pack rat

i'm definitely not a pack rat. however, we have had a LOT of magazine subscriptions over the past 6 years of marriage. in fact, at one point, we were receiving 7 different magazines a month (car and driver, motortrend, men's health, women's health, shape, real simple, and explore). to spend $20 - $35/year on a year's subscription is SO cheap in comparison to buying a few mags at the grocery store each year. BUT these pile up pretty quick if you're not just tossing them after you've read them. but who tosses magazines after you've read them? no one. we had PILES of magazines everywhere after years of subscriptions (and now our list is made up of real simple, beautiful british columbia, and today's parent - but for awhile there was fit pregnancy and canadian family also). at one point, i implemented at magazine box for each magazine and said that once the box was full, we couldn't add to it until we recycled some. That was all the magazines we were allowed of each. but this seemed unfair because real simple is so fat and explore is too good to get rid of ANY.

where am i going with this? well, eventually, we got rid of all the car mags, most of the health mags, and i gave away my fit pregnancy to someone else who was pregnant. i plan on keeping all explore and today's parent but the real simple? i can't keep them all! i've totally pared down - don't worry - i don't have years of my subscription but i have the last half a year or so. (and every december issue since 2004 - i love re-reading those at christmas) i think i should just be passing these on instead of getting rid of them. do you want them? i would love to share them with you. they're too pretty to recycle. let me know and i'll save them for you!

btw, if you ever go outside or aspire to go outside more, this is the greatest magazine. it's canadian which i absolutely love and every article is SO well written. i read it cover to cover every month when we subscribed to it and we're waiting for tim's b-day so that we can be subscribed again as a bday gift! i highly recommend it for you or for giving as a gift. and no, i have not been compensated by explore magazine to say this! haha.

other peoples' kids do this?

the child's version of Keep Calm and Carry On...

this poster makes me feel so much better. though i guess buying it would negate my stand on the subject... (lots of other great ones here)

can i have one?

oh my goodness - this would have been the greatest asset to my bedroom decor of 1996-2000. if you didn't know me at that time, i had one entire wall of my bedroom collaged with magazine pics and words. i had all the flavours of Frutopia bottles on my dresser (it was a new brand at the time). i had a large penguin (from Earls) and giant Coke bottle piggy bank. there were black bar stools (but no bar...). it was random. and this bedspread would have been the coolest.

featured on my fav: odeedoh.

too many options

does anyone else go to specific grocery stores for specific things? i always buy my meat ($10 packs) and bulk peanut butter from pricemart, my jam from superstore (pc brand), and my frozen blueberries from costco. these are the things i am picky about. i just get the rest of my groceries wherever i happen to be. but on the days where i've run out of everything? three stores with a toddler seems ridiculous.

first bubble bath

i guess i'm not one for bubble baths myself so i've never put ben in his own. then the other day, we accidentally made a few bubbles in the water and ben thought that was great so last night when he said, "bobo, bobo", i added a bunch of soap to the water. instant good times.

toys, toys, toys

we can go for days in which ben doesn't play with ANY of his toys. he dumps them out and kicks them around maybe or he'll play with them for 2 seconds when tim or i sit down and try to get him engaged. the other day, matt and katie came to our place early in the morning so that we could drive them to the airport. katie walked up our stairs and said, "wowww. there's a LOT of toys here." we hadn't cleaned up all the scattered toys from the previous day! this can lead to many thoughts of, "why do we have this many toys if all they do is make a mess?"

yesterday morning, for the first time in a LONG time, ben played with his toys. he played in his kitchen (despite me having removed all his food for dumping and kicking purposes). he played at his toolbench for at least 10 minutes! he was in the ball pit for awhile. it was lovely to see him PLAYING on his own!

at one point, he went into his room and brought out this book that has a little container attached with magnets in it. i had these magnets on the fridge for awhile (but they're supposed to stick in the book) and then i'd put them away. he found the book, worked at getting the plastic open and then put the magnets on the fridge. it was an activity that lasted at LEAST 8 minutes!

okay, so maybe this sounds like a crazy post - that i'm all excited about ben playing for 8 or 10 minutes at a time. but if you have a 21 month old, i'm hoping you understand what i'm talking about - it's not just my kid, is it? longer playing periods are coming, right? fingers crossed.

week 15

i've been following this blog for a few weeks. she's a few weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy and i'm enjoying her weekly photographs with the fruit or vegetable the corresponds with her pregnancy. and her clothes are so cute. makes me want to go shopping.

