From there to here, from here to there, Funny things are everywhere
This is what happens at the intersection of “Oh crap, I need to take a photo today!” and “Oh crap, how am I ever going to get enough people to vote to send me to BlogHer?”
How could you deny this cutie? If you haven’t already, pleasevote for me!!!!
A couple of months back, when Marla was visiting with Josie, she made an observation that I’ve since quoted many times, usually to much laughter. She took one look at Lucas and exclaimed, “It’s like Tristan and Simon had a baby!”
It’s true, Lucas is a rather perfect blend of his two older brothers. Beloved has said that he should have been the middle child, so nicely does he bridge the gap between my tall, fair, freckled son with eyes the colour of a stormy ocean and my solid, cheeky, olive-complected son with eyes the colour of melted chocolate. He has Simon’s dark eyes (or should I credit Beloved with those?) and fleshy cheeks with Tristan’s fairness and lankiness. He is, of course, his own man.
I tried making a nice triptych of these in Photoshop, but quickly lost patience. (Why is it I can never get that program to do what I want it to do instead of what I tell it to do — it’s worse than the boys!) This way works well enough.
My babies, age one:
(We got a lot of mileage out of that high chair, that’s for sure!)
True to their personalities, Lucas and Tristan both look thoughtful, perhaps even pensive, and Simon is hamming it up for the camera.
How lucky am I?
My darling baby Lucas,
Has it only been a year you have been in our lives? Has it already been a year? How can both of those things seem so surprising at the same time?
You, my third son, my beautiful baby boy, are one year old today. I don’t have the words to tell you how much you are loved, and how much love you have given to us in just one short year.
Lucas, you are a delightful baby. You find new ways to charm me, and new ways to vex me, every single day. You are not quite walking yet, although I’m sure you could if you just let yourself try. You crawl at the speed of light, though, and you cruise the furniture while making delighted little caws of accomplishment. “Look at me go!” your bright face and happy chirps are clearly saying.
And go you do. We call you a menace, several times a day, because you do not miss a single opportunity to find mischief. With a hundred toys to choose from, you’ll find the one with the not-baby-safe parts and then refuse to give it up without a fight. With an entire house to play in, you have an impeccable sense of when a door is left open, a baby gate ajar, a cup of coffee momentarily abandoned within your reach.
Speaking of coffee, one of your cutest little “tricks” at this age has come very close to making me spew many mouthsful of coffee down my shirt, but I’ve finally come to anticipate it and not snort with laughter every time you do it. Some time in the last month, you took to letting out a satisfied, “Ahhhhh” every time you saw me take a deep drink from my cup of coffee. Given the amount of coffee I’ve drank lately, you’ve had plenty of time to hone this particular trick! Clever thing that you are, as soon as you realized it made us laugh, you took to smacking out the same satisfied “Ahhhh!” any time anybody takes a drink of anything in your presence. It’s such an odd little trick, but endlessly entertaining to your entire family!
You are an impressive mimic. For months now, you have delighted us with your babbling, which sound uncannily like real words. When we sing “your song”, which is a play on BNL’s “La la la Lemon” that goes “La la la Lukey-fish” you love to join in on the la-la-la chorus. You also happily sing along to your other song, Great Big Sea’s Lukey. We can often coerce you out of a foul mood with a few bellowed verses of either song, and when you sing along with us it simply melts my heart.
You have an impressive set of lungs, too, and have learned that nothing will get you what you want quicker than an ear-splitting screech. Your favourite time to employ this tactic, aside from when we are sitting down to dinner and there is the possibility that you may soon not have an adequate supply of food in front of you, is when we are in a public place that calls for a certain amount of vocal restraint. Passers-by still seem to find you uncommonly adorable, though, and you’ve had more than your share of cooing strangers everywhere we go.
Once upon a time, you slept like a dream at night. We’ve dropped that particular thread in the past few months, but you seem to have traded excellent nighttime sleep for more reasonable daytime naps. I’m still not sure I’m happy with this trade! In the last month or so you so completely wore me down that I’ve now capitulated entirely to your will, and it’s a rare night that you don’t spend at least a couple of hours sleeping in my bed with me. With you, my third child, I’ve finally realized that it’s okay for principles to melt run like spring runoff in the face of sleep deprivation.
