The Ice Storm

I have heard about freezing rain and ice storms but I could never really picture what they would be like. Any way we got to experience a pretty good one about a month ago. It is very surreal to look outside and see every branch of a tree, every blade of grass and every car encased in half an inch of glass - that's just what it looked like. And every flat surface becomes an instand ice rink. I took Max outside to walk on the crystallized grass forgetting that we had to cross the patio. Not the wisest of outings.
When the roads were finally somewhat safe to venture out we went to look around. It was the most magestic thing I have over seen.

Many people were without power for over a week. Luckily we were only without power for one night.

photos that should have gone with the last post

The boys and their tools

Heaven on earth - Home Depot screw and bolt section

Oh, pleeeeeeeeeease let me go outside, I'm so miserable in here.

I'll only get a little bit dirty. (note the screwdriver, fly swatter and undone flies)

We didn't mean for this to happen



warming up (a different day)

brrr, it's chilly in Kentucky

February update

(Photographs are coming - I'm aware that Christmas is not even posted yet)

Sam and Max are becoming fast friends. Max, much to our relief and pleasure is a wonderful big brother. He spends much of his time dancing and chattering in front of Sam. Sam loves to watch Max play and gives him more smiles and giggles than anyone else - which suits Max perfectly. Sam is also showered with Max kisses throughout the day. Max is very interested in where Sam is at all times and gets very concerned if we ever go anywhere without him. He points to the spot where Sam's car seat should be and continually asks "Baby?"


Whenever Sam spits up or does something Max believes he shouldn't Max shouts "oooooh, baby" He is yet to call him Sam, it's always baby. here's a typical exchange
Mum: "Max, say Sam"
Max:"baby"
Mum: "no, Sam"
Max: "baby"
Mum: "no Max, say SAM"
Max: "tam"
Mum:"good, who is this?" (pointing at Sam)
Max:"baby"


Max's current obsession is tools. He watches Matt whenever he works with his tools and just loves it. Matt put up some racks in the kitchen about 3 weeks ago and every day he still points to them and says "daddy" or "too" for tools. When people come to visit he takes them to the kitchen to tell them about his dad's handy work. Because of his interest, and the fact that he hoarded any of Matt's tools that he left lying around, we bought him a small tool kit for Christmas. Though they weren't quite as fascinating as the real thing he still loved them. The problem was that he would collect all his tools together in his tool box and then ask "more, more?". For Valentine's day we got him a huge tool set with a working drill and saw - when he first saw it he squeeled with absolute disbelief and joy - I have never seen such an expression of pure delight. Now whenever we are planning on going out he grabs all the tools and starts stuffing them in to the daiper bag, knowing that we never leave the house without it.

Max likes Sam to be next to him when he is "fixing" things with his tools. He directs Sam by pointing to where he believes he should be. His favorite thing to do the last couple of days has been to fix the kitchen cabinets - he will do it for a long time which would be fabulous if he would fix the bottom cabinets, and leave me alone for a whole. However, he needs to stand on the counter and fix the upper ones. So, if we are feeling particularly tired of fighting Max's demands, Sam and I give in and stand dutifully watching Max while he shows us how to screw and hammer.

Max is going through that really trying stage when he will say the same word over and over and over until you respond to him. The worst one he does is "more". For those of you who are familiar with the seaguls in Finding Nemo, subtitute the high pitched "mine, mine, mine" for "more, more, more" and you've got it. The other problem is that he expects you to know what he wants more of, whether it be pickles or puzzle pieces but when you ask him what he wants more of he thinks you are asking him to use his manners before you will give it to him so he says please. Of course you are no closer to knowing what he wants and he is frustrated because he's being as polite as he knows how. The daily conversation goes much like this:

Max: "more, more, more, more"
Mum: "what Max?"
Max: "more, more, more" (getting closer and closer in your face as he says it - staring right in your eyes)
Mum: "more WHAT"
Max: "peeeeeeeeeeeeeeese

Another thing that Max frequently does is mix up syllables in his words

Sleeping is Peesin: "baby peesin, shhhhh" (as he puts his finger to his mouth)

Unfortunately his sippy cup is not sippy but "pissy"

One of his friends whose name is Gaby is called "Baggy"

Chips are "pich"

I know there are more but can't think of them right now.


More Max-to-English translations:

uf=dog, cuc = truck, goc=sock, rue=screw, wawa=screwdriver (which he says alost as frequently as more), wawa, Go?=where did the real screwdiver go? ( he says this while searching for Matt's screwdriver that we confiscated from him. He gets up in the morning and empties out all his tools on the floor, searches through them saying "wawa, wawa". When he can't find Matt's real one he goes looking under all the couches and then follows me around questioning "wawa, Go?". It makes me really sad and I used to give it back to him every day because I couldn't stand to see his sad confused face. Finally I've come to terms with the fact that his pleading face is not as heartbreaking as a pierced face would be if he fall on the wawa, or worse, fell on Sam.

