i've got a routine

no, not a dance routine, a life routine. mom seems to think that's quite impressive, so i thought i'd tell you about it.
6.30am i wake up. sometimes a little earlier (or today at 5.15am a lot earlier), not often later. i lie in bed and read my book on my own for a while (the antics of cheeky monkey) and then after about 20 minutes or so i really fancy a nice cup of tea. i call mom in from her bedroom, but so far she's only given me milk.
after i've had my milk, and had my diaper changed, it's time to play for a while. despite my covetous glances neither parent has yet deigned to share their tea or toast with me. at around about 8-8.30am it's time for a nap.
9am and time for my real breakfast. some pureed fruit and rice cereal. apple and cinnamon is nice, and i seem to have pears quite often. after breakfast i have my diaper changed again, and i roll around naked on the bathroom floor while mom's in the shower.
11am is snack time. more milk for me.
by 12 or 12.30pm i'm ready for a snooze. this may well be in the stroller if mom's taken me out shopping. we seem to go out to the greengrocers a lot.
1pm and it's time for lunch. i REALLY like lunch. how does lamb and apricot, with sweet potato, peas and carrots sound to you? this might be followed by some apple and apricot, or avocado and banana ( or both) and a couple of rice rusks. if i really yell mom will keep feeding me fruit until i stop leaning forward and opening my mouth wide. it's pretty cool the way this unlimited supply of food goes from the freezer into the microwave. we get to do this countdown thing while we wait for the microwave pings. i'm getting good at counting as well as getting fed: three....two....one....
3pm milk time again. i know. it's probably only an hour since i finished lunch, but if i don't eat now it'll be nap time again, and i wouldn't want to miss out on a meal.
4pm - after my afternoon snooze, and it's probably time for a bounce in my Jolly Jumper. if dad's home he might play aeroplanes with me.
5pm is time for tea. more fruit and rice cereal. pear and blueberry stains very well, and tastes good too. after tea i sit in my chair and practice drinking out of my sippy cup. sometimes i get a mouthful of water which makes me choke. but not very often.
after tea mom might read me a story if dad's had to go to work. Baby Boo is my favourite. mom and i got to read it 12 times in a row yesterday. as soon as we got to the last page i turned back to the beginning again. i'm getting well practised at turning over one page at a time, and i usually hold the book the right way up too. if i'm really tired and not done too well at napping during the day, mom might put on my Baby Bach video.
6.15pm is bathtime. this is an ever-evolving festival of fun. dad's latest trick is torpedo ducks. after i've pulled the plug out dad carefully positions a rubber duck over the plughole. one gentle tap on the side of the duck and whoosh it torpedos to the surface. it's very very very very funny. so funny i sometimes forget to breathe. that's not so funny.
6.45pm and i'm in my PJs and sleeping bag ready for my final milk of the day. actually that's a joke. you don't think i'd go 12 hours without eating do you? by 7 or 7.15pm i'll have finished my bottle and be in bed with Hey Hey the monkey and Gerhard the tiger. sometimes i sing myself to sleep. sometimes i cry. sometimes i refuse to sleep at all. very occasionally i just lie down and go to sleep. i only do this to confuse the parents who are waiting for me to start snoring before they cook their dinner.
actually calvin paints a good picture of bedtime .. and he goes to bed with a tiger too. interesting.
10.30pm and time for my midnight feast. just milk and a few mouthfuls of tiger fur to keep me going until morning. grrrrr zzzzzzzz

personal status update

i am now 7 months old, i have some hair and a couple of teeth, my lunch can sometimes be lamb and apricot, sweet potato, corn, carrot followed by apple and rice, and a bonus chunk of banana. i like to eat. bathtimes are extrememly fun, playtimes are everlasting, napping in the day makes me look cute and feel good. mom's my hero and my bestest friend, dad's fun and my second bestest. i can do things with my hands and feet that look really impressive, i make the most awesome array of noises including chuckles, squeaks, duck noises, farty sounds, bubs, foghorns. i do cry on occasion, but only when i have a good reason. i don't crawl or walk, but boy do i want to! i throw things and reach for things and roll over and get incredibly excited when you dangle things above my head. i sit up without any assistance, i read books, play the piano (both the big one, and my new little one), i love percussion - official and non-official, i have some rhythm, but little melody so far. i can do more than one thing at a time (actually that's a lie), my dimples are even cuter than they used to be, and i look fabulous when seated in a field of daisies ...

i also look good with my friends, noah, maddy and mia - taken today Jun 12th

do you really want me to fill in the gap?

