soleil's favourite activities include nursing in the ergo, smiling at strangers, sitting while playing, bathtime, and most of all anything to do with her brother. while jenny makes lunch, soleil will sit on the couch chewing on a lid or maraca or toy while watching faz build lego on the rug. amazing.
she likes a wide variety of toys, but shows a strong preference for hard objects rather than stuffies. watching her play with the bead maze is particularly amusing. forest built her some 'chew-bots' out of duplo for the car and it keeps them both fully entertained as she slurps and gnaws away while forest retrieves and rebuilds. sweet symbiosis.
as capable as she is in many areas, she doesn't really move. rarely tries to roll over (i've still only witnessed it once) and if on her tummy doesn't make any efforts beyond reaching for objects.
despite her affinity for spoons and bowls, she shows almost no interest in eating. we've tried a host of different foods and while she isn't repulsed, she just continues on playing and babbling as if completely unaware.
speaking of babbling, she is highly vocal, with a growing vocabulary of grunts, moans, wails, yells, squeaks, laughs, giggles, farts, rolls, bababababa and dadadadada. forest freely translates all of this for us.
Tuesday, November 24
not a drop to drink
forest has spent the past three days running back and forth between the living room and the bathroom. his lego is spread all over the living room rug, where he is building 'float-bots' and 'dive-bots'. he then runs them to the full bathroom sink where he tests their floating and diving abilities while simultaneously investigating the various effects of currents, fountains and drains. he builds boats for the dive-bots to rest on, and houses for them to visit on the shore. every bot has its own unique function. as a side-effect of all the fun he soaks through several shirts a day, and his hands and wrists are perpetually chilled because he will only use cold water and refuses to pull up his sleeves.
Thursday, November 19
twenty four hour friendship
while there are certainly trials involved in the family bed (waking up in a puddle of pee comes to mind) we've always been very happy with our decision. due to our particular combination of temperments and circumstances, we are all able to sleep pretty comfortably all night almost every night. however, having different bedtimes for different children is a bit of a trick. at first (and still most of the time now) soleil wasn't ready for her night sleep until we went to bed. but she's starting to show signs of melding her evening sleep and her night sleep into one glorious whole. so i've been putting her to sleep in the ergo while jenny puts faz to sleep in the bed, and a few times in the last couple weeks i've been able to lay her down beside forest and she stays sleeping. this gives us some hitherto-unheard-of together time. and then every time we've come in to bed ourselves, the little ones are laying together, holding hands or fully cuddling. tonight soleil was whimpering a bit and forest wrapped his arm around to comfort her while still sleeping. most perfect moment ever.
Monday, November 16
saw you in september
"soleil likes my chocolate milka for dessert. she needs the chocolate milka from my nibbles."
forest fits the stereotype of the focused child pretty handily, interested in one or two things at a time for months, followed by an abrupt switch. so it has been rewarding and fascinating to observe a slowly growing parallel interest in drawing and coloring. its not an exaggeration to say that faz never once attempted to draw or color anything until his third year. but bit by bit he's been painting more, and just recently has begun to play with his chalkboard. then just in the last couple of weeks he's been drawing on paper with crayons and pen. below is his very first attempt at figure drawing - a turtle.
fazzy and soleil spent a good hour one morning playing in blankets. i should mention forest's endless fascination with being covered/wrapped up. all summer and through the autumn he would spend much of his time flopping and flailing around in a sleeping bag or blanket. to prevent him from sweating to death and continually messing up our bed, we gave him a queen size duvet cover. he still spends large blocks of time just, well, playing with his "play-duvet", which makes his notion of cuddling in bed amusingly acrobatic.
==============
september was one of those rare months where we actually remembered to bring the camera along on our outings. so here we are at prairie gardens, which is a hobby farm with a corn maze and other fun activities for city slickers.
faz watched the 'robot skeleton band' play the same two minute song for a good half-hour.
jenny fondly remembers spending hours bale-jumping with her brother and sister. for complete newbies, we apparently did ok.
who's a little pumpkin, then?
we briefly replaced forest with a completely different child who looks directly at the camera while smiling and posing in a convenient location. looks oddly similar, though.
==============
our quiet little street was under construction from may to october. new streetlights, new sidewalks, new grass on the boulevards, new road. the results are lovely, but boy oh boy was it irritating to have construction from seven am to seven pm six days a week all summer. however, it was still much much quieter than living right on 99 street. this particular day there were seven big machines in a row parked for the night.
maybe i mentioned this already, but faz made himself a tricycle seatbelt out of a vacuum hose and had the same collection of objects in the dumper all summer, including a bird's nest he found.
===============
we had many after-church picnics this year. the next few pictures are from a particularly wonderful trip to emily murphy park.
