The last few days have been busy. Friday night after putting Isaac to bed, we packed our bags and booked a taxi for 6am. We were up around 5:30am Saturday morning packing the rest of the things we think we'd need on our trip.
We got to the airport and checked in our luggage and Isaac's car seat. The security check went smoothly (though Isaac didn't want to go through the scanner by himself so I had to carry him). When we got to our gate, Isaac watched some tv on the big screen while daddy picked up some breakfast. Isaac had some bites of a chocolate chip muffin. We let him run around for a bit. We boarded the plane and Isaac seemed to be excited about the experience at first. We got blankets and pillows complementary on the plane (maybe because they had to switch to a smaller plane so people's seatings got switched around and some people were offered earlier flights out). We were still taxiing around the runway preparing for take-off when Isaac fell asleep.
He napped for the first hour of the plane ride. Then he watched some Ponyo and snacked for a bit. After, he started getting restless and had figured out how to take off the seatbelt. Isaac wanted some water so I opened my water bottle... I had a little incident with some water spouting out like a fountain.... I'm guessing it was from the pressure in the plane. My pants, a blanket and my seat got drenched. It eventually dried, but I was scared to open my water bottle again afterwards. The only other mishap is that Isaac poured juice down the front of his shirt and pants. We had to strip him and change him into some spare clothes I had packed. Part way through the plane ride, Isaac started running up and down the aisle. He was upset at having to stay seated and buckled in during the landing.
Grandpa B met us at the airport and drove us to my parent's house. Isaac check out the house and went from room to room, then checked out the toys. Lots of duplo and some baby toys. I think his favourite "toy" is the kitchen timer. He discovered that he didn't have to wait for it to go off to hear it ding if he turned the knob the other direction. We went out for dinner, but Isaac didn't make it through the entire dinner (he was going crazy). Aunty A drove me and the boy back early and he fell asleep almost immediately. I transferred him onto the crib mattress (which we left on the floor). He woke up an hour later and was ready to play again. I think we got him down for the night at around 10:30pm.
This morning Isaac was up at 6:30am. He wanted to eat breakfast so I gave him oatmeal and a fruit cup. He went out to play with Grandma. We had brunch at Cora's but Isaac fell asleep and slumped against me before our order arrived. Midway through our meal, he stirred and seemed to want to switch positions so we layed him across three chairs (his head on my lap, his body on a chair and his legs on Daddy's lap). We finished our breakfast and went home. When we got back, I wasn't able to take him out of the car without waking him. I'm guessing the nap was about an hour long.
He snacked on a few bites of ham and cheese. Then we went to Value Village. There was no lego, but I picked up some books and a couple of puzzles. After we headed to my in-law's house. Traffic was a bit slower than expected. The boy said he needed to potty while we were in the car. I was a little worried that he would poop, but it was just pee (and he had a diaper on). We took him to the potty when we got home. Then he went up and down the stairs by himself (using the bum slide method going down). After he looked around each of the rooms, then went to look for Grandpa.
Daddy went to Fortinos to pick up a few things we needed plus some dinner for Isaac. Grandpa steamed some sticky rice and dim sum to augment our dinner. Isaac pooped on the potty, had his bath, then played for a little. Daddy and Grandpa went to meet up with Aunty J and pick up Grandma from the airport. I stayed home with the boy. He fell asleep at 7:30pm. I'm not sure if this is just a nap or if he's down for the night...
[update: He woke up at 8:37pm but I was in the room with him and was able to get him back to sleep.]
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Weekend Activities
Friday night we ordered Indian food takeout. We augmented the dinner with some Louisiana M&M chicken wings. They were a bit spicy so I started dipping the chicken in yogurt for Isaac and he seemed to enjoy that.
Swimming class on Saturday morning was good. Isaac participated in a song, he also blew bubbles and dipped his ears in the water. We saw a black baby rabbit nibbling on some broccoli and carrots outside of the aquatic centre. After class we wanted to go to the public works open house event... so we got there early and parked out in front. It started raining (which made it less desirable to attend the outdoor event), but the deciding factor was that Isaac fell asleep. We went home instead... but was unsuccessful trying to transfer Isaac from the car to bed. He woke up and had some blackforest ham, bologna and cheese rolled up together.
At dinner, we ordered some take out from Gingeri. Daddy made some rice and broccoli. I reminded Isaac about the rabbit eating broccoli and Isaac decided to eat some broccoli too.
Last night a couple of hours after I had put Isaac to bed, I heard him cry/whine about something then fell back asleep. Since he didn't seem distressed, I didn't go check up on him. When I went to bed, I found him sleeping on the floor. I guess he must've fallen out of our bed and settled himself back to sleep on the floor.
He mostly prefers sleeping in a bed instead of his crib. There are still some occasional times when he asks to sleep in his crib, but mostly he likes being able to get out of bed whenever he wants. He was up by 6:30am and played with his lego train and tracks this morning. After, I gave him some mandarin oranges and half a glass of milk with chocolate syrup (because he won't drink plain milk).
I let Isaac open up the Lego Duplo 5641 Busy Garage set I had stashed in the closet. I bought it back in January when it went was on sale (50%off) on the lego website. Isaac and Daddy played with the new cars and attached some of the train-cars to the cars.
Sunday afternoon, we stopped by Old Navy to look for some jeans. We ended up picking up a Curious George t-shirt for Isaac. He also got a bruise on his cheeks from bumping into a table in the store. We went out for dinner at a sushi restaurant. Isaac didn't want to sit still in his chair (he was in a regular adult chair). The restaurant was pretty empty since most people were probably at home watching the hockey game.
We put Isaac to bed earlier tonight (at around 7pm). It still ended up taking awhile for him to get settled in bed. I let him sleep on the bed but he kept running out of the bedroom. I ended up putting him in his crib and holding his hands through the rails until he fell asleep at 8:13pm.
Swimming class on Saturday morning was good. Isaac participated in a song, he also blew bubbles and dipped his ears in the water. We saw a black baby rabbit nibbling on some broccoli and carrots outside of the aquatic centre. After class we wanted to go to the public works open house event... so we got there early and parked out in front. It started raining (which made it less desirable to attend the outdoor event), but the deciding factor was that Isaac fell asleep. We went home instead... but was unsuccessful trying to transfer Isaac from the car to bed. He woke up and had some blackforest ham, bologna and cheese rolled up together.
At dinner, we ordered some take out from Gingeri. Daddy made some rice and broccoli. I reminded Isaac about the rabbit eating broccoli and Isaac decided to eat some broccoli too.
Last night a couple of hours after I had put Isaac to bed, I heard him cry/whine about something then fell back asleep. Since he didn't seem distressed, I didn't go check up on him. When I went to bed, I found him sleeping on the floor. I guess he must've fallen out of our bed and settled himself back to sleep on the floor.
He mostly prefers sleeping in a bed instead of his crib. There are still some occasional times when he asks to sleep in his crib, but mostly he likes being able to get out of bed whenever he wants. He was up by 6:30am and played with his lego train and tracks this morning. After, I gave him some mandarin oranges and half a glass of milk with chocolate syrup (because he won't drink plain milk).
I let Isaac open up the Lego Duplo 5641 Busy Garage set I had stashed in the closet. I bought it back in January when it went was on sale (50%off) on the lego website. Isaac and Daddy played with the new cars and attached some of the train-cars to the cars.
Sunday afternoon, we stopped by Old Navy to look for some jeans. We ended up picking up a Curious George t-shirt for Isaac. He also got a bruise on his cheeks from bumping into a table in the store. We went out for dinner at a sushi restaurant. Isaac didn't want to sit still in his chair (he was in a regular adult chair). The restaurant was pretty empty since most people were probably at home watching the hockey game.
We put Isaac to bed earlier tonight (at around 7pm). It still ended up taking awhile for him to get settled in bed. I let him sleep on the bed but he kept running out of the bedroom. I ended up putting him in his crib and holding his hands through the rails until he fell asleep at 8:13pm.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Books
Isaac's current favourite books are by Robert Munsch. Isaac has been requesting "More Pies" and "Murmel, Murmel, Murmel". He likes the silly sounds and some of the repetition in the stories. He was into "Something More" and "Pigs" but has moved on. At our last library visit, I picked out 7 more books and bought a couple from Value Village.
Toilet reading mostly consists of board books (which I bought from Value Village) and includes:
Toilet reading mostly consists of board books (which I bought from Value Village) and includes:
- A board book set of Curious George First Words About Animals (Includes First Words at the Aquarium, First Words at the Circus, First Words at the Farm, and First Words at the Zoo. First off, there are not a lot of words in these books, but what Isaac enjoys about them are the pictures. At first he picked out a few objects on the pages and pointed to ask what they were. Now he points out objects or even the scene and will say what it is (if he knows what it is) and use words to describe the object (colour, size, temperature, etc) or things you can do with the object (turn, spin, cook, etc). With 4 books, he can choose what he feels like looking at. It's a nice variety.
- We have a set of 3 DK Flip the Flap books - Farm animals, Counting, and Things That Go. He doesn't look at these books as much now, but on occasion he will request to look at Things That Go. These books have nice pictures and the flaps make it more interactive and interesting for him while he sat on the potty (especially when he was a little younger).
- Thomas the Tank Engine's Hidden Surprises is fun for Isaac because he's currently into trains. I'm not crazy about the Thomas franchise/merchandising but trains in general are things he's been on, played with and can relate to. We have a couple of Thomas trains/track but I'm not planning to expand our toy collection in this direction unless I happen to find stuff at Value Village.
- Potty Time with Elmo is not a great book, but for $1 from VV it's ok. Isaac likes to press the buttons and hear the sounds.
- London Drugs advertisements - Isaac loves looking at kitchen gadgets and identifying other household tools and items.
In the last few months, we've moved onto other books but Isaac still loves his Curious George Treasury books (we have the red one and the blue one). A favourite book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson is fun to read. Isaac likes stories about trains, cars and cooking. We've started reading Lama Lama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney in preparation of preschool. Isaac seems to prefer non-fiction books when reading on the potty. He likes hearing me read a book about "Birds and Chicks", or factual books about tractors or planes. He went through a few weeks really interested in reading his "Cars" comic book but his interest in that book seems to have faded. I usually look out for nicely illustrated, not too text-heavy nonfiction books for Issac's toilet reading when I'm at Value Village or the thrift store next door.
Update: June 23, 2012
We've been going to the library at least once a week if not more frequently. Our recent favourites include a series of books about a dog named Polo by Regis Faller. It's a comic style picture book with no words. Isaac has asked to: "zap me in the book" because he wants to have the adventures with Polo too (especially when polo plays with the monkey band). This morning I woke up and found him "reading" a couple of the books by himself. We've borrowed: "The Adventures of Polo", "Polo and Lily" and "Polo and the Magic Flute". I hope the library will add a few more of these books to their collection. If I ever come across this in VV it's a definite buy. :)
Another fun book to read is "Donut Chef" by Bob Staake. I think we love rhyming stories in general and this one is pretty cute about two competing donut shops. Isaac also likes "Hello, Robots" by Bob Staake and find it funny when the robots get all mixed up.
We've gone back to some Dr. Seuss books like "The Sneetches" and "The Lorax".
Easy reader books... Star wars themed books are always a big hit just because he loves spaceships. He also likes the Lego books, but DH thinks they're just another form of advertising for Lego products (which is quite true - now I've got my eye on looking for a large green lego troll from the Lego Fantasy Era).
Update: June 23, 2012
We've been going to the library at least once a week if not more frequently. Our recent favourites include a series of books about a dog named Polo by Regis Faller. It's a comic style picture book with no words. Isaac has asked to: "zap me in the book" because he wants to have the adventures with Polo too (especially when polo plays with the monkey band). This morning I woke up and found him "reading" a couple of the books by himself. We've borrowed: "The Adventures of Polo", "Polo and Lily" and "Polo and the Magic Flute". I hope the library will add a few more of these books to their collection. If I ever come across this in VV it's a definite buy. :)
Another fun book to read is "Donut Chef" by Bob Staake. I think we love rhyming stories in general and this one is pretty cute about two competing donut shops. Isaac also likes "Hello, Robots" by Bob Staake and find it funny when the robots get all mixed up.
We've gone back to some Dr. Seuss books like "The Sneetches" and "The Lorax".
Easy reader books... Star wars themed books are always a big hit just because he loves spaceships. He also likes the Lego books, but DH thinks they're just another form of advertising for Lego products (which is quite true - now I've got my eye on looking for a large green lego troll from the Lego Fantasy Era).
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Need More Trofast Shelves For Lego
My Duplo Knights Castle (Lego #4777) arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. I've already built two castles, but they haven't been able to survive Isaac's onslaught. I have NOWHERE to store my new pieces.
We ended up getting a taller Trofast shelf/frame to store our toys. Unfortunately, it's not very stable and looks like it can tip easily. They've included screws to bolt the frame to the wall but it's not really an option for us.
Update:
We use the medium and large sized bins for our duplo and the small and medium bins for regular lego. I got a shelf that holds 6 small bins together. I sort the lego by colour, so I'm finding that 6 bins just isn't enough since there are more than 6 different colours! Some of the colours currently have to share a bin together.
After a few recent swap meets and value village lego purchases, some of the little bins are filled to the brim. I might have to move some of the lego to the medium sized bins.
For the last couple of months, I haven't been able to fit all our duplo into our existing bins... so I've built houses and other structures and left it out (and the boy destroys them when he's in a tired, destructive mood). I think I need to visit Ikea again to pick up another shelf and some more bins. Maybe I should take Isaac there sometime this week.
