Sound Effects

When he was little, the boy used sounds for things instead of words. Our vacuum cleaner was a 'wvooooee' (imagine it sounding like a vacuum), a drill was a 'brrrrrzzz' and so on. And it was deliberate, the sounds were all distinct and only used when referring to whatever he was talking about. It was quite cute and endearing.

Fast forward to now, when he talks non-stop, day in day out, and with a vocabulary that often surprises hubby and myself. He no longer needs the sounds to describe the items, now the sounds are an accompaniment as he's 'using' the items. If he's 'making' bread he does an almost spot-on impression of my bread maker, or if he's cutting the grass or using the weed whacker, it comes complete with lawn mower or weed whacking noises. But his most used toys at the moment are his tools. When he's doing fixing jobs around the house and using all his tools he (apparently) has a number of different drills, and they all make different noises. Often he'll classify them as 'this is my quiet drill, this is my loud drill, and this is my really loud drill'. And of course, guess which drill he uses most often - I think I should buy shares in advil!

My son the biker

The boy got a bike for his birthday, and loves to ride it. We mostly ride on our street (a very quiet court), but today he decided that he had to ride it to my parents house - about a kilometre away. He's doing really well with his pedalling, but I do have to keep reminding him every two minutes to focus on what he's doing, and not to be distracted by a lawn mower, or someone walking their dog on the other side of the street, or even just an interesting looking yard!

It's so cute to see him with his helmet on, little bits of hair escaping from the back, as he pushes off and goes. He looks so grown up and it's a little bit heartbreaking to realize that he's not my baby any more. I'm sure I'll feel the same way when he's asking to borrow the keys to my car!

Bye Mum, see you later!

A play date with Nana (Bloggers Give Back)

"Why are you home Mummy?" That was what greeted me when I walked in the door after a busy day working at George Herman House for the Bloggers Give Back project (check out the site, and all my old posts here, here, here, and here). The reason? The boy had had a fantastic day with Nana, she'd brought him a picnic lunch, they'd played baseball, played in the park, had smoothie pops, and more. Basically he'd had an amazing day doing everything he wanted!

I had a fantastic day too. I met a lot of great ladies involved in the Bloggers Give Back project, and we really managed to turn the garden at George Herman House into something beautiful for the residents. We assembled all the furniture IKEA Canada had donated, got the beautiful Tonic Living Cushions, and some planters and flowers from the Home Depot Canada.  Now there are seating areas, an outdoor dining table, and places to relax. Just what everyone needs in a green space, especially in an urban setting.

Now I'm already looking forward to the fall, when Frank Ferragine AKA “Frankie Flowers” comes out to help us finish off the transformation at George Herman House. It will be another great day out for me, and another fun play date with Nana for the boy.  It'd just be nice if he at least pretended to miss me next time though!

The debris being cleaned up

The Ikea Falster Bench and Arholma chair with cushions from Tonic Living

A great place to hang out now and relax!

A Pillow House

I've mentioned before that the boy has a very active imagination  and he uses it constantly. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of who or what he is at any given moment. It's a lot of fun, and I really do love hearing what comes out of his mouth when he's creating his own worlds.

For the last 4 days I've had to step over a pile of pillows on the floor in my bedroom. For a change, it's not because I made a mess, or hubby hasn't put something away, it's because it's a house. The boy was playing in my room the other day while I was doing some tidying. The next thing I knew he'd dragged in a whole bunch of pillows from his room and proceeded to build a 'house' with them on my floor. When I tried to pull one out to start putting them away, I got told, "No Mummy, that's the door!" and so it stayed where it was. Later that night when hubby tried to do the same thing, he was told he was pulling on a window.

Thankfully our bedroom is big enough that we can leave them where they are for now and  just step around them. The boy has come in to check on his house a number of times, and has even re-adjusted it to make it more secure! Hopefully he'll move onto something else soon, and we can put the pillows away, so I can regain my floor!

A house (apparently)

Re-Runs

I was just showing hubby and the boy some videos of the boy and what he'd been up to the past few days (running through the sprinkler, riding his bike, playing his drums, and going on his scooter - not only is the boy busy, he's also spoilt!) The boy loves watching himself and in fact when you take a picture of him, one of the things he wants is to be able to see it right away - thank goodness for digital cameras!

After we'd watched the home movies, we asked the boy if he wanted to play outside for a bit to see if we could start to tire him out - he's had some ridiculously late nights recently - and of course, he agreed. So I grabbed the camera and we headed outside to see what he wanted to play with. He decided that it was time to go out on his scooter. Then the boy told me I had to film it, and that I had to ask him the same questions as we had asked him in the video we'd all just watched.

After he'd finished scooting, we came in and he announced that he now needed to play drums and sing K-K-Katie (another clip we'd just seen) So now I have two almost identical movies of the boy, doing identical things, saying almost exactly the same things, just a few days apart. I guess I should be grateful that he's wearing different clothes in each movie!