How the boy likes to watch tv

A most special moment

I can't believe what just happened!!! I've got tears!!!

I just put Simon in his bed and I knelt beside the bed to tuck him in. As I finished tucking him in, he grabbed both of my cheeks, said 'kiss' and pulled me in for a kiss. Then he said 'hug' and grabbed the back of my neck with both hands and pulled me in for a tight squeeze. He's never said either of those words before.

I am so in love with my boy and every day he amazes me more and more.

And this is what it means to be a mom.

Simon and the chipmunk

In the hopes of trying to get this blog back to the way it used to be before 'the brain tumour', I finally went through some of the photos that I took of the kids last weekend at my parents' place. We've come to realize that Simon loves animals. He's so gentle with our 15 year old cat, loves dogs and now he is a huge fan of my mom's chipmunk...

And here is a photo I took of Simon that I really love:

More of the chipmunk(s) here and here.

Cheers

When Isabella was young, we were having dinner where we all clinked glasses and said 'cheers'. She wanted to do it too so we showed her how it was done. We were doing this a few weeks ago and Simon picked up his sippy cup and held it out for someone to touch with their glass.

This morning at breakfast, the kids and I were eating and I hear Simon say 'chiz'. I look over and he's got both hands wrapped around his sippy cup and he's holding it out to me. I grab my coffee cup and touch it to his sippy cup and say 'cheers'. He says 'chiz' right back to me and takes a big gulp from his cup.

He's so stinkin' cute.

(Unrelated: Simon has been walking around with a small jar of Body Shop cream for almost 2 hours now. He even had to have it on his tray while he was eating. I tried to move it but he wouldn't hear of it.)

Update to the unrelated comment above: it is now dinnertime (10 hours after the discovery of the cream jar) and lookie what we have here...

Simon moments

Yesterday Simon was really not feeling well. He had a fever on and off all day, was really grouchy and had no appetite. He's doing much better this morning. When he woke up I took him down to the basement and we watched American Idol that I taped from last night. He loves watching people sing and before and after the contestants would sing, the audience would clap and Simon clapped right along every time. He was shaking his hips too during the songs while we snuggled.

Once Isabella woke up, I took Simon upstairs so that I could get ready for that day. I put him in his crib with some books. While I was in the bathroom (right outside Simon's room) I could hear him say 'vroom vroom' so I went into his room and looked at the book in his lap and there was a fire truck on the page. I asked him to show me where the truck was and he pointed down to the fire truck. That made my morning.

What transpired over the last hour (WARNING: SOME GRAPHIC CONTENT)

Isabella was playing in the basement and Simon and I were in the kitchen getting dinner ready. I realized that the dishwasher needed emptying and I yelled down to Isabella, "Want to come up and help put the dishes away?"

Isabella quickly responded, "YES PLEASE! I would love to come up and help!"

Up she came and after putting away one spoon, Isabella ran back downstairs saying that she didn't have time to help me out anymore.

Dinner was ready and I called for Isabella and no response. I yelled again and no response. I went downstairs and noticed her standing by the wall with 'that look' on her face. OMG SHE WAS SHITTING IN HER UNDERWEAR!

I marched her pooping highness up to the bathroom with the shower and made her get in. After 10 minutes of cleaning up the giant disaster and me swearing a whole lot under my breath, we made our way back to the kitchen. (During this whole horrible poop business, Simon was sitting in his highchair in the kitchen and he hadn't given him anything to keep him entertained since I was about to serve him dinner. He did not make a peep THE WHOLE TIME - and he was all alone in the kitchen for a good 10-15 minutes). Once back in the kitchen, I looked over at Simon and he was leaning forward in his chair with his hands crossed on his tray drumming his fingers as if to say "Hey lady! How dare you make me sit here all by myself!"

We sit down to eat dinner and I give Isabella a bowl of stew and start feeding Simon some too. Over the last couple of weeks, Simon has entered a 'must eat all by myself thank you very much' phase so I gave in and handed him the bowl of stew which, thank the good lord, was not very runny. He polished off the bowl (I must have cleaned his hands about 15 different times in between bites cause I'm anal like that) and he started moaning so I went and cut up a banana into a bowl and gave that to him. When he was done with that, he started scrapping the bottom of the bowl with his fingers and stared at me. I got the hint and dumped a bunch of grapes in his bowl. He polished that off and started scrapping the bottom of the bowl again and then when I didn't react fast enough, Simon picked up the bowl and turned it upside down and stared up into it and then glared at me. I got it alright - LOUD AND CLEAR. He's so freaking lucky that he's cute...

Is it bedtime yet?!?!?!?!

The domesticated boo

Tonight as I was busy cooking dinner, Isabella was keeping herself and Simon amused. Simon was in his highchair being as quiet and good as always. I guess Isabella was getting a bit bored because she grabbed a tea towel and said, "I'm going to dry the dishes!" (The left side of the sink is usually full of the kids' dishes air drying.) Isabella proceeded to dry every single dish that was in the sink - AND SHE PUT THEM ALL AWAY BY HERSELF - WHERE THEY BELONG!!!

Proud mama. Very damn proud.

(Simon silently watched her the whole time....ADORABLE...and I hope he took notes...LOL)

Self-punishment

Pablo called this morning to tell me this story (I'm at work):

Isabella and Simon were in Simon's room and Pablo was in our room when all of a sudden, Isabella came running into our room saying that she had just smacked Simon and then said that she was going to her room (she was punishing herself!). Soon after she shut herself in her room, she came out and told Pablo that she had forgotten to say sorry to Simon. She ran over to Simon, apologized, then put herself back into her room for her time-out. She stayed in there for quite some time too!

Crazy girl!

Her love for computers and cell phones

Isabella is totally obsessed with computers and cell phones. If she sees a cell phone, she insists that you let her have it so she can look at it and go figure, push the buttons. The fun part is trying to take the phone away from her. Most times this involves bribery that includes chocolate of some sort.

Her obsession with computers mainly started when the kids and I stayed with my parents the week that Pablo had the swine flu. My mom has a desk in her kitchen and on it was her laptop. Isabella started tinkering with it and by the end of the first day of tinkering, she knew how to open a browser window and click on the bookmark to this blog, her Zia Kim's blog, our flickr pics and Zia Kim's flickr pics. She knew how to scroll down so that when she was on this blog she would scroll down and click on the 'video' label on the right side and then she would get a page of all the videos of her and Simon. She then learned how to play and pause the videos.

When Isabella had the urge to type, she was taught how to open MS Word from the icon on the desktop. She quickly learned how to change the font size and colour which she can do without help.

It's quite amazing to watch her use the computer. The only problem is, she has little patience, so if she opens a browser window and it doesn't open right away, she clicks the icon again. Many times she has quite a few windows open. We taught her how to click on the 'X' in the top right hand corner of a window to close it and she does this by herself (unless she opens up like 100 windows and then she is too bored to close them all).

She is so freaking smart.

The boo and her dad

...having a little nap together.

SMOOCH!!!

OMG! I asked Simon for a kiss tonight and he leaned in and gave me the biggest, wettest open-mouthed kiss. And I asked him another five times and he kept giving out those kisses!!! He has never done that before and it was so darn sweet I just about died. One less thing he might do for the first time while I'm back at work...

sigh

Caught red handed

Isabella had been watching a movie - Barbie and the Diamond Castle - but had gone upstairs to see her dad, leaving Simon and I in the basement. I was on the computer and looked over to notice Simon completely fixated on the movie. Turns out he loved the songs in the movie and couldn't get enough.

I took a few pics of him sitting next to the couch where he sat for a good 20 minutes just watching the movie.

Then he decided to get up close to check out the princesses.

I'm going to have to go buy some non-girly movies to broaden his horizons (although I'm fully aware that he shouldn't be watching tv at his young age...)

Isabella and her abc's

Isabella is around 21 months old in this video.

The boy - LIVE!!!

The little giggle monster (who needs his first haircut soon - look at those wings!)...

I didn't think it was possible...

Simon was sitting in his crib and actually pulled himself up to a standing position. Twice! I consider that a pretty big deal considering his ever so squeezable, extra-large size. YAY BOY!

UPDATE:
We had to lower his crib mattress last night because he kept getting to his feet easily and fast. When I went to get him out of his crib first thing this morning, he was standing up with a big smile on his face!

The amazing boo

Today is clean the house and do laundry day. woohoo.

I was talking to my sister Jen on the phone after cleaning all the toys in the basement and while I was talking the dryer buzzed (it was finished). Without even asking her, Isabella went over to the dryer and started pulling out all the clothes. She put them all in a pile for me and I started folding. Once the dryer was empty, she opened up the washing machine and emptied all the wet clothes into the dryer, put a fabric softener sheet in and pushed all the right buttons to start the dryer. I didn't say a word during this process except to congratulate her like crazy when she was all done.
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Being lazy Having so little time, I don't fold anyone's underwear. Isabella watched me throw the underwear into the basket and she got mad at me then proceeded to show me how to properly fold underwear.

I promised her I would fold them next time.
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Last night I was putting away laundry (never ending in this house) in Simon's room and the boo and the boy were in there with me. Out of the blue Isabella qutoes from her fav movie (Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred, of course), "Now you may not be as flexible as the girls but give me everything you've got!"

I almost peed my pants.

The weird places she falls asleep...

The other night I put Isabella to sleep and when I thought she was asleep I went in the basement to clean up all the toys. When I was coming back up the stairs some time later, I saw something in the hall...

My guess is she woke up, realized I wasn't upstairs and decided to sleep facing into the bathroom - I had left the light on in there (a nightime routine). After taking this picture I picked her up and put her back into her bed and luckily she didn't wake up.

Eatin' and talkin'

Isabella is around 21 months in this clip. My cutie patootie with her priceless expressions! (I have no idea why the videos came out with the height being more than the width - hence the annoying black space...)

The boo

November 2007. Isabella was 16 months old. Loved to play with clothes, blankets, etc. (always made a big mess in no time) and peekaboo was one of her favs.

The chippies

Once again it was a chipmunk feeding frenzy at my parents' place yesterday. It was so much fun feeding this little bugger. Kim took the photos and if she wasn't getting the right shots I would put him back on the ground and make him jump back into my hand. He didn't seem to care one bit as long as he got his peanuts.