this week, i'll be 15 weeks along and baby shulba #2 is the size of an apple. crazy.

not that simple

do you read the magazine, "real simple"? i've had a subscription for a couple years (christmas present!) and it's such a pretty magazine - it's sometimes hard to refrain from ripping out pages to "save". old collaging habits. they always have recipes in them and the cover often says things like, "meals in 5 ingredients or less" or this month's says, "15 minute dinners: prep and forget it". to a slacker in the kitchen like myself, this never fails to make me think, "ooh...that sounds good!"

when i get to that section in the magazine, these recipes ALWAYS are a ridiculous amount of work (in my non-chef like opinion) and they include ingredients that i'm never going to go looking for in a store. in the current issue, the recipes include items such as Gruyere, bulger, Arborio rice, and fennel bulbs for example. even if i had the time to comb my grocery store for the ingredients and then stand by the stove, waiting for things to "evaporate" or become "soft and creamy", i could never make these recipes.

so if you enjoy a challenge in the kitchen, trying new things, and savouring the subtle hints of this and that in your arugula salad - these recipes are for you! (rach, i know you recently had a lovely arugula salad somewhere and this last sentence is really aimed at you - i bet you make meals from this magazine, don't you?) if you like to make something in 5 minutes and aren't looking for hints of anything - you and i should swap recipes. ;)

it's tough being (almost) 2

ben's latest thing is picking up containers of toys, dumping them out, and running through them. i am not a fan of this stage so i've picked a battle. picking up things you dump out. seems like a logical enough battle, right? turns out, ben is fairly stubborn in this area. he has spent some time in "time out" for not listening to mommy and not picking up his toys. i try to help him but he will pick up a toy and then throw and laugh. back to time out.

so yesterday morning, ben was whining and whining for something and we thought he wanted blueberries. tim got the blueberries out and gave him a little bowl of them. ben screamed in frustration and dumped the berries out on the ground. i gave him a stern (ha) "no dumping out your food! let's pick these up and mommy will help you." it didn't go over well. off i hauled him to time out (which is in his bedroom). after a minute, i went and got him. i reminded him why he was there, asked for a "sorry" which he gave and asked if he was ready to pick up his blueberries. "yeah!" was his answer. but in reality, the real answer was no when we got back to the blueberries. i sat him down next to them and i picked up some and made a little pile for him. he wouldn't pick them up. so i walked away while he sat there. when he tried to leave the spot, i took him back, sat him by the berries, and told him to pick them up. then i went and continued to unload the dishwasher.

(i normally wonder about parents who take pictures of their children who are doing something they shouldn't be doing but after SO much time spent sitting here moaning and groaning, i couldn't resist. sorry, parents, for judging you.)

well, it turns out this is a MUCH better way to doing a time out! making him sit by the thing he has to pick up gives him all the opportunity in the world to pick up his stuff! a much more logical consequence. ben chose to sit next to his blueberries and cry. he moaned. he kicked them a little with his feet. he dumped the berries that i'd picked up for him out of the bowl. he cried some more. but when he started to scoot himself away, i went over, placed back next to the berries and said, "you are in time out until you pick up your berries." and then walked away.

i started to wonder if ben would be sitting there all day. i wondered if this was worth the battle. it seemed to be torture for him but after a good 10 minutes of sitting and crying about spilled blueberries, he picked them up. when he started, i went and helped him. when he was done, i gave him a hug. it was SO super nanny.

oh, parenting - why must you be so trial and error?

retraction

after posting such an opinionated post about name choosing, i spent the 45 minute drive from white rock to abbotsford thinking of boy names last night. i realized that my cohen example isn't really what i meant. i guess i don't need the nickname to be it's OWN name...it just needs to be an acceptable sounding nickname. (and cohen has been overruled because it's a little too different a name to go with shulba...imagine always having to spell both your first AND last name) also, i don't feel as strongly about my "rules" when it comes to girls names. so yes, just some extra thoughts on my previous post.

all about the nickname

i thought about baby names long before i ever had a baby. when we had ben, benjamin was the one and only boys name that tim and i agreed on. if this next baby is another boy, we are in trouble for names.

