13
July
2007
This evening Drew was sitting on my lap trying to tell us something that sounded like “ribbitt.” We were trying to figure out what it was when Bran started saying the word too. Then he ran over to the wall, pretended to take something off of it and give it to Drew. Every time he would hand it to Drew he would say “ribbit” and Drew would yell back “No, ribbit!” In the end we never figured out what it was or whether Bran knew what it was either! But it was lots of fun to watch their interaction and Brandon’s make believe play.
Drew
It’s been so hot here lately and today when Drew got up from his nap he was confused about why there was water on his head. It was sweat. The kid sweats like crazy.
When I put him down for his nap this afternoon, he was pretending to snore. I wasn’t fooled since his eyes were still open!
Lately Drew seems to be suffering from a bit of insomnia when going down to bed or if he wakes up in the middle of the night. He will just lay there for an hour before he falls asleep, with his eyes open the whole time.
Now that we’ve opened the stairs going up, the boys have lots of opportunities for going up and down. The favorite way is to lay on their bellies and slide down, feet first. Drew is really fast! Sometimes I think they’ve fallen down the stairs and it’s just Drew wizzing down. Needless to say they’ve got lots of red knees and elbows and even a rug burn on the belly. But they think it’s great fun and I think it’s a lot safer than when they try to go down normally without holding on to anything.
We’ve been trying to teach the boys how to ask nicely for things using a sentence. Mostly we work on this at dinner. An example might be, “May I have some more broccoli please” (honestly that’s what he’s asking for!). He’ll repeat each word after us or he may remember two words in a row. When he’s finished he claps his hands and yells “Yay!” Sometimes he gets ahead of himself and it might sound like this, “MAY…may I, HAVE…have, please (clap), yay!” He gets so proud of himself. The only problem now is that he thinks if he uses this sentence he can have whatever he wants. Today he wanted a book I was reading, so he climbs onto my lap and says, “May I, please,(clap), yay!” and then tries to take my book! 
Andrew is taking a nasocortocoid for the next month. At his 2-year check-up the Dr. noticed a lot of swelling in his nasal passages and that combined with the fact that his nose is small and always stuffy means there’s not a lot of room to breathe. So we’re supposed to watch him for a month and see if his snoring lessens (of course, when he’s faking it, it’s not going to be helpful!) and if he seems to be breathing better out of his nose. He’s always been a nose breather though, where Bran breathes out of his mouth like his dad.
Bran
Brandon has discovered deviled eggs and blueberries, not together of course. He ate 3 eggs yesterday at a friends house and 4 today. He also kept asking for extra servings of blueberries at lunch. They also both ate several pieces of cauliflower which amazed me. I tried giving it to them when they were babies and they refused it. Usually it’s been the other way around, all the food they liked as infants they’re starting to refuse.
The other day we were playing a game where I was asking the boys to touch different body parts. When I got to their cheeks, Bran stopped and said, “rosy cheeks!”
The boys started jumping really well the other day so they were kind of hopping around the house. Then Brandon found a new way to jump. He crouches down then leaps up and falls down on his bum. He thinks it’s the funniest thing ever! Amazingly, he’ll also do it off of the couch. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a sore tailbone, but I guess that’s where a diaper comes in handy.
Brandon still LOVES to play with his cars. He’s still constantly dragging me away from something that I’m doing to “pay cars.” He’s quite forceful in the dragging part too. He especially likes making tunnels with my legs.
I’ve let the boys have ice cream cones a couple of times. Brandon eats the side of his cone first, which is a little problematic, even with a small scoop on top. Drew is really good at licking them nicely until he gets to the cone and then he gets it all over his face.
Bran is having some trouble with his upper molars. They’ve been pretty painful coming in. The bottom ones didn’t seem to be as bad.
Today the boys were playing in the bathroom sink and Bran decided to put his head under the faucet and wash his hair. He also stood in the sprinkler for several minutes drinking the water. He didn’t seem to mind either time that his face was getting drenched.
Words
Both boys have done a pretty good job of pronunciation, but there are just a few words that have been causing us some trouble, a couple are cute and a couple are on the embarrassing side, especially when yelled in public!:-) Here they are:
Firetruck (they do fine with truck, there’s something about combining the words)
Frog (we’re working on calling it froggy)
Kepitch (ketchup). Brandon also thinks all bottles are kepitch so the other day uncle Jeffery was drinking a bottle of kepitch at dinner. We didn’t let him try it.
Tabo (potato). This is now morphing into tato.
Posted: Drew & Bran
13
July
2007
Hot, isn’t it!? This customary summer Japanese greeting seems most appropriate the past couple of days.
Considering we spend half of the year in winter with summers averaging 23 C, not many of us have air conditioning. So several days hovering around 30 C/90 F hasn’t been much fun. I was hoping I could be consoled by the fact that it’s so humid back East, but after checking the weather we’re all around 35%. As Connie would say, boo…!
Well, the pool is filled and ready for the kiddies and the basement has been relatively cleaned up thanks to Jeffery and Holly, so at least we have a few options for cooling off.
Atsui desu ne?!
So desu ne.
