Felix

Oh it has been so long and he has grown and changed so much. He is walking and talking now (well only abit of talking). He started walking here and there around his first birthday but didn’t really start walking for another couple months after that I think it was early December when he really caught on and gave up the crawling and switched full time to walking. Now that he is walking the world is his oyster and any chair stool or short table is his own personal jungle gym. He is much more of an acrobat that his sister ever was, he loves table surfing on our coffee table, he thinks it is very funny when we say No, this usually results in a big smile before he climbs right back up, BAH!! The only thing that he really responds to is if you yell or tell him he is being naughty, that results in tears.

He continues to be a good sleeper, he naps well most days and he sleeps from about 7:30/8ish pm until 7ish am (if he isn’t being woken up for school/work). Unfortunately, he just went through a nasty round of teething which resulted in a few nights of sleeplessness, Jeff and I both didn’t deal very well with that. Working and sleepless nights don’t go very well together, I was teased in my meeting when I started yawning the next day… Up until about a week ago Felix only had his two top and his two bottom front teeth, then in the last week he has got one new lower tooth and then two molars (very weird, who gets molars before then finish getting their eye teeth and other front teeth). He hasn’t been much of a drooler so far but last week when the middle of the night screaming feast started and the molars started to make their moves, the Niagara Falls of drooling started, YUCK!!! I actually hard to resort to putting a bid on one day, totally ruined the look of his cute little outfit but it had to be done.

Hmmm now for discussion of the hair, Felix still has very blond Dutch boyish hair. It has been growing quite abit now and he has already made two trips to the barber. He was really due for another a few weeks ago, his hair was going over his collar and really it was getting abit n the hippie side. Now I my have made abit of a rash decision… I just didn’t have tim to take him to the hair dresser and the barber up the road is closed on Sunday and we were off to a super bowl party but I had a few minutes… okay enough excuses, I cut his hair and his father now calls him Sling Blade.. I’m a bad mother… I think now that almost a month has passed the back may have grown in enough that I can take him to the hairdresser to get it fixed up… My poor little boy, even his sister was mocking him. There has been some pictures taken for posterity and I will post them soon.

Eating, Felix is a veracious eater, the kid can take down an adult size portion some nights then others he goes on a hunger strike. I can’t really figure him out, he is really hit or mis with foods, some days he loves something and the next things are flying from his tray (very annoying). The few tings we are always count on are gold fish, pumpkin muffins, grapes and bananas, oh and all the usual forbidden stuff like juice, cake, cookies, ice cream and chocolate. I still laugh when I think how strict we were with Amelia with regards to food and how much we have bent with Felix but really what can you do when you find him running around swigging back glugs apple juice from his sisters sippy. Little Rat. These days Felix is driving me crazy with his demands for dinner, we usually get home for work and before we even get our coats off Felix has run over to his chair pushed it back from the table and is attempting to climb in to his seat and then starts yelling at us until we feed him, VERY ANNOYING!!! It has made for less than peaceful dinner hours this behavior has resulted in a couple time outs in his crib.

Felix’s started Heather’s when I went back to Heather’s in mid-December, there were some rocky days in the start but he seems to be fitting in there now and is even getting involved in circle and arts and crafts. Felix and Cam see to be well on their way to being best buds (Cam is Heather’s son).

A few of Felix’s favorite things these days are Jeff’s tape measure, his tooth brush and of course his true love his Baba (blanket). The measuring tape, nicked named The MeajOOR, his one of Felix’s favourite toys, he likes to walk around measuring things and then sit on his favoutire stoop in front of the fireplace and then pull the tape in and out, some times he likes to pair this with the use of his toy safety goggles and drill. The other day the safety goggle were dropped in my lap and I was grunted at until I put his glasses on him then once the glasses were in place he went back to his wall with toy drill and tape measure in hand to continue his work (I think Jeff’s basement project is making an impression). Felix’s also loves Amelia’s mini broom and wanders all over the house brooming, it would be great if he could work out putting things in to piles but alas it is more of a random dusting of, walls, chairs and the occasional cat.