i would imagine everyone has their own criteria for name picking. my personal criteria is, "does it sound okay with our last name? (therefore doesn't start with s and doesn't end in a)", "does it work as an adult name as well as a child's name?", and most importantly, "does it have a good nickname?". To me, it is all about the nickname. In life, your name WILL be shortened (unless it's already one syllable) so it's better to plan the nickname right away instead of leaving it up to someone else. I was always Rebecca - no short forms until about grade 5 when some friends overheard my brother calling me "bec" at school. the nickname stuck and i've been bec from then on. i was lucky. this is not such a bad nickname. but think about how cute it would have been to be calling me "becca" as a little kindergartener. i missed out on that one. ;)

so i like a longer name that can be shortened. we will call this kid by the shortened version but when he is older, he can use the longer version for business associates or on his business cards. yep - very important. ;)

so this is my naming obsession. give me a name, i shorten it to one syllable and then decide if i like it. i'd like to give some examples here of names that i like but i don't like shortened...but i don't want to offend anyone. hmm... like cohen. i quite like this name but i want to then call him, "co" and that just doesn't work for me. start going through boys names that you know and you will begin to realize why our list was so short. if only i wasn't so crazy about the nickname - this would be way easier.

21 month old humour...

ben loves to go to the playground behind our house - you've seen it in many photos. on one play structure, he always runs to this hole and sticks his head through and shouts before turning around and going down the slide.

i showed him these photos the other day and he laughed so hard at this photo. after first few times of looking at it, i thought to video his reaction. here's ben reenacting what's happening in the above photo:

now he watches this video and laughs.

coffee fast

so i've had lots of random things to blog about in the last 3 months but i felt like they all led to "are you pregnant?" questions. but here's one of them.

i was pretty surprised to discover i was pregnant (i know, i know - why would i be surprised? i know how this happens, right?) and spent the first week in disbelief. i felt terrible that i'd drank so much coffee in the last month and wondered how i was going to go off it. two days later, i woke up and had a major aversion to tim's cup of coffee. i had no desire for my own cup. just like that. the thought of coffee made me feel a little queasy for about a month. after that, i would have a cup here or there in the afternoon. by month 3, i was on regular decaf coffees from tim hortons whenever we went there but still nothing in the morning. isn't it amazing how the body works? i was happy i didn't have to control the coffee intake myself - my body took care of it for me.

two marches ago...

in march '09, we painted the future timbit's bedroom.

i always had the best intentions of decorating it with cute baby things but 2 years later the walls are still bare. unbelievable. but i guess that just makes it easier to decorate when ben moves out of this room this summer. yep, he's making room for the baby. we're pregnant - due late september!

i'm slightly horrified at how much i'm showing already at just a little over 3 months. i guess that's what happens when you have absolutely no muscles to hold anything back! while i'm still apprehensive to be adding to our family so quickly (yes, i know - it's not THAT quickly...but it feels like ben is a handful - how could i be lugging an infant around as well?!), our excitement for a second is growing everyday. tim's first reaction to finding out that we were pregnant was, "ben could really use a playmate." :)

at the moment, ben loves babies. he shouts out, "baby!" and "hi!" when he sees a stroller with a baby in it. he loves our friends' baby, kylie - mostly pointing at her hair, eyes, nose, and bellybutton. and he carries his own baby around sometimes (accurately named, "baby"), talking to him, attempting to feed him blueberries, and trying to fit both of them in his chair without squishing him. i know this could change when it's our own baby and it takes all the attention away from him BUT it's still nice to see him enjoying babies now.

napping window

there's always so many things that i could be doing while ben naps. i definitely should take a shower and then there's always cleaning up around the house (today, there's a LOT of cleaning to be done). there's online stuff like tupperware stuff and banking and ben is usually cranky when i'm on the computer so it has to be done during naps. i could blog, check email, and update my status. but some days, taking a nap myself sounds like my favourite idea.

today is one of those days. last night, when we got home from white rock at about 10pm, we carried ben inside and put him in his crib like we always do. he always wakes up for this transfer but falls asleep again quietly and for the most part, quickly. not last night. we could hear him thrashing around in there, knocking his soothers against the bars, and giving little shouts here and there. when we went to bed at 10:45pm, i tiptoed in to adjust his blanket and he sat up. he jumped up and wanted to get out of bed. i got him up, gave him a drink of water, and let him sit in our bed for a few minutes. then we put him back to bed. he moaned, shouted, and cried for a half hour. i went in a couple times and that just upset him more. we left him awhile longer - no sleeping happened. finally, at 12:15am, i sent tim in to help settle him. this just got ben more worked up and tim left the room of a wailing baby. we sat for about 2 minutes listening to the crying and then went and got him again. i brought him into our room and told him he'd have to lay still and go to sleep. he did his very best to be very still. every so often, he'd wiggle but stayed in his spot in the middle. finally, at 12:45am, i sat up to see if he was sleeping - his eyes were open. this is SO my kid. (it takes me forever to fall asleep too) so i picked him up, took him back to his bed, and tucked him in. i went back to bed with my fingers crossed. he eventually fell asleep there - quietly this time. there's really no way we could ever have him in our bed as we're both such light sleepers.

okay - too many details there, i'm sure but all this to say, when ben woke up at 7:30am this morning, i was bagged. 6.5 hours is not enough in the least for me! i figured his 3 hours awake stint in the middle of the night would lead to at LEAST an 8:30am sleep-in! no such luck.

so the napping window that i speak of in my title - it's the first 20 minutes of ben's nap. during this window, if i want a nap, i have to take it asap. that gives me at LEAST an hour of sleep and hopefully i will wake up before ben. if i don't lay down practically right when he does, i am woken up by him a short time later and am in a terrible sleepy mode. i feel much worse than if i hadn't napped at all. these people who take 10 or 20 minute naps and feel good when they wake up? i'm SO jealous of them! i haven't taken a cat nap in my life!

today i missed the napping window. i got going on online banking and boom - an hour later, i haven't gone down for my nap! good thing i didn't because as i write this last couple sentences, i can hear ben moaning as he wakes up. i may be a bit tired but at least it's nothing that a cup of coffee can't cure!

coolest idea ever...

this is SUCH a cute idea to take with you when you go grocery shopping with your little kid! AND what a great idea to use words on the cards instead of just pictures! wow. LOVE it. go check out the tutorial at She Wears Flowers.

the latest food phase

i've blogged about being a phase person before. i like something and that's all i eat or listen to, or watch, etc. for an extended period of time. most often phases are about food or music...though i guess tv could be included. i watched a LOT of Dog the Bounty Hunter before i got sick of it. the current phase i am in is the quesadilla phase. one of the few things that sounds like a good lunch to me is a quesadilla. it could be just cheese and black beans or often there's tomatoes in it. if i'm lucky, i have leftover chicken to throw in. it's not really what's on the inside - it's about dipping it in salsa, it going well with diet coke, and it being filling that makes me love them lately.

sometimes being a stay at home mom, i just want to get out of the house. there's no better place to go hang out for awhile than at a fast food place for lunch. this sounds horrible, doesn't it? but i've always loved fast food and ben really loves timbits. so lunch at the wendy's/tim hortons combo restaurant seems like such a great idea! i feed ben his lunch at home and then we go and get mommy a combo and ben, a timbit. i'm making it sound like i do this all the time - i really don't. but if i'm out and about in the morning and thinking of what to make for lunch, something that makes me come home instead of going to wendys is a quesadilla. it's very good for me to have SOMETHING to keep me eating at home!

quesadillas sound somewhat unhealthy but i use whole grain tortillas and low fat cheddar. black beans are a good source of protien that i often add to my quesadilla as well. salsa is 0 points by the way to all you WW fans. so while it's still not the healthiest of lunches, it's better than the current desired alternative.

and all this writing is making me hungry. unfortunately, i am out of tortillas...looks like i'll have to make a quick trip to the store before lunch!

sunshine

this morning, we went for a family walk in the sunshine. ben happily jumped in puddles and pet every dog that walked by. in the afternoon, tim and ben played in the backyard with no jackets on - the sun was so warm! could this be spring? love it!

this past week's vocabulary development was changing the words "mama" and "dada" to momm-ee and dad-ee - extra emphasis on the ees. also, ben has figured out what it means to have 2 of something and when he does have two of something, he hold them up and says, "do!"

"head down - power through" - michael bluth

every fall, i get a cold and at some point lose my voice from teaching. not this fall though! way to go, me! umm...but i'm pretty sure it is going to happen tomorrow. my first lost voice of spring. last week i called in sick to TOC (illegal - i know) and this week, i just can't do it again! i had these three thursdays booked in a row in the gym for PE and i've been loving PE so to cancel last week was lame. let's cross our fingers for a good sleep tonight and tomorrow, i'll bring lots of tea and cough drops with me. note to self: blow the whistle more often than yelling.

just my job...

a week or two ago, i was TOCing as a PE teacher but i didn't have the gym to use because there was a basketball tournament going on. it sounded sketch at first but i really had the easiest day ever. my morning consisted of a prep, then went the Vice Principal to the middle school with all 3 classes of grade 1s and all 3 classes of 2s to watch a game, then another "prep" (in which i do nothing), and then recess in the staff room. after recess, i taught three classes of PE in the students' classrooms with exercise stations which was great. lunch. after lunch i had an hour of "prep" so i asked the VP if i should offer my extra two hands to any other teachers for that time. he responded with, "if you want to or you can just prepare for the kindergarten PE at the end of the day." he and i were going to be teaching 2 kindergarten classes together in the music room and we were just going to be doing the stations that i'd done between recess and lunch. i've taught PE classes with him before and sometimes i feel like a student teacher but hey! i'm getting paid to be there and it's nice to have someone else lead. :) anyways, i go and help in a grade 1 class cutting and gluing until 2pm when it's time for K PE. i get to the music room and the VP isn't there yet so i set up the stations. the two classes arrive and he's still not there. i have them sit quietly and watch me demo each station then i put them in groups, start the music (to which they "exercise" to). they go around and get through all the stations once. we stretch and their teachers come back to pick them up. the class is finished and the VP never came. i figured he got caught in a meeting or something but really, it would have been silly to have two of us there anyways. i went to the office to touch base before leaving and he had his door closed and was meeting so i left a note in his box saying everything went well. great and low key day.

at 4pm, i'm at home and i get a phone call. it's the VP. he cannot believe that he forgot to come to the K class. i'm laughing, saying it was no trouble while he apologizes up and down for not being there. i told him i figured he was in meeting. he was like, "i wasn't in a meeting - i just forgot! so, next time you're here at school, come by my office because i have a starbucks card with your name on it for looking after that class on your own," he says. "whaat? you know they pay me to be the TOC, right? i don't need a starbucks card!" i reply. "nope! come and get this card when you're in and thanks for doing that today." well, who's to argue, right? next time i was in, i came and got the $10 starbucks card for my (non) troubles.

today, i splurged on a grande macchiato AND a scone at starbucks for a nice tuesday morning treat with my son. ben was happy to be drinking "awa" (water) out of a starbucks cup with a straw and was pleased with the stale cookie i'd brought him from home. and what i remembered as i relished my lemon cranberry scone was that the best kind of starbucks is free starbucks.

excuses, excuses.

well, this sickness has taken me down for the count. i know i wasn't doing so great on the blogging front this past month but having this sinus infection(?)/cough/eye infection hasn't helped. so i have spent the last week in sweatpants and hoodies, napping when ben naps, and drinking juice. i'm starting to think that i should try the daily blogging project that sharelle and andie have been doing since i've been enjoying their daily entries and could use a little inspiration. hmm...check back soon...i promise i'll have something going here!

just a little snow

on sunday, we woke up to snow which was exciting. ben shouted lots of "no! no!" while pointing out the window. at 8am, tim and ben headed out to shovel the driveway before church.

when we got on the roads an hour later, there was no snow on them and by the end of the day, all our snow was practically gone. that's lower mainland, BC for you.

TOC life

the nice thing about being a Teacher On Call (TOC) is that i WANT to work. don't get me wrong - i love teaching but when i worked full time, i woke up many mornings wishing that i didn't have to go to work. i've worked 2 - 3 days every week this past month and even though i hate shipping my baby off to different houses everyday, i've been so happy to be getting some work in! it's a nice feeling to want to work.

this morning, however, i would have called in sick if i'd had a full time job. i woke up every hour in the night with a dry mouth, a sore neck, and a headache, dreading my alarm going off. but i'm the TOC - how can i call in sick? in fact, i didn't even know the number of the principal to call if i wanted to call in sick. so of course, i got up, popped some extra strength tylenol, went to work, and taught grade 4. those poor kids were most likely not my biggest fans by the end of the day though i did play quite a few games of math bingo with them.

so this week, i'm glad i'm not working tomorrow.

