Quick Takes (volume 16)

--1--

For my New Year's Resolution, I decided to write down one memory a day in a diary. I haven't been very good at memory-keeping in general recently (obviously not here, but not in other ways either--I've hardly even been taking pictures!), so I thought this would be a simple way to do it. And, I hope that next year, I can continue to use the same diary, adding a new 2014 entry below 2013's, so we will be able to look back and remember what was going on this year.

You can see where this is going, right? I have not been doing well keeping up with this goal. It took me almost a month to even buy a diary, then another week or two to remember to write in it for the first time. Now I usually remember to write in it every 4th day or so, and have to try and remember things that happened. :/

But, I am writing down memories, even if not every day, and I will be so glad that I did in years to come. So, glass half full, right?

--2--

The whole first take is a round-about way of saying, I am totally going to be plagiarising myself from my diary onto these here quick takes (and probably in the future as well) so that I have something to share with you all.  

--3--

My birthday is coming up this weekend. 30. Can. not. believe it. I'm pretty sure I am not yet an adult, despite the marriage and kid and house thing, so I'm not quite sure how I am turning 30. Mostly I'm not too concerned about the milestone-y-ness of it, although a little bit of me is freaking out inside. Not really sure why, as I am pretty happy with how these first three decades have turned out, but. You know. 30!?!

--4--

We're planning on going to London on Saturday, to see the Science Museum (as I have never been) and probably take Gus to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum as well. We'll see how long we spend in the first one, though, and how we're feeling before going into the dinosaurs. That is the awesome thing about museums in London--many of them are free, so you don't feel like you have to spend all day in there, to the point of exhaustion and crankiness, to get your money's worth. I think it will be good.

Plus, I am planning on getting lunch at the Real Food Market at Southbank Centre (mmm, posh street food) and dinner at Mildred's vegetarian restaurant in Soho.  It is going to be an awesome day :)

--5--

Gus is just excited because we will be going on a bus, a train, and an underground train on Saturday.

He has obviously heard me say (many times, probably) that he loves buses. One day last week I told someone that, and he added "And trains and tractors and trucks." Now he regularly tells me what he loves, whether those things, or certain books, or (kind of randomly) the orange fish on a blanket. Good that he knows what he likes!

--6--

building, with the machines in the background

I mentioned in my last post that Gus was playing trains non-stop. Well, since then, he has moved on to Bob the Builder. All day long, all I hear is "Let's fix something! Let's get to work! Can we fix it?" He's been watching (too much of) the show as well, so we are always repairing Mr Bentley's cottage or asking Farmer Pickles to help. It is quite amusing, although quite tiring to sit and watch / play with him for hours and hours is exhausting. He has spent the last couple weeks in a particularly needy phase. While I can acknowledge intellectually that it is just a phase and he needs me close for a particular reason of development or some such thing, emotionally, I just want to scream "Give me 5 minutes of peace!!!" Thankfully, he actually let me do things for short periods today while he played by himself, so we might be returning to a balance that is a bit easier for me.

--7--

Outside, Gus has been busy digging for bones everywhere we go. My goodness, can this boy get dirty! He lies down on the ground, just to get a really good look, and digs with his hands or a nearby stick. Luckily, he, and his clothes, wash clean (more or less). And really, we can't let a bit of dirt stand in the way of important discoveries, can we?

watching Bob the Builder with Dizzy

Hope you have a lovely weekend!  As always, check out Jen for more Quick Takes! 

Stories about Gus

Jon and I took Gus to the "tiny park" near our house the other day. We call it the tiny park because it only has two swings, a slide, and a little monkey bars / climbing thing. But that is perfectly fine for our Gus, as he usually spends most of our time there on the swing. We were pushing Gus in the swing, Jon in front and myself in back, as per Gus's instructions, while he shouts out "Gus go high. Gus go bigger high. Gus go SUPER HIGH!"  By this time, I already had to lift my arms above my head to push him, so I think any higher and he would have been over the crossbar ;)

We were in the US visiting family for 3 wonderful weeks in July. We all had a great time seeing everyone, and Gus especially loved playing with his cousins. He of course had a special fondness / adoration for his cousin Ben, who is 3 years old. One night, he chased Ben for ages, round and round and round the house, trying to give him hugs. And, of course, knocking him over and falling right on top of him when he did manage to catch him!

We were lucky enough to be able to take Gus to the Olympics this month. We saw the women's trampolining qualification round and finals. We had told him ahead of time what we were going to do, so he kept talking about going to the 'Lympics to, in his words, "see people". An accurate description, to be sure, although maybe not as detailed as one might expect.

