Dippity-do

Afternoon spent on the deck, playing in big plastic coloured bowls full of cold water. Measuring cups and ice creams scoops to dip and splash with. Olan loves the squelchy sound his feet make on the rubber playmat once it gets wet. He rubs them back and forth, back and forth, laughing and laughing. It's hard to contain him, or discipline him. He eventually gets tired of the bowls and wants to pull the leaves off the tomato plants, jump off the balcony, and when I try to use my stern motherly "NO!" he just smiles and looks cheeky and then does the bad thing again.

He crawls!!!

This morning Olan crawled. It was shocking... so shocking that I exclaimed "holy shit Olan, you're CRAWLING", he looked just as surprised as I did. Here we were thinking that he was going to skip crawling altogether. I guess that he's just frustrated by how long it's taking to walk on his own.

I thought that once he did it once he would just "get" it and do it always, but he seemed to forget about it in the afternoon and was just frustrated and wanting me to lead him around. Then, this evening he did it again.

It's so bloody hot here. We spent most of the day outside, playing with bowls of water and measuring cups on the deck and playing with his friends at the gardens. We even formed a parade, led by 3 year old Katie with a tambourine. I eventually had to put Olan on my shoulders and march behind her as she thought that Olan's walking was waaaaaaay too slow! When we got home Olan collapsed on our bed and passed out... his little nose had beads of sweat on it, poor tired hot little thing!

Nova Scotia cottage beginnings

So I haven't really mentioned the cottage here. Work on the first real building (although by saying that I'm sure that I'll be slayed by Dad and Adam for in any way implying that the wood shed isn't a real building) began this past weekend. It wasn't the beginning of the work... trees have been felled, driveways put in, septic beds prepared, etc. but this is the most exciting part yet, for me anyways. Adam and Dad spent a cold rainy weekend camped out, working hard. Dad is up there for three weeks and Meredith, Mom and Adam will be staying in shifts to help. Luckily John and Martha have lent their tent trailer to the cause so the living is much more comfortable then it was the first cold, wet night. We went up on Sunday to give a little help and have a swim since the weather had turned. It is such a glorious spot and I'm so excited to see in all happening. Ahhh, to have a cottage of our own again... and so close by! Here's the first pictures...

Hot sweaty days

Went to the library this morning before it got truly hot. Olan needed some new books, and so did I. He's now reading the fuzzy duck, in FRENCH (what a smartypants!) and I'm reading The Birth House (in English). I did some wheeling and dealing online while he napped and we now have a beautiful big crib for him to sleep in. His present crib is a little one and I adore it, but the plain truth of it is that it's just too small for our gentle giant. So it was delivered tonight and tomorrow I'll attempt to put it together.

In the afternoon we made our way to yoga class, only to find out that it had been cancelled. My poor yoga teacher has a three year old who just had brain surgery a few weeks ago and apparently something went wrong and she needed to be rushed in to emerg. What on earth is fair about any of that? She's the nicest woman and her little girl is like a sweet little elf. Just sucks on every level.

One of the other moms and I decided to head to the park and find some shady swings. Olan had a great time with Davide (his french babbling came in handy too). Davide is two months older and can walk. Well Olan just thought that it was the greatest thing, he was in awe. Every time Davide headed off, I had to lead Olan after him. He just wanted to follow him everywhere, just to follow and watch. Very funny and sweet.

Tonight he got in some quality playtime with his dad. Now he's asleep in his little bed and we're just chilling out. Adam is very happy, he's acting as a consultant for the Discovery Centre as they build an ant farm. What could make Adam happier than mucking about with the ins and outs of building a fantastic ant farm? Plus, the dudes there know little about the fascinating world of ants so Adam is able to fill them in :).

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter so we're having an ice cream playdate at the gardens with a couple of friends. Bring on the heat and sun!!!

Chart topper

Had Olan's 9 month check-up on Friday. He's now in the 99th percentile for height and the 70th for weight. He was his most charming flirty little self with our doctor and she was going on and on about the cuteness of him. As if we didn't already know! All else was well with him, hitting all the milestones right on time. He's so tall!

I stayed at Mom and Dad's for the weekend since the boys were up at the cottage property. We had a fun girls night... which meant ordering Chinese, drinking copious amounts of caesars and watching a movie. Then Mom, Olan and I tried a new restaurant for brunch. Yummers! Then we shopped around, mostly trying to find a swing for Olan for at the cottage. He sure loves swings.

Olan finally managed to get his hands on one of Gran's pretty red glass canisters he's always admired and this unfortunately resulted in his first broken adult thing :( It happened so fast! It was a wake-up call for me. Because he's not totally mobile on his own (he can't crawl and he can't walk without help) my blinks are that of the average human INSTEAD of the super hyper-fast blinks of the mom with a mobile child. You know the kind, their eyes are like a lizard- big, liquidy, all-seeing and they NEVER seem to close- I'm going to have to work on that. Sure, it might not be very attractive, but if it can save me from saying "sorry!" over and over again for the next million years then I'm all for it.