He started his foothold by claiming a solid part of the upstairs living room, first with the portable playpen, quickly followed by his space-eating swing. The exerciser ate another chunk of that room a little later on, and before we knew it the living room was invaded by toys, and it wasn’t ours anymore.

Through the months, Xavier’s mobility increased evermore, and from one open-area to the next – and then through doors to access closed rooms – our whole living space upstairs has become kid-safe (or safe-enough with the appropriate adult supervision) and kid-owned, in some way. This invasion has lately started down the stairs; breakables and hazardous objects are gradually being removed from the basement main room, and we, both Xavier and us, are now exploring and defining what will become middle ground between adult establishment and kid’s new amusements and limitations in the space downstairs. Pretty soon we’ll have a complete Xavier-safe house.

As our toddler started playing a little more often in the basement these days – and we never really planned to turn the upstairs living room into a playroom – we have decided, as a Christmas present and also before the arrival of baby 2, that we’ll be setting him up with a proper playroom space downstairs. It’s not to say he’ll stop playing anywhere but there, or even that toys will only be stored in this location – our months of living with him have helped us to realistically assess what our family’s needs will be here – but a “toys headquarters” doesn’t sound like a bad plan in the long run.

Not being one to begrudge being faced with a little project like this, I took out my tools and came up with a little plan that makes the best of what we already have, and selected some fun additions. The location will be pretty much right at the center of the basement’s open area, which might not sound ideal for the overall look downstairs, but which is very useful for supervision. Plus it places the playroom just before the wallpaper mural of a forest we put up, which is a fun element for it. If all goes well, we should *crossing fingers* be able to build a little play house. Otherwise we might settle on Ikea’s red kid’s tent. Anyway, here’s the plan (click to see it properly):

Now the most pressing issue is selling the big soccer table that’s taking all the space there now. Any buyers?

I started the weekend like a star being escorted around; first Frank who saw me to the bus on his lunch hour on Friday, then my sister Karine was waiting for me when I arrived in Montreal, shared dessert at a café before bringing me down to the subway station where I was to meet with fv, before we made our way further into the subway transit, to be picked up by Tasha w/kids.

After their little man had been safely dropped off at grandma’s, and it was decided baby girl (who had gotten miserably sick, poor thing) would join the trip, we rolled our way into the late evening, toward Toronto, through much chatting, reflexions and kilometers. Our arrival at the hotel successfully concluded our day, where clean and oh-so-comfy beds engulfed us.

The tale of my weekend then, quite unevenly, slips over the main part of the trip – from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon – in a “what happens at Debcon stays at Debcon” kind of spirit. I don’t know if this is an applied rule to the gathering, but in any case it’s difficult to describe or to sum up two days of, well… hanging out, really, with a bunch of great people. I’ll just note that good memories were made as fun stories, interesting discussions, a few drinks and lots of chocolate were shared.

Sunday afternoon was spent on the highway again with Mr, Mrs and girlie V., and after picking up the missing member of the V. family, I was dropped off at Karine’s place, where no one was home. Rats. I made my way to a pizza place, left a message with Karine and satisfied my stomach with nice pizza. Karine arrived exactly as my last bite was struck by my fork, and after some plans with her friend Audrey we were back on the highway, heading for home (mine, anyway).

Monday was a very useful free day of napping and cleaning, and now we’re back into the routine.

———-
On the home front

Frank, delighted new owner of an Xbox360, will probably not take the time off to post what was happening with Xavier and him while mommy was away, so I will try to jot down some of it according to his on-the-pillow report on Sunday night:

In a spin of awkward timing, an uncle and an aunt of mine (with her grandkid) came by our way while I was away, to help out my parents with some work on the house they’re building next to ours. Xavier got to play with my cousin’s son who is some years older, and apparently all this excitement had the little man reluctant to go down for a nap.

Frank put him down in his crib Saturday morning, went out and closed the door on an upset Xavier. Two minutes and some crying later, the door opened and our little man came out.

Apparently, he’d climbed out. Of his crib.

We knew, from last week’s experience, that he could indeed head out of the crib, but he hadn’t done it on purpose yet, so we could still have him sleep in there. This last time, however, served to prove our first born has now fully outgrown his baby nest, and we have to make the toddler bed work.

I mean, sure, the cushions we kept placing on the floor around his crib seem to have successfully prevented serious injury, as Xavier seemed unscathed by the fall and in fit shape to resume playing, but we’d rather he annoyingly gets up from his bed fifty times than he adopt the gymnast’s method of resisting nap time.

So it was that I discovered a little man in the toddler bed when I arrived late from my trip, the result of much efforts of forced adaptation on Frank and Xavier’s part throughout the weekend.

Monday night, on the other hand, was an enchanted night. Xavier was placed in bed after his evening bottle and slumbered into sleep without a sound. He slept well for most of the night, although we heard him cry and slide out of bed around 3h30AM; once silence was set again, I went to have a peep: our boy had most likely fell out of bed onto the pile of cushions lying around, but climbed onto his mattress again, where he lay in a ball on his tummy at the very foot of the bed, transversally, with his doggy tucked under his chest. I placed him back in a safer and more comfortable setting and rejoined my own bed.

Then at five AM, customarily to this last week, Xavier woke up and deserted his now rail-free resting place. From our bedroom door, we spied on him walking out to the living room, where he stood in front of the fish tank – it was still dark out, but we had forgotten the aquarium light on. He looked at the fish for some seconds, then cried “maman” once or twice. We thought he would make his way to our bed to wake us up, but apparently he remembered his doggy and pacifier, so he headed back to his bedroom and climbed back into his toddler bed. No further sound came.

WOOT!

Tonight did not follow suit, however, and it took Frank the best part of an hour to convince the boy it was nighttime.

Oh well. Growing up is a constant adaptation.

“Hello, future little sister!”

Leaving for Toronto in a couple minutes. See you next week!
- Émilie

Transl. “Sort of a rough transition”

This morning, I decided to do some gymnastics and executed a tumble over my crib rail. Mom – who was coming to get me and ended up catching me – didn’t seem quite enthused, and just a couple hours later we were at the Toy Store, comparing toddler beds.

I got my very first bed today!

Dad (with mom and grandpa and grandma B) set it up before lunch, and I was encouraged to lie down on it, to which I responded by climbing down and running around the house. Newfound liberty!

Later in the afternoon, though, I was entirely too tired and fell asleep on my milk bottle, so onto the bed I was installed. Mid-nap, mom spied on me half-waking up to cry a little, sitting up for some moments before I found my pacifier and fell forward on the mattress again for some more Zzz’s. Two hours and a half later, I was done and starting to wake up. As per habit, my first half-conscious impulse was to sit and stand up… BAD MOVE! Don’t ask me what happened, I just know a second later there was an impact with the floor and I was very much awake and using my vocal cords to their full volume.

Mom and dad had a lot of consoling to administer to their very confused and sad little man, and it took a while for me to decide I was ready to play as usual, but in the end I did and I appear to be ok.

I’m sleeping in my crib tonight – albeit with the couch cushions arranