandparents house (pizza!) it was smooth sailing. faz thought it was SOOOOO FUNNY to throw a rubber grasshopper into the apple tree and have me try and find it. soleil was charming and adorable and smiled and babbled sweetly to her great-grandparents.

then off to papa and stieni's house for a lovely evening. on canada day itself we joined in the annual neerlandia church picnic. soleil wasn't awake on time (slept from midnight until nine!??!!) so faz got to ride in the van next to marielle, and eat pancake breakfast with her. he was in heaven. we straggled behind, got the last of the pancakes and then watched the races. forest was thrilled to take part in the foot race (by himself) and the wheelbarrow race (with me). then for the three-legged race he teamed up with a little dutch girl that none of us knew and they got a second place ribbon. seeing them run together, smiling, with their arms wrapped around each other was one of the cutest things i've ever seen. sadly, i was too busy being overwhelmed by the glory of the moment to take a picture.

we hung around and played in the park for a while and then had lunch (burgers! strawberry rhubarb pie!) before heading back. the event was terrific but was a little hard on soleil and jenny. the poor girl just doesn't want to be held all day, hates the wind and can't really be in the sun. so all-day outdoor events aren't really a possibility. but as soon as we got back to the house she was happy as a clam and had a lovely time inside while faz and i went to explore the swamp behind the house. after supper (pizza! again!) we endured a torturous drive home. had to stop every twenty minutes to give soleil a brief respite from crying. by the end we were all feeling pretty rotten.

so although we had a really really great time, our experiences in the car and outside at the picnic led us to cancel our planned trip to the wild mountain music festival. we were completely stoked to go but this jaunt was a wake up call to the truth that we have a very young baby and maybe a long drive and a whole weekend outside is not the most prudent course of action.

they bump their screens

around the world by daft punk is fazzy's new favourite video. he wants to be one of the robots for halloween, and i'd love to oblige. anyone want to lend us a child-size motorbike helmet?

role-play is still the key indicator of how much he loves something. yesterday we acted out the video in the rain in the front yard. i got to be one of the skeletons.

box drum, guiro and wild monkey

went to the free jazz festival show at louise mckinney park (the one by the convention centre). perfect venue, perfect weather, perfect music. we laid our blanket behind some really nice people with an umbrella and they shared their shade with soleil and jenny while faz and i ran wild. so if you were wondering who the kid at the front was with a sunhat and no shirt dancing like he was in a cloud of hornets. . . that's our forest boy. we saw two great latin jazz bands and faz was the most excited i've ever seen him. which was both hilarious and frightening. dancing, sweating, flipping, trembling, flailing, rolling, falling, jumping. in the two and a half hours we were there he downed his juice box and two bottles of water. there was also an "instrument petting zoo" where (thanks to the miracle of disinfectant) we could try out a trumpet, a clarinet and a saxophone. awesome.

just relax

do me a favour and close your eyes. relax. feel your breath travel in and out of your lungs. feel the whole passage of it - through the mouth, down the airway. relish the sound of it. now sniff in. hold a moment. sigh. now sniff louder. longer. hold. maybe even swallow. then exhale sharply like you just drank cola for the first time ever. louder. repeat. again! feel the glory of it!

now take this little exercise and repeat it at every mealtime, storytime and moment of relaxation for a week.

you have entered. . . the faz-zone. where novelty, habit, pestering, annoyance and hilarity collide.

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soleil is adorable. and chubby. sometimes when i'm changing her diaper and noone is listening i call her chunklette (or superchunk. or chubbawubba.) i would have some numbers to back this up, but we haven't gotten her measured since her three week checkup. so you'll have to take my word for it.

she's growing in every other way too. totally an expert at sucking on her fist, with her thumb in between the first two fingers. turning her head towards favourite sounds and people. yowling and voweling all sorts of adorable babble. smiling like crazy at anything resembling a moblie. tongue-out arm-flailing smiles when faz or jenny or i say 'bonjour, oh soleil' in really embarassing faux-quebecois accents.

we're starting to get a feel for her likes and dislikes, . her dislikes include wind, hats (or anything touching her head), being held up by her armpits, skin-to-skin contact (ie dad with no shirt), sudden noises and putting her arms in sleeves. she loves laying down and looking around, especially at mobiles. did i mention she loves mobiles? she will be crying in the carseat and forest will say "oh soleil" and spin her mobile and she will be okay for another few minutes. if that doesn't work, he will just hold her hand and stare lovingly at her. amazing. she's starting to look at books too. we were at the schneidhaus and forest wanted me to show her bon-bon on the go-go which was his first favourite book. she loved it - smiling and laughing at every page for a good fifteen minutes. each. (just kidding). she is also really content just hanging out with us - literally hanging off one arm while jenny or i do whatever it is that needs doing. musically she has strong preferences already - loving the melodic/pretty (ie music together compilations) and the fuzzy/droney (ie this one no age song); despising the emotionally charged orchestra music that faz loves, and indifferent towards most everything else.

