Stains

Yesterday Craig and Shaun spent much of the morning raking leaves. While I'm grateful that Craig seems to take joy in looking after our property so well and Shaun really has fun helping his Daddy, Shaun was wearing a very nice white hoody sweater. I know, what was I thinking when I bought it?! I really have been quite diligent in making sure it gets washed right away and it's always been a non-play sweater so the cuffs have, surprisingly, remained really clean. That is, until yesterday. When Shaun came inside for lunch he commented that he was hot and wanted to take his hoody off. It was then that I saw his hands: they were BLACK from all the dirty leaves he had been picking up. His cuffs weren't much better off. I ran down to the laundry room right away to spray them and throw in a load of laundry. Late last night when the load was done I pulled out the sweater and while the stains were better, they weren't gone. I can't have him wearing such a nice sweater with grey sleeves so I sat down and used a toothbrush and more stain remover to scrub out the remaining stains then threw it in a rinse-only cycle. I am happy to say, upon examination this morning, that the stains are gone! And his sleeves have never been cleaner! Thank-you Shout!

Haircuts

With Craig being off this week on holidays, it's given us the opportunity to get a lot of things done that we otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Yesterday we took a drive to the dump to get rid of a bunch of construction materials that had been sitting in the garage from the basement reno. We spent a couple hours there watching the trucks drop off their loads. Today we headed to my in-laws for haircuts. My mother-in-law is a hairdresser and has a shop in their house. It's great that there's someone familiar to the boys to cut their hair. Shaun knows the drill by now and sits so nice all the time. He looks so handsome now! It was Ian's first haircut today and the only part that needed cutting was his fancy little mohawk. It's been around since the day he was born and many early pictures of him have the mohawk standing up straight off the top of his head. Today Leah chopped it all off. Ian sat really well on my lap while Shaun did a terrific job distracting him with various hairclips and combs.

Ian's also Suckie free now! We decided since no one had to work this week that this was The Week to take away the pacifier. I expected more of a fight out of him but other than taking a bit longer falling to sleep initially, that was it. He stayed sleeping, didn't fuss and complain in the middle of his nap or at night time, and woke up happy! I think too many people wait too long to take away the pacifier and by the time they get around to it, the child is talking and able to demand having it back. Plus it helps that Ian has a blankie he's in love with and also has Louie the monkey that Shaun bought for him when he was only a day old. Those guys seem to have made the transition easier. Add in that he was ONLY allowed to have the suckie at sleep times, and it all adds up to success!

Next step is to start him sleeping in the toddler bed at naptime. I think I'll wait until further along in November before doing that. I want him to be comfortable in there before the baby comes but he just started walking and hasn't completely figured out how to actually climb on to the bed yet. It's set up in his room and he sits on it occasionally when he and Shaun are playing or reading so he's quite familiar with it. Hopefully he's as easy-going about moving to a bed as Shaun was. Poor baby has to grow up so quickly!

Nonnie

Craig and I were saying to each other just the other day that it's odd that Ian hasn't come out with a version of 'Shaun' yet when he's speaking. We figure he has at least 30 words, or sounds that he regularly uses to represent the word, but nothing resembling 'Shaun'. Until Monday when Ian and I were waiting outside Shaun's school for him. I was encouraging Ian to call for Shaun and I was calling, "Shaun-ee-o," myself. And then, clear as day, out popped, "Nonnie". He called Nonnie over and over again and when Shaun's class finally filed out the door, Ian was ecstatic to see his big brother and his face lit up.

When Shaun was much younger, his cousins had various names for him: Baby Shaun, Bebe Con, Haun; I figured Ian's version would be something similar. I must say I think Nonnie is completely adorable!

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I recorded this video vertically and my camera isn't able to flip it around (honestly, I TRIED!) so I uploaded it to a photosharing website in hopes I could edit it there. Obviously, I couldn't. Anyway, this is video of Ian's first time walking. Seriously. He's been able to shuffle along for about a week but lacked the confidence to do any more than a few steps at a time before going back to crawling. Today, something just clicked in his head and he was trying it more and more on his own as the day progressed. I feel quite certain that he'll be primarily walking by the weekend.