=================
it caught us by surprise when instead of resurfacing the street, they spent a week making a six-foot deep hole out of the entire road, then piling dirt into mountains before flattening and paving it. fascinating but annoying.
prettiest flower in the garden. the bouquet is all from our yard.
every once in a while i think it is the same adorable face on two different bodies.
================
weekend in barrhead!
we found 'buggy' in the woods, kept him in fazzy's toque, packed him in a jar with some sticks and leaves, and brought him home. it was glorious. however, explaining to forest that buggy would die if he stayed too long in the jar was excruciating. releasing buggy and watching him very slowly walk down the alley was one of the saddest moments of forest's life.
forest went on a special trip to the co-op with papa and convinced him to buy some lego. in an incident that papa and stieni still talk about, he also made up a song called "how do you exist" and sang it very loud and long at the till.
papa reading the tongue-twister classic, "o say can you say" by dr. seuss. even though english is his second language, he still read it faster and better than i do. i don't think any of us have laughed that much in a long time.
forest fits the stereotype of the focused child pretty handily, interested in one or two things at a time for months, followed by an abrupt switch. so it has been rewarding and fascinating to observe a slowly growing parallel interest in drawing and coloring. its not an exaggeration to say that faz never once attempted to draw or color anything until his third year. but bit by bit he's been painting more, and just recently has begun to play with his chalkboard. then just in the last couple of weeks he's been drawing on paper with crayons and pen. below is his very first attempt at figure drawing - a turtle.
fazzy and soleil spent a good hour one morning playing in blankets. i should mention forest's endless fascination with being covered/wrapped up. all summer and through the autumn he would spend much of his time flopping and flailing around in a sleeping bag or blanket. to prevent him from sweating to death and continually messing up our bed, we gave him a queen size duvet cover. he still spends large blocks of time just, well, playing with his "play-duvet", which makes his notion of cuddling in bed amusingly acrobatic.
==============
september was one of those rare months where we actually remembered to bring the camera along on our outings. so here we are at prairie gardens, which is a hobby farm with a corn maze and other fun activities for city slickers.
faz watched the 'robot skeleton band' play the same two minute song for a good half-hour.
jenny fondly remembers spending hours bale-jumping with her brother and sister. for complete newbies, we apparently did ok.
who's a little pumpkin, then?
we briefly replaced forest with a completely different child who looks directly at the camera while smiling and posing in a convenient location. looks oddly similar, though.
==============
our quiet little street was under construction from may to october. new streetlights, new sidewalks, new grass on the boulevards, new road. the results are lovely, but boy oh boy was it irritating to have construction from seven am to seven pm six days a week all summer. however, it was still much much quieter than living right on 99 street. this particular day there were seven big machines in a row parked for the night.
maybe i mentioned this already, but faz made himself a tricycle seatbelt out of a vacuum hose and had the same collection of objects in the dumper all summer, including a bird's nest he found.
===============
we had many after-church picnics this year. the next few pictures are from a particularly wonderful trip to emily murphy park.
=================
it caught us by surprise when instead of resurfacing the street, they spent a week making a six-foot deep hole out of the entire road, then piling dirt into mountains before flattening and paving it. fascinating but annoying.
prettiest flower in the garden. the bouquet is all from our yard.
every once in a while i think it is the same adorable face on two different bodies.
================
weekend in barrhead!
we found 'buggy' in the woods, kept him in fazzy's toque, packed him in a jar with some sticks and leaves, and brought him home. it was glorious. however, explaining to forest that buggy would die if he stayed too long in the jar was excruciating. releasing buggy and watching him very slowly walk down the alley was one of the saddest moments of forest's life.
forest went on a special trip to the co-op with papa and convinced him to buy some lego. in an incident that papa and stieni still talk about, he also made up a song called "how do you exist" and sang it very loud and long at the till.
papa reading the tongue-twister classic, "o say can you say" by dr. seuss. even though english is his second language, he still read it faster and better than i do. i don't think any of us have laughed that much in a long time.
Sunday, November 15
basis oasis
now that we've moved to the wrong side of town, we only head to ikea once every few months. just as hectic and mind-altering as ever, but now we stay even longer to make the journey worthwhile. which means we get hungry. so we finally get through the line at the resturant and throw ourselves down at a table, wipe down all surfaces, get a stack of spoons for soleil to play with and throw on the floor, pull out fazzy's robots, forget to pray, etc. i'm tempted to see this experience as rushed and unfortunate, and both jenny and i are feeling put upon by the crowds and the pushy consumerism and the tv behind us and blah blah whine whine. but then soleil is smiling away, drooling on a succession of spoons and forest says: "i'm so glad we are all here at this restaurant eating together. it's what we do best. we like to be together."
give em a pulpit
forest was contentedly munching raisins during announcement time at church and at the end terry asked if anyone else had something. without warning, faz leaps up and runs to terry, yelling "i have an announcement i have an announcement." terry bravely handed him the microphone.
