Picking Food Up Off The Floor

The Boys are Two!

The boys turned 2, two weeks ago. I was hoping to put up a post that day…but…well, honestly, I’m just tired. By the end of the day it’s all I can do to clean up the kitchen and the yard and help Mike put them to bed. Lately I’ve been veging out in front of the computer watching TV shows like Veronica Mars, House, Heroes, and Criminal Minds. But now the season is over, so I read all my friends Facebook pages instead. Several of my friends with twins say 3 is the magic age, which in some ways is depressing since the boys just turned 2, but at the same time I don’t want to rush them through because this is also a really exciting time for all of us. The boys are learning so much, their language is developing, they are testing their limits (both those imposed by us and their own physical limitations), they’re super curious, and it’s so fun to watch these things developing. I only wish I had more patience and that they could figure out how to listen. I feel like a broken record some days, “Come here please”, “I said, come here “, “Come here now!” “1…2…at three it’s a time out…”, “Do not pull things off of the counter”, “Are you listening to me?”,. “No climbing up the drawers”, “No biting!”, “Are you allowed to throw your toys?”, “Stop screaming, are you allowed to scream?”, “Use your inside voice please” …on and on and on all day long. So, yes I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. But there are also lots of good things that happen in our day and the boys are really adorable, so I thought I’d give a rundown of what we’ve been up to lately, and what’s happened in the past year. Even in my exhaustion, I feel super blessed to have these two little guys in my life. It’s so amazing to me that two years ago this time, they were still in the hospital and we were fighting to bring them home. That in those two short years they have learned to roll over, crawl, walk, run, talk, climb, do somersaults, make music, color and fingerpaint, hit a ball with a bat, kick a ball, swing on big kids swings, count to 10, help make daddy’s coffee, pretend…and so much more!

Highlights from the past year

Bran was in the ER twice, once for losing the tip of his fingernail when Drew closed a door on it (thankfullly it’s healed nicely) and with a bout of pneumonia.

The boys went camping for the first time. We went to Banff with Jeffery and Holly.

They had their 7, 8, 9 ,10, 11, 12, 13, and 14th plane rides.

Went to Washington DC, SanFrancisco, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Ontario.

Spent a week with their Nana and Papa Bowling and Grandma Scott while we had a vacation.

What they’re doing now

The boys like to turn their food into things. Bread, cheese, and fruit, become cars, boats, diggers, trains, and firetrucks. Today Drew’s bread was a digger and then he put some rice on it so it would be “digging” something.

They help me make Mike’s coffee in the morning. You’ll have to ask him how it is. And yes, we’ve had our share of messes in the process.

If the boys burp, they are learning to say “excuse me.” But whenever they do have a burp they’ll start making fake burps so they can keep saying “excuse me.”

They love to say our neighbor, Connie’s, name. They call everyone Connie and every time they see someone next door, they point and say “Connie.”

We just built the boys a swing set. It has been so nice for them. It has 2 swings and a sliding board with a climbing wall. I’ve been building up my arm muscles pushing. The boys love to swing, but when I push I always have to sing either The Wheels on the Bus song, or a version I made up that has the same tune. I think the neighbors are probably getting tired of hearing it. Lately they’ve been sliding down the slide into their little pool. It has been ridiculously hot here. But, really I’m not complaining.

Andrew

Drew really likes to help feed the dog in the morning and at suppertime.

Drew likes to say the word, “careful.” Often as he’s going up or down stairs he will say “carefull” or if he has had a wobbly moment climbing, sliding, or whatever, he’ll say “whoa, carefull.”

His favorite thing right now is trains. I will often find him in the playroom, in the dark, playing with his trains. He also likes to store them in the refridgerator of his kitchen. No idea why. He has a Thomas the Train birthday card that he keeps around and sometimes if he’s sad he’ll carry the card around with him.

Andrew often skirts the line of misbehaving and you can see him plotting out how far he’s willing to go. He’s definitely the tester.

Drew says “Upa Me” when we wants me to pick him up.

