Sunday 29 January 2012

Snow much fun

Do you think the boy will love shovelling this much in 12 years time when the driveway needs doing? I sure hope so.


How much more fun could he be having?

Saturday 28 January 2012

A trip to Blog Podium (and more fun with Nana)

On Friday I got to head down to check out Blog Podium at the Interior Design Show. Both were amazing, and it was nice to get out of the house and be among grown ups. The Interior Design Show had lots of fantastic exhibitors, and made me wish I had the resources to redo my house entirely!

The best part of the day though was the talk at Blog Podium. Lindsay from littlehouseblog and Jennifer from Rambling Renovators put together an amazing group of media personalities who are involved in the design industry to talk about a number of things. They touched on the role of bloggers in the media, how to attract media attention, and how to pitch an idea to a magazine or TV show. It was really interesting, and I'm already looking forward to the next talk in May. You can check out the twitter hash tag #blogpodium to see some of the things that came out of the conversation.

During all of this the boy got to hang out with Nana, which makes him very happy. He was so into hanging out with Nana that when she showed up in the morning, everything else got forgotten and he was off and showing her all his toys. This continued, so that when I got home the only people to care I was home were my dogs! We are so lucky to have grandparents that the boy adores, and who adore him, so that I can head out for occasional trips into the real world with other grown ups.  Now to book Nana for the next Blog Podium event!


Tuesday 24 January 2012

Best (imaginary) workout

The boy decided today that he wanted to play baseball. But it's a little to cold and mucky to head to our local park to play for real. So we ended up playing virtual baseball. We don't have a fancy video game system, so we had to resort to using our imagination.

This means there was a lot of arm waving (for the batter) and pretend throwing (for the pitcher), but the best part was we got to decide ourselves where the balls went. Suddenly my athletic dreams had come true and I hit a home run! It was a lot of fun and silliness, and surprisingly a good workout since we were actually running 'bases' even if the rest of the game was make-believe. It really was a perfect energy burner for a dreary January day, and spring training is just around the corner!

Saturday 21 January 2012

My pretend angel

He might not be good enough to be an angel during the day, but at least he can make one!

Even his snow angel looks like the halo might be a bit askew

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Hide & Seek

The boy is suddenly really into playing hide & seek. Half the fun for him is calling out silly places where the other person couldn't possibly be hiding. Although the boy's hiding spot today was a new high. I don't think I'll ever be able to top it....

'Where's Waldo' eat your heart out.

Sunday 15 January 2012

Do I look pretty?

We were getting ready to go out yesterday and I wanted to put some lip balm on the boy since it was really cold out. He wasn't into it, but said he was willing to wear some lipstick. So I pulled out one of my moisturising lipsticks, (in a lovely shade of pink) and proceeded to put it on him. After it was done and he'd smushed his lips together, he looked at hubby and said "Do I look pretty now?" I quickly jumped in and told him that of course he looked pretty, but that he looked pretty even without the lipstick. "Ok Mummy, thank you" and that was it.

Yikes. I'm going to have to work on making sure he doesn't think that make up (or anything else external) will make him pretty, or handsome (as he grows up and probably won't want to be called pretty).

I'm sure that he's picked this notion up from me, and so I am going to have make a conscious effort to be happy with how I look, whether it's yoga pants and no make up, or dressed to the nines. This isn't something that's easy for me, since, like a lot of women, I have self-esteem issues. I always figured it was good I had a boy, and it would be harder to pass my issues on as he wouldn't feel obliged to live up to society's standards of beauty. I guess I was wrong. 

For now, I'm not that worried, I don't think it's an engrained belief in him yet. It just means that I have to be more vigilant about what messages I'm sending, and making sure that the boy knows that he's pretty no matter what.


Tuesday 10 January 2012

Silly Walks

When the boy and I go out for a walk, we sometimes challenge each other to walk in different ways. It makes it a bit more fun, and if we're dawdling, or getting late, then I can encourage him to run. The downside of course is that I have to do it as well. The boy loves it though, because he's all about "getting exercise, because exercise is good for us".

As we were out today, I'm sure I was giving my neighbours a good laugh as we walked along. Some of the ways the boy made me walk were to run like cheetah, stomp like dino, hop like bunny, jump like kangaroo, march like soldier, and gallop like horse. My personal favourite was to tiptoe like ballerina, including having to hold our arms up above our head, because "Mummy, that's what ballerinas do". Although maybe we haven't reached the peak of silliness until we have to walk like an Egyptian.

Saturday 7 January 2012

Reorganization

Since it was Epiphany on Friday, it meant that we could take down our Christmas tree & decor this weekend. I was glad of that, as I was starting to get tired of having my living room all topsy turvy. The nice thing when we moved the tree out was we got to see a big open space again and figure out what we really needed and where. I'm trying to de-clutter, so it was nice to not put things back, and to just have space.

It also meant that we could reorganize the boy's toys. He has some toys on our main floor, and then another collection in our basement. Once we shifted the tree out, and moved the furniture back, we could see what space we had for all of his things upstairs. Granddad made him a workbench for Christmas, so that had to take the place of honour, (since he loves his tools) but then all of his other bits and pieces had to get fit in too.

He loved getting all his toys settled. He kept moving them around, deciding where they worked best, what shelf things should go on, and where they fit. He spent a fair chunk of time shuttling things back and forth between locations to get things just right! I was really surprised at the attention to detail he put into everything, he was quite precise as to the usage and placement of everything, and making sure that it worked and that it was tidy. Perhaps we have a future designer,  home stager, and builder on our hands.

The giant workbench that keeps him very busy!

Thursday 5 January 2012

Skating part 2

I took the boy skating by myself today. I wasn't sure how much he'd be into it without hubby there. I am not nearly as competent skater as hubby, so I didn't know if the boy would get bored because I couldn't carry him like his Dad does, and my backwards skating leaves a lot to be desired.

It turns out that I didn't need to worry. The boy discovered that in nice weather, while wearing snow pants and a big jacket, it's a lot of fun to slip on the ice and fall down on purpose!

How we spent a large chunk of time on the ice (in between giggles)

Tuesday 3 January 2012

I'm the winner!

For Christmas the boy got a sound bingo game. Each player has a board with 8 sounds on it and there's a main unit that plays the different noises.  It's quite cute and it's a quick play which is perfect for days when our attention span isn't so long.

The neat thing is that it tells you who the winner is, so there's no arguing or discussions about it. There's also no cheating! So far the boy just likes to play and he isn't overly fussed when he doesn't win. That's not to say he doesn't like winning best, but he is still happy when someone else wins.  When the game is over the unit says 'yay! Blue player is the winner!' The boy thinks this is pretty funny and when he has won, he repeats it and says 'Yay, I'm the winner'.

I'm quite conscious of trying to make sure he's not a poor looser, especially since he's only child. Luckily both hubby and I have a decent competitive streak so it's hard for us to let him win every game we play. I think that it's good for him to know that you can't win at everything, and that it's o.k. to loose.  For now he's still happy to cheer for the winner of each game, and hopefully that will continue, as he graduates from Bingo to more advanced games like Candyland.