Both boys had a cold and a bad cough a couple of weeks ago - it was so sad to hear Sam barking. We took them to the doctor and thankfully it was no more than a cold. At the appointment Max weighed in at 32 pounds and Sam at 21 - he wasn't even 5 months old. My poor back.
Sam is not close to crawling yet but he can get the whole length of the living room by rolling. It's quite the skill and gets him where he wants to be.

The winter is long and we are longing for the spring when Max can run and play outside without coming in with mud all over him and blue lips. We are also beside ourselves with excitement about our upcoming trip to England- or at least I am. My mum and dad treated us to plane tickets so the wee boys and I will be going for a month and Matt will be with us for the first 10 days.

A long entry for future times

Written in the middle of December, 2008 - I just didn't get aroumd to posting it until now:



Christmas is upon us and we haven't sent a single Christmas card, written a Christmas letter or taken a family Christmas photo to mail out. I had good intentions. Maybe next year.


I also had good intentions of writing a journal but haven't made a single entry since Sam's birth. I'm thinking the blog kind of counts as a journal so I'm going to write a few of those things that seem common place now but in a few year's I'll wish I could remember more clearly


We'll start with Max who is the life and soul of the Lassen party. I often say that the most joyful sound and the most dreaded sound in my life is Max's voice. There is nothing more wonderful than the sound of his highly contagious giggle, or the first time he says a word you didn't know he knew, or when he says please (peethse)thank you (co-cou)- and seems like he means it. On the other hand, there is nothing so fearsome as hearing that yell from upstairs when you were sure that nap time should not be over yet. Max is a force to be reckoned with at the best of times but if he wakes up early from a nap there's real trouble.


Max has a funny little vocabulary. He doesn't name off animals (though he does like to make animal noises) or names of people he knows. It consists mainly of things he is interested in us getting for him. He can say most of his favourite foods and drink- pickle, pepper, milk (meek), juice (oosh), ice, cookie, bacon, chocolate (coco), chips (cyip), candy, popcorn (co-con) and our favourite "millions" (miyons) - candy from England that are like mini Mentos. He also likes saurkraut but hasn't managed to say that yet. When we go to Costco he eats about two bites of his hot dog and the entire pot of saurkraut. He is also a huge fan of fizzy drinks. So you can see that our little guy has a strange and not overly nutritious taste. We have to hide any candy or pop from him or he won't stop asking for it. We now realize the wisdom in not letting kids try junk food so they won't realize what they're missing. We can't chew gum around him any more either as he continually asks for some. We try to sneak it in the car sometimes but he always catches us chewing and starts yelling at us.


Some of Max's other words are Richard (ichad), baby, (beebe or a-beebe), Santa (easily confusable with dada except for the fact that he is pointing out of the window to our neighbour's huge inflatable Santa), candle (cagguw - usually accompanied by a blowing sound), ball, ball, ball,
outside (eitze), shoes (ooesh - similar to juice), Max, computer (puta), hat (at), keys (eeys),


He is always coming out with things we didn't think he knew - last night he yelled over to us "stuck" - Matt went over to him to find that he actually was wedged between the toy basket and the couch. The toy basket is a loose term as it rarely contains toys - it could more accurately be termed a step stool as it is carried around as a means of getting to hard to reach places. As soon as Max sees we've cleaned up and put the toys away in his step stool he tips the whole thing over and drags the basket away.


He also says "urtz" for hurts and "ouch" which originally got him much attention so now he greatly over uses them.


Max loves the Christmas tree. We decorated it one Sunday afternoon and undecorated it on Monday afternoon. Glass decorations and Max's obsession with balls are not a good combination. This year our tree is simply decorated with colored lights and popcorn and cranberry chains. For the first few days we had the tree Max would get up in the morning and come to find us making a blowing sound (which means light as well as candle). The he would lead us to the tree and show us that the lights weren't on yet. Now he doen't even bother to ask us - he goes downstairs and squeezes behind the couch to plug them in himself.

The winter doesn't suit Max very well. During the summer he is as happy as a clam playing outside in the dirt and sand, driving his trucks around and climbing. He loves walks to the park and playing in the garden with Richard. Since winter has arrived we have a ard time keeping Max happy and occupied. As Max doesn't feel we do an adequate job of entertainment he finds his own. He is constantly emptying cupboards and drawers and smashing the odd plate or glass that he reaches off the counter. He is still spilling Richard's water and eating his food.

Here are my top 5 favourites from the past couple of weeks.

5- Max and Rylee disappeared upstairs one day to play. I didn't realize that they were playing in Sam's room. When I went up to see what was happening I found them dancing and jumping on a huge pile of clothes and baby supplies. The had unloaded every draw in Sam's closet and pulled out all the lotions and shampoos as well as emptied a big crate of clothes that I'd been sorting.