At the age of one, you are easily delighted. Finding a brother taking a bath seems to be particularly delightful, based on your happy chirps. Having a brother pay any sort of playful attention to you at all is another daily delight, as is playing tickle and tumble with Daddy or me. You love the “One Baby” series of books, to make “vroom” noises while pushing toy trucks, and the mouse on the computer that you aren’t supposed to touch.
I could go on for hours, my sweet baby Lucas, listing the ways in which you bring love and laughter and joy into our lives. Not to mention a few more grey hairs and wrinkles than I had this time last year! But let me finish with this simple wish: may your whole life be filled with the same delightful charm and exhuberance that is you at the age of one. Happy Birthday, my love!
When all else fails, upload videos of your children in all their adorable cuteness:
Hard to believe he’ll be a whole year old next week!
I spent a good chunk of yesterday playing on the computer, thinking about new themes and layouts and whatnot for the blog (what *is* it about January?) and updating to the latest version of WordPress (ack! Change!!) I hate that I have nothing to show for it, aside from no longer being able to comfortably navigate my own dashboard. Sheesh, usually a couple hours online gets me at least a post or two!
So, in lieu of a real post, I invite you to admire these pictures of Tristan and Simon enjoying the toboggans Granny and Papa Lou gave them for Christmas. Bonus: you can admire the nice pix courtesy of my new Fuji FinepixS2000. It’s no dSLR, but it captures some nice moments, no?
Of course, there’s more on Flickr!
The boys are engaged in an ongoing battle of one-upmanship. Whatever one can do, the other can do better.
A snippet of conversation from today:
Tristan: “Yeah, well, I know more Pokémon characters than you do!”
Simon: “No you don’t!”
Tristan: “Yes I do!”
**fast forward through six rounds of “No you don’t!”/”Yes I do!”**
Simon: “I’ve been watching Pokémon longer than you!”
Tristan: “No you haven’t. I’m older, I’ve been watching Pokémon longer than you!”
Simon: “No you haven’t. I’ve been watching Pokémon since I was in mommy’s belly!”
Beloved, after the laughter of grownups subsides: “Sheesh, you didn’t tell me you had cable in there. No wonder they were all so reluctant to come out!”
It seemed like a simple enough idea at the time. (Doesn’t it always?) Pictures with Santa. We do it every year, and I love my little collection of photos of Santa and the boys through the years. We usually just zip over to our local Loblaws, who just happens to have the most authentic Santa in town AND no line-ups, and we’re in and out in 20 minutes. It was a little more challenging with Tristan in school full time this year, and with no Santa at Loblaws this year, but a PD day last Friday gave us the perfect opportunity. A mom-in-the-know tipped us off to a deal at Carlingwood Mall: free pix with Santa if you buy a $25 gift card. Free? You know I likes me some free, and the kids likes them some Santa. A perfect day’s outing.
We arrived at Carlingwood about an hour before lunch, and headed straight for Santa’s big chair. And that’s where things started to go awry. Santa was a girl. Santa was a shapely girl with long, brown hair. Santa was wearing a crown and wings and a blue taffeta dress. Santa was — horror of horrors — sharing his big velvet chair with the Fairy Princess. WTF???
Memo to Carlingwood management: While I’m sure there are a goodly number of boys who might have been entranced by the Fairy Princess, there are a few — mine included — who were crushed by the weight of their unfulfilled expectations. Set up the Fairy Princess display in July, wouldja, and leave December for His Jollyness.
I gave the boys a choice: stay at Carlingwood for lunch and browsing as planned, and we’ll make a special trip another day to see Santa, or we’ll pack ourselves back into the car and give Santa another try at a different mall. I could read the answer on their faces before I even proposed the choice. Off we went to Bayshore, where Fairy Princesses are not welcome in December.
It’s a quick drive but a long hunt for parking on a PD day in the weeks before Christmas, but eventually we were out of the car and making a beeline for Santa’s workshop. There he was, in all his red jolly splendor, with at least half the population of Ottawa in line to see him. I took one look at the queue, which snaked entirely around Santa’s workshop and doubled back on itself, and convinced the boys that we’d go for lunch first and come back after, hoping against hope that the line would have receded by then.
Forty minutes later, and the line had, in fact, lengthened. We queued up, and I wandered over to the people at the front of the line, looking a little too much like the contestants on Survivor on day 38 — scruffy and malnourished, where you can see a little bit too much of their teeth — and asked one how long they had been standing in line. “Ten minutes short of two hours,” she growled without consulting her watch, and my heart sank.