He did seem to enjoy it, though. Once there, he realised that the people were "jumping up and down and spinning!!" (He always said it in a very excited fashion--probably it would be more accurate to add a few more exclamation marks, actually.) We were very high up in the arena, though, so I was getting pretty nervous as he tried to run around in front of the empty seats next to us. I wasn't too disappointed when Gus fell asleep in my lap after the first round and slept through the whole finals! That way, he got to experience it, and then I got to actually see some of the competition, rather than just worrying about him the whole time!

And of course, the best part of his whole day was that we got to ride on "big green bus! And big choo choo train! And little choo choo train!"

We also watched a lot of Olympics on the television. I figured I can justify having the TV on for hours each day for two weeks every 4 years. We taught him to say both Go GB! and U-S-A! and now when we turn the TV on, Gus asks "Watch GB?"  He especially liked watching "Tom [Daley] jump in water." And the horses, but I couldn't keep the dressage on for more than a few minutes, even for Gus.  

We also spent a week in France with Jon's family. The house we were staying in had grape vines on the back patio, and we were allowed to eat any of the fruit there. Gus loved it. He got quite good at only picking the purple ones, although he did also enjoy picking unripe ones to throw to the birds. Oh well, I'm sure they appreciated it.

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  As you can see, we have been pretty busy these last couple of months. Glad to be getting back into the swing of our normal routine, though, and hope that will extend to the blog as well! 

Quick Takes (volume 14)

A day late (and a dollar short, no doubt), but here they are anyway, in all their quick-takey glory!

-1-

Gus has been very adverse to wearing a diaper this week. Well, once he has it on, he is generally fine, but he does not like to put it on. So we have had a lot of diaper-free time this week.

Tuesday morning, we woke up and I was starving, so I left Gus to play upstairs while I went down to make breakfast. When I got back up to bring him down to eat, the first thing I see is a dirty diaper, lying in the middle of the landing. My heart stopped. All I could think about was Jen's account of the poo-tastrophe that occurred in their house. (Short version: finger painting with the contents of a diaper) Thankfully, thankfully, I walked into Gus's room, and he was busy playing with his normal toys in a distinctly poo-free manner. Disaster averted! 

For now.

-2-

Sorry, maybe I should have eased you into this post, rather than just throwing the poo story at you right at the start. Hope no one's eating their breakfast while reading this!

-3-

On a happier note, it's my birthday today! The big 2-9. When did I get so old?  Jon's away on a good friend's stag do (bachelor party) today, but he will be back in the evening. We were planning on going out for dinner as a family last night, but Gus has also not been too keen on sitting in his chair to eat, so we decided we would wait till tomorrow lunchtime to go out, when we have a bit more energy! Jon's parents are taking Gus and I out for lunch today, so it should be a good weekend overall. 

Plus, I am getting a new camera from my in-laws! I am so excited. It is nothing special, but, seeing as my current camera is 6 years old and technology has improved a lot since then, I am hoping the new one will take some nice pics and videos (with sound!).

-4-

Also for my birthday, I have asked Jon to take me to see the Hunger Games movie when it comes out in a couple of weeks. So excited! If you haven't read the books, I definitely recommend them. Very gripping with a lot of commentary on our own society, although it's not in-your-face about it. 

-5-

I am loving Gus's talking at the moment. He seems to be picking up new words every day. He loves to label things, and will point out to anyone who will listen all the birds, planes, and balls in the vicinity (of course, usually that is me, and it can get exhausting!). It is so neat to be able to know what he is thinking. He must ask where Jon is half a dozen times a day. Usually I say that Jon is at work, but last Saturday he went out running, so I told Gus that. All week, whenever Gus asks about Pa, I say at work, and he comes back with "Running?". Yes, Gus, Pa is running. He runs 10 hours every day. 

When Gus talks about something, he often will just say every word he knows about the subject. We have a little birdhouse in the back garden, and some birds have been coming to it this week. One day we could see the birds in the box, peeking their heads out of the hole. I told Gus, "Look, they are playing peekaboo with you. The birds are hiding in the box." Ever since then, if he can't see any birds in the yard, he will just start saying "Bird? Peekaboo. Hide. Peekaboo. Hide. Box? Bird?" Ad nauseum. It is very sweet, but he gets quite worked up about it, and will often ask me "more?". I can't quite seem to explain to him that I cannot make the birds come back. Hopefully they will be visiting more often as the weather gets warmer!

-6-

The feast of St Joseph is on the 19th, so don't forget to start a novena for husbands today.  I get my novenas from PrayMoreNovenas.com, and they are emailed to me so I don't forget. I am still so bad at novenas that I usually miss at least one day, but it's getting better!

