Sophie's first homonym

For a couple of months now, Sophie has been doing an endearing shrug gesture when asked "where" something is. Today, she shrugged when I announced that she would "wear" a particular set of clothes. Maybe not linguistic development, perhaps she was just questioning my sense of style.

I am back to blogging. Any details on M's illness can be gathered direct from the horse's mouth. We don't yet have new move dates but M's off till the 24th and then might get an extra moving week too.

Finally, some photos of the last few days

I swear there's a photo of a beer-swilling toddler in almost every Canadian house. This is Sophie's take, though often she two-hands it. BTW, it's my favourite local brew.

Love the shot of "smiley girl" which she is so much of the time (beer or no beer).

The snap of her asleep in the highchair is from Tuesday. (No, she hadn't had a beer to knock her out). We weren't running late but she must have been eager for her nap. I fed her lunch and then went upstairs for 3 minutes to wrangle Seb down to the table. We came clumping down quite noisely, rounded the corner and lo and behold a snoring princess!

Then, there is Seb trying on Sophie's "toaster" snowsuit, which admittedly is wide.

Big push today/tonight on the report (which is shaping up despite my worst efforts) and then boxing and moving to Baxters Corner tomorrow for 18 sleeps.

Good news: the head of the excellent children's drama classes that Seb attends has offered to make him a munchkin costume for the June production of the Wiz. If we come back the week before the show, he can attend a run-through and go on stage at the Imperial Theatre! I promised that we would get 10 bums in seats if we take them up on it. So kind!

The blessing of running water

Sophie counts her blessings that she was born into the western world where drinking water flows from a tap. She just loves to find the stool, hoist herself up against the bathroom sink (banging her head in the process) and try to reach the taps. When she is held up, she proceeds to slap away at the pooled water, bat at the dribble, and capably use the taps. She would spend ages at it but my back usually starts to rebel.

She also loves to move collections of things from point A to point B. Upstairs in the apartment, it is invariably diapers (clean ones thankfully). At M's office one night, she managed to swipe all the whiteboard/dry erase markers. He searched in vain for them, until just before they left when he spotted all of them in an open desk drawer.

Notice that I don't seem to spend my days running around with the camera at the moment. We will get back into photo-groove, promise.

2007 chickenpox, 2008 scarlet fever?

We were invited to a lovely party last night - ostensibly to welcome in Japanese/Chinese New Year. Seb took the invitation very seriously and in order to be in best party form, he napped for 2 hours. Unfortunately, it was from 5.30-7.30. So we didn't roll up till close to 8.30 and soon after, most kids started to leave.

Our hosts' 4 year old was quarantined in his room with a high fever. But of course that didn't deter Sebastian who had brought him a gift (New Year/get better sort of thing) and a highly-stickered card.

Unbeknownst to us all, Kai actually had scarlet fever... And so we enter our moving week and my last week on this education report with some anxiety. Supposedly under 2s are less likely to get it - though of course that didn't happen with the chickenpox. Fingers crossed!!!

Girlfriend loves grapes

Sophie so adores sweet green grapes that she will rocket up the stairs to get them with no distractions, no looking down. I guess I should grow a vine right at the top of the stairs. She'll love the new place b/c we do have a trellis of vines over the outdoor eating area. I'll try to remember to snap and post the patio/backspace when we get there. Good thing M had some experience laying paving stones in France, b/c we'll be tackling a bigger area this time...

Soph also is very sweetly wandering around the playroom clutching "dolly". She likes to peer at the creature's eyes (as they close) and give her wet kisses and crushing hugs (she must get that from her bro). Only thing is that it belongs to the apartment and we are moving out next Friday. I hope I can slip her the one that has been boxed this past year...