I'm home today with Cadence, who has a cold. The poor guy is so stuffed up he can't sleep but we're managing. My "I-prefer-not-to-medicate" stance goes out the window at 3am when we've been awake for two and a half hours and I have to work in the morning. Three cheers for Dimetapp and Tylenol (one helps with the stuffiness and the other with the teething pain that stops him from sleeping once we finally get him breathing). I think he's on the mend, and I have to hand it to him--Cadence's spirits continue to be great despite the red little nose.

We had a visit two weekends ago from Drew's dad & brother Neil; as is our pattern lately we didn't get all that many pictures. (actually we got some great portrait-type shots but they're with Drew's fancy dancy camera).





Uncle Steve and Aunt Lee gave Cadence these mega blocks last summer. It took a while, but he's now fully into making castles. His turn out quite neat since he's not obsessed with making it all square.


Drew's started taking Cadence to the library once in a while. I think they have a lot of fun there, not just looking at books but I suspect there are peekaboo-type shananigans that go on as well.




Walk to work/daycare one day last week.


Cadence stole my apple the other day. He likes to share his food with Tofu.


And he also knows that there are often fun things (i.e. balls) to be found under the buffet in the kitchen. Cadence is getting better every day at playing fetch with Tofu. Although he tends to throw the ball/toy at Tofu rather than for tofu...but he's on the right track. :)

Last week my mom & Mike came & stayed over to spend the day with Cadence. Here they are saying goodbye to Grampa, who I believe is heading out to pick me up from work on a rainy day. (it's now official: I walk to work & back wearing good ol' fashioned rubber boots with my fancy dancy coat. One has to be practical sometimes.)


Somewhat of a morning ritual lately: Cadence & Drew get up together, head downstairs to make coffee (which involves humming along), and then check out the weather network. Cadence dances to the theme music every time.


Ok, I'm ready for my chores.


Backyard. Playing outside last weekend while Drew did some winter prep (where is winter?? It should be here by now!!)


This is for real. He holds the dustpan for me every time I sweep the floor, and then opens the garbage & then closes it. Very good.


The foamy number toy has recently been re-released (previously taken away because he was eating it). Cadence needs help getting the numbers out, and help getting them back in, but he seems to know the 1, the 0, and occasionally gets some of the others right. Again, and again, and again.




Sunrise on Roseneath, on one of our daily family walks to work/daycare.

Happy Hallowe'en, Matey!

Happy Hallowe'en! This morning I pulled out an old classic; will likely be familiar to some of our readers :) for work. Cadence dressed up too and accompanied me to work in the morning.


After dropping me off at work, Drew and Cadence went to the Early Years' Centre Hallowe'en party.



Cadence fell asleep in the car on the way home; Drew moved him to his bed for a nap-as-pirate. Here's a pic he took part way through the nap. I'm going to assume that Cadence will move if he can't breathe...

It just occurred to me that although we've been sharing pics with moderate frequency, I haven't provided much of an update on Cadence's life in general. So: we've just made it through the first four molars, which seemed to take forever. We had a brief respite, about four days, and then he was onto the next set of teeth, which I hear are the worst (I maintain that the molars are worse than newborn days). We're at 12 teeth & counting. He's a trooper!

He's finalized the transition to just one nap per day; both yesterday & today it was 3 hrs and Drew and I swear he woke up bigger than he fell asleep. On daycare days he might only nap 1 1/2 hrs because of all the noise there, so we just adapt by doing a 7pm bedtime rather than 7:30.

He's still going to daycare part time, and has started transitioning into the toddler room (for kids 18 mos -2 or 3 yrs I think) but they've been allowing kids as young as 15 mos in there lately. Once he's comfy there we'll have a lot more freedom for Drew to get work done...he might start going 1/2 days x 5 days per week but we'll see how it pans out.

What else...officially rejected spicy food twice this week (once a curry and once pasta). I swear he was fine with it before, and I thought that if we stuck with it when he's young he'd be fine, but it appears to burn his tongue or something. Otherwise he's doing great with food.

Walking is doing well, and actually I can't think of him actuall crawling for travel in quite a number of days--it's walking everywhere, and running if he's using his little street cleaner toy.

That's about all...we're having a lot of fun with him and just got his first real shoes followed by his first real winter boots today. Snow on the ground when we woke--just a bit, but it's started!

All for now...off to bed I go :)

drums, girlfriend

One day this week, Drew took Cadence to a drumming class at the Early Years Centre. It was for kids 2-6, and Drew's report was that C. was too small to really participate, but from the pictures it looks to me like he was right into it.

In the car, on the way to the EYC. With Nipsy the dog.


Arrival, listening to directions, getting going...



Wow; the father-son resemblance is really growing.


After the drumming, they stayed and played a bit. Cadence apparently attracted this little girl (a bit old for him, it looks to me). Here they are, innocently reading side-by-side.

Getting a little closer...