My baby! Fourteen months old tomorrow and only just now beginning to walk. I never thought he'd take this long so I'm so happy he finally did it.



While I'm bragging about my baby boy I may as well write about some of the other completely amazing things he's been doing this week. He finally cut his first molar. He basically had one day last week where he was a little crusty and not really himself. I chalked it up to a minor cold that's been circulating our house. By Sunday I could feel it with my finger and by today he had discovered it and is chewing everything on that side of his mouth - I would assume because it's easier using one molar than no molars on the other side!

Ian's also been chatting up a storm and coming up with new words every single day. He can say:

• Mama
• Dada
• BooBoo (that's our fat cat's name)
• Kitty (titty)
• bird (teet, for tweet I guess)
• cat (mao, a meow obviously)
• dog (oo, oo, for the bark)
• fish (smacks his lips)
• dinosaur (roars)
• more (ma)
• up (pah)
• down (da)
• juice (sss)
• bath (bah)
• hot (h)

When Ian's looking at a book on his own, he'll hum to himself, almost as if he's actually pretending he's reading. The first time I watched him do it was over a month ago but I never really put together what he was doing. Now he'll head over to the book basket, flip through looking for a particular one (Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy is his favourite) and park his bum on the floor and hum as he turns the pages. He stops humming briefly while he carefully closes the book and then when he opens it back up to the first page, the humming begins again.

Shaun has been much more of an influence on Ian's playing than I ever though he would be. I know the dinosaur roar has come from Shaun and when Ian's pushing around a toy car he'll make car sounds. Shaun didn't do anything like that until he was much older, likely because he didn't have someone older than him showing him what to do. Ian has one particular bulldozer that will propel itself across the floor after you push it a couple times to crank it up. Ian plays with that bulldozer the most and makes engine sounds while he's playing. Even if he walks by a toy vehicle on the floor, often he will make an engine sound. Almost like he's acknowledging, "that's a car."

AND he feeds himself! With a spoon!! With only a minor mess!!! He actually gets MAD when we try to use the spoon or fork to feed him. The only way to convince him is to allow him to use his own spoon and then shovel a bite in here and there with a second spoon. That doesn't work for long though before he clues in and clamps his lips shut or reaches for the second spoon and demands we hand it over.

By far the very best thing he does these days is when we ask him where the baby is living. He right away comes over to me and points to my belly. If we ask him to kiss the baby, he kisses my belly. Of course, there's no way he actually understands that there's literally a BABY in there but it's cute nonetheless!

He's going to seem like such a Big Boy when the baby arrives at the end of the year.

27 Weeks Preggers

With all that's been going on here, I've been kept really busy and the blog has found it's way to the bottom of the priority list. Who would have thought that cooler weather meant even MORE laundry?! Long pants and socks and sweaters fill up a load a lot quicker than shorts and T-shirts.

The basement facelift is done; well, basically. It's more than functional and we've set back up all the toys and have been using the space. I'm still getting used to the echo since there's no carpet to absorb the sounds anymore but the space feels much bigger and bottom line, it's much cleaner without all the grungy wall to wall carpet. There is some door casing that needs to be put up since we couldn't find an exact match to the existing and some paint touchups need to be done where Craig removed the half wall but for all intents and purposes, it's done. Just in time, too, because we're hosting Thanksgiving on Saturday next weekend and we'll certainly be needing the space for the 14 people that will be here.

We zipped out to the local Farmer's Market this morning to order our turkey and buy some veggies. I don't make it to the market nearly as much as I'd like to. It's honestly pure laziness because shopping for all that produce at the grocery store costs more but is only 1 trip.

I was debating getting a 3D ultrasound in my mind for the past month or so. I really enjoyed being able to see Ian when we had the ultrasound and I treasure those photos. At the time I would have paid double for the experience, and told everyone so. But now that I'm at the point of making a similar decision again, I don't think I'll do the 3D scan. Not only because it's hundreds of dollars but in reality, I'm going to meet this new little man in only a few months. The time is going to fly so before I know it, he'll be here. Besides, there's still a few things that I need to pick up for him that will total hundreds of dollars anyway. I'm still trying to wrap my head around having a newborn in the dead of winter instead of the middle of a hot, humid summer. Warm clothes are at the top of my list!