"first i have to warm up. (very long pause, deep breathing. some stretching.) there is something important that i would like to do now. and that important something which i would like to do is. . . play."
"first i have to warm up. (very long pause, deep breathing. some stretching.) there is something important that i would like to do now. and that important something which i would like to do is. . . play."
Friday, November 13
comfbot
the story of forest's halloween costume perfectly fits an archetype i remember from my own childhood. let's walk through the stages.
1. event with much baggage
- in our case, halloween. the child has a vague conception of what it means (costumes and candy) but the adult has years of accumulated expectations, triumphs, and disappointments. child wants to have fun. parent wants to construct perfect experience, allegedly for the child's benefit.
2. child has simple idea
- forest wanted to dress as a robot, and he likes the robots in the daft punk 'around the world' video.
3. parents needlessly complicate idea
- faz loves robots. we love faz. we thought (without asking him) that he would want a costume that he could wear every day for the next year. so instead of getting a cheap polyester one-piece transformer costume with a plastic mask like we should have done, we dragged the poor kid to the fabric store, then had him design his costume, took his measurements, then had my amazing aunt andrea sew it, borrowed a motorbike helmet, etc. none of which he asked for. the boots deserve special mention. we bought black rubber boots and metallic silver spray paint at zellers. ignoring the label (sticks to wood and metal only), i painted them and it never dried. so we went to canadian tire to buy varsol and different spray paint. then i spent a good half an hour cleaning and re-painting them when i could have just been playing with him.
4. parents resent child for their own excess
- at one point when forest was bored out of his skull at the fabric store and dared complain about our unneccessary efforts on "his" behalf i actually clenched my teeth and growled: "listen, do you want to be a robot?" at that point we should have paused for a moment of reflection, but instead soldiered on because he was just going to LOVE the costume once it finally came together.
5. child confused by parental pressure
- we did actually get forest to wear his costume all day on halloween. he was tired and sick, but meekly put it on and even managed some excitement that he was indeed a robot. he wore the boots for trick-or-treating in the evening, but for the rest of the day just wore his booties (we went to the museum to the see robert munsch exhibit). he just couldn't manage the helmet - not comfy. when we got back he even said "i want to wear my robot every day and every night." but despite the hype and continued pressure (we ask him every day) he has yet to wear it again. rats.
look at me! i'm a robot! and dang cute!
i'm sick and overtired! but i want chocolate!
it was adorable. at every house forest said in a perfect machine-voice "beep beep i am a robot thank you." he named himself comf-bot. he was amazed that he could knock on doors and people gave him candy. he did a robot dance for our neighbour teresa. ten minutes and seven houses later, he said that he had enough and it was time to go home for stories.
1. event with much baggage
- in our case, halloween. the child has a vague conception of what it means (costumes and candy) but the adult has years of accumulated expectations, triumphs, and disappointments. child wants to have fun. parent wants to construct perfect experience, allegedly for the child's benefit.
2. child has simple idea
- forest wanted to dress as a robot, and he likes the robots in the daft punk 'around the world' video.
3. parents needlessly complicate idea
- faz loves robots. we love faz. we thought (without asking him) that he would want a costume that he could wear every day for the next year. so instead of getting a cheap polyester one-piece transformer costume with a plastic mask like we should have done, we dragged the poor kid to the fabric store, then had him design his costume, took his measurements, then had my amazing aunt andrea sew it, borrowed a motorbike helmet, etc. none of which he asked for. the boots deserve special mention. we bought black rubber boots and metallic silver spray paint at zellers. ignoring the label (sticks to wood and metal only), i painted them and it never dried. so we went to canadian tire to buy varsol and different spray paint. then i spent a good half an hour cleaning and re-painting them when i could have just been playing with him.
4. parents resent child for their own excess
- at one point when forest was bored out of his skull at the fabric store and dared complain about our unneccessary efforts on "his" behalf i actually clenched my teeth and growled: "listen, do you want to be a robot?" at that point we should have paused for a moment of reflection, but instead soldiered on because he was just going to LOVE the costume once it finally came together.
5. child confused by parental pressure
- we did actually get forest to wear his costume all day on halloween. he was tired and sick, but meekly put it on and even managed some excitement that he was indeed a robot. he wore the boots for trick-or-treating in the evening, but for the rest of the day just wore his booties (we went to the museum to the see robert munsch exhibit). he just couldn't manage the helmet - not comfy. when we got back he even said "i want to wear my robot every day and every night." but despite the hype and continued pressure (we ask him every day) he has yet to wear it again. rats.
look at me! i'm a robot! and dang cute!
i'm sick and overtired! but i want chocolate!
it was adorable. at every house forest said in a perfect machine-voice "beep beep i am a robot thank you." he named himself comf-bot. he was amazed that he could knock on doors and people gave him candy. he did a robot dance for our neighbour teresa. ten minutes and seven houses later, he said that he had enough and it was time to go home for stories.
