Friday, June 11, 2010

Rained out at the game

A thunderstorm hit during one of Matt's softball games. Eventually Rylee, Max and Sara took shelter.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

from Waaay back when..... Halloween

Halloween 2009 was great. Max was Buzz Lightyear and Sam was an astronaut. Both of them were candy monsters and couldn't believe that they would get more and more at every moment.






We went to the Trunk or treat at church on the Friday. Our friends the Weinbergers came with us - Lucas was a fireman and Parker was a doctor. Matt and I were H1N1. Matt was H1 and I was N1. We were all in black with our signs around our neck and we carried a huge bottle of hand sanitizer and some tissues. Unfortunately we forgot to get a picture








On Saturday (Haloween proper) Rylee came over as a "spider princess", Tannen was a lion, Parker was a cow and Lucas a giraffe.


We got out just in time for sun set







Pre trick or treating festivities - carving the pumpkin


















The bigger (and meaner) Buzz Lightyear. We have video of him telling max in a confontational voice how he is bigger and has bigger wings. Then the bigger Buzz started crying because he realized he didn't have a hood that came over his head.




The loot



Monday, February 22, 2010

Sam's latest words

Suddenly Sam is a talking machine - in the last week or so he has started to say all kinds of things and will try to copy most things you ask him to say. Some of his words are as follows

please (beeese or peeese, accompanied by a head tilt to the right), more, cookie, go, go, go, hippo (pipphu), apple (abo), Bye-bye or Bah- Bye, a bite (my favourite as he says it so cute), bubble, stop it, good job, sprinkles and now he says Ginko too (what has become a family expression of frustration, started by Max)

Spiderman pays back



















I have already mentioned how our neighbour Drew gave Max his old spiderman suit and how it became the bain of our existance. Every waking second Max wanted to wear it. We had a really hard time getting it in to the washing machine or off him to leave the house or go to bed. For a while we would let him wear it under his clothes when we went out just to avoid the fight. The problem was that he would end up stripping off his clothes while we were out to reveal his suit. By this time his suit was laddered and worn terribly and had huge holes in it. One day Matt met us at Chick-fil-A where Max was climbing around in the play place in his spiderman. He was terribly embarrased and declared the end of wearing it out of the house. From then on he could only wear it at home. Spiderman suit was the root of many an argument and tantrum and on many occasion Matt threatened to throw it away altogether.

On another, but related, subject Max had shown signs of potty training for a long time. Since the summer he would sit on the toilet and go "wee" as we call it. The problem was he would never ask to go so if we forgot to ask him he would go in his pants. It was very frustrating so we just let him stay in nappies until he would start asking because we didn't want to make too big of a deal about it.

Over Christmas break Matt had an idea. Max knew that if he peed in his spiderman suit it would have to be washed. He hated waiting a day for his suit to be ready again. So Matt started making Max wear his big boy underwear when he wore spiderman. Magically he started asking to go wee when he needed to. He hardly ever had an accident in spiderman but at first would pee when he got changed back in to his clothes. Soon he started to ask to go even when he was in clothes. Then he was potty trained and did great when he was out and about too. We didn't even have to buy the expensive pull-up pants. Well done Max - and thank you spiderman suit.

And as a bonus, Max doesn't even wear spiderman all that much anymore.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

funny things said in 2009

This entry for Sam will be very short as he still sees little need for verbal communication. He gets a lot of what he wants in other ways - usually by brute force. He does however, with some consistency, say hot dog (go.gog), candle ("ca. ca." followed by blowing) and mummy (muu-meeeeeeeeee). He also says"Blaaah" at the end of the little green frog song. Matt swears he said brownie but I didn't hear that one. His favourite little phrase which he says over and over is "oggi, oggi, oggi." He's a funny little guy.


Max is always saying funny things that make us laugh. Occasionally I remember to jot them down on a little pad on the fridge so that I remember them. Here are a few from the last several months.

Max's pronouncation is now pretty good but he used to have a few words that he said completely different from the actual word. One that I have mentioned before was "wawa" for screwdriver. Another which persisted for quite a while is "penkint" which meant blanket. It's funny how you start to use their words too which is probably why they persist. Another one which we still use is "fric fray" which means Chick-fil-A. When we would leave somewhere he would wave and say "bye, tee you waiter" instead of see you later.

He also had his own expressions which were a mystery to us. When he would get frustrated, he would shake his head and say "ginko, ginko, ginko." One day when I was frustrated with him I said "ginko, ginko, ginko." He stopped, looked right at me and shouted "NO GINKO." I guess it really has meaning to him as a word.

It's also funny how kids hear things that you read and get different meanings from the words. Max loves the book "the very hungry caterpillar" and always laughs at the page where he eats lots of junk food all in one day and then gets a "stomach ache". One day he opened the book and giggling pointed to the big piece of chocolate cake and said "look, a stuma cake."


