Christmas Letter - 2008

Well we finished off last year celebrating Simon’s first Christmas. It was a hectic day spent traveling between families coupled with lots of eating. Simon didn’t quite get the concept of unwrapping the gifts (which seriously irked his cousin) but he did love climbing on the box for his new wagon.

Much like 2007 (and I’m sure the years to come), 2008 was a year of firsts. We went from crawling, to walking, to running, to climbing, to jumping and finally in recent weeks we have talking.

In February, Matt and I headed down to Pittsburgh for a long weekend getaway. As many of you know, Matt is a big Pittsburgh Penguins fan so to celebrate his 30th birthday we took in a game at the Igloo. Matt was thrilled to be surrounded by his fellow fans and I was happy to tag along for the outlet shopping. I did well picking out our hotel as we were able to scout out players from both our home town Senators and the Sharks.

March saw us celebrating Simon’s first birthday and my dreaded return to work. Simon transitioned to daycare like a champion and Simon quickly grew attached to his childcare provider Ursula and to his Grandparents. Matt and I have since been demoted from Simon’s favourites list.

In July, Simon gained a new little cousin Seamus. Lynsey and Shawn welcomed a surprisingly small little boy (estimates had him at 10-11lbs.). Simon is a little perturbed at having to share his Granddad’s lap but otherwise pretty much ignores his new cousin.

November saw another getaway, this time somewhere tropical for a whole week. We headed down to celebrate the wedding of our friends Kevin and Sonja. We stayed at a beautiful, adults only resort and the break really helped us in getting through until Christmas.

We still trying to keep our blog updated regularly so if you’re interested in the goings on of the Fullers (well mostly just Simon), check it out at www.weinerwonderland.blogspot.com.

Christmas Festivities 2008

Simon broke his 5am waking habit in time for Christmas, so we were able to start off the day a little fresher than the past week! Terry is staying with us over the holidays so he was here to watch Simon unwrap his gifts (which were endless despite my best efforts) and to give Matt a helping hand in getting everything assembled. As expected, Simon struggled in getting past the book in his stocking and was ready to be done at the point. He eventually got into ripping off the paper and was over joyed when Matt inflated his soccer net. The day only got better and better as his scooter was put together, a addition was added to his Tonka ride on and the playdough was removed from the packaging. By the time we had to open gifts at Nanny and Granddad's, Simon had caught on to what was happening and in addition to unwrapping gifts, he wanted everything removed from the packages and assembled - a little challenging when you are managing 4 kids opening gifts, 12 adults watching and 2 very large basset hounds! Simon definitely doesn't share his parents love of Christmas dinner as his feast consisted of a roll and numerous Christmas cookies but Matt and I more than made up for it and indulged on the food and enjoyed the company. It was a great day and Simon fared better than last year where he ended up passed out in his Granddad's arms.

Little People Nativity

We managed to get hold of the Little People Nativity set this year and Simon has been playing with it daily, rotating all of the characters to the treasured musical spot on top of the stable. Simon really felt like one of his non-Little People animals was being left out of the Christmas scene so he begin integrating his Swiss cow (compliments of Ursula) into the Nativity. Well the other day we cracked up when we saw the cow perched on top of the stable watching over baby Jesus.

Naughty or Nice?

He didn't love Santa at all but he did enjoy the candy cane that Santa gave him!

I've created a monster

Simon does not appreciate any diversion of attention away from him so needless to say, he is less than thrilled when I log onto the laptop to check out email. I got the brillant idea the other day to do a google search for animal pictures to get him to appreciate the computer more. Problem is that now he's obsessed. Instead of trying to close my computer so I can't use it, he keeps it pried open so that I can search for animal pictures. It gets a little old looking at lion pictures for half an hour, but he seems to enjoy it and it's a great quiet time activity.

Explosion of Vocabulary

Simon has had a recent explosion of vocabulary in the last week. He's expanded from "more", "mine", "hi", "bye", "mama", "daddy", "BruBru", and dozens of animal noises to a more useful array of words to describe what he wants. We're going to start having to be careful about what we say around him now! His understanding has also increased and he can point to almost everything in all of his books and can actually go select the book that you're requesting from his pile (this is quite the feat as Simon has quite the library of books).