We ended up getting a taller Trofast shelf/frame to store our toys. Unfortunately, it's not very stable and looks like it can tip easily. They've included screws to bolt the frame to the wall but it's not really an option for us.
Update:
We use the medium and large sized bins for our duplo and the small and medium bins for regular lego. I got a shelf that holds 6 small bins together. I sort the lego by colour, so I'm finding that 6 bins just isn't enough since there are more than 6 different colours! Some of the colours currently have to share a bin together.
After a few recent swap meets and value village lego purchases, some of the little bins are filled to the brim. I might have to move some of the lego to the medium sized bins.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Early riser
Last night, Isaac went to bed at around 8am and as far as I'm aware, he didn't wake up until this morning at 5am when I got up to get a drink of water. It should be easy to adjust to the EST time zone when we go visit in a couple of weeks. He's playing happily with his various train sets. He likes to say "all boar" (All Aboard) and "tick" (tickets).
Yesterday Isaac enjoyed the art class because one of the projects was a train. He spent a long time colouring it. He fell asleep on the way home. N (2yrs 4mos) and A (5yrs) came over to play at 2pm. Isaac woke up from his nap at around 2:45pm and only ate a tiny bit of dumplings for lunch. It was interesting to see how an older child played. It was more chaotic since N & A would fight with each other. I didn't notice too much conflict between Isaac and N, though Isaac did try to take something from A and A didn't let go of the toy.
Today we're having J over to play. Isaac seems to be looking forward to seeing J.
Isaac's been taking the ipad off our kitchen bar counter the last few days. I guess there's really nowhere "safe" to put stuff any more.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Enjoying the weather
Monday, one of my friends came over to visit in the afternoon and brought some bubble tea. I drank most of it while Isaac napped. When he woke up, he joined us and happily drank the remaining peach green tea from my cup. We walked to the local elementary school to vote. It was raining, so Isaac wore his raincoat and boots and splashed in some puddles on our walk. Afterwards, we had Indian food for dinner and watched the election results.
Tuesday morning we had nothing planned so we were able to take our time to walk around. Isaac played with rocks, picked dandelions and weeds (to give to Daddy), looked for rabbits, visited a little art gallery and accompanied me on some errands. When we passed by the skytrain station, he asked to go on the train. I told him we would go soon another time.
Wednesday morning, Isaac was up early. Daddy and Isaac built a nice train track layout together while I slept in. I fed the boy breakfast and we got ready to go out. We took the train downtown to the library to see a puppet show. Isaac was excited that got to feed one of the puppets a strawberry (made out of felt). They performed stories from a couple of kids books: "Dear Zoo" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We were able to make it back home on the same train ticket. On the way home, Isaac fell asleep (11:30am). I'm always debating if I should bring a stroller or not, but I'm glad I did since carrying Isaac when he's asleep is tiring. We had dumplings for lunch. After lunch, Daddy took us to the mall. I picked up some fruit to share with our friends on Thursday.
It looks like rain in the forecast. Our agenda for Thursday includes an art class in the morning and a play date with N and his brother A at our place in the afternoon. We may go downtown again on Friday if the other Mommies are interested in seeing the puppet show. It's puppet show week at the downtown library. I wonder if it'll be the same show or something different.
Tuesday morning we had nothing planned so we were able to take our time to walk around. Isaac played with rocks, picked dandelions and weeds (to give to Daddy), looked for rabbits, visited a little art gallery and accompanied me on some errands. When we passed by the skytrain station, he asked to go on the train. I told him we would go soon another time.
Wednesday morning, Isaac was up early. Daddy and Isaac built a nice train track layout together while I slept in. I fed the boy breakfast and we got ready to go out. We took the train downtown to the library to see a puppet show. Isaac was excited that got to feed one of the puppets a strawberry (made out of felt). They performed stories from a couple of kids books: "Dear Zoo" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We were able to make it back home on the same train ticket. On the way home, Isaac fell asleep (11:30am). I'm always debating if I should bring a stroller or not, but I'm glad I did since carrying Isaac when he's asleep is tiring. We had dumplings for lunch. After lunch, Daddy took us to the mall. I picked up some fruit to share with our friends on Thursday.
It looks like rain in the forecast. Our agenda for Thursday includes an art class in the morning and a play date with N and his brother A at our place in the afternoon. We may go downtown again on Friday if the other Mommies are interested in seeing the puppet show. It's puppet show week at the downtown library. I wonder if it'll be the same show or something different.
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