Felix’s Baba is a source of some battle right now, recently at daycare Felix has been staging an strike on the outdoors, he refuses to go out to play. One day Heather had them all dressed up and Felix yelled a screamed but she did not given in so then he calmly walked over to a snow bank, took off both his mitts then flopped hands fit in the snow came up screaming and showing Heather his cold wet hands. BAH!!! We have come to the conclusion that the source of the issue is that he doesn’t have hi Baba outside and at daycare he likes to drag it around all day, there are some comparisons to Pig Pen from Peanuts. So anyways yesterday it was decided that Felix was going to have to go into Baba detox, Baba is now just relegated to the crib. Should be interesting cause at home he frequently walks into his room and starts pulling in out from between the bars, I think I will have to put Baba away during the day.

Talking, hmmmm I never believed it when people told me that second kids usually started talking later than their old siblings, it didn’t’ make sense to me I thought they would want to get their voice heard but nope Felix is following convention and isn’t speaking very much. He says a perfect Dada and Mommy, and he can getting out hi, bye bye, up, and done if prodded but that is about it, I don’t know if it is because we don’t work on it as much with him as we did with her but I guess we figure it will all come in good time. He certainly understand enough, I can tell him to go find his meaJOOR in the bathroom and he will go get it or to stop doing ___ (whether he does it is a different story).

On thing that really impresses me about Felix is his ability to problem solve and put things together, like the safety goggles while drilling or putting the lids back on the markers (much more fun for him that actually colouring), putting his cup in his bowl before he hands them to me. I know there are other things but these are the things I can remember at the moment. Oh he also knows the corner of the counter where we put any baked goods or chocolate and he Frequently goes over and stands there doing his grabby hands and grunting looking for treats.

Finally one last story, last weekend Andrea, Heather and I took the kids for a walk from High Park to Cheery Bomb (amazing coffee shop) and on the way back we stopped at this little school yard park. Felix was being abit of a loser while Amelia and Cam were playing, finally (once I was done my latte) I lifted him up and helped him down the slide, well after watching Cam (who is a pro) and Amelia Felix finally worked out the stairs and the slide all on his own and would walk up the stairs then get down on his hands and knees and reverse into the slide then slide down backwards on this belly, it was pretty cute I was very proud of him.

Oh in addition to his other loves, he LOVES the bath and LOVES swimming.

I think this is long enough for now I will do a  Mealie Bug upgate seperately.

Since starting she has already gone on her first field trip, which Denise and I tag along on. We went to Andrew’s Scenic Acers for a day of hayrides, pumpkin picking and the all important bus ride.

Felix Hit 10 months August 17, time seems to be speeding up on me, I can’t believe how time flies. He continued on figuring out the crawling thing and is now very skilled and quick at crawling, at times I hate this new found skill. He now zooms all over John and Denise’ house including up the stairs (another of his new skills).

Felix has eased up on the mom’s boy lately, he is still abit mommy-centric but not as bad as it used to be.

This month we started to switch him over to finger food with some success. His current love is corn on the cob which he mauls and manages to do a pretty good job of cleaning off. His other love is pizza crusts.

We have all taken great advantage of John and Denise’s pool while we are her, Felix included, he loves the water. He is perfectly content sticking his face in the water and splashing himself, he is such a funny guy.

This month we had many visitors, Denise’s brother Claude and wife Cindy were down. We all headed up to St. Jacobs one days to paroose the menninite finery and handycrafts. Also my dad, Sarah and Adam were in town for a few days. It was so nice to see them I wish they lived closer. While they were here Amelia and I took them to see the University of Waterloo, as Adam was out on a university recon mission. We also all went to the ROM one day, I haven’t been since it reopened and I think we were all impressed. Bill and Betty were also in town the same weekend as my parents. So nice to see everyone!

Okay that is all I can think of, hmmm… not so good at remembering what happened over a month ago.

His nineth month was a busy one for everyone in our family, Jeff and I spent much time packing and getting organised for the move and felix spent much time unpacking and eating paper.

He perfected his commando crawl and even started crawling normally though he found it slower and after a couple shuffles went back to the commando. When he first move in at John and Denise he went on strike and refused any sort of movement, I think it was partially the hardwood floors and partially just being out of sorts from the move.

He also has turned into a massive mommies boy in the last couple weeks. It started around the time we moved and has continued, if I am in the room or he can hear me then he wants me to hold him. I will say in the last few days it has been getting better as he gets more comfortable here.

He also managed to spring two teeth just before he hit nine months, the two bottoms of coarse. He looks so much more grown up with them now.

His hair in now white blond and he still in managing to retain his very chunky little legs.