OK, so 3 months in one post. 3 days after the March 9 post we went snowboarding (thank you God!) we found snow in Big White. this was a bonus after bad local skiing. uncle gerhard made sure a few of us had some time out which was IMMENSELY cool of him. while mom skied and dad snowboarded i got to hang out in the condo. having learned how to roll over and bounced in the jolly jumper on the balcony looking at the snow, i decided to sprout a couple of teeth for my final trick. the next few weeks were really busy, i still decided it was good and proper to wake up every 3 hours for food at night .. i was hungry .. mom had a birthday (they look fun!), dad did lots of yoofy stuff and suddenly we found ourselves on a plane to england in april. i did ok on the plane trip despite a terrible air canada experience, and then proceeded to be difficult for at least 4 days (they thought it was jetlag, but it was actually culture shock). england's different, but i liked some of it. mom's face in tescos was a picture, so was dad's when eating the result. i met loads of my family and had lots of fun with them. wow did i see a load of people, so many i can't remember all their names. granny fell down and went to hospital which was real sad, and the car broke down which was difficult, but my other granny spent lots of time with me which is really great.

we came home to perfect sunny weather. dad did yoof group on the first day back, not knowing which way was up and when night starts. during the next week i tried really hard to start sleeping through the night, and i'm now pretty good at it. i also started eating food .. and seem to be incredibly good at that :) we went to kelowna and stayed in a real nice house with church pastors. i hung out with maddie and her mom which was fun.

then we came back and dad did lots and lots and lots of yoof stuff, and mom and i hung out a lot at home and in the hood, inviting all my friends around every thursday. sleeping good, feeding good, i feel like garfield then we went to kamloops for history maker - wow that was quite something too, then we thought it would be less busy when we came back, but it wasn't. dad seems to be working a bit hard right now, and has taken one day off between may 9 and June 6. this is not good for anyone, especially me (i can be selfish like that).

phew .. hoping summer will be a little less crazy and more filled with BBQ and hammock time.

wow ... am i back?

after much encouragement to scribble and much life that has happened, it is finally finally time for a post. a gap of 3 months is unacceptable without a really good excuse, so let me invent one for you ... hmm ... errr ... yep, yep ... here it comes ... oooh ... ah ... oops ... there it went again. oh come on, you'd have thought with a brain the size of mine (and yes it really is immense), i could at least invent a good excuse for lethargy.

well anyway, every good blog has a hole in it somewhere, right? it shows that there is life beyond the virtuality of cyberspace, and sometimes it's important for people to neglect the mouse and screen in favour of living it up in the great outdoor reality.

so here i am. actually i'm keeping dad company, cos he drank too much coffee this evening. it was good coffee - beans sourced by starbucks from columbia, ground in a starbucks grinder and "espressed" in a very nice little italian stove top espresso maker (sort of like this) bought for dad by uncle will in tuscany. timbo and lissa were round for really pleasant evening of chat, good food, mutual appreciation of the new series of west wing. so dad couldn't resist a second cup .. silly boy.

in training

so yesterday we got back from a couple of days at Camp Stillwood. i got to sleep in my travel cot which wasn't so bad, since mom remembered to bring my sleeping bag, night light, monitor and Hey Hey as well as my stroller, several changes of clothes and lots of wipes, diapers and of course my pyjamas. there was even space in the car for dad which was just as well because he had lots of meetings to go to.

these sectional pastors of the BC and Yukon district of the PAOC were truly an inspiration: breakfast (cooked, of course, with cereal, bagels, fresh fruit and yoghurt to follow) at 8.30am, a mid-morning snack at 10.30am, lunch at 12 ( anyone for roast beef and yorkshire pudding?) with dessert, afternon tea at 3.15pm, dinner (3 courses) at 5pm, and then cinnamon rolls and cookies later in the evening because 5pm is a bit early to be eating really.

personally i can still only manage eating every three hours, but maybe when i'm a bit older i'll be able to eat enough to be a PAOC pastor

made to walk ..

.. so obviously i'm not walking yet, although in talking with a bunch of my friends on thursday, it appears many of them are rolling over. i tend to roll off things - pillow, dad, and maybe the sofa if someone left me to my own devices for a while. however generally rolling over is not possible - arms get in the way and stuff. also i'm heavier than you're average bear, so it's quite an effort.

standing: OK when supported by exersaucer, sitting: OK when mom holds my arms, crawling: no idea. enjoying been "thrown around" by dad a bit, sometimes i chuckle which is loads of fun. i'm actually pretty strong.

but of course my speciality is drooling and dribbling. do they make funky skater bibs? my fashionable clothing is rather lost under ASDA's own plain ones. here's a photo to make you smile .. maybe a caption competition again? the last pic was a difficult one to caption, although you all did really well. dad couldn't think of a single one last time. pah.

what a hero!

so it's 2.30am and mom's got a migraine and is half paralyzed. hero number one is dad - he found the drugs :) and held a cold wet cloth on mom's head whilst hero number two - Joel - managed to latch on and feed himself in the pitch dark in a somewhat unusual position. hero number three is mom who managed not to be sick on Joel's head in the process!

February 29th

so today should have been my four month birthday. did i get a cake and candles? no. did we have a party? no. and why not? because february only has 28 days. that's not fair. why can't january and march both have 30 days and give february the extra two? that way i could have had my birthday cake and a party, instead of which mom took me to IKEA and the doctor.

the doctor started off OK. she said "wow, those six months have gone quickly". mom gently corrected her that actually i was only four months old, or at least i would have been if it wasn't for the february thing. she didn't have to explain the whole missing the party thing to the doctor though, so maybe it's just one of the unfair things in life that grownups have come to accept?

we did the weigh-in: i'm 8kg (17lbs 12) and 27 inches tall (69cm). that would explain why some of my clothes are supposed to be for a one year old. my head is now a massive 48.5cm around, catching up with dad fast who's 58cm.

i was kind of wondering why dad had come to the doctor too. it turns out mom didn't want to have to hold me down this time while i had my vaccinations. wise woman, my mom.