4- We now need to hide every pen in the house. At first Max would just like to bring us paper and draw but the other day I found that he had heavily decorated one of the dining room chairs with a ball point pen - and I mean heavily.

3-Whenever Max is quiet we know there is trouble. After a particularly blissful 20 minutes of peace on Saturday morning we decided we should probably check on the reason for the quiet (though we were reluctant to break the quiet). We found Max in our closet waist deep in clothes. Every item on the lower rack of the close was on the floor - not a single solitary item remained on a hanger. Several hangers were broken and the drawers were all empty. Matt laughed as his clothes are up high out of the reach of grabby hands. Wait, it's not over - two days later I went upstairs to find I had left the bedroom door open and Max was back in the closet pulling clothes to the ground. To add insult to injury, I opened the closet door to find Max grinning at me with my brand new toothbrush in his grubby little mouth (the reason it was a brand new tooth brush was because he has used my last one to clean the floor).

2-I hear a scattering sound coming from the kitchen - I go in to find the entire box of multigrain cheerios spread over the whole floor. He had reached it off the kitchen counter and spun around shaking the box upside down. It was one of a string of frustrating things he had done while I was feeding Sam (he seems to take advantage when he knows I can't get up fast). I put him in time out (which, incidentally is our downstairs toilet) and then made him help me pick them up and put them in the box. We had almost finished when Sam needed my attention in the livingroom. Foolishly I left Max finishing the job. The next thing I hear is that same scattering sound back in the kitchen. This time I just sat down on the couch defeated while Richard ate all the cheerios his stomach could hold and Max jumped up and down in cheerios crushing them to pieces before trapsing them through the entire downstairs. I turned on the TV and prayed for Matt to come home early.

1-Max asked me for a chocolate pudding one morning. As I wasn't quite ready for the day I thought it would be a good chance to keep him occupied while I went to finish. I put him in his high chair with his pudding and a spoon knowing that I would have to sponge him down when I came back but thinking that it was worth the 10-15 minutes it would afford me. On returinig however I found that it wasn't just the boy that needed sponging down but the walls, the floor, the table, and the entire bookshelf complete with books. That will teach me.

Now for our Sam
Sam is a sweet boy. He was a very mellow newborn and easy to please. Were it not for the fact that he had his days and nights switched for the first 6 weeks of life he was almost the perfect newborn. From the first few days of life Sam has liked to stretch and stand. He could not be swaddled as he brke right out of it with his legs. Now I know why he hurt my ribs so much. We usualy call him Bam or Sam Bam - not sure why actually but it seems to be his lot - maybe it will wear off. We also call him Max quite frequenly as he looks almost identical to how Max did as a baby. Max sees pictures of himself ans says "aaah, bee-be". We can't really tell the difference in baby pictures except that we remember taking them. That's about it for Sam - 3 month olds don't really do much of interest to report.

Scattered pictures

He still loves those large utensils

Max at a stone wall building contest - there is so much going on at the weekends in Kentucky!

Rylee's second birthday

Napping on the couch

Max enjoys the packing from his Christmas parcel

Helping in the back garden. Max loves to "help" around the house and even more in outside projects with his Dad. He gets so excited when the broom is left out and runs to it yelling "Boom, Boom"

Sam at the park in his owl outfit from cousin Sofia

Happily swimging at the park

Max with a crayon - not a wise idea unless he's strapped in to his high chair

Snacking on whipped cream (with Richard looking on longingly) ...

and dog treats - eaten in Richard's kennel. Richard and Max are great buddies but Richard definitely gets the short end of the stick. Max torments him to no end and often uses him as a step stool to climb to places he cannot reach alone.

prying the ball from Richard's mouth. If Richard won't give up the ball freely Max yells at us to intervene. If we won't do it he goes in with both hands and tugs until Richard gives in.

taking a break from Max

Haloween

Max made a most handsome pirate









and was quite a natural with his cutlass (see how the sword is captured in mid-air as he threw it at a girl helping serve dinner)

Max's girlfriend "Little Rylee Ridinghood" was looking stunning and was most concerned that Max should keep his hat on. Mad would shake it off and Rylee would go running after him shouting "Ax.....hat".

Sam the bat was bored by the festivities and slept through the whole dinner at church

and the entire way aroung the neighborhood while trick-or-treating

...still sleeping

Giving kisses to McKay the friendly tiger

Sarah the princess was terrified of Max's new appearance. She was terrified of him and screamed everytime she saw him. This continued the whole evening until we wiped off his moustache and eye brows - then she looked most relieved andstarted playing with him like there was no problem atall.

Every time Max was offered a candy bowl he would scan for lolly pops and grab as many as possible. It took him forever to go from house to house as he was so busy sucking away on his lolly.

He even took a break on someone's front steps while he sucked.