The other day Drew came to me whining with a bulging pant leg in his overalls. I pulled out one car, then another, then another, until I had 8 cars! Five minutes later he came back again with 10!

Brandon

Brandon really likes to help me put away groceries. He says “helping” over and over as we’re putting things away. He also does this with emptying the dishwasher.

Brandon loves cars. He especially loves his toy cars from the movie Cars. He has Luigi, Lightning McQueen, and The Sherrif. His favorite is Luigi or Weedgie, as he calls him. Sometimes Weedgie has to go away for awhile. I’m not sure what it is about Luigie that makes Bran like him so much but whenever we watch the movie, he’s always asking where Weedgie is, or pointing Weedgie out. And he always carries Weedgie around the house with him. We have a special place we put him at night because he’s not allowed to take him to bed.

The other day Lisa took the boys to the playground and they picked some lilacs. On the way, there was a little girl crying in one of the yards they passed. Bran wanted to go and take her the flowers. He kept saying, “crying”, “lilac,” or something to that effect.

Bran runs right across the line of misbehavior and often finds himself in time out. It doesn’t help that he becomes obsorbed in whatever he’s doing and can’t hear you to obey. Sometimes I have to get right in his face for him to pay attention.

Bran is always wanting me to “pay cars” with him. He’s constantly coming up to me, holding out his hand and saying “walk” which means walk with me to my toys and play. He only wants to play cars. Playing cars consists of getting all of their cars out and their road and doing something with them. I’m realizing I’m not so creative in this kind of play. How many things can a car do? We get gas, have the car washed, drive up and down the road…the firetruck puts out fires, the cement truck fixes the road. It’s all real life stuff. When Mike plays cars, they build ramps and other fun stuff that I never think of. When Drew plays cars, he lines them all up like a train and then moves cars in and out until he gets them the right way. But usually Bran steals one or two from the middle and fighting ensues…

Bedtime

Bedtime is still a challenge, but naptimes have been mostly a breeze. Often Andrew will ask to go up for his nap before I’m even thinking about it. He usually goes up 20 minutes or so before Brandon because Bran doesn’t seem to need as much sleep. They both usually go down well. Bedtime is more difficult. We’ve gotten to the point where we do our bedtime routine, then we close the door and let them go. At first it was okay, they stayed up too late, but eventually it got shorter so that they were asleep between 8:30-9:30 (we put them down around 8:00). But lately they’ve really been tearing the room up. Already all their clothes are in baskets in our room. But now they’ve taken to pulling out drawers and jumping in them until the bottoms fall out. Once we went up and Brandon had staples from the bottom of the drawer. They climb both dressers (yes they are bolted) and have gotten things off of the top that we didn’t think they could get to. Tonight they ripped some of the wallpaper border off of the wall. I’m pretty certain they don’t get this from me. But they are learning to go to sleep on their own and there is less fighting at bedtime (as in us fighting with them). I guess we’ll just keep trying until we find what works best. I really do wish they were still in their cribs though. Tonight Bran managed to throw Drew’s soother out of their room (there’s a gate across the door), down the stairs and into the living room, the other times he got them half way down the stairs or into our room. If only there was a soother throwing competition we could sign him up for…

So now begins the Terrible Two’s?…gulp.

Shayna Drew & Bran 2 Comments »

Oddest Thing

The oddest thing happened today.  I was asking the boys if they wanted pizza for lunch and lo and behold…a piece of pizza crust fell from the sky!  Noah was excited, Connie and I were a little bewildered until we saw the gull flying overhead trying to figure out how to get it back.  Then we were pretty grossed out!  I haven’t been able to stop chuckling about it all day though.

Shayna Edmonton, Miscellaneous 4 Comments »

Cute and Cool

The other day, Drew put a hat on his head and said, “cool.”

Today, Bran put his sunglasses on and said, “cute.”

Where do they get this stuff!?

Shayna Drew & Bran 1 Comment »

Our Crazy Boys

Bedtime

Not any better. Which is frustrating since they were such textbook sleepers as babies. In fact they still sleep fine, once they’re asleep. It’s not that they want us with them, or anything, they just don’t want to go to sleep and so they fight and fight and fight it. If one is super tired he might just go to sleep anyway, but if they’re both not wanting to go to sleep, then we’re in trouble. If I take away the afternoon nap we all go crazy and then they end up falling asleep really late in the afternoon on the couch and then bedtime is ruined again. I think it’s mostly a discipline issue and we just have to figure out the best way to help our boys realize that they have to go to bed at 8:00 and they have to stay in bed whether they like it or not. Stay tuned…

Eating

Drew is now in love with lettuce. Although the only dressings we can use are ranch, ceasar, or poppyseed. Bran is also starting to eat a little bit of lettuce too.
The new food of choice is kiwi, strawberries and grapes. Brandon still won’t eat french fries. Not that I’m upset, I just think it’s interesting, especially because we have to limit how many Drew can have.

The boys love noodles, doesn’t really matter what kind although spaghetti noodles are the best. With or without sauce.

Playing

Whenever Drew wants something that someone else has, he either says “share” or Anhew (which is his name for himself).

The boys got a toy kitchen that has been keeping them busy for hours. It has a coffee pot and Bran runs around the house saying “coffee” and trying to pour me some. The other day Mike was telling them that their oven is hot and when they take something out of it they should use a towel. Yesterday I walked in and saw Brandon pulling a pot out of the oven using the towel! I guess they are listening…to some things anyway.

Brandon and I spent some time in the yard the other day digging in the dirt and looking at bugs. He was really excited and at one point laid flat down on the grass to try and get a better look at the “bugs”. I tried to tell him their different names like this one is an ant and that’s a worm, and this one is…But he just kept looking for “bugs” and he would call out to them as if they would come when he yelled “bug, bug, bug” to them. It was really cute! He was also really good about holding the earth worms. He got a little aggressive and tried to squish it at one point though, so we put it back where we found it after that.

Talking

Bran calls Drew either Anhew or Dew. Today he was calling a puzzle piece of a zebra, Dew. We’re not really sure why…

Drew LOVES construction vehicles and calls them all “diggers”. Every time we get into the van he starts saying digger. He’s actually very good at spotting them and will call out when he sees one. There are lots of “diggers” in Edmonton.

Both boys love the movie Cars and it’s probably the video we’re watching the most right now. They say “queen” for Lightning McQueen and call out all the airplanes (or blimps or helicopters-they’re all airplanes) every time they see one. They’re now learning the name for Mater.

They both pluralize the word car so it’s always cars even if he’s only talking about one car. The other day Drew was riding his toy car and kept saying “cars, cars”

The boys have recently started saying “pop” randomly around the house and I couldn’t figure out why until I was reading Mr. Bown Can Moo. Mike had been reading that to them and they must have caught on to the word pop. The other day I was separating their yogurt containers and it made a popping sound. They yelled out pop. So now sometimes when they want yogurt, they say “pop.” and point to the fridge. They also yell out “pop!” when I put their toast in.

Speaking of toast. All bread regardless of wether it’s toasted or not, is called toast.

The other night Drew had been sick and went down without a bottle. Bran woke him up (long story) and then he seemed better and was wide awake. I was downstairs giving him some milk and a snack and he just started talking up a storm. He was rattling off all the words he knows, except that he was adding “a” in front of everything. A car, a bus, a train, a bottle, a snack…He just talked and talked and talked. It was really funny.

The boys’ favorite song is The Wheels on the Bus. They won’t let me sing anything else and if I try they keep saying “wheels, wheels, wheels on bus.” Drewie now sings “all through the town” with me.

Well…hopefully I’ll try and write more often so you don’t get so much at once. I tried putting it into the calendar, but the calendar…well…you know.

Cheers!

Shayna Drew & Bran No Comments »

Becoming a Composting Mama

I finally bought a composter last week. As a result I had to clean up the yard so I could gather up all the leaves and dead grass to mix with our food scraps. We got snow so early last fall that no one had time to rake leaves, leaving a big mess for everyone this spring, but lots of good composting material. We’ve been playing outside alot and the boys have been getting to watch the composting process. Brandon has been really enjoying learning how to compost. He helps me put fruit and veggie scraps in a container and then we dump them into the composter. His favorite part is adding the grass and leaves. He says “grass, grass” while standing on his tip toes to reach the top of the composter. I thought about vermicomposting and even found the most awesome article in our local paper on “becoming a vermicomposting mama”, the name alone made me want to do it. But I don’t really have the space for a container of soil and worms in my kitchen and even though I don’t mind worms per se, the thought of hundreds of them in my house is a little more than I can handle at the moment. For the time being I will be satisfied being a “composting mama”.

Both boys are also learning about recycling. They love to throw things away and we have to decide whether it’s garbage or recycleable. Honestly they don’t really care which one it is, they just want to throw it away.

My friend Connie had this little quiz linked to her blog. How green are you?

Your Life is 52% Green

Your life is pretty green – and you know a lot about how to live an eco friendly life.So congratulate yourself for being good to the earth. And maybe think about implementing some of the ideas from this quiz!

How Green Is Your Life?

Shayna Edmonton, Miscellaneous 3 Comments »

A Week with the Grandparents

The boys spent a week with their nana’s and papa while we were in Barbados. They shuffled between Mike’s parents and my mom. They had a very busy week and from what I hear were both a delight and a workout. The grandmas got the boys haircuts and had their pictures taken. They visited where their grandmas work, went shopping, went to church, and had an overall active week. Brandon fell in love with his papa. Whenever Mike’s dad got home, all Brandon wanted was his papa. He’s still asking for papa. It’s really neat that the boys are now remembering so much. On our last day back home I asked Drew if he wanted to go see his Nana S. and he got all excited and said “yes”. I’m glad the boys got to spend so much time getting to know their grandparents and one auntie and uncle (Bren and Matt).  They get to spend time with their other auntie and uncle (Holly and Jeffery) at other times.  I’m also glad that they enjoy them so much. It’s hard when we’re so far away, but spending a week together gives them all time to get to know each other better. And it gives us time to get away too! It’s a win-win situation. Yay for the grandparents.

The boys have come back with a blossoming vocabulary as well. Yesterday they were watching the dog eat his dinner and they kept pointing at him and saying, “eating!” over and over. Today, Brandon was sitting on my lap and pointed to my cup of tea and said “hot coffee”, he was close . Their favorite words are car, truck, train and airplane, with a smattering of juice and doggie. You’d never guess they were boys… They’ve started putting two words together and every now and then I think I hear a sentence of three or more words.

Shayna Drew & Bran No Comments »

Last Full Day in Barbados

We had hoped to wake up early Saturday morning and have a snorkle at dawn. But when we woke up it was pouring rain. We’ve had little to no rain all week, it seems it was all being saved up for last night and today. I have to pause as I write this to comment on the rooster that is crowing. He lives across the street from us, sometimes I see him walking down the street, or around the houses nearby. I’m also hearing mourning doves, a cricket-like creature, birds, a tennis ball being hit back and forth, and children laughing in the park next door. I’m looking at beautiful fragrant flowers, a mohagany tree, palms, and our beach towels hopefully drying in this overcast day. It’s such a change from home, where we’ve been indoors for 6 months. But I am getting homesick for my boys too. By around 9am we were able to get out for a snorkel. I was having trouble again with my mask, but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. We saw a few of the more interesting fish that we’ve been seeing lately, like a trumpetfish and lizardfish, and then five new ones. Eventually we had to get out because it had started raining again and it’s not really enjoyable to snorkel when your back is being pelted by little drops of water. We spent the the rest of the day reading, writing in the boys’ journals, and doing nothing! We found another Caribbean buffet we’re planning to try out tonight and will get our last ride on the party bus.

A BIG thanks to our parents for giving us the chance to get away by ourselves. Barbados has been awesome! We miss the boys immensely and are excited to see them again, but it has been good to get away.

Keeping with the tradition of showing other people’s great pics of fish we saw: on the left is a Smooth Trunkfish and on the right is a juvenile Gray Angelfish (obviously a Steelers’ fan).

Here’s our most comprehensive list of fish including the ones we saw yesterday. A total of 47 species of fish (plus a turtle).

Shayna Vacation No Comments »

Turtles!

Note: The picture of the hawksbill turtle was removed.  The picture was not mine, I did not have permission to publish it, nor do I know its owner.  If you happen to know its owner (seeing the picture on some cache of this page), please contact me.

Yesterday morning we got up early for a boat tour to swim with turtles and go snorkeling. Another couple were with us and they were from Canada too! We had a great time swimming alongside the Hawkbill turtles. It was really neat to rub your hand across their shells. We also saw 3 new kinds of fish right there with the turtles. They were really cool ones, one was a Ballyhoo which has a nose that looks just like a needle! After the turtles left us, we spent a lot of time just following those fish around. Then they took us to an area where a hundered-year-old ship had been sunk in the 60′s, in order to encourage more marine life, there was also a coral reef nearby. When I dove off of the boat I was surrounded by thousands of fish! It was both awesome and freaky at the same time. I did have a moment of panic and quickly looked for Mike and our other companions just so I didn’t feel so alone with the fish. The wreck was okay, not a cool as I thought it would be. No Dirk Pitt underwater adventures for me. But we spent a lot of time over the coral reef. Our new friends were snorkeling enthusiasts just like us. The water was so clear and there were so many fish to see. We decided that between this morning and our snorkeling back at our beach just before sunset, we saw 15 fish we had never seen before, plus all the ones we’d been seeing all week.We spent the afternoon picking up some souvenirs and relaxing. Then we had a snorkel at dust. I was having lots of trouble with my mask fogging up and it was quite overcast, I wasn’t enjoying myself as much as usual so I quite a little early. We had dinner at Bistro Too. I had a really yummy pineapple daiquiri and fish and chips. Mike had chicken curry. For dessert Mike had some kind of chocolate cheesecake and I had a pancake with brown sugar and ice cream. Mmmm…

Each night on the way to dinner there’s a mixed guy/girl basketball clinic of some sort going on at the basketball courts next to us. When we come home there’s a group of guys (in their 30′s maybe?) playing field hockey. So fun!

Instead of giving you our comprehensive list which gets too long, here’s a list of the new fish we saw Thursday and Friday. But first, some pictures. On the left is a porcupinefish (a kind of puffer fish) and the right is a trumpetfish .

April 13, 2007 (Turtle and Reef Boat Trip)

• Bar Jack
• Ballyhoo
• Yellowhead Wrasse
• Blue Chromis
• Banded Butterflyfish
• Foureye Butterflyfish
• Trumpetfish
• Porcupinefish
• Flying Gurnard
• Hawksbill Turtle

April 13, 2007 (Dusk)

• Yellowtailed Parrotfish
• Squirrelfish
• Brown Chromis
• Lane Snapper
• Bluespotted Cornetfish
• Leopard Searobin

(Note: Once again these pictures are not ours. Even if we had an underwater camera, we would never get these pictures, but they look exactly like what we saw.)

Shayna Vacation 1 Comment »

Crane Beach

Thursday we packed a lunch and our backpack and headed out to Crane Beach by bus. First we took a party bus to Bridgetown. This party bus was all decked out inside with green and black flames and the words “The Fast the Furious Tokyo Drift” written all over it. I’ve determined that the guy collecting money has to be super outgoing since he spends half his time hanging out of the bus either finding out if people want a ride or trying to convince them they need one, another portion of his time collecting money, and the rest chatting with the bus driver or people on the side of the road. Riding the party bus gives us a chance to hear some music that’s popular in Bajan culture these days. The one I’ve heard on every bus ride is African Queen, by 2 Face Ibidia (it’s a guy). This may appeal to some of you and most likely not to many of you, but have a listen if you’re interested. We seem to have it firmly embedded in our heads at the moment.