Also start planning your Italian feast to celebrate the day. Obviously St. Joseph wasn't Italian, but they do love him over in Italy. So it gives us a good excuse for some delicious antipasti, pasta and garlic bread. Yum yum.

-7-

One week till my brother-in-law's wedding!  I am very excited. Jon is best man, Gus is a pageboy (with an adorable little outfit), and I am doing a reading, so it will be a busy ceremony. But we are very blessed to have such a great family, and I think it will be a really good day. Please keep Tim and Becky in your prayers this week!

Hope you all have a great week! And, as always, thanks to Jen at Conversion Diary for hosting.

What I did on my Christmas vacation

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I have just been on vacation!  I spent the last 3 weeks visiting my wonderful family back in the US. Now I am back to the real world, trying so hard to get back into the swing of things where washing dishes and laundry and general cleaning must be done--by me! A few of my/Gus's favourite things from our trip:

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Gus's absolute favourite game while we were there was the "where is it?" game. He started making a sign for where (arms out from the elbows, palms facing up) the last couple of weeks before we went to the US. But when we got to my parents' house, he was having some separation issues (new environment + jet lag = a little boy who did not like his mother to leave his sight even to use the toilet), so my mom picked up on this and started a game with him of looking for me when I left the room. Where's Mama? Is she under the couch? No.

Oh my goodness, he loved this game. They would look in one place, and he would shake his head back and forth (long hair going every which way!), then point to a new place to look. After a while, he would play it pretty much any time he saw my mom, and she never knew what they were looking for if he started a game.

He now also loves to shake his head no, which I think he largely learned from this game. Usually he shakes his head because he really doesn't want whatever is on offer, although I think sometimes he does it just to feel his hair move around.

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At our house, the garbage can is locked away under the sink, so Gus doesn't really ever see or use it. At my parents' house, the garbage can is just tucked away at the side of the kitchen, but freely accessible. Gus was very interested in this. At first he just sort of looked at it or tried to take things out of it, but he soon learned what it was for and how to use it. He thought throwing things away was one of the best things ever. I remember one day he found a scrap of paper on the floor. When I told him it was garbage and he could throw it in the bin, his face just lit up and he raced out to the kitchen to take care of it. We did have to watch him closely though--his definition of garbage was not always the same as ours!

Really, he just loved (loves) putting things in and taking them out in general. He is great help with the laundry, and he does like tidying his toys, although keeping them tidied is a different matter. He spent ages putting various toys in the laundry baskets and pushing them around. He comes up with the funniest games sometimes!

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We had snow a few days before we left. I was really happy about it--I am a snow lover, although I don't really like to go out in the snow. Mostly I like to look at the snow, then curl up in the warm house with a cup of tea and a book. I did take Gus out in the snow a couple of times. He seemed to like it, although he wasn't really interested in doing anything with it. We went for a walk with him in the stroller, and he seemed to have a great time looking at the world covered in snow. However. Every single time we walked to the river near my parents' house, there were no geese! We saw them plenty of times while driving past, so I think they may have been avoiding us.

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Gus loved spending time with his cousins (ages 10, 6, 2, and 3 months). He is a pretty quiet guy when he's around other children, often just watching the action. So he did a lot of watching. The older girls were really good at playing with him, and he started to become more comfortable and join in. And I think he learned a few things from Ben (the 2-year-old). Especially about climbing!  The two of them were very sweet together; Jon and I took them on a walk one day, and Ben took Gus's hand while we were in the street. So adorable!  

My mom has a little old-fashioned cast-iron stove that her dad had made for us grandkids when we were little (Grandpa Dave was a pattern maker so could do cool things like that). All 4 of the big kids really liked playing with it. They made many a dish together, often made using the birds from the nativity set, although one day I kept being served shoe soup--not really my favourite. Gus certainly enjoyed "tasting" all their creations!

Gus wasn't really sure about baby Luke, though. Luke still couldn't control his body very well, so he often made kind of jerky motions. And he is very vocal--lots of squeaks and squeals!  Gus didn't like that so much.

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My favourite thing Gus has learned in the past couple of weeks is kissing. I die!  We ask him if he wants to give either me or Jon a kiss, and he either shakes his head no (which we love anyway) or leans in a plants a wet one right on our lips!  I don't know where he learned that kisses go on lips, because we generally don't kiss him on the lips. Jon thinks it might be because he often kisses his reflection in the mirror, and that is obviously a kiss on the lips. I don't know, but it is super cute.

I'll leave you with a picture from this evening: Gus reading his book. While sitting in a box. Obviously. And I just noticed, it looks like the duck is listening very attentively!