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.

crazy for coco puffs

does anyone else out there have a toddler who is CRAZY over a tv show? ben has crept into the crazy category over elmo. we used to watch it in the mornings before price is right because it was on. then, since he liked it so much, we started taping them so that we could access them at anytime. this is very handy. sometimes i'll put on an elmo episode when i'm trying to make lunch or dinner. somtimes, when i just need to send a couple emails. and now i'm in trouble. this kid knows that he can watch elmo at anytime. when the piano comes out and elmo starts to sing the ending song, ben sometimes begins to cry. if he's not crying, he's at least shouting, "dada! dada!" (which triples as a word for elmo, daddy, and santa - three very important people) in hopes that i'll play another one for him. now, don't get me wrong, i say "no" to watching elmo MANY, many times a day which leads to much crying and screaming if it's between 5 - 7pm (the tiredest hours of the day). i cannot handle this craziness over elmo anymore! we're going to have to make it into a set time of day and that's the only time he gets to watch...will that calm the craziness? i don't know. it's all trial and error, i guess.

0 degrees

it's always funny to me that when the sun comes out around here, you never know what people are going to wear. it's still cold...in fact, yesterday was one of the colder days we've had in awhile. my mom and i took ben in the stroller and went for a walk. having no gloves, my hands were crazy red when i finally got inside. but because there was sun, we saw people in capris and shorts walking outside! it's COLD out! what are you thinking? i don't know - is this a BC thing or are people this oblivious to "sun doesn't equal warmth" everywhere?

ben's first haircut

this past monday was a rainy day. what to do on a rainy day? find a kid's hairdresser. i called and we were in getting ben's first hair cut 30 minutes later. i had just enough time to find the Elmo's World on "hair" and watch the 2 minute clip of the kid getting his haircut. i told ben that he was going to go get HIS haircut too. he just stared at me.

BEFORE:

getting to sit in this tractor was well worth the $14 haircut cost. he was pumped.

AFTER:

ben got a treat at the end - a lollipop. he was a big fan of his first lollipop. overall, a great experience. he seems to realize that something happened to his hair because when we went over to the shulbas the other day, we got up to the door and i told him, "grandma's going to like your haircut!" and when grandma opened the door, ben grabbed his hair and pulled it up for her. pretty funny. it took me a couple days to get used to seeing him looking like a "big boy" - it's amazing what difference a haircut makes!

ben's cranky mix

in response to rachel's comments about what else is on the ben's cranky mix playlist:

1. you are the best thing - ray lamontange

2. right as rain - adele

3. one of those days - joy williams

4. don't let your feet touch ground - ash koley

5. when the night feels my song - bedouin soundclash

6. you don't know me - ben folds and regina spektor

7. viva la vida - coldpaly

8. bad moon rising - creedance clearwater

9. be OK - ingrid michaelson

10. a million dollars - joel plaskett emergency

you are the best thing

a long time ago, i made a playlist called "ben's cranky mix" which I would play when I was annoyed with ben's crankiness. they were all upbeat songs that were intended to extend my patience. well, ben is a big music fan in general so he's always asking for "muh! muh!" while nodding his head. i guess i must have been choosing this playlist more often than not because lately, if i picked any other song, he'd get angry and shout, "muh! muh!" while nodding his head vigourously...as though this would get his point across. and i guess he did because i'd switch it to the cranky mix. the cranky mix starts out with ray lamontange's You Are the Best Thing. well, after this song is finished, ben stops whatever he's doing and points at the computer, nodding his head, saying, "muh! muh!". when i go back and start the song again, he's happy. now, i'm actually a fan of listening to the same song over and over so i don't really mind but it's kind of funny, right? the other day, we listened to this song 10 times in a row! (the things we do for our kids)

well, a good friend of mine was over with her two kids yesterday and ben started asking for music. i thought, "i don't really want to listen to ray over and over with other people here" so i turned on a kids cd (which ben has been known to enjoy) and ben went nuts, screaming, "muh! muh!". i walked away. this is what you do when they start tantruming, right? i don't know. but anyways, i walked into the living room and left ben yelling and flailing in the kitchen over the music and he comes running like a wild man into the living room after me and falls. but he doesn't just fall. he falls at full speed into the sharp corner of the banister and gashes his forehead open and scratches up his cheek. oh my goodness. all over ray lamontange. oh ben.

we got a band aid on his head though it might of have been one stitch worthy and he recovered from his tantrum. later in the day, we listened to ray as many times as he wanted. because ben, you ARE are the best thing. ;)

locking doors

ben's latest favourite activity is running into various rooms in the house, shouting, "bye!" and closing the door. he doesn't know how to open the door yet though i'm sure that's just around the corner but this means you need to be near by to open the door again for him when he knocks. the funniest one is when he closes himself in the pantry. a bedroom or something, i understand - there are things to do in those rooms. the pantry is dark and there is no room to move so he just sits on my tupperware box in the dark and waits for me to open the door.

