Wee little Pumpkins

Can I be honest?  I don't get out of my house a whole lot.  Outings are short trips to the grocery store, or the happiest place on earth (Target), and then home again.  I fit these in between naps and nursing/feeding times of my two littlest littles.  

It's my own fault... I hate to disrupt nap time.  But today I figured for my sanity, and thus the sanity of my children, we must go out on some sort of adventure.

So to the pumpkin patch we went...

A rare moment... he's looking at the camera AND smiling

Brudders!

This. Is. Awesome!

Fun in the bounce house... Lucas didn't want to leave

He went on this only about a million times

Tractor!

He was fascinated with the straw

I'm going to eat this now

Cheese!

That is a very unfortunate position the one hand of the scarecrow is in
The kids, however, are adorable

Getting him to smile is never a problem

The best I could get... at least they're both looking

So there you have it... a fun adventure, no meltdowns, and a good time was had by all.  Boy is Elise going to be ticked she missed all the fun.

Three!

From this...

 ... To this

Happy birthday to the best mix of crazy and sweet you will ever find in one boy.  You keep us laughing every day with your antics, and you keep me on my toes. Your pre-school teacher told me how well behaved you are in class (but you love making mischief for your Mama... hmmmmm), and that you are definitely a leader, not a follower.  May it always stay that way, and may it serve you well.

Happy Birthday... I love you, my little man!

My new strategy

Fred is out of town for the next few days. And my offspring have been driving me nuts lately, so my thought was as follows:

• Get the crazy minions out of the house so they won't mess it up.
• Have lots of fun so they fight less.
• All this exersice will make them tired at the end of the day and I'll want to smother them less. 

Outing #1: local park

He doesn't look impressed, but he was having fun

 

My three high-flyers

Da boys

I am unsure of this swinging business
 

Outing #2: Picnic lunch at another local park and spray ground

Spray ground cutie

My skinny little chicken

He couldn't play, but was all smiles anyway

Me and my drooly littlest man

I told you he was a skinny chicken.  For the record, those are 18m swim shorts. And he's trying to pull them up, not down

Outing #3: Dinner at a local grocery store (that has a resturant and playground). Ice cream for dessert


I really don't know. This was the pose they decided on

Outing #3 included an emergency diaper change for Mattias in the middle of eating ice cream. It was truely gross and I felt bad for the other diners in our vicinity. Thank goodness for friends that just happen to walk by when you need them.  And for employees who don't stand up to you when you barge your way in even after they tell you the bathroom is closed for cleaning for the next 10 minutes.  I think the poor man could smell us coming.

All in all the mission was a success... all three children slept soundly through the night (something we've been having issues with all three of them lately), and were in a great mood this morning.  And I want to smother them a little less.

Everybody wins!

Mattias-isms

For the longest time, Mattias didn't really talk.  And when he did, he spoke in some weird language only I could understand.  About 50% of the time.  When he turned 2, all of a sudden the words came and he hasn't stopped taking since.  Some of my favourites:

Me (walking into Mattias's room one morning): Good morning, little man!

Mattias: Mama! Co-co (Portuguese for poop)! Co-co Mama!

(Sure enough, there was co-co).

Hear-we-ow-ow-ow-ow - Cereal.  I'm not sure why he adds those extra syllables on the end, but it sure is cute!

I ate my food all! - This is cute because it is a direct translation of I ate all of my food, from Portuguese.  Even cuter is that Elise used to say the exact same thing.

Kip-kip tree - Christmas tree

Hinnerwanna - Cinderella

Baby wucass - Baby Lucas

Que dat? - What's that?  A hybrid of Portuguese and English.

Mama, I'm talking to you - what he says when he's trying to get my attention.

I want to tell you something - Usually he doesn't, he just likes to say it.

Hoo-ha - What he calls his pacifier... in Portuguese the word is pronounced shusha, but he can't say the letter "S".  Hence the hilarious, yet oh-so inappropriate pronunciation.

My silly boy, at the "kip-kip" tree farm

THIS guy...

... was born two years ago today.  To say I love him is like saying Texas can be a little warm in the summer.  In other words, a HUGE understatement.  There is something so adorable, so stinkin' edible about my little man.  He is both sweet and a whirling dervish of crazy at the same time and I wouldn't have him any other way.

Happy Birthday sweet, adorable, hilarious Mattias.  Thank you for making me laugh every day.

First day pics

This post will not have much in the way of words.  It has been a busy day... nay, week. But I would, for prosperity's sake like to post pictures of my children's first day of school.

Did you catch that? I said, children.  As in, Mattias too.

I thought it would be a cry-fest on his end, but the little man walked into his classroom as if he owned the place.  The rest of the day, he was in the best mood.  I think this learning thing is going to be good for him.

As for Elise, it was the first day of her last year of pre-school.  I will be very sad when her time is done at this amazing little school, but so thankful that she's had three years with them.

Well, I guess I had more to say than I thought. And now... pictures!

My 5 year old... how is that possible?

So cute

His backpack might be a little big...

Ready to rule the school

23!

Dear Mattias,

I can't believe how long it has been since I've done one of these.  I want to document your crazy life, but you don't really leave a lot of time in the day to do it.  You are constantly on the move and I love it.

 You are still talking in your crazy, made-up language. I know that you can speak "properly", because every once in awhile you will pipe up with something like, "the purple ones", or "popcorn". But when we ask you to say anything, your reply is always, "nope!"

In fact, this is a conversation we recently had:

Me: Mattias, can you say Elise?

You: Nope!

Me: Say toast!

You: Nope!

Me: Can you say Mattias?

You: Nope!

Me: Can you say nope?

You (with a mischievous look in your eye): uh-huh

Comedic timing... you get it, even at such a young age.

My favourite word by far is your word for bananas, which is meomas.  Usually said with great glee.  In fact, whenever we go to Target, the first thing you do is run down the main aisle towards where the bananas are, yelling, "MEOMAS, MAMA... MEOMAS!"

You love babies and the mere sight of one will make you say, "awwwww, bebe!" You are particularly infatuated with the cartoon baby on your diaper cream tube and you like to give it kisses. This makes me happy as pretty soon there will be a real live baby joining the family, poised to usurp your position.  Get ready to be okay with that. 

One of my absolute favourite things about you is how much you love your sister.  It is so much fun to watch the two of you sitting at the breakfast table, each of you trying to make the other laugh the hardest. It is sweet to watch and music to your Mama's ears.

Your latest skill is putting your dishes in the sink.  You won't even let me clear your dishes because you are so proud of how you can carry them from the table to the sink.  There are some adults in this house that could learn from you.

I have loved watching you grow from a tiny baby into a silly, quirky, passionate and fun little boy who would wear mismatched pajamas all day if I would let him.  I love your sweet heart, and how you will immediately run over to comfort your sister if she's crying.  I love your enthusiasm for sports; whether it's watching the Rangers on TV ("Go ball go!"), or shouting "GOOOOAL" when practising a rather wicked forehand shot with your hockey stick.

I even love watching you pout when you don't get your way. The way your tiny lower lip curls out and how you stomp your feet, showing your displeasure with a rather emphatic "HMPH!"  As long as you don't do it to often.

And yes, I even love you when you do something crazy like swallow a battery and I have to rush you to the ER for surgery the day before I'M supposed to have surgery. All I can say is, you are lucky you are so cute.

I love you, little T, and I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Love,
Your Mama

Mattias-isms... the weird ones

When we decided that Fred would only speak to our kids in Portuguese, many people were concerned that it would delay our kids, language-wise.  The answer was a resounding "no", seeing how Elise said her first word at the age of 7 months and never looked back.  I mean, the girl spoke in complete sentences before she turned two.

She has not stopped talking since.

Now with Mattias, it's been different.  He also said his first word at the age of 7 months, but we noticed he was more than happy to just point at things and grunt.  We chalked this up to the fact that; a) he is a guy, and b) his big sister makes up for his apparent mute-ness.

But lately all that has changed and he now talks up a storm.  Except we have no idea what the crap he is saying because the little man has his own language and apparently I am the lone translator.  Here are a couple of his gems:

agua-wa - water

Poom - shoes

Glngh-glngh (very hard to write phonetically) - Elise (no, I don't know why)

Baba - iPad

Apoom - fork

Acune - music. 

Pa - truck

Begungh - bird

Gungh -  Any number of letter of the alphabet.  When I read books with either of these, he'll point to the letter or number and say, "Gungh!"  For every one.  The funny thing is when he watches Wheel of Fortune with Elise (she loves that show), he will actually yell out letters, "Ah!", "Ohh!", "Eeee!", "Mmmm!"  Then he claps for himself.

I love this boy!

18

I'm not going to lie. The past three months with Mattias have been... not great. Someone took my sweet lovable little man and replaced him with a very angry midget. A very angry teething midget. Who never actually got any teeth in, so I'm wondering what all the anger was for.

It's a good thing that even his temper tantrums are cute, because I was privy to one on a daily basis. Some days there were 9:00, 11:00, 12:30, 4:00, 6:00, and 8:00 showings. All that was missing was the popcorn.

It would go like this; Mattias would believe that some gross misjustice had taken place (diaper needed to be changed, he ate all his snack, the dog looked at him), so he would run screaming towards a wall. Stop. Turn around and look at me while he hit the wall and said, "UH". Then he would stomp his feet, mutter "UH" a few more times, then run screaming towards another wall to start the whole process over again. This would last about a minute, and then something bright and shiny would distract him.

