Sugar Shack and Soaking up the Sunshine

Last year's adventure to the sugar shack was a chilly affair. We were all bundled up beyond belief and it was way too cold for the sap to be flowing. This year was quite the opposite, with it being a bit too warm for ideal conditions. But it did allow for us to enjoy a few of the other things that the sugar shack had to offer.

After the third installation of the car seat, we were on our way to pick up Grandma and Poppa to join us for pancakes and lots of sugar. They were our secret decoys to keep Simon entertained in the car which they managed to do with an assortment of books and Poppa's fish hat. We got to our destination a few minutes after its' opening and as a result managed to avoid much of the crowds - 20 minutes after we got there, the line-up ran out the door and seating was a bit more scarce. Simon enjoyed having a maple syrup dip and managed to coat most of his front which was quite the feat considering he only ate about 4 bites of pancake and a sausage - mental note for next year, do not sit in the window overlooking the playground!

Once breakfast festivities were over, it was off to said playground to check out "Dan" (the tractor), the see-saw, the slide and the shovels. It took a while but Simon braved the crowds of pushy kids and made his way round the playground, only breaking to run out front to check out "Jasper" the dog (a well mannered installation who had parked himself in the sun on top of a picnic table). After a few trips between the playground and the dog, we picked up taffy on the snow and then decided to take one of the trails around to see what this maple syrup stuff was all able. Simon was not his typical slow self and had us through the trail in less than the recommended 15 minutes - obviously they were not measuring on toddler hyped up on sugar time!

After 20 minutes of running up and down a hill (and taking a few head first tumbles), a few more trips down the slide, a trip to the gift store to buy maple flavoured cotton candy (the main reason for our trip and was almost not possible because of a mix-up with cleaning the machine) petting the horses and of course the dog, it was time to head out. Simon was noticeable grimy and tired and happy to have spent the morning outside leading his Poppa here there and everywhere.

Simon almost passed out in the car on the way home but soon discovered that it was funnier to pretend to sleep. After dropping off Poppa and Grandma, we spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon outside, eating lunch, raking the grass, rediscovering outdoor toys until naptime. It is so nice to be able to enjoy the outdoors again.

Farewell to Oxford and Olive

I can still remember seeing Oxford and Olive for the first time at the Carlingwood Shopping Centre and racing home to tell Mum and Dad about them. Once they saw them, they were sold. Oxford with his giant paws and crooked tail and Olive already showing signs of being a hyper dog. Back in those days, both of them could fit on your lap and lap dogs they would remain. Both Olive and Oxford had been having eye issues over the past few years and numerous laser eye surgeries couldn't prevent eventual blindness. Both were also suffering from various other health issues and old age and it was a hard decision I'm sure for my parents to choose quality over quantity of life.

You could always count on Oxford and Olive to provide an exuberant greeting at Mum and Dad's and it was sad to go over today to a quiet house. They lived a charmed life and definitely lucked out to be adopted into the Barker family and we will miss them dearly.

"Cweam Back" and "Up", two of Simon's latest requests

For some reason, Simon is no longer content to read his books in the family room. Instead, he'll gather up a pile and teeter over with them you with a request to go "up". Up being, the bed in our spare bedroom. This allows him to do two of his favourite things at once, read and jump. We're thinking this is a blessing since we're about to move Simon into a big bed so this could help the transition as we can go upstairs to read in his new bed.

Simon's second frequently used statement, "cweam back". Simon is obsessed with getting slathered up with cream and will request having cream put on his back every chance he can. This morning he sat for a 10 minute back rub after his bath and then demanded more "cweam" at bedtime, this time on his back and then his legs. I'm sensing this is going to be bedtime stall tactic but considering the amount of excema on both his back and legs, it's probably a blessing that he's willing to sit still for us.

Simon's Two Year Check-Up

Simon has his appointment for his two-year check-up today. Seeing as he was born during March break which his pediatrician always takes off, we're always a week behind for his yearly appointments. Aside from having to manage a dirty diaper right as we arrived at the appointment, everything went smoothly. Simon is growing well and is around 29lbs. and 34 inches. The doctor gave us the okay to stop with homogenized milk and switch to skim on account of Simon being a little bit more on the round side than the tall side! Simon was super well behaved and the doctor commented that it's rare to have such an easy two-year old exam. Much to my surprise, there are no vaccinations between 18 months and 4 years so no tears for awhile. And the real good news is that the pediatrician has no problem with adding on Simon's new little brother when he arrives. Having a pediatrician for a healthy child is quite the coup around these parts so we're glad to be lucky enough to have one for both our boys.