when ben first started doing this, he ran into the bathroom one day and locked the door behind him. i was in a total panic as i listened to him flushing the toilet and just before i was about to throw my weight against the door and break it down...(haha) i figured out that you can unlock it from the outside with a butter knife. phew.

i'd have to say that i like this closing doors activity better then ben's other favourite activites: pushing a chair up to the counter and putting things in and out of the microwave or emptying my spice rack and climbing up and down on the kitchen chair to line up the spices on the window sill.

soup update

like i said the other day, to make soup is a goal for this year. why spend so much on canned soup with all it's preservatives when i could "whip it up" myself? i think my first try at soup was a little lofty. i had to laugh that rachel's comment was that i had told her that her making soup looked like too much work. this soup that i made was too much work. it had so many vegetables! first i had to buy all those vegetables. then i chopped them all (which wasn't THAT much work because i used my Quick Chef). but it was still time consuming. then i missed a few ingredients. i figured, "oh well, i'm sure it'll be fine." and this is ALWAYS my problem when cooking - i think that not using all the ingredients will turn out a fine final product. it rarely does. you'd think i'd have learned by now. i ate a couple bowls of my giant soup recipe and then tossed it. i know, i'm a bad person. it was just terrible soup. i could see myself eating any more of it!

so today while perusing the weight watchers recipes online, i found this soup: that's it?

Easy Corn Soup
Place 1/2 cup of frozen, thawed corn niblets in a medium saucepan. Add 1 cup of fat-free chicken broth, 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and 1/8 teaspoon of cumin; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Puree in a blender and then top with chopped jalapeno, if desired.

that's it? corn, broth, and some spices. it seemed doable so i threw it all in a pot just now and ate it for lunch. and it wasn't bad. a little spicy - maybe i'd do less cumin when i do it again. but if it had been terrible, it would really have been no loss - it was one serving of soup - not a giant pot. single serving soup could begin my success in soup making.

snow morning

off to get the sled from the backyard.

so yesterday evening, it snowed huge flakes! we watched it decorate the trees from our windows. it didn't seem to snow any more overnight but stayed cold so that all the snow was icy this morning. ben has this terrible cough and a runny nose - it just didn't seem right to subject all the kids at the church nursery to his germs. plus tim and i had terrible sleeps so we are pretty tired this morning. we stayed home. but we did not stay inside.

ben was so cranky this morning but it was not yet nap time so we headed out into the sunny snow day and brought the sled. i have to say, i love having some hills just behind our house. not far to go. tim went down with ben first. then it was my turn. i said to tim before he pushed us off, "nothing can happen, right?" because sledding makes me a little nervous. he laughed. we went racing down the hill, hit a bump, and toppled over. being much larger than my 18 month old, i fell on him a little...oops. he was none too happy with a faceplant in the snow. after we stood him up and dusted him off, he seemed fine though my fleece pants were soaked through. yuck. we didn't go home though but mostly just walked around in the snow for the rest of our time outside.

this hat's buggin me!

watching the sledders

(i know the mitten string should go inside the coat but when you then pull the mittens off and they're hanging there by the strings, it drives ben crazy.)

laughing at them yelling

let's go, mom!

(check out my new sorel boots that i got for christmas! LOVE them!)

we were too slow for ben - he headed out on his own.

the count

you know...the count from sesame street was a vampire. who picked that guy to be on the show? weird thought.

the fighter

tim and i hadn't gone to a movie in FOREVER but over the holidays, ben stayed with grams while tim, his brother, and i went to see "the fighter" with mark wahlberg and christian bale. i'd seen marky mark in a couple interviews and this movie sounded so interesting. (and you know how much i love mark wahlberg) the fighter is based on the true story of mickey ward - read a great write up here. wahlberg had been trying for 4 years to get this movie made. he had the guys who the movie is based on (one of them a former drug addict) living in his house. he worked out like a boxer for all 4 of those years to ensure he stayed in shape for when it got made. it's such an interesting story and the movie's been nominated for 6 Golden Globes. both wahlberg and bale are fantastic in it - especially bale, whose performance is so well done, it's scary. if you're a rocky fan, then you'll LOVE this movie and if you just like well-acted movies based on true stories, you'll also love this movie. watch the trailer here.

