family updates

This'll be an update sort 'o blog, so I'll just start with Hendrik, since he's 2 1/2 today!

This kid loves playing with cars. And he likes cake and ice cream and caves and books and everything that has anything to do with construction sites. Pointing out diggers and excavators has increased everyone's awareness of vehicles of all sorts, and I have to admit that I have never been more excited about an oversized vehicle than when, the other day, we saw a knuckleboom loader, in action. I had to laugh at myself a little bit but whatever... it was kind of cool. We're trying to teach him a bit of french, since we've been wondering whether or not we should all be taking advantage of this opportunity, living in Quebec (albeit temporarily), to learn francais. He can count from 1-5, say "comment ca-va?" and respond ("ca va bien!"), and we're working on the quel age as-tu? He can also count from 1-5 in Chinese and Italian, and I often ask him if he understood in Italiano ("hai capito?"), and it's the cutest thing when he responds - "si mama, ho capito"; I must get all of this on film. Hendrik also loves pretend play, and takes on the same, high-pitched voice regardless of whether he's a fish or a frog or a flamingo... it is tres cute. Potty training has been a bit more successful since I last posted - for each potty chart he finishes he gets a Hot Wheels... so that's a pretty good motivator. I'm sure there's more (like how he asks me, "mommy, are you a kitchen worker?"), but I have more people to write about before my time runs out here....

almost nine months!

Alana! Alans. She's sleeping much better than she was a few weeks ago - no more night wake-ups! Or, at least, no more night feeding sessions. Some nights she'll fuss a bit, but usually settles herself down within 10-15 minutes (yay!). She has that baby radar for things she's not supposed to get into - Hendrik's cars, outlets, vents, anything with small parts, anything remotely not-for-baby. She likes her food, and likes feeding herself; most of her meals are pieces of chopped-up whatever-we're-eating, and like I said, she feeds herself. We're still in the trial and error stage (so to speak), where we'll feed her a new food and just wait and see if there are any adverse reactions - and so far so good. She gobbled down Halibut Florentine the other night (one of my go-to dinners), and ate salmon and broccoli tonight. And why she loves doing this I can't say, but she'll squish her food up in her hands and then rub it on her ears and in her hair behind her ears... ugh! And of course she hates it when I try to clean it off afterwards. Not a big deal at dinner, since a bath follows close behind, but breakfast and lunch.... I definitely notice dried chunks of food, earring style, stuck to (or in) her ears now and then, especially when we're out in public. She's getting more and more into books, and turns the pages of her before-bed reads - my go-tos are Goodnight Moon, Eric Carle's Polar Bear one, A Book of Sleep and Ten Little Fingers. I need to rotate a few more in there to mix things up... those have been on repeat for a week or two. She can get up on all fours, but is still doing the commando crawl thing... but man, she's fast. I zip down the hall to do something and then just see two little legs poking out of the bathroom - she likes the dots on Hendrik's Ikea stool that sits at the sink. And (this is funny), since Hendrik sees me scoop her up and peel her out of the bathroom (I'm somewhat afraid of finding her with her mouth all over Hendrik's potty), the other day he took matters into his own hands and dragged her out of there, one arm to one leg... it was fu-nny (she didn't seem to mind). She makes constant noise when she eats, but otherwise doesn't babble too too much, and mmmm there might be more BUT .... mmmm... yeah. Onwards!

I ran as Jeffrey Carrier. I got a medal!

Me. I ran a 10km the other day! I mean, a race! It was my first one and it was as last minute as decisions come. I bought the pinney off of Kijiji at 2:30 (from someone just down the street) - the race started at 6:30. And how's this for timing: I fed Alana at 5:15 and then left the house, ran the race in just under 55 minutes, and was back in time to feed her at 8:00, just before bed. Kapow! I pretty much ran through the finish line, walked to the car, drove home and walked in the door to feed baby. Like I said, it was my first race, and it was really neat to be a part of an event that involved more than 10,000 people. I have that half marathon in mind too, which is at the end of August. Yikes, I'll have to amp up my training at some point and get in some longer runs. But as long as my body holds up (knees), it should all be enjoyable! What else - I have a few crafty crafterson projects that I want to get to and finish - updating (sparsely) Hendrik's baby book, doing Alana's, putting together an Italy frame (pictures and maps from last year in Vela/Trento), and doing the photo book thing (as seen on Young House Love). I also found a job I want (this one), a blog I'm in love with (I'm obsessed with children's books) and currently have a bazillion tabs open in a bazillion windows. Not much new there.....

young Steve, circa 1999

Steve... is knee deep in volleyball. He's been training like crazy in preparation for this weekend's World League matches up in Quebec City - they play the Netherlands on Friday at 7pm and then again on Saturday at 4pm, and both games are live on Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific (National), so tune in if you want to catch the best of the best. Because this paragraph is so short I just asked Steve if there are any other updates he has, other than life-dominated-by-volleyball, and he flexed his bicep (I rolled my eyes), and said, "Playin' volleyball, feelin' young." So that's pretty good, right?

And that's a wrap! Life is good......