Posted: Edmonton
11
July
2007
Mike’s brother Jeffery and his wife Holly have just left after spending the week with us. It was a great visit and we always enjoy getting to see them. Only now I think we’re all going through withdrawal. The boys are missing the constant attention and I’m missing the extra bodies to give them that attention. The boys are missing the acrobatics that ensued when uncle Jeffery played with them and looking up diggers and cars on auntie Holly’s computer. I’m missing extra hands to clean up after meals, make meals, hands to keep the boys occupied while I did some laundry, actually put up photos (I think I’ve finally caught up!) and even take a nap! Plus with all the extra people around we actually got to go do some fun things too! We took a walk to the Portuguese bakery (unfortunately they were out of custard tarts, sigh…), we took Noah to the puppy park and he got to swim in the river (the boys did a little swimming too! and Noah even got the mats cut out of his fur and several brushings), we went on a bike ride, and took the kids to the play zone at WEM where they ran up stairs and slid down slides. Anna and Joel watched the boys so the four adults could get a break and we went to an U-20 FIFA match (Canada vs. Austria and Chile vs. Congo) which was awesome, Becky came by on short notice and watched the boys while we went and played 18 holes of disc golf. The weather was horrible for golfing, but it was still a lot of fun. I haven’t gotten to play since Christmas and only a couple of times since the boys were born. We also stayed up way past our bedtimes and talked or played games.
So now, it’s time to get back to our normal lives but we’re all going through family withdrawal. At least we get to look forward to my mom’s visit in a few weeks!
Posted: Edmonton, Family
3
July
2007
…You might have 3 policemen and a CSI taking photos and fingerprints inside of it!
“I’m sorry, do you have to show the judge those photos of my bedroom?”
You are probably wondering what on earth I’m talking about and honestly I’m still feeling a little off kilter as I write and wanting to type faster than my brain is working. So here’s the story to the best of my ability.
Thursday night Bran had a rough night of sleep with molars cutting and a cold. So around 6am when I heard someone in my bedroom I told Bran to go back to bed. Then my brain turned on and I remembered that there’s a gate over their door and there was no way he could be in my room. Mike says the next thing he remembers is me shouting, “Who are you and why are you in my house!”. Upon realizing that is was not, in fact, Brandon, I put on my glasses and found a man, not 5 feet from me, pilfering through an empty suitcase in my bedroom! The first thought that went through my mind was, “what if he won’t leave?” Mike jumped over the bed and between the 2 of us we chased him down the stairs to the front door. (If you’re not familiar with Edmonton, 6am in June is bright daylight. So this was not a middle of the night break in, this was ‘Hi, I’m breaking into your house in the middle of the day with you in it.’) As we got to the door we both noticed that he had our laptops and power cables. We both shouted for him to drop them. He said he had a knife and would use it if we came any closer (we never saw one and his other hand was on the door), but it didn’t seem to be the wisest thing to push it. So when he ran out the door, Mike ran for the phone to call 911. I ran to the sidewalk to see which way he went and we were able to tell the police the direction he fled and what he was wearing/looked like.
While we were waiting for the police to come (which was all of about 5 minutes), we searched the house to see if we could figure out where he came in. All the doors and windows on the first floor were locked and I knew for certain I had locked the front door when we went to bed. The police did a search of the house and discovered that he had come in through a window in the basement which is underneath our deck! It also has bars on it, which he managed to bend until it broke (even stranger, we can’t actually find the bars he broke through, they are no where to be found!). He also left muddy footprints all over my carpets which is I am really annoyed about! The police brought a dog which was able to pick up the guy’s scent and found him a few blocks away, our laptops had been dumped in the mud. We got them back and they work just as well as they did before. Apparently ours wasn’t his only break in that morning so it seems they have a good case, plus they’re waiting to get back the info on the fingerprints they lifted from the window he came in through. Hopefully that will give them an open and shut case. They’re telling us it may be 6 months to 2 years before it goes to trial and we’ll have to testify.
It wasn’t until later in the day that the whole episode really started to filter through. Before that I was too busy being embarrassed about the state of my house (who expects to have police officers walking through your house and taking pictures?) and showing the boys the police cars, and keeping them out of the CSI guy’s dusting powder! They thought he was the coolest thing. They kept trying to open his kit and when they weren’t allowed to do that, they tried to carry it around the house for him.
I was so impressed by the quality of the Edmonton Police Department. They arrived quickly, they got the dogs out and apprehended the suspect within 20 minutes. They were so nice to us and patient with the boys, and the CSI guy came within an hour and half (they told us it could be any time that day) and actually seemed to know what he was doing and found some prints (unlike CSI’s in other cities that I’ve heard about… wink, wink… Holly and Jeffery). I still have my moments of freaking out and it’s hard to remember everything that happened since I was woken out of sleep, which really kind of bothers me. But, we are super thankful that everyone is okay, and it helps that in the end we got everything back.
Now, for those of you who know me well, do you think I’ll be able to keep my house clean just in case? Probably not! And let’s pray it never happens again.
Mike: The whole story is much longer than this… and quite a bit funnier. It manages to involve a naked man (not in our house), a leather couch, women’s jeans, a red football jersey, someone else’s porch, and a photo lineup. Make sure you ask Shayna for the full details.
Posted: Edmonton