Apparently, right before this picture was taken, she had leaned over & planted a big one on C. Hard to see clearly as they've found a secret little space to play.


and back at home...
The other morning, after Tofu's morning pee break. The view from one side of the door...

And from the other.

Bedtime story with dad. Cadence's new bus book, from the library.

Happy Tofurkey Day!

We had a great family-focused Thanksgiving weekend--quiet and rainy but nice.

On a more up-to-date note, I've reached yet another milestone on the "return to normal" journey. Yesterday I not only picked up & got through a big chunk of the Saturday Globe, but I also rented my first movie! Even got through about 2/3 of it. Feels great. Now back to the latest holiday...

It had been a big week at work for me, coordinating a big agency all-day planning workshop. To celebrate having survived the whole thing we went to our favourite truck stop for dinner on Friday. Cadence had pasta.


One of the best things about Gillies Truck Stop is the ceiling fans and the airplanes hanging from the ceiling (see background)


Last Saturday we went for a walk in the trails up behind the house. It's neat that we're now getting a second generation of exeperiences here (see very similar pic early on in the blog).


On Sunday morning (or Monday?) Cadence and I pulled out the finger paints. I think it was initially confusing to be in his high chair but told again & again not to eat the paint. My fault. He got the point but seemed more interested in tearing the paper up than playing with the paint. Oh well. Good activity for a rainy day: a) passes some time, whether you end up with finished artwork or not; and b) gives mom a chance to sit & sip at coffee while child is entertained in single location.


After nap, and before dinner, we went out to the Hilliardton Marsh for a long walk. This is a manufactured wetland in partnership between Ducks Unlimited & the MNR. Really it's so people can have a place to go shoot ducks, but oh well. It's the largest of its kind in North America, which is neat.




Helping in the kitchen. We had a tofurkey with stuffing, dumplings, gravy, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Plus I made my first ever pumpkin pie, which I was quite pleased with (especially since I really am not fond of pumpkin pie). Thanks Doreen for a great recipe! (I'm actually finishing off the last piece as I write this). The best part of the tofurkey is that it only takes, like 90 mins to cook--so an afternoon hike is completely reasonable. Nice.

See for yourselves!

Here's a link to some video of C. taking his first steps. Please cut and paste it into your browser as I'm not sure how to make it link directly...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHAeK_n6Kvo

De quatre pattes a deux

After the occasional few steps here & there, Cadence stood on his own (as opposed to pulling himself up on something) and just started to walk last night. Again and again, so much fun! I think this is the beginning of a whole new adventure...

Some pictures from this morning.
On the playmat, before breakfast.


Getting ready for breakfast with mommie (that's me).


Tonight after dinner: more walking practice. Sooo much fun!


We broke down a few weeks ago & bought a dishwasher. Cadence really likes to play in/with it. I'm hoping we can get him into actually helping load/unload in a productive way. He's not quite there yet.

Shrubbery

Just back from a weekend in Sudbury, where some of our faithful readers will be pleased to learn that we bought lamps. I'll leave it at that at risk of sounding absolutely boring and mundane (i.e. that's the most we have to report on). Of course we managed to not take any pictures during the actual visit; this is becoming more & more common. Sorry guys.

Life's been good...a lot of our friends are travelling far & wide, moving, and we miss them (France, Nova Scotia). Family are travelling too (Florida, Europe) and we miss them. We're staying put for now, but settling in more at home and getting ready for winter should it decide to join us this year. I'm actually rooting for an early winter so that the bears can get to sleep but even that's a mixed blessing because if they haven't fattened up enough, they won't survive. Such a tough time for those poor creatures. I'm rooting for them, anyways.

On another note, I've become completely disillusioned with our election candidates around here. The candidate I had thought I'd support is doing things like promoting hydro subsidies for industry and bringing back the spring bear hunt rather than investigating habitat loss and other reasons for our bear woes. Ah well I suppose this isn't the place for a political rant...

So back to baby!
On our way back from Sudbury we stopped in a town called Field for lunch. Here are Drew and Cadence enjoying an ice cream cone (just the cone for C.), in front of the best chip stand ever. (it got this glorious title by me after I discovered not only good food but also clean, new latrines outside and a handwashing station too.)


And enjoying some local outdoor art.

That evening, while I boiled some water for drinking and made supper (we had an adverse well test so have to boil water until we get around to treating the well), Drew and Cadence played outside. Cadence can now make it all the way down the little hill in our yard all on his own. He knows to turn around & go down backwards, just like on stairs.



Drew brought this old synthesizer back from Toronto with him a few weeks ago. Cadence really enjoys playing with it. More evidence that he's his daddy's son.




and more...Drew assembling a cabinet, and Cadence helping with his own set of tools.


This is from last weekend, before our trip. Down to the park is a walk or bike ride we do daily on the weekend, and many week days as well. Cadence is really starting to love it there as more bits of the playground become accesible to him.