For the first 2 years of life Max would not watch more than 30 seconds of TV at one time. The first programme he started to watch was "back at the barnyard" which he called "cows." Then, for a long time all he wanted to watch was "Mickey Mouse Club House." During this phase I was trying to get him to ask politely for something by saying please so I asked him "what is the magic word?" He immidiately reponded "Meeska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse" and looked expectantly. Lately Max's viewing has expanded and some of his favourites are Super Why, Little Einsteins and Dinosaur Train. He also loves the movies Finding Nemo, Toy Story, 101 Damations, Cars, The Grinch and Disney Prep and Landing.


One day Max was playing with Sam and out of the blue called him a "stinkin' Dolphin" - and he said it with such distain. I couldn't work out what he meant by this but then we realised that it is what the shark on Finding Nemo says when expressing his dislike of the dolphins. It's amazing what they pick up.

One time I was in the kitchen and I heard heard Max shout "time out, two minutes" and run to the time out chair. I asked him what he had done and he answered "I hit Sammy." I'm sad to say that this self discipline incident was just a one-off occurence. In fact he has started to blame others for things sometimes. One time I asked him why something was broken and he immidiately replied "Richard did it"


Sometimes when Max spills something or makes a mess I tell him that it makes mummy sad when he does that. Then when he or I have cleaned it up he will say "you not sad anymore" and one time he said "are you so happy now?"

I heard him playing with his cars one day and he said "I have a flat wheel (not tire but wheel), can Daddy fix it? No, not a screwdriver, a saw...........a tablesaw."


Another time he was playing with Rylee-
Max: I'm a big boy
Rylee: I'm a big girl
Max: That's Sarah(pointing to me), she's a big mom.

A while ago we went to visit Max's friend Jonathan who has cool dress up clothes. Max wore a muscle chest spiderman suit ALL DAY long and cried terribly when he had to take it off to leave. A couple of weeks later we were sitting together on the couch when he put his face right up to mine and said "remember when we went to Jonathan's house?............I turned in to Peter Parker"
Sometimes Matt and Max butt heads (imagine that). I will often hear Max defiantly stating "I say no to you Daddy" and once heard "I spit at you Daddy." I couldn't help but chuckle to myself but obviously Matt was not too happy. Sometimes during their tiffs he will say "go back to school Daddy". For the most part they are best buddies and fix things together and snuggle while they watch TV.


The first time it snowed this year I went in to Max's room in the morning and showed him the snow out of the window-

Max: What happened?
mum: It snowed
Max: That's not snow, it's just bird poo.


The first time I asked Max what he would like Santa to bring him for Christmas he said a motorbike and some candles!


One day I came down after getting ready for church he looked at me-

Max: (pointing to my necklace -I never wear jewellery) what is that, balls, beads?
mum: it's a necklace, do you like it?
Max: yes. What's that (pointing to my net tights)
mum: they're tights
Max: (looking very impressed) I wuv tights

Within seconds Sam had spotted the beads and almost choked me with my necklace so I took it off. I still never wear jewellery.


Max is amazing with names. At church he will point to people and say "there's ....." and get their name right.
Our pediatrician (who is a great doctor if you are looking for one) is Dr. Gary Weinberger. Last time we were at the office Max told the nurse "Weinberger is my friend." I have become friends with his wife and our boys have play dates. One time we were over at their house in the kitchen and Max looked up at Dr. Weinberger and, nodding with approval, said "that's a big old fire place Gary." Dr. W looked at me rather shocked and said "did he just call me Gary?"

I can't wait to see what they both say in 2010

Monday, December 28, 2009

What do you take to bed?

Max waking up


Q:what does he have in bed with him?
A: two screwdrivers
for about three months Max refused to go to sleep without his screwdrivers. We tried to give him toy ones but they would not suffice. Thankfully the phase is passing and he hasn't yet impaled himself in the night.


We love destroying the kitchen

Sam and Spiderman in the kitchen cupboard. Our neighbour Drew (mentioned in the previous post gave Max his old Spiderman suit. Ever since Max has worn it at every possible moment. I am writing this in December even though the pictures are from October. EVERY day - no exaggeration, Max asks to wear the suit. He waits for the dryer to finish and shouts "Dryer done, Spiderman all clean". I'm going to dedicate a post to the Spiderman mania some other time. Back to the kitch saga. Every bottom cupboard in the kitchen is now empty . I thought Max was terrible at getting in to things in the kitchen but I had no idea how much worse it could get. Sam has broken so many things by unloading the diswasher or a cupboard and throwing things on to the tile floor. What he can't brake he pushes around making loud and terrible noises. Of course they can both break in to the child locks we have so they do no good. Consequently, the cupboards are now empty and are referred to in our house as "Space ships". There may be those who say "why doesn't she discipline Sam so that he won't do it any more. To them I say "please come and try"



snacking in one of the spaceships, just before it got emptied.


No wonder our drawer handles are loose


One of the many messes that result when I sneak off for a few minutes to get something done.