He is big on making noises these days, he has the mamama and dadada down pat, every once and awhile I think he actually know what those sounds are associated with with then I wake. He is big on yelling too which is very annoying and he thinks is very funny, his favourite time is when we are on the highway driving, I think something is horribly wrong but Amelia reports that there is usually smile on his face while he does it. BAH!!!

He has now figured out how to pull up on things and does it with easy, I usaully find him standing up in his crib now and he loves getting up and walking around the coffee table or pushing Amelia’s chair around the kitchen. Here comes trouble.

IN other big news Amelia has learned how to swim in the last few weeks. She was very timid at the beginning of the summer and only wanted to play on the steps with her swimming vest on but then we got her in a two week long swimming camp and we had some warm weather. After that first week and a half she had it and will now jump in to the deep end all by herself and swim back to the shallow end, we are all so proud of her.

Amelia has also really started to catch on to reading, I guess it pay to live with a primary teacher Amelia knows all her letters and can write out words if you spell them for her but in the last few weeks she and denise have started making little books with simple sentences that she can read, she loves the chance to show off her new skills to unsuspecting visitors.

I’ll throw this in now too because I don’t know when else I will get a chance. Our house is coming along, I have posted some pics on flickr. we had a big demo party a few weeks ago and we got most of the required demo done, we have such wonderful friends who came and helped us out. Since then Johnny, the contractor has taken over and has been putting the main floor back together while Jeff works on the basement. Things are looking great and we are so excited to go visit and see the latest progress.

Team Demo -

His palate has also been experiencing some more diversity, he is been rockin’ the samlon the last couple days. I had some leftover salmon and rice so I just forked it up with some bby mush and he was digging it. Yippee I love the transition to non-purées. He has also done, lots more bread and crackers which he loves and peas, berries and of course Pake has introduced him to ice cream….

Felix’s is becoming more interactive, it was like a switch was flipped a week or so ago, he is all about playing and making people laugh. Air raspberries are his favourite, I made the mistake of laughing a couple times when he started while I was feeding him. He thinks he is very funny! He is still loven’ peek-a-boo, the other day he had himself in fits of giggles when Amelia and I gave him his shirt to play with and he started pulling it over his eyes then down again.

Felix’s is sleeping well again and has been upping his sleep-ins in the morning which I can’t complain about! His teeth still haven’t poked through yet but man are they ever bulging!!! Felix is mostly commando crawling but he does get a few crawls in now and then. He is also getting very good at walking along things.

Amelia has been really good lately, there have been far fewer flights about clothes in the mornings. We have changed two things, one we pick out her clothes the night before and two we feed her breakfast before we get her dressed. She has also been very helpful with packing, she is very keen to be involved with everything, not bad for us as we have some child labour  Jeff has taught her the fine art of wrapping plates (we will judge how well she learned once we unpack the plates…)

Amelia’s seem to have taken all our much loved phases and quirks and run with them, it is abit disconcerting. She cracks out some impressive vocab these days.

She has also taken an interest in her body… The other week we were driving home and Amelia and Felix were in the backseat. Amelia decided to educate Felix… She explain the following in a totally serious voice “Felix, I this is my cracker, you don’t eat crackers, you drink milk it is from mommy’s boodie. This is my boobie, that is your boodie. My boodie is little, your boodie is really little, Mommy’s boobie is big….” And it went on, Jeff and I were both shaking with stifled laughter. The other classic Amelia moment was when we were all down in the kitchen and Amelia went up to go to the bathroom. She was gone awhile when I called up to ask her if she needed help, she informed us that she got her arm stuck in the middle of her vagina while she was wiping and now she was washing her arm…. Oh boy!

As a whole we are all very good, we have been madly packing and getting ready for the reno’s we have sourced most of the tiles, appliances, and fixtures. Now we just need to start knocking down walls so we can confirm measurements. This weekend we are doing the final move and we move in with John and Denise for a couple months. I thought I would be really sad about leaving our current house after all the blood sweat and tears that we have put into it but I am not, at least not yet. I am sure that last day will be bitter sweet but really I think Jeff and I have both moved on to the new place.

This weekend we went antiquing, this is the first time I have done this since I was a kid and got dragged from antique store to store. This tame we dragged Amelia and Felix. Amelia was abit crazy at first but after she had Jeff tried out the pancake breakfast she was good to go and she was all about looking at all the vintage jewels. We ended up getting a new dinning room table which I am totally excited about. It is long and narrow, 3ft by 7ft which fits our new dinning room to a tee!