Trimming the Tree

Mum and Dad were brave enough to invite over all of their grandchildren to help trim their tree. For those of you who have seen their tree, you know that Mum takes great care in placing the ornaments, almost like they have been put up with the assistance of a ruler (and knowing my Mum probably a level too!), so I was surprised they would want the help of three kids under 4 feet tall. Well to my surprise the tree turned out beautifully and the ornaments are surprisingly well distributed. Simon only wanted to put up the Christmas balls and shuned any non-round ornaments. He also insisted that Granddad put all of the ornaments "up" and he would always jump to illustrate when passing off the ornaments to hang. Next year Seamus will join the fray so Dad needs to work on speed hanging as he was already ragged by the end of it and this year there were only three demanding grandchildren.

Santa Clause Parade

We bundled up today and headed downtown for the annual Santa Clause parade. As is becoming tradition, we realized after getting Simon decked out that his snowsuit was not going to make it through the winter - again! The unfortunate thing is that at his age, it's just not an option to have a massive snow suit to grow into since he wouldn't be able to keep up with the other kids at daycare. We managed to time it perfectly this year and it wasn't long after we found a spot that the "floats" started going by. There are a few neat displays but for the most part it is a ragtag assortment of random cars, people and dance troupes. Simon enjoyed it though, with the exception of the mascots from which he hid. After an hour and a bit of the parade, Matt and I were glad to race back to the car and warm up. Simon was the only one who seemed unaffected by the cold - next year, mental note to wear snowpants.

Hola

Matt and I headed off to the sunny shores of Mexico for some sand, sun and relaxation. We spent a week at the El Dorado Seaside Suites in the Mayan Riveria. The resort was beautiful, gorgeous rooms, great beach beds and awesome food. Our schedule for the week consisted of waking up, grabbing a bed on the beach and then heading down for breakfast. Once breakfast was done, we would meander down to the beach where I would lie in the shade while Matt would twitch beside me waiting to do some kind of activity. The guys spent most of their beach time snorkelling, playing volleyball, kayaking and driving the beach waitress crazy with drink orders. Around 1:00 we would pull ourselves together for lunch - usually a few hour affair. Once lunch was over, we would basically repeat the morning activity until it was time to dress for dinner. Dinner was always a formal affair, followed by drinks. It was a great change of pace for the week!

PICTURES TO FOLLOW

Mine

We came back from our week in Mexico to a newly acquired word, "mine". Everything is labelled as mine first before handing it off to you. The tone is the best part, he gets a demon edge on his voice and then says "mine" like he's possessed. Very entertaining, at least in the short term!

Simon Fuller had a Farm

At our 18 month appointment, the doctor indicated that Simon was a bit delayed on his speech, however, he didn't recommend intervention unless we didn't have any progress over the next few months. Well we haven't had much progress on words but Simon is a veritable zoo. He can imitate a bear, a lamb, a tiger, a horse, a cow, an elephant, a gorilla, a snake, a dog, a cat, a mouse, a duck, an owl, birds, and the list goes on.

Happy Halloween!

Simon had a busy, busy day on Halloween and his costume got quite the mileage even though we didn't trick or treat. He started the day off going to him Kindermusik class. Matt originally wasn't planning on bringing him in costume but once he saw all the other kids decked out, he quickly wrangled Simon into his. Next stop was to visit Mommy at work. Unfortunately the timing didn't really work out as we had an urgency to deal with so Matt and Simon were in and out pretty quickly. Next Simon went on to charm Matt's coworkers and then home for a nap to rest up for the evening's festivities. At 4:00 Matt and Simon picked me up and we went off to wish my Mum bon voyage, visited with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Eric, showed off to Ursula, visited Grandma and then settled in for an evening of handing out candy. Simon loved all of the kids coming to the door. As soon as the doorbell would ring he would take off to the front door and jump up and down until the door opened. Then once the kids turned to leave, he would try to join them! Eventually we headed outside to give out candy there. It was such a mild evening and Simon enjoyed nighttime bubbles.

