"sticky fingers"

joel, after his first taste of Nutella uttered the immortal words:

"Sticky Fingers!"

where-oo?

whilst mom and dad are grateful i haven't resorted to the typical two year old behaviour regarding the overuse of the word 'no', there are a couple of phrases that i use perhaps a little more often than they would like: "where-oo" (where are you) when they dare to move more than a few feet away, and "what's that called" - self-explanatory, and in mom's opinion, better than "why?" - although may be that time is approaching.
more joel-speak includes "dresskin and troll" for dressing gown and remote control - the two essential elements for watching curious george in the mornings. "want xxxxx do, DO" with the emphasis clearly on the second 'do'. the request is usually for a cookie or a particular dvd, and the likelihood of it being met is often dependent on whether ollie has just gone to sleep and on how many times mom had to get up in the night. even at her most tired though, i've not yet been allowed ice-cream or cookies for breakfast, although i did get pate and crackers once.

bedtime?

mom's wondering why they went to the trouble of buying me a bed if i can sleep on the floor just as well. how i managed to transition between the two without waking up is another interesting question

montessori

so mom and dad went and observed the montessori classroom a couple of weeks ago, and found it to be a pretty scary experience. they weren't at all sure how i would cope in that environment, and were worried i would be permanently in trouble. for example, the school have a set of pink blocks which you're supposed to build into a tower. now i can do that quite well, but my motivation isn't exactly montessori-approved - you aren't supposed to create things for the sole purpose of destroying them!!

despite their misgivings, mom and i went to the kid's interview day and i had a lot of fun......13 kids entered the room, sat at the tables and did the activities laid out on the table. i found another rebellious spirit and we explored the rest of the stuff in the room, which looked like a lot more fun than sitting down doing colouring. when snack time was announced, i raced upstairs (why bother waiting for mom?) for further exploration. by the time mom found me in the music room playing with some shakers, the other 14 kids were all in the other classroom sitting in a circle on a green line marked on the floor.

after we'd washed our hands it was snack time. no one sat down next to me so i was able to have the rice crackers on their plate too! i definitely chose the right place to sit. after i'd cleared my plate and cup it was time to go outside and play. they even had a basketball hoop for me, although rather than a proper orange ball they had a funny ball with countries and oceans all over it.

i think i might like to go to school here - when mom asked me later what i wanted to do for the afternoon i told her i wanted to go back to school. the real question is - do they want me?

Berserk in the library

MSG, MSG, gives me lots of energy.
Running here, running there, can't stop running everywhere.

Even in the library where dad kept telling me to be quiet. A lot. So I sat at the computer for a while - dad tried to choose a DVD or something. This nice lady showed me how to use a mouse. "Hey lady, I AM a millennial kid you know, mouses are no problems. It's just my grammar sucks .. bad ;o)" I talked a lot and ran a lot and started pulling books off the shelves a bit. What's a 2-year old to do with all this order in the house? Then dad tried to pull a book away from me, so I threw it at this lady nearby. She swung round glared at dad .. I think she was going to hit him. Then she looked down and saw the cutest face this side of heaven beaming at her (that's me by the way). The lady laughed, and was heard later to describe the book-launching as "he's young enough for it to be cute".

I ran around a bit more and tried to get the washroom keys off the hook as usual, and ran around a bit more. Then mom came in to change ollie's diaper (sorry rosie tmi 4 blog). I joined in for a while, and washed my hands for fun, then walked out .. bit bored. I browsed the "staff choices" section in the library for a bit, and was drawn instantly to a title "aging gracefully". I took it off the shelf, and these two ladies burst out laughing. Dad said "pure irony". Yeah dad, really ironic. I put it back, and then picked up something about women losing weight. I turned to dad and said "mummy's book". This made the ladies laugh even louder. Dad said, "and that's pure ..", and one of the ladies completed the sentence "satire?".

I should point out at this stage that mom doesn't need to lose weight at all, and lots of people can't believe she looks so foxy after having ollie so recently. Hey, am I allowed to refer to my mom as foxy?? She is, you know. Dad said to the ladies, "the humour may reach another level if Joel goes to mom and says 'mommy, daddy says you should read this book'".

Darn that clever daddy he foiled my plan. It would have been a good gag eh?

Overdose of Chinese Food

So how much MSG is good for a 2-year old? Dad's saturday inspiration was a trip to Tang's Noodle House for family lunch. Ollie played the game with some neat timing between sleeps and feed. I woke a little leisurely at 2.30pm, but lunch specials are served to 4pm so we're good. Chicken with green beans, Chicken with ginger and pineapple .. it was a chicken day. Apologies to the entire church who will be knocked out by sopwith family garlic breath tomorrow.

We like Tang's. They haven't decorated in 15 years, and the signs are looking a little tired. But you don't get to survive in the cut-throat competition of West Broadway restaurants without serving decent tucker. It's good mid-range Chinese food and at 5.95 for a lunch special including soup and tea, served by friendly family types who do a great job. Sometimes 2 portions serves 3 of us for 2 meals!

Today we had the bonus of a view of the diggy bobs from the window, although they were "sleeping" - they work for the city of Vancouver, and it's saturday. I enjoyed making the world think I'm cute, sitting in our window-side street level table, rhythmically drumming on the table with my chopsticks, smiling and waving at random passers-by, and even doing a real cute pose for a photographer while I chomped on a fortune cookie. He gave me two thumbs up – the international sign for "looking dead cool in my photo, dude". I'm great.

The food was amazing, so I ate a lot, and dad and mom are thinking the MSG may have affected me a little – read the next post!

Oh, if you were wondering, the fortune cookie said "you will receive an unexpected gift today". To be honest it was a little unexpected to find myself chewing paper when I thought I was eating a cookie. hmmm

september's coming

despite the fact that september is still 7 months away, a quarter of my lifetime, mom and dad are having to make decisions about my future.
do they send me to a montessori school where i had great fun with a magnet, but got in trouble for calling their sphere a ball. i'd have to go four afternoons a week if i'm offered a place after our interview.
do i go two mornings a week to the progressive learning centre, where they'd teach me to read and write, but i have to be able to use the bathroom fully independently?
do i go to a parent participation preschool three mornings a week where they have diggy bobs in the sandpit, toy trains and cars - all of which were conspicuous in their absence at the other places - but mom(or dad) would have to do duty days and find someone to look after ollie while they're at school with me. they'd also have to find some other time to teach me numbers and letters, because i'll be far too busy playing while i'm at school
if anyone has any sensible thoughts on the matter, do let mom and dad know

punkin

for the unenlightened, 'punkin' is the sport of indoor hockey in the sopwith kitchen. while i can say 'hockey' perfectly well, for some reason i find 'puck' much harder. it generally comes out more like 'punk'. anyone for a game?