Austin's message from Santa

Austin is really getting into the whole Santa thing -- so much so that even when we're at the mall across the street picking up a few groceries, he wants to go see Santa. Needless to say we've visited him a few times.

A friend tuned me on to this website where kids can receive a personal message from Santa, thanks to Sympatico/MSN. I thought it was cute so I'm sharing it with you. (I wanted to do one for Alex too, but it wouldn't let me input information for kids younger than one.) Austin was just mesmorized while watching it -- so much so that he responded to Santa when he was talking.

Enjoy. And Merry Christmas!

Message from Santa

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Alexandra on the move

As promised, here's a video of Alex in action. In the last day or so, she's actually gotten quite good at this crawling thing. After watching Austin do the army crawl (on his toes and elbows), followed by the monkey crawl (pulling himself around on his butt), it's weird to see a baby crawling 'normally'.



As you can see in this video, she's also learned how to get herself back into a sitting postion from her tummy. This is great when she's playing on the floor, but the novelty of this new skill means when she's lying in her bed, she's rolling over and sitting up rather than sleeping.

So, last night, she called out at 1 a.m. and when I went in, she was just sitting there. I laid her back down and she went right back to sleep. It's almost as if she gets up and then forgets how to get back down (probably because she's not very awake) so she calls out for help. It's a faze that'll pass, I'm sure. We went through the same thing when she first learned how to roll onto her tummy. If she did so in her sleep and woke up on her tummy, she'd forget how to roll back over and call us to come help her.

Stay tuned for more videos in the coming weeks and months -- now that I have a camera with video again.

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only a week away! I'm almost done my shopping and then there's just a mountain of wrapping to do. Every night I say I'm going to do some, but then I never seem to get the motivation to start. Why do I have a feeling that it's going to be a Christmas-eve wrapping marathon?


With Christmas almost here, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at home. Last Friday morning, while Alexandra took her morning nap, Austin and I decorated a Gingerbread house. We had a lot of fun, and surprisingly more candy ended up on the house than in his mouth. Now, he's constantly asking to eat the cookie house (as he calls it) which is fine by me if he likes it, because I think it tastes like cardboard.

On Saturday morning, we put up our Christmas tree. Again, Austin had a blast and was so excited to have his very own Christmas tree. He'd only be asking me for one for about three weeks! So much so, that some days I would take the kids across the street to the mall so that he could look at the mall tree.

Both kids got involved in decorating, although Alex spent more time trying to eat the ornaments than put them on the tree. Austin, on the other hand, decorated a small patch on the front of the tree really well.The lights are on almost full time because every morning, when Austin wakes up, the first thing he asks for is the lights. It's a good thing we bought LEDs this year (after starting to put the old lights on the tree only to discover that many strings no longer worked and there wasn't enough to cover the tree).

On Sunday, we went to the PCL Family Christmas Party where the kids got to do crafts, go on a sleigh ride (well wagon ride due to the lack of snow), and of course, meet Santa.

When we met Santa at the mall last month, both looked a little like deers caught in headlights. But this time, both were more relaxed and willing to smile. Although when Austin got off Santa's knee and we tried to get a picture of just Alexandra, she just screamed.

That's all the news for now. We have a busy for weeks ahead of us with Christmas in London, then a trip for Ryan and me to North Carolina for my cousin's wedding (without the kids!) and then a Christmas in Brampton on Jan. 2 with my family.

So there'll be plenty more pictures soon. And we finally bought a new camera to replace our broken point-and-shoot, which means I can once again take videos. So stay tuned for videos of Alex crawling -- or trying to anyway.

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Let me rephrase that

Less than two hours after I wrote the last post, I figured out why Alex has been so cranky today. There, on her lower gumline is her first tooth poking out.

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All about the kids again

Once again, I've been mainly writing about what we've been doing lately and not about the kids -- so here's a quick update on what they're up to.

The two kids get along really well right now. Austin loves his little sister and likes to sit and play with her -- although he doesn't always know to be gentle. And Alex thinks that her big brother is the funniest person in the world. She's always giggling at him as he runs circles around her. It's pretty funny to watch.

Alexandra

Alex has mastered the art of crawling...backwards. And it's quite frustrating for her. She'll start off by sitting and playing, and then, in an effort to grab something out of her reach, she'll fall over onto her tummy. Then, as she continues to try to reach that something, she'll end up pushing herself backwards -- further and further away from whatever it is she wants. On occasion, I've even looked over and found her stuck halfway under the couch!

She may not be crawling, but what she really wants to do is stand. At every opportunity, she's grabbing on to something and trying to pull herself up. She can easily do so by grabbing my hands, but has not yet figured out how to use things like the couch or a chair to get herself standing.

She still has no teeth. A couple of weeks ago, she was definitely going through teething pain and you can still see the two little bumps on her lower gumline, but as of yet, she still hasn't popped a tooth. So, for now, her meals consist of completely pureed food and mum mum crackers (which disolve in her mouth). Although, to be a little selfish, I have to admit, I don't mind the no teeth, because I'm still breastfeeding her.

And lastly, she has finally started sleeping well at night. After about two months of waking up several times at night -- and not necessarily because she was hungry, but just because she'd wake up (and sometimes even to play in her bed for an hour or two) -- she finally started sleeping through the night. Before I left for Ottawa, I decided I'd had enough of these poor sleeping habits and, as soon as we got home, she was going to be sleep-trained (in other words, we were going to let her cry it out). In Ottawa, she started sleeping through the night (from 8ish to between 5 and 6). She now does so pretty consistently -- although the last few nights she's been up a couple of times and I wonder if it's because these teeth are trying to pop through.

Austin

In the last couple of months, Austin's language abilities have greatly improved and he's now speaking in full sentences and in such a way that almost anyone can understand him (instead of just mom and dad). Almost every day, he's trying out new words, or surprising me by knowing something he didn't know yesterday. We definitely have to spell around him now when we don't want him to know what we're talking about.


His swimming lessons have finished for the fall and he greatly improved over the course of the session and really enjoyed them. So much so that I'm going to be signing him up again in the winter.

We're also working on potty training and after about two and a half months of sitting on the potty every day for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes with no success he finally started going in it about two weeks ago. He gets so excited now when he sees how happy we get -- which I think is motivating him to go. He only manages to go in the potty once or twice a day, so we still have a long way to go, but it's a start and we're very happy.

The big news is, is that as of Christmas, Austin will no longer be going to the sitter's part-time. I decided that I wanted to keep him at home with me for the rest of my maternity leave. And although they both may drive me crazy some days, I'm really looking forward to it. I talked to the agency, and they've assured me that they will give him his full-time place back, and have one for Alex, when I go back to work at the end of April.

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