A Soccer Star in the Making

Simon definitely takes after his parents and has a mean right hoof. He has managed to almost kick the leftover dinner dishes off the table, maim Brutus numerous times, and keep me guessing with his kicks all during this evenings soccer match. Simon and Matt are now in the second half of a marathon soccer match. Simon has two balls on the go and I'm pretty sure that he has outscored Matt. Simon's "net" is the fireplace and he is playing his dual role of netminder and striker quite proficiently, once he takes his shot, he races back to defend his goal. Matt's "net" is the exposed part of the wall and the opening of the kitchen. If Matt dares leave it unprotected Simon gets quite antsy, starts pointing frantically, yelling "ma,ma,ma" and then runs over to tap the spot that he wants his Daddy to stand - and by stand, he means stand. If Matt so happens to be sitting, that earns some more frantic points from Simon. We are now rounding into almost a full hour of this. Matt couldn't be having more fun and is enjoying the change in pace from the usual non-stop reading of Brown Bear. I'm sensing a nightly soccer game in our future.

Picking out a Pumpkin

We took Simon to the local pumpkin patch to pick out a few pumpkins for Halloween. The experience around these parts is limited to picking a pumpkin from a pile but at the very least, it provides a cute photo opportunity. Simon was mostly interesting in finding ways to run around to the parking lot, although we were able to keep him close once we secured a cart. The weather was much more Fall like this year so we didn't have to fake a fall shot like we did last year with Simon in a Fall jacket and bare feet! At the end of the trip, they gave Simon an apple and surprisingly he polished that thing off, I guess I no longer need to cut them into slices!

Evolution of the Kiss

When Simon first starting "kissing" it consisted of just opening up his mouth wide. He finally started putting together the open mouth and making contact with your face. I'm not quite sure I understand the saying, "only a mother could love" because a slug trail was just gross. Matt and I always turned to have him kiss our cheek because we are not mouth kissers and Simon caught onto that so the next stage of the kiss evolution was Simon turning his cheek to us when we asked for a kiss. I was a bit sad not to get those sloppy kisses anymore but it didn't last long. Simon has finally figured out how to pucker up and leave a minimal amount of residue behind. He gives the best kisses!

Haircut Hell

Simon has the most gorgeous thick hair and it grows like a weed. I guess I could let it just grow long but I love the little boy haircut. Too bad my little boy won't sit still for a nice style. We went to the kids salon today again in hopes that the fun environment would entice Simon to sit still. We started off with the scissors and Matt and I pinning Simon down so she could safely cut but with the screaming, howling and wriggling that ensued, we quickly had to change our plans to a buzz cut on '3'. He still looks cute but I miss his little boy style. At least with it so short we won't have to go through that torture again soon. After the haircut was over, it was like nothing had happened. Simon merrily rearranged the chairs, vacuumed, played with a train, etc. until we had to drag him out screaming. A fun time had by all!

P.S. We left a nice tip for the poor woman who had to help wrangle our toddler while wielding a clipper and getting kicked the whole time!

Big Boy Room

With Simon climbing out of his crib, we're thinking that we might have to transition him to a regular bed sometime in the forseeable future. With the twin bed, comes a new room since we're planning on keeping the nursery as is for any future children. My focus in the last few weeks has been searching for items to decorate said room. My Mum bought the bedding for us a few months ago. It's a basic blue plaid, stripes, patchwork. The perfect neutral backdrop for any theme. I have the furniture that I bought a few years back at a garage sale (a solid wood dressor, night table, desk, chair, mirror and headboard for $200!) that my Mum is going to paint off white for us. Then comes the accessories. So far, I have a baseball mirror, soccer ball clock, soccer ball overhead light and a soccer ball night table lamp. I have been searching endlessly online and found a series of prints that I love, a fun locker that fits with the sports theme, a striped paint effect that will fit the theme perfectly, sports themed bean bag chairs. I'm also coming up with lots of other projects/ideas - a score board, a basketball hoop over a laundry hamper, a baseball bat hat hanger, a framed Pittsburgh vintage jersey (I think this one may be a bit too expensive for a kids room though), amd I'm trying to figure out how to work a hockey net into all of this! Here's some pictures of my finds/inspiration so far:

Getting Your Money's Worth

The whole concept of getting your money's worth changes when you have kids. The prospect of a whiny child means that you schedule events around nap times and driving a hour to only spend two totally makes sense as does paying admission and only spending an hour or two. This concept also applies to restaurants. Ordering a kid's meal that gets eaten, even if it's only a small bit, seems worth it because at least they ate. To Matt's dismay, this concept doesn't apply to clothing!