I stepped back to the boys and tried to convince them that we’d come back another day. “It’s a very, very long line, guys,” I pleaded. “We don’t have to see Santa today. We can come back on Monday after school with Daddy, and we can all wait together. I promise!”
Tristan and Simon looked at each other placidly and said, “Nah, we’re good.” It was by now early afternoon. I knew Lucas would need a nap. The day already seemed endless, before even attempting to wait out this queue. The boys may have had it in them to wait it out, but I wasn’t sure I did. I tried, I really tried, to convince them to leave. Every two minutes for the first half hour or so, I rephrased the suggestion. “We can go to the toy store today! And look at the Webkinz AND the Lego! And even the pet store!!” This was my best shot, but they didn’t even nibble. Each time, I got the same response. “It’s okay Mom, we’re good.”
And you know what? They were. I don’t know whether it was the proximity to Santa that had them on their best behaviour or what, but we waited in that line for NINETY-FIVE minutes. Even Lucas was patient, sitting in his stroller and occasionally in my arms, looking around and watching the people and the decorations without any sort of fuss. We stood in that line for an hour and a half, and there was not one shenanigan, not a single hijinx, not even a shushed threat of Serious Consequence. No begging for bathroom breaks or drinks, and not even a “how much longer?” whine. Well, okay, not from the boys, anyway.
It was worth it, don’t you think?
We were in the dollar store the other day, and the boys fell in love with the display of little Christmas snow globes. I told them they could spend their own money to get one, if they wanted to, but then they wouldn’t be allowed to buy their weekly supply of Pokemon cards. I was secretly pleased when they each decided to buy themselves one. As they flipped them upside down and back again, I explained that the globes were glass and that they’d have to be extra careful in taking care of them. They were not a toy to play with, but a decoration to admire and handle carefully.
You can probably guess where this is heading.
We were in the van, not three blocks from the dollar store, when I heard the distinctive tinkly sound of breaking glass. Simon had forgotten his snow globe was in his lap and it shattered upon impact with the floor of the van, leaving a puddle of wet flakes of plastic snow and about three million slivers of very thin but very sharp glass.
We stopped at a gas station and vacuumed up the debris, and I shushed Tristan a few times as he made pointed observations along the lines of “It’s a good thing I didn’t drop my snow globe, eh Mom?” I could tell Simon was upset, and I knew that the globe had been dropped through inattention rather than carelessness. He was so forlornly disappointed that my heart ached for him. When we got home, I took Simon aside and promised him that the next time we went to the dollar store, I’d buy him a replacement.
Yesterday, we happened to be at the same plaza, so we made a special stop to buy a replacement snow globe for Simon. The cashier carefully wrapped it in paper and placed it in a bag, which Simon carried with all the careful reverence a four-year-old can muster. We talked on the way home about how snow globes are really more for looking than for touching, and that since we now know how fragile they are, we would be extra careful when touching this one.
Again, you can probably see where this is going.
I was nursing the baby this morning when the boys were getting dressed. I’d already issued two firm reminders to Simon to get moving, but he was dawdling. Suddenly, he came running into my room whispering, “I’m so so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry. So sorry, Mommy.” The genuine sincerity of his apologies would be a lot more endearing if I didn’t hear them several times a day lately. He’d tapped the two snow globes together to hear the noise, and shattered not his but Tristan’s snow globe, this time littering the floor between their beds with a puddle of plastic snow and three million shards of glass. AND, he was still in his pyjamas.
I was flummoxed as to what to do. I’ve been having a very hard time with Simon these days not listening to my instructions, especially with no-brainers like “Don’t touch.” (He almost burned his fingers on a boiling pot of Kraft Dinner the other day, even after I told him to be careful. It’s like living with a toddler all over again!) I’m not going to keep replacing the damn snow globes even at the affordable cost of a dollar, but I felt bad now that it was Tristan’s globe that had been broken through no fault of his own. In the end, Beloved came up with the idea of having Simon pay Tristan back out of his own allowance for the dollar spent on the snow globe.
I thought that since Lucas isn’t crawling yet, we’d be safe putting out the more delicate Christmas stuff this year — stuff we’ve had no problems with for the last year or two — but now I’m beginning to rethink that.
Four is a tough age, you know?