18 months looks like this

i hear other parents talk about each little thing that their child has done that is so amazing and i think to myself, "do i do this?". i try to reserve a lot of ben stories for tim and ben's grandparents and not proclaim them to the world via my facebook statues because not everyone thinks my child is as awesome as i think he is. but sometimes, a mom just can't help herself so i'm limiting myself to this blog post.

ben is understanding sooo much more of what we say to him. last night, i was at a tupperware party and tim was with ben. he'd had a late nap so i'd warned tim that he might not be as tired at regular bedtime. at 7pm, tim asked ben if it was time to brush his teeth and ben said, "no". is it time for bed? "no". after a little while, tim asked again and ben answered no. at about 7:30pm, tim said ben was looking tired so he asked if it was time to brush teeth. "yeah", he replied. after they brushed teeth, tim asked ben if it was time to read a book and ben went and got him a book to read. tim said, "is it time to have soothers?" and ben pointed at the bed and went down without a peep. :)

a few days ago, i put ben in the car and said, "we're going to grams and pop's house!" when we got to the corner where we turn left to go to their house, i turned right because i needed to first drop some books off at the library. ben pointed left and started to cry! whaat? i thought maybe it was a fluke. another day, i turned left at that corner and was heading towards my in law's house but then turned off at another street on the way to costco. he pointed out the window in the direction of their house and said, "poppa!" and whimpered. as it turns out, we discovered that if you drive on or past the street to my in law's house from any direction, ben can point in the correct direction towards their house! is this not totally crazy? he didn't get that from me - i'm always so lost! haha.

i've taught ben a few "signs" so that he could let us know when he was done eating or wanted more of something. and then after a few months of those two signs, i taught him thank you (patting his mouth) and please. he never did learn the sign for please, just started saying "peas". now, he mostly skips over the sign for more and just says, "peas!" when he wants something. when you give him something, he pats his chin. every once in awhile after i change his diaper, he'll even say thank you by patting his chin. aww. but lately, ben's made up a few signs of his own. if he scratches the back of his neck while pointing at the fridge, he wants pickles. yes. this took me forever to figure out. the poor kid's neck was all red. he also strokes his cheek for "house". don't know why but he does it whenever you say house. and the latest one is, in the morning when i'm getting him his milk and breakfast, he points at his toes and then up to the counter over and over until i figured out he was asking for "toast"! haha.

so there are a few of my mom stories. we're loving this stage despite some new frustrations it has brought but this little boy sure is fun to have around. we're loving being ben's parents.

make soup

i posted my new years resolutions over at mytrustnetwork.ca and one of those resolutions was to make soup this year. yes, make soup. i think i've made soup maybe...once. lentil soup from the recipe on the back of the bag the lentils came in. it was pretty easy however, for some reason i never made soup again. i know there are so many preservatives in canned soup so one time i bought a canned, organic, no preservatives vegetable soup and it was terrible. i had to throw it out after taking as many bites as possible. yuck. turns out i like those preservatives...aka. salt.

but really, if i made my own soup, then i would know what i put in it, right? my mom makes a wicked turkey soup post-holidays which i love and my mother in law makes all kinds of great soups. i need to just start putting the work in. i found a great weight watchers recipe for vegetable soup that i plan to try tomorrow and i bought all the vegetables today. i'll let you know how it goes.

flashback february 1998

in february of 1998, i bought the first issue of "Teen People" magazine. i kept it on my bookshelf for years and then put it into a box in my parent's crawlspace. this past weekend, my mom pulled said box out of the crawlspace and asked if i wanted to keep anything in it. well...if i've kept this magazine for that long, i guess i should continue keeping it?

here are some highlights from a 1998 magazine -

>jennifer love hewitt is on the cover for being in Party of 5

> the GAP ads show women in large denim shirts

> the page where they find stars out in the real world has a picture of Jewel signing a poster and 98 degrees hanging out in new york.

> there's an ad for the SERIES PREMIERE of dawson's creek!

> there's a milk ad featuring J.T.T and another with hanson!

>there's a feature article on the spice girls

what a flashback.

clean up

the worst part about christmas decorations is when it's time to clean them up. we've been putting it off and now just looking at them makes me feel lazy. augh. i guess we should go get the boxes out and get going.

happy new year

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man."

- Benjamin Franklin