We took the party bus to town, then hopped on a city bus to head over to the East side of the Island. Two hours after leaving our place, we finally made it to Crane beach. But it was so worth it. Crane beach has been rated one of the top 10 beaches in the world by Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, if you care anything about that. The beach was really beautiful. The picture doesn’t do it justice… We rented chairs and an umbrella, played in the ocean, read, took a nap… It was so relaxing. At the end of the day we were too tired to make the 2 hour bus ride back, so we hailed a taxi and got back in half an hour. It also cost us ALOT more! But it was worth it, and we got to see more of the Island, which I really enjoyed. For dinner we went back to Groots, I had roti and Mike had beef curry. We also ordered appetizers of samosas and spring rolls, but they gave us ketchup as a dipping sauce for both of them! It was so strange!

Shayna Vacation No Comments »

Snorkeling

Today was a day of relaxing. We slept in, I wrote in the boys’ journals (haven’t done that since last August!), we walked to the grocery store and looked at souvenirs. Then we came back, made lunch, took a nap, then went snorkeling. After snorkeling we looked up all the fish we saw yesterday and today, then went out to dinner. It was so nice! I was kind of expecting to find more strange things at the grocery, although Mike did find pork tails. I found that it kind of had the feel of a Canadian grocery, so we felt mostly right at home. They even had Ketchup potato chips and Apple Juice in boxes rather than plastic containers. They must have had about 75 different kinds of tea, mostly organic or herbal. If you’re looking for fennel tea, they have about 5 varieties. I did find a mint Aero bar, which was super yummy.

Snorkeling has been really awesome. The first day out I just saw fish. Now I’m actually going out to look for certain kinds of fish. Although we find so many new ones we have trouble remembering what they really looked like when we come in. Unfortunately I have seen a few jellyfish, they haven’t been a problem, but I freak out when I see one (we’ve seen 3 so far). I’m also still having trouble getting scared when I get too close to the coral. Today we were getting buffeted around when we followed the reef too close to the surf and Mike cut his leg (not bad) on some coral, so we had to make a mad dash further out to sea and come back in to shore a different way. Below are pictures of two fish we saw today; a juvenile Yellowtail Damselfish a.k.a. Jewelfish (left) and a Scrawled Filefish (right). As before, these are not our pictures, but look just like what we saw.

Here’s a complete list of what we were able to identify from the past two days.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

• Blue Tang
• Ocean Surgeonfish
• French Grunt (school)
• Smallmouth Grunt (school)
• Sergeant Major
• Bermuda Chub (5 of them followed us all over the reef)
• Stoplight Parrotfish (male and female)
• Puddingwife (initial phase)
• Bluehead Wrasse
• Yellowtail Damselfish (juvenile aka Jewelfish)
• Angelfish (unknown species)
• Yellow Goatfish

April 11, 2007

• Blue Tang (large school)
• Ocean Surgeonfish (school)
• French Grunt (school)
• Smallmouth Grunt
• Bluestriped Grunt
• Sergeant Major
• Bermuda Chub (5 of them followed us all over the reef, again)
• Stoplight Parrotfish (male, female, and juvenile)
• Redbanded Parrotfish
• Puddingwife (juvenile)
• Bluehead Wrasse
• Yellowtail Damselfish (juvenile aka Jewelfish, intermediate, and adult)
• Bicolor Damselfish
• Cocoa Damselfish (juvenile)
• Yellowtail Snapper
• Fairy Basslet
• Spanish Hogfish
• Dusky Squirrelfish
• Scrawled Filefish
• Spotted Snake Eel (rare to see during the day)
• Moray (unknown species)

On our way to dinner tonight we took our usual route around St. James’ church. There was a beautiful smell in the air (kind of like lilac, but there are no lilac bushes around) and we saw fireflies. They are one of the things I really miss living in Edmonton, no fireflies in the summer. It was so relaxing and sweet! Dinner: Cocunut crusted shrimp and satays for appetizers. Mike had pecan crusted chicken and I had Mahi Mahi in a butter caper sauce. Yummy!

Shayna Vacation No Comments »