Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Today marks the beginning of your 9th month in the outside world. And look how far you've come.
You have four teeth.
You can commando crawl.
You clap your hands, and for one day only, you waved bye-bye.
You give real belly laughs.
Your eyes are still slate blue with just a tiny hint of brown lurking in there somewhere.
Your hair is most definitely dark brown, but not nearly as fuzzy as your brother's.
You've got a Pointy Investigating Finger (that usually ends up in my nose or yours.)
You love any toy...that's not yours.
Your favourite song is "Itsy Bitsy Spider."
You weigh just over 18 pounds and despite your big cloth-nappied bum, you only wear a size 6-9 months.
You're obsessed with our wooden doorstop.
You happily munch on anything I feed you. And things I don't.
You've discovered your "pinchy grip". Ouch.
Your big brother still thinks you're the bee's knees, except when you touch any of his toys.
You are my Princess Bunny McBun, my beautiful angel.
Happy nine months, Mimi. I love you so, so much. xx
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
maybe it was for good behaviour?
So I was changing Mia's nappy yesterday and I noticed something glittering in the morning light. Wondering what sort of sparkly food item I gave her on Monday, I inspected her nappy more closely (because mothers are brave like that.) Shining brightly in her nappy was a tiny gold star. She must have picked it out of Liz's carpet on Monday (craft making fodder) and thought it looked tasty enough to eat.
You can tell that I'm a 2nd time mum because a) I didn't think twice about poking around my daughter's nappy and b) the fact that she ingested an inedible decoration didn't alarm me. Oh and c) I blogged about it rather than rush her to the emergency room.
Monday, March 10, 2008
chucky's revenge
We were at my friend Liz's house this afternoon, which is always an exciting event for Jack because he adores her little girl Lucy and her toys. Or at least, he enjoys most of her toys. Lucy has a toy bear that not only looks like a polar bear in drag (I kid you not, the thing is slathered in blue eyeshadow, has false eyelashes and bright red lips) but it also blinks and talks. We always had a good giggle over it and admittedly found it a bit creepy ourselves, but I had no idea how much it would terrify my son. Jack took one look at it and backed away saying "I don't like it!" and Liz promptly put the Dragbear upstairs out of sight. Later on, Jack and Lucy headed upstairs to play and moments later we heard a bloodcurdling shriek as Jack came upon Dragbear in Lucy's room. He ran downstairs in floods of tears as Liz locked Dragbear up in a cupboard.
Trauma mostly averted, he resumed playing. Then he noticed Lucy's cat - a battery-operated toy that takes a few steps, meows, and sort of kneels forward and twitches its tail (although to me, it looked very much like when a male cat marks his territory.) He looked at it cautiously as I made all sorts of happy talk with incessant smiles about how fabulous and wonderful the cat was. Yes, that one was fine. He smiled and let it go on marking the room with its invisible spray.
Moments later, Jack came up to me and said "I don't like the lady" with that same worried look he had when he first saw Dragbear. "What lady?" I asked, as I followed Jack into the playroom. "THAT lady!" he said, pointing at an over sized doll's head used by little girls for decades to apply makeup (or in my case as a child, permanent marker) and style its hair. "It's only a dolly", I assured him but to no avail. Dollyhead was promptly relocated to Lucy's room.
It was at that point that I noticed writhing plastic limbs waving over the side of a toy buggy. Liz told me that it was baby Sophie, a doll that not only talks and moves, but it knows its name. It knows 80 phrases, none of which sound like something that would come out of the mouth of a small baby and goes on writhing and babbling as long as it's switched on. Lucy decided to put Sophie to bed, wrapped her up in a fabric bag and stuffed her in the buggy. So there it was, a lump of fabric moving around inside the pram while a muffled voice said "I'm sleepy!" Thankfully, Jack never noticed it. Me, I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks about that thing.
So it struck me today: girl toys are scary. They talk, move, and wee. They speak in high-pitched tiny voices, pleading you to love it, or they stare at you with lifeless blue-eyeshadowed eyes. Boy toys are objects that go bang bang, nee nah, toot toot, or vroom. Sometimes they go beep or bzzzzzzzz. Mostly they're on wheels and they don't do anything unless you push them around. They don't tend to come to life in the middle of the night and start talking to you. Unless of course you buy your son a Furby, which also scares the shit out of me.
That's it; Mia shall play with nothing but Lego and Playdough, and possibly a wooden spoon and saucepan.
Friday, March 07, 2008
check out me widget!
Shameless solicitation for donations now commencing...
I've added a widget at the top of this page to take donations for the Race for Life 5k run. I'll be attempting to run the whole thing this year, and once again my lovely company will match any money raised. I was disappointed to have missed it last year, but I was busy giving birth and wotnot. Actually, I was doubly disappointed because the race date came and I did feel up to walking it.
This race is to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and I run it in memory (and to celebrate the life) of my grandma Yoshiko Hotta. If you would like to sponsor me, please do so either using the widget above, or using this link here.
Thank you. xx
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Oh, look. Here's one of the bazillion pictures on Flickr that I uploaded with the intent of creating a blog post about it. Oops. I really need to start writing things down.
So yes, here's Mia in one of my fab finds, Baby Legs. They are the most adorable baby leg warmers, perfect for babies with big cloth nappied bums. They're supposed to fit for several years, and I think they'd look adorable on a toddler. So long, tights wrestling! Hello funky 80s throwback accessories with extremely cute patterns. I am officially addicted and now own 7 pairs. I mean Mia now owns 7 pairs. I think they're a bit small for me. I covet my daughter's wardrobe.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
words of wisdom
Some random quotes from the Durbin household:
[me] "Can you please not be a lion for a minute?"
[Jack] "I'm playing the beehive game!"
[me] "How does that game go?"
[Jack sprints across his room and crashes into his bed, and shouts] "BEEHIVE!!! I'm very funny."
[Jack, frustrated] "Oh MAN." (Courtesy of his hero, Lightning McQueen.)
[me] "We don't have any monsters in our house because they're afraid of dogs."
[Jack] "I have a little belly. You have a big belly."
[me, getting self conscious] "I have a big belly?"
[Jack] "Yeah. You have a big belly because you're a grown up. I have a little belly because I'm a little boy."
[me] "Ah, okay then."
[Jack] "Mia's trying to eat my racing car!"