All the while I would firmly tell him no, then ignore him, holding back crazed giggles that threatened to erupt every time the angry midget appeared.

I had no idea what was causing this behavior. He had just gotten over croup, and his gums were very swollen, but nothing ever broke through. But quickly as it started, the tantrums have pretty much dissipated and I have my sweet boy back.

At 18 months he still only has 6 teeth. He's just now fitting into the proper size of clothes (when he was 12 months, he was wearing 6/9m clothing, at 15 months he wore 12m). He looks like such a little man now.

He takes one 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon, nurses twice a day and sleeps through the night (oh dear LORD it was about time). He makes us laugh with his silly antics and love for dance. He loves to sing "jingle bells" and "jingle bell rock", and can actually sing the melody, just substituting la-la-las for the actual words. I sense the music is strong in this one.

He has a language all his own, but says; hi, ola, Mama, Papa, Gramma, carro (car in Portuguese), ao-ao-ao (what a dog says in Portuguese) bela-ba (belly button), agua-wa (a hybrid of water in Portuguese and English), and begungh (bird in ?).

He screams with delight when his Papa comes home. Or if you ask him if he wants to go outside. Or listen to music. Or have a bath. Or if he wants his chucha (pronounced shusha - it means pacifier in Portuguese). He does everything with enthusiasm.

Especially eating. It's hard to believe that a year ago, he wasn't gaining any weight and pretty much refused to eat. He's making up for it now. The boy can put away 4 bowls of steel cut oats in the morning. Then he wants to help himself from my bowl. He'll try anything and recently stole a spring roll off of my plate.

I miss my baby, but I dearly love this little boy who is now running around. Now if he would just stop for a moment and let me snuggle him.

Mr. Independent... the look on his face is him protesting Elise's help



Already a great little soccer player




His teeth... all 6 of them

Someone needs a haircut


Love

My son, the kleptomaniac

What do you do with a 16 month old who has sticky fingers?

It all started with my wallet. Mattias likes to go through my purse until he finds my wallet, then the little pickpocket runs off where I can't see him and pilfers through it. He's more attracted to plastic than cash and to this day I'm still looking for my medical insurance card and my Costco card. At least he left the Amex alone.

Then we had the "bear incident". When I take Elise to school, I schlep Mattias with me. As I sign Elise in and talk to her teacher about any specific instructions related to diabetes, I have to put Mattias down. The first few weeks of school, he would run into Elise's classroom, rummage through a pile of stuffed animals, and always emerge with the same old, white bear.

He would walk through the hallway of the school hugging and patting the bear, and retrieving it from him resulted in much wailing and gnashing of teeth. So Elise's sweet teacher graciously "gave" Beary (as he has been dubbed) to Mattias. To this day, he snuggles it as he falls asleep.

Mattias's latest "five-finger discount" was at a local grocery store. I was there with my Mom who was wrangling the tiny thief as I was buying some bulk steel cut oats. My mom turned around for a second, and when she looked back, Mattias was high-tailing it away with a fig newton that he had looted from the bulk section in hand.

I'm thinking I might need to keep a lawyer on retainer for this one... I keep telling him that his cuteness will only keep him out of trouble for so long.

Mattias at 15 months

As much as I'd like to post a Mattias update every month-a-versary, it looks like I'll be following the well-child visit schedule.

At 15 months, Mattias is a very busy boy. He wears me out, but I love watching the energy with which he tackles life. His motto is, "why walk when you can run?" And run he does, usually accompanied by the sweetest little squealing noise.

Nothing scares him and often I will come into a room and find him standing on top of something he should, most assuredly, NOT be climbing on.

He has discovered that NO ONE is as cool as his Mom (Dad is a close second) and will screech at anyone who tries to separate us. As enduring as that is, it's a little much when he grabs you by the lapels of your coat as you're trying to walk out the door to have dinner with a friend.

I love this boy... I love his spirit and how he enjoys making people laugh. I love listening to him say "Ao ao ao" when he sees a dog... usually as he's running towards it to throw his little arms around it's neck. I love how he snuggles with Seven, murmuring, "awwwwwww" as he pets her.

He is ALL boy and I am blessed that he's MINE!

First hair cut... not a happy camper

Couldn't you just eat him up?

My little ham

And... pose!

Bucket head! One of his favourite accessories

His first amusement park ride at six flags

Awwwww

Trying out his hallowe'en costume. The verdict is... a big, fat NO!

Crazy kids!

Bubbles!

Bahahaha! I love this picture! It looks like Mattias has caught a whiff of something unpleasant

Searching for the perfect Christmas tree

Peek-a-boo!

Happy 15 months, Mattias! Stay silly, my man.