see the mose

listening to ben learning new words is pretty amazing. i'm sure all parents feel the same way. it's amazing to me how much ben can communicate to us already at 20 months though i'm pretty sure i'm the only person who speaks his language. lots of words double and triple in meaning so it's all about context. ben will repeat his word over and over until you guess the correct one and then he says, "yeah!" so this is helpful in deciphering new words. yesterday we drove past the Bakerview EcoDairy which we used to go to practically everyday in the summer and fall to see the animals and he was pointing and pointing saying, "mose, mose". i guessed a lot of words before i figured out that he meant, "animals" (animose). then today, when we drove by and he was saying, "mose" again, I knew right away and he was happy to be understood. this week, ben has started adding some consonants to the ends of his words. Instead of saying"ba" for bath, he says, "bass" and "ma" for mouth, he says, "mouse" which is fun. some other favourite words that ben uses often are "mama" for hammer, "doodoe" for noodle (aka. mr. noodle on elmo's world), and "ditdit" for timbit which he shouts happily every single time we pass a tim hortons. unfortunately, elmo is still "dada" and phone is "baba" but hey, at least we know his language.

top 100 toys over the last decade

how much did you love your cabbage patch doll, care bear, or skip-it? i did. turns out they're in Time Magazine's Top 100 list! click on toys in the list and read a write up about that toy. pretty interesting! check and see if your favs are there too!

valentines

last year, i cut out some pink and red hearts, sat down with my 8 month old, dipped his chubby little hands in white paint and put a hand print on each heart. then i gave these valentines to a handful of people. it was very cute and deserved a mom award. this year was a more rebecca-like valentines day where we didn't think ahead to make anything. but we went out for a family valentines day breakfast with all you can eat pancakes, i ate some cinnamon hearts and i took my baby to his favourite coffee shop (tim hortons) and bought him a "ditdit" (timbit). next year, ben will be over two and half and i'm sure, totally into crafting - then we will make valentines. but this year a family valentines day with my two favourite boys was a fun option.

nice mitts...

the other day, i asked ben if he wanted to help me make pancakes. he gave me an enthusiastic "yeah!" and ran to his little kitchen and got his oven mitt on. he then proceeded to dump all the ingredients into the bowl for me while wearing one oven mitt. too cute. my mom made these little oven mitts for him for christmas after seeing how much he liked the ones at indigo kids but these ones are a manly forest green.

chocolate covered pretzels

you already know how much i love chocolate covered pretzels - they've been included on gratitude sundays more than once. but this past weekend, i MADE some and they were spectacular! and you know what? it was just pretzels dipped in melted chocolate chips then put into the fridge for a few minutes. oh dear. that is much, much too easy. so now i have eaten a handful of chocolate covered pretzels everyday this week. mmm....

fruit stickers

how's this for a cute valentine? (it says "orange you glad you're my valentine") all sorts of fruit inspired stickers to download and print for free here.

a couple times this week, ben has asked to get into his crib. i put him in and tell him to call for me when he wants to get out. after anywhere from 2 - 10 minutes, ben calls mama and i get him out. he seems to just want to be in there to hang out with his soothers. it's a nice little break for both of us.

work work work

this past week, i got to work 3 days as a TOC. one of the days was spent at the ice rink as the PE teacher. each grade group would spend an hour on the ice and i walked around putting out fires. (yes, walked. i didn't wear skates.) i can't remember the last time i was that cold - brrr...thankfully i was able to thaw with a half hour lunch break. but after not working, it's a whole different pace to be back with students. so this week was a good start to my february that my bank account will appreciate - now if we can keep this up.