Milk and Cookies

We signed Simon up for Kindermusik in addition to his gymnastics class for the Fall semester. Simon went to the first session with Nanna B. and spent the majority of the class cosied up with Nanna and sucking his thumb. My Mum said that the only way she knew that he was listening was that he would "jump" when they said too. He did perk up on the way out and waved to all of the residents that had come to watch. This week, I went along with my Mum so that we could bring Simon's Great Granny along. My Mum sat with Geraldine and animated the session while I sat on the floor with Simon and attempted to get him to follow along with the actions. For the most part he was only interested in getting and returning the instruments and he smiled somewhat when we did some dancing. He does definitely have preferences when it comes to the instruments so we'll be ordering a wave drum when Christmas rolls around.

Farewell Sue and Les

We had a fun two weeks visiting with Sue and Les on their now annual trip to Canada. We spent most of the week eating - at our place, Debbie's place, John's Place, Mum and Dad's. Interspersed in the eating, we spent a lot of time looking at houses to prepare for Sue and Les's possible immigration to Canada. Finally we spent a lot of time being entertained by the antics of the four Barker grandchildren. We can't wait for Sue and Les to be closer, we need more babysitters around with all of the competition :)

Simon @ 18 months

It's hard to believe that Simon is half way to his second birthday. Since Simon start walking, time seems to have sped up. Perhaps it's because we're always moving at a fast pace keeping him out of danger! Simon is changing from day to day, it's amazing to see all of the new things he is learning. It's been awhile since I posted a monthly update so I thought I would post an overview. At 18 months, Simon:

-is all about going vertical - climbing out of his crib, scaling his bus, the outside of the stairs, kitchen chairs to get to the higher cabinets.....
-loves to dance around in circles on his toes
-is all about balls and balloons
-loves to bounce on his zebra
-is still napping twice a day
-loves to dive onto soft surfaces (our bed, Brutus' bed, the couch)
-refuses to give up his bottles
-is happiest when outside
-no longer sits still for haircuts or nail trimming
-is a little dare devil - in addition to all of the climbing, he also likes to stand on his push toys and uses his cars like a scooter/skateboard
-has the tiniest waist - his pants are forever falling down - his belly is still pretty round though :)
-wears 12-18 month pants, 18-24 month tops, size 7 shoes and size 4 diapers
-pats the seat next to him to get you to sit beside him
-loves to read books over and over - and he must be sitting on you when you read to him
-has all of his teeth through with the exception of his 2-year molars
-is a super easy, happy baby
-is still struggling with eating vegetables that aren't green

2028 watch out

Simon started his toddler gymnastics class. It's for toddlers 18 months to 3 years and Simon is the youngest one there. The class is really beyond him, the exercises are geared more to kids who have some understanding of instructions while Simon does what Simon Says :) We spent the first 45 minutes of the class getting Simon to follow the obstacle courses, most of which featured skills that he didn't care to master like hanging from the bars, swinging on a rope. Even with Matt and I supervising him, he still managed to fall on his head! The last 15 minutes were a hit though. The gymnastics studio has a large tumble track trampoline - probably about 15 meters long. Simon was like a demon when we let him loose on it, Matt and I had to sprint beside him trying to keep up so that we could stop him from turning and running back towards the next kid coming. We were exhausted by the end of the class. Next time we need to remember to bring water for us as well.

Gearing up for Winter

It seems kind of silly to be gearing up for winter when we're still technically in the midst of summer. However, last year, when we realized Simon's hand-me down snowsuit wouldn't make it through the season (in November) we quickly realized that selection for these things is limited. So this year, we hit the stores early and picked up Simon's snowsuit and boots to guarantee we could get the style and size that we needed. Simon is too cute walking around in his new gear and was more than happy to do a fashion show for us - for a mental picture, he walks like he's wearing downhill ski boots.

Playdate

Since before Simon was born, I have chatted online with some other Moms who have babies the same age. Most of them are dispersed across the US, but there are a few Canadians. Of course, with Canada being the size that it is, it was unlikely that any of us would ever meet. Well as luck would have it, one of the other Moms Melynda, has family in Ottawa so we got a chance to meet up and do a playdate with Simon and Ally (Alexandra). Alexandra is Simon's opposite - blue eyes, blond hair and so petite and she is a chatterbox (well Simon is too but she uses real English words!). We went to the Children's Museum and Simon got to show off all his favourite things from the last time that we were there. Melynda and I got a bit of a chance to talk but two 18-month olds are fast and they always went in opposite directions. We did get to chat later though when we went out for lunch and Simon and Ally both enjoyed the Tex Mex fare at the Lone Star. Melynda is set to give birth pretty darn soon so it will probably be awhile before she braves the trip with two children but we can't wait to meet up again.