we are constantly fascinated by what makes her unique (or at least very very different from faz-as-a-baby). one example is how picky she is about her positioning in the sling. certain holds go with certain moods, and must be perfectly adjusted. sometimes it is easier to just hold her and make do without free hands. faz lived in the sling for the first four months - every nap, every trip anywhere, most of the time in the house. another example is the ebb and flow of her emotions. she drifts to sleep and then wakes up slowly; dozes lightly and frequently; gives lots of cues before crying; works up to a big smile, etc. faz couldn't be more different, even now.

i've got the month of may

it seems that having two children really does increase the workload / decrease the spare time. i've seriously been trying every night for two weeks to get these pictures posted and it has given way to laundry, laundry, watering the garden, laundry, personal hygiene, laundry, holding soleil and laundry. i would strongly recommend home-laundered cloth diapers as an economically and environmentally wise decision but it certainly requires daily discipline. in any case, on to the cute.

two friends. you haven't lived until you've heard "i want you to want me" sung in babytalk.


she's a good little sleeper, this one. during the day her favourite state is dozing, catnapping fifteen or twenty minutes at a time and of course nursing constantly. and then after some late-evening fussy time she goes to sleep around eleven for at least five hours (sometimes six or seven) and then is only awake for maybe an hour before sleeping another long stretch. this is especially nice on weekdays, because it gives jenny some quality time with faz in the morning.


a superhero costume designed by faz. from back in the pre-underpants phase of potty learning.


i know i've mentioned this before but most days it is nearly impossible to get the boy to look directly at the camera. especially when he is playing. which i guess is almost all the time. so here is mr focus in the sandbox.


fazzy's playing style has been called 'relational'. most of the time, the machines in the sandbox will just sit in the same place and talk to each other. they all have names, families, friendships and even culture. the firetruck will talk to the baby loader about how he doesn't really belong at the construction site but he loves it so he just stays really close.


part of the reason for the catnaps is that we usually lay her down shortly after she falls asleep in the sling.


"i'm a turtle."


everybody likes to see a smile, so i've been experimenting with different ways of getting the man to smile at the camera. don't get me wrong, he's a really smiley boy, but is highly invested in his decision not to perform on command. i took him to the bed and tickled him while continually snapping pictures. these are the best three of about twenty-five tries.




i've questioned the wisdom of our decision to let toys and food co-exist, but for the most part it has worked out pretty good. with the exception of the 'cementwuk' (its a baby truck) faz designed and built these all himself.




"now soleil. ok. you are my sister and i am your brother. and brothers and sisters don't make fun of each other."





faz rediscovers both the joy of popsicles and his 'germany hat' from papa. sadly it is already too warm to keep wearing it, but he wore it almost every day for a few weeks.


and now the just-underpants phase of potty learning. at about this time, the novelty of using the potty wore off and he went through about five pairs of pants a day. but that too ended soon and i think he's pretty much set now. he doesn't even wear a diaper at night now.


periodically jenny checks if she is 'returning to normal'. i think she's gorgeous.


obviously i hate to see soleil cry. but there is something fascinating about the face of a crying baby and when it is just a picture is can study it without the hormonal rush to comfort the sweet cutie.


the real baby and the pretend baby.


i love the simplicity of the infant world. even if she is seriously distraught, virtually all her problems can be remedied by some combination of nursing, cuddling, movement and fresh air.

did i mention how beautiful jenny is, even on days when she is wearing a nightie for twenty-plus hours?

certainly i was spoiled being at home for a few weeks. early morning playtime is the best.



yes, our little sunshine is changing and growing. she smiles constantly now.



forest took all his piggy-bank money, put it in the elmo wallet, and bought a transformer robot. the look here is the pure joy of anticipation. sadly faz found out that the piggy-bank does not magically refill itself overnight.


forest wanted to see my 'naked baby face' so i shaved. didn't like it.


for every challenging, frustrating or heartbreaking moment of parenting there are ten others too wonderful for words.



i feel bad for all those parents that think their baby is cute when we obviously have the cutest baby. in the world. ever.


that of course was facetious.


"i'm cute! look at me! cute! cute cute cute cute!"


faz wants every meal to be a picnic. we can't always oblige, but i'm really starting to appreciate sitting on the ground to eat.


without doubt this year was the best birthday i've ever had. the whole week was just amazing and i felt very special. thanks, family.


so adorable i actually scream whenever i see this picture. maybe you are too.


birthday pancakes.


soleil hates hats.


no matter what pictures are in the viewmaster, faz always sees monsters and robots.





i love our yard. i love our yard. i love our yard. pretty much like our house has tripled in size.


faz picked out this shirt from superstore. oddly enough, at the same time as his consumer impulse is growing by leaps and bounds he refuses to let us buy him new clothes. so by and large his shirts at least are the same as last summer, just tighter.




party at borden park! here's patti and owen.


owen! adorable! no one believes he was almost two months premature.


stieni and papa.


rylie and bailey!


nuemi!


tim and owen!


tina!

there were lots of other guests, but i completely forgot i had the camera until the last minute. rats.