The invitations are out!
Birthday party in a month.
Look for yours in the mail!

(They didn’t make it out of the province, sorry!)

Transl. “In development”

Mommy and daddy announced to me that in some time, if all goes well, I will become a big brother. It seemed like an important thing, and they were quite happy to tell me this, I’m not sure why.

I’m ready to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I find being a future big brother is not an extraordinary experience so far: my nose is all stuffy, and I’m having trouble breathing right and napping. I hope it will become more fun; meanwhile, I have my reservations.

- Xavier

It’s coming.

We lost our baby; now, it’s a little boy that greets us and smiles and chats and jumps with excitement in his crib in the morning, ready for a new day of exploration.

At one point, I told Frank “it’s like we have a little dog: he runs on all fours, he “yips”, he comes to see us for hugs, he licks and gnaws on everything, he comes to rap on the door when we’re in the bathroom…”. To which Frank added “…and he’s happy when he gets a cookie.” But he soon passed that stage, since he has a lot more prehension, amongst other things, than animals do, and his language is steadily developping.

His language, in fact, now resembles conversations out of Age of Empires or a child playing at imitating Chinese. He often entertains himself with long monologues while playing with his toys. The last few days, he’s also liked to converse with us by saying “A!”, to which we reply “A”, and him again says “A!”, and… so on.

Since last week, he’ll once in a while, when standing near a piece of furniture, make a little step or two without assistance to reach another furniture. These are still excessively small, and his concentrated efforts are not yet applied to this task, but it is easy to recognize in this the beginning of his first steps – which we try to encourage by placing him standing and tempting him with grames and toys.

More and more, he shares our meals. This is practical for us, and he loves to be allowed to eat the same food he sees us eating. His milk is solely 3.25% milk, 3 bottles of 6oz during the day and one of 8oz before sleep at night.

Next week, Xavier will start making visits and little stay-over practices at his future daycare – this is actually one sitter with a daycare set in her home. He’ll be going four days a week starting mid-july. This will also mean back to work for his mommy, who sees this change approaching with a touch of nervosity, a touch of confidence and a touch of melancholy. How she will miss her little ray of sunshine!…

Since this morning, little niÑo has been having problems with a stuffy nose – which bothered his daytime naps big time. Before going to sleep, dad and mom cleaned his nose with Salinex, then emptied it with the pear and administered Dimetapp drops decongestant (courtesy of dad, working under advice)… and now here’s hoping for a good night!

Transl. “Life in the suburbs”

8:25

Frank : “You think 10am is too early for mowing the lawn on a Sunday?”
Émilie : “I think all lawn-mowing is bad on a Sunday – especially on a national holiday – but pressed for a time, I’d wait until 11:30 at least.”
Frank : “Hum.”

10:05

(Revving sound mounts from the neighbour’s yard.)
Émilie, at Frank downstairs : “Hey honey, I think you’ll be alright for 10am… Might as well go now, in fact.”

Happy St-Jean to all! (Québec national day)

We have two ceiling fans in the house. One resides in the living room’s cathedral-type ceiling – that one is the bigger one, but it is high up and its blades revolve slowly at level one. The second one is remote controlled and is installed over our bed; it has three speeds : sort of fast, fast, and very fast.

Xavier, since first we brought him into our home, loves watching the ceiling fans, especially the bedroom one. He has long figured out some sort of interrelation between the remote and the movement and lighting overhead, and will happily munch on the rubber controls or make focused efforts to push one with his tiny finger. You will have guessed which speed button he most easily activates. But this is besides the point.

I’m far from having a phobia of ceiling fans. They just tend to make me… discomforted. (And comfortable, too – there’s a paradox for you.) I’ve helped Frank to install the bedroom one and I know that, should the electrical box on which it is screwed break off the ceiling for some reason, a safegard metal rope will assure the installation against falling too far down. But. There’s something about lying with one’s kid under fast rotating blades that starts the brain calculating how many fractions of seconds it would take for the first rapidly revolving object to hit flesh and would one’s first reflex be the correct one of throwing her body over the child’s.

Hum.