Sat night we headed to our friends Mark and Chelsea’s with Heather, Adam and Cam for some play time on their new deck and an Indian feast for us! The kids were getting abit bored at one point so Mark pulled out the mixing bowls, a few cups of flour, some spices and whisks and Amelia and Sammie created wonderful cakes with the help of Miss Mags and Cam (Felix was having a snooze).

Filo is actually not as cranky as he was, he has kinda tuned a corner and he is back to his pretty much cheerful self.

This month Felix continues to be quite a busy boy, he has perfected the commando crawl and can now do some impressive yoga poses namely the downward dog and the plank poses (both very funny to watch). He is still working on crawling, he gets up on his knees and he moves his feet but he hasn’t worked out his hands so they stay put and he ends up doing yoga. He is also getting better on his feet, he loves to be walked around, something which his Pake totally indulges him in. He is getting much more sturdy on his feet, he has got the one foot in front of the other concept down. He loves Amelia’s old music table, only issue is one of us has to stand with him. He is also sitting quite comfortable sitting these days.

Felix is a happy little dude, who is full of smiles. He is also full of noises. Mamama… Dadada…Bababa…

This month Felix had some issues with sleeping. He was sick and had a very stuffy nose so I think breathing was abit tough and it kept waking him up. We had one rather sleepless night, ugh, we are out of practice and we were both DEAD the next morning.

Felix is a very good eater, he will eat pretty much anything. He is still primarily on mush but he also gets cheerios, mum mums, pizza crusts and the occasional pieces of fruit.

He still loves being sung to, “Round and round the garden” is one of his favs, pretty much anything that ends in him being tickled or rolled around he loves.

Still no sign of teeth!

Sunday we all helped Julie move into her new loft and we invited everyone back to our place for Sunday dinner. Initally John, Denise and Julie had declined cause it had been such a crazy week for them with all the painting and moving etc. but in the end they all decided to come along with my parents who were always going to come. SO anyways Sunday at 4pm we put in our best offer fully expecting to be rejected yet again but we were floored when Sharon called us at at 5:30 to tell us that we got the place, we were jumping up and down int he kitchen just as John, Denise and Julie pulled into the driveway. Jeff and I had to go over and sign one the papers so we ran out the door leaving the kids with J,D and J, Poor Felix was sitting in his chair bib on ready to be fed with one parents to feed him Luckliy the family guess right and decided he was just about to be fed and hadn’t already eaten so they picked up where we left off.

The house is a three bedroom with potential for a fourth in the basement, a huge backyard (pie shaped), two wood burning fireplaces and most importantly TWO bathrooms We are all so excited and so happy to be finished our seach. Only hiccup as it stands right now we are out of our place on July 15th and don’t get this place until the 30th… EEEP The person living there is doing their best to try to find something sooner so we can get it before our closing (fingers and toes crossed).

Amelia isn’t sure aobut the whole move thing but she has decided that her new room with be painted while and pink with pink flowers, (I am going to have to figure out how to actaully implement this request).

Felix is teething like mad these days and is being an A**, his new nickname is Captian Crankypants. One of his weeks major achievements is that he can now get his toes in his mouth, he is pretty pleased with himself.

I am pretty busy these days with kids, moving and reno stuff and my photography course is now two days a week until mid June. This coming weekend I am off to Montreal with a couple friends, should be fun!!

Filo is quite mobile now, he rolls with purpose and is quite skilled at the commando crawl. His fav is standing, he gets the Muppet grin whenever you pull him up. Last week we pulled out the music table which he is lovin. He can stand at it without problem but he gets distracted he goes over. Similar situation with the sitting, he can sit but hasn’t quite got the stabilization thing yet.

Felix’s other new discovery is his feet, he is so pleased with himself. He can’t quite get them in his mouth yet he just likes to grab them. He is big on sucking his finger, he doesn’t suck his thumb but he does suck his pointer finger when he sleeps or when he is tired.

He continues to love his food though he is getting abit more selective about it. Thing he likes such a meat, squash, lentils but he isn’t so keen on super texture-y food or peas and beans but he will eat them mixed with stuff. I think plain cereal is still his fav though. He also LOVES his mum mums and cheerios. I think watching him eat cheerios is one of my favorite past times, he is so intense in his attack.

The other new thing for Felix is various noises, his favs are clicking his tongue and making motor boat noises.

Right now he is abit sick, runny nose and a cough. Maybe signs of his first tooth? But as of today still no sign of any teeth.