We were expecting.....

We were expecting a whole lot more balloon related activities at the Gatineau Balloon festival. Turns out that the hot air balloons are only on display during a few short periods during the day. We just so happened to get there after one such session had already passed. So we spent a lot of time wondering around, listening to really loud shows where the performers all see to have been performing the same song, and eating. We thought that the food was going to be the only worthwhile part of the outing - we had the most incredible homemade chips and of course, cotton candy. Luckily the chips kept Simon distracted so we were able to stay for the balloon send off. It was spectacular seeing them so close. They were taking off right in front of us in droves and dotting the skyline with colour. Simon loved watching and pointing at each and every one of them. Towards the end, it started to get old for him so we packed up and headed home. Next time, we'll have to time our outing a little better and definitely remember to bring a stroller!

Guitar Hero

Sleepy Baby??

We figured Simon was just tired after his first week back at daycare. He had been out every evening this week, had four days of only one nap, and an extra daycare day playing with his friends so we didn't think anything of his fatigue come Thursday evening. We should have been tipped off when he just held a pickle for half an hour versus devouring it (Simon is a pickle monster) but we figured a nap in the car on the way to my soccer game would rejuvenate him. Wrong! When we got to the field, Simon just slouched in his chair only standing up to turn around and throw up all over said chair. Poor kid looked pretty miserable. Luckily Matt and my friend Sonja jumped into action (I am so not good with vomit). Matt stripped Simon down while Sonja rinsed off the chair as best she could and then loaded it into our truck. Simon slept the whole way home, woke for a bottle, and then returned to la-la-land again. We kept him home Friday just incase there were any more sickies but aside from a little sleepiness, he seemed in good spirits. Let's hope there's not more of this in the near future!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I celebrated a milestone birthday today, turning 30 years of age! Matt went all out planning a surprise birthday for me at one of my favourite restaurants. I ruined the surprise by discovering the plans - although I had already figured he would be up to something. Surprise or not, it was a fantastic evening. A nice leisurely dinner with 22 of our closest friends - good food, great conversation and generous friends spoiling me with gifts. Matt's gift to me, sleeping in until 9:00am and then napping away the afternoon, this in addition to the Pilates reformer that he bought for me earlier this year. It was a perfect day.

Bedtime just got a whole lot more interesting

Simon has been all about going vertical lately - climbing the stairs, standing on his toys, jumping on the bed....and his latest adventure, climbing out of the crib. We put him down for a nap and about half an hour later, we heard some chatting and some thumping. Now thumping is not uncommon for Simon. Kicking the wall repeatedly apparently helps him to sleep. But sometimes, chatting and thumping indicates that nap time is a bust and Matt felt this was one of those occasions. Imagine his surprise when he opened the door and saw Simon sitting on his lamb chair, reading a book. Matt confirmed that I hadn't let him out of the crib and then we quickly changed our plans for the morning and went about lowering Simon's crib to the lowest level. Hopefully that keeps him in until we get a chance to childproof his room and the top of the stairs.

Day at the Zoo, oh I mean museum

living in the Nation's capital we have a huge number of museums within our reach. However, between naps and meals, there never seems to be enough time in the day to take advantage of these local treasures but today we decided to eat in the car so that we could take in the Bob the Builder exhibit at the Museum of Civilization. The kids portion of this museum is pure kid heaven. Simon couldn't get past the British phone booth at the entrance so we spent about a half hour there going in and out, in and out, in and out, repeat, repeat, repeat. We finally managed to convince him to move on (i.e. we carried him into the next exhibit). He became equally obsessed with each progressive exhibit, the best one being the Bob the Builder room. It was toddler heaven with cars, a ball machine, lots of tractors to climb on, walls to build, wheelbarrows to push and fun dress up gear (well fun for us - and great for photo ops.). We also ran into Simon's friend Trevor while we were there. We spent a good three hours running around and Simon was enthralled the whole time. We will definitely be looking into a family membership to keep Simon entertained throughout the winter.