Simon @ 2 Years

It's been a while since I've done a summary of Simon's achievements. At two years of age, Simon:
-has a crazy big vocabularly that is expanding by the minute. He repeats absolutely everything which means that Matt and I have to be careful with our words now. I accidently shouted idiot the other day while driving, and Simon was gleefully repeating it for about 10 minutes in the back seat.
-is speaking in 2-3 word sentences. His favourties, "_____, where are you?" and "______, I can see you".
-loves playing with other kids, particularly his cousins and his daycare buddies.
-provides a running commentary of everything he sees, the colour, the texture, what it's doing.
-loves to play hockey with Daddy, Poppa and Granddad. I sometimes get to play but only as a temporary fill-in for Daddy.
-is fiercely independent. He wants to put on his on shoes, brush his teeth, pull the wagon, etc.
-is a whiz with electronics. He has figured out capabilities of our alarm clock that we never knew existed.
-is a slight television addict. We never used to let him watch much but with my pregnancy fatigue and Matt's year end workload, Simon has been watching too much. His favourties are Elmo, Baby Einstein, Fraggle Rock, Thomas the Tank Engine, Jane and the Dragon and Max and Ruby.
-loves to sing along. His favourite tunes, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "ABCs" and "Little Green Frog"
-is all about negotiation.
-still loves to read. Between his Grandparents and Us, we probably have a library of a few hundred books that he loves to read. His favourites, "The Dragon Book", "Max and Ruby", anything by Sandra Boynton, Brown Bear, and Richard Scary. We read so much that Simon loves to fill in the words he knows while you're reading to him.
-You love Doritos. We only bring them out periodically - usually as a negotiation tactic for haircuts!
-You are a pretty decent sleeper (not as good as before when you were sleeping until almost 9am some days) but you usually go from about 7pm until 7am, with a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon.
-still drinks two bottles of milk a day. We tried to get him to give it up but he decided that if he couldn't drink milk out of a bottle, he wouldn't drink milk period so we caved.
-is a really good eater most days. Vegetables are still hit and miss, but he's pretty good at eating must everything else.
-can run, jump, walk up and down the stairs, kick and throw a ball, and can use a fork and spoon
-is such a sweet boy with an easy routine

2nd Birthday Party!

For Simon's second birthday, we decided to keep the celebration down to just family. Simon woke up abnormally early and we thought we might have a cranky birthday boy on our hands but thankfully he treated us to a rare morning nap so we could have a happy boy and a chance to prepare for the brunch without a toddler underfoot.

Simon was in his element as soon as his guests started to arrive. Simon is all about being the centre of attention and made his rounds through the crowd enjoying his special position of birthday boy. We had practiced singing happy birthday and his age before people came so he wowed the family with his newfound knowledge.

After breakfast (or for Simon a feast of breakfast sausages) we settled in to open up the gifts. Simon didn't really understand the concept of gift certificates or cards which we had requested to put towards a trampoline. But he obligingly opened them and gave out thank-you hugs. Hopefully all of his aunts and uncles will realize how much he appreciated them when they see him jumping on his new trampoline this summer.

After a scary 10 minutes watching three kids five and under hit a pinata with hockey sticks, we figured out that there was actually strings to pull for easy opening! Simon immediately made a grab for as many of the jelly balls as he could and Matt and John cleaned up the remaining punch-balloons and had a little fun of their own. Ice cream cake topped off the morning feast. Simon is much more informed of the benefits of cake than he was for his first birthday and quickly polished off his piece and asked for seconds. It was the perfect celebration for his second birthday - it's hard to believe how quickly the time has passed.

Baby Boy #2 - The Latest

Well he's kicking up a storm, and I'm still sick and exhausted 24/7 but this time round, I don't feel pregnant. Possibly because I can't check out quite like a did the first time round. Simon still likes to eat dinner and play in the evenings and is not interested in my desired weeknight of sleeping and eating white toast.

Even though we don't really need to accumulate anything else for this little guy (aside from a new play pen - thanks to Gus chewing a hole in our first one and Simon enlarging it to the point where he could get his head through) and a car seat, we still have lots to do to get ready. Simon needs to move bedrooms, and in order to do this we have to paint the new room and pick up some fun accessories to make it desirable to him. We have most of the bones, it's just a matter of finding time to put it all together. Time is a luxury these days too with Matt working overtime throughout March and April for year-end. Seeing as I'm pretty useless when it comes to painting and moving heavy furniture, I'm am stuck in a waiting pattern.

My last appointment for this guy showed that I have low-lying placenta so if a repeat ultrasound in 8-10 weeks doesn't show any changes, a c-section may be a real possibility. I'm trying to put it out of my mind because my doctor didn't seem too concerned so it's a bit of a waiting game for the next 2 months. My plan to postpone my gloucose test until the last minute was also nixed due to my history of big babies so I'll be enduring that in the next two weeks. Here's to hoping this little guy is a bit on the smaller side.

Counting from 1 to 13 almost

Simon is all about counting these days. He counts the stairs as he goes up, he counts his blankets in his crib in the morning (he's all about multiples these days - today he had four!), he counts buses that go by, and just plain old counting for the sake of counting.

He can almost go from 1 to 13 - 1...2...3...6...7...8...9...10...11...12...13. He seems to have something against 4 and 5 though. He knows they exist because he counts along with us and says them but he never includes them when he is counting independently.

Finishing the Basement

Another house, another basement to finish. We started off last year by purchasing the drywall, beginnings of framing supplies and electrical wire. The only progress we made to date was moving all of this stuff from the garage to the basement. That was a project in itself as 100 sheets of drywall is quite challenging to move (I wouldn't know myself but just thinking about the number of trips up and down the stairs is tiring let alone managing 8x10 sheets of drywall).

This weekend, we finally had cleared enough space in the basement to begin working. A few hours later and we had almost two main walls framed and a plan of attack for the remainder of the basement. It's definitely slow going but it will be well worth it for the additional 900 square feet when we're done - no more giant primary coloured toys in my main living area! Hopefully we have it done before baby #2 comes in July because I can't imagine getting much of a chance to do it after that.

Happy Too Too You

We starting working on the concept of age in light of Simon's upcoming birthday. He will occasionally humour us and say that he is going to be two but it's still pretty inconsistent. We also thought it would be a useful life skill to teach him how to sing "Happy Birthday". Even though he has no issues with saying Happy Birthday when it comes out in song, it's a totally Simonized version.

"Happy too too you,
Happy too too you,
Happy too too Mimon,
Happy too too Mimon"

It is too cute. It's times like these that make me wish I had a video camera.

The Animals at the Farm

Simon is all about animals. He has long been able to imitate all of the farm animals and loves to curl up next to you to look at animal pictures on the internet so we thought it would be fun to head down to the Canadian Agriculture Museum at the Experimental farm to check out the farm animals. Simon was totally psyched and talked about the farm and animals the whole car ride (mental note - do not tell Simon where we're going in advance). When we got there we made a quick decision to get a family membership for $65 which entitles us to entrance into three local museums for the year. We already have one membership to two other museums and Simon loves it so we figured it would be money well spent. It turns out we were right. Simon spent about an hour going round and round and round again to check out the pigs, donkeys, sheep (or sheeps as Simon calls them), horses, goats and rabbits. We went around so many times that he could identify most of the animals not only by type but also by given name. The smell was almost unbearable for this pregnant woman but Simon was so happy in there that I sucked it up. After visiting a few of the horses outside, we went onto the cattle shed. Simon loved seeing the cows up close and was very good about obeying the signs which said no touching. He loved watching the cows eat and those that weren't eating he would get down to their level and scream "eat". Perhaps this technique would work for us for dinner time?? The cow shed also housed about a dozen calves which you were allowed to touch and surprisingly Simon did. Last year at the petting farm he was terrified of the animals and preferred to stay in the distance but judging from this experience, it will be different this year. One more round the animal barn and we headed home. It was a great way to spend the morning and I'm sure we'll be back throughout the spring to see more of the baby animals and in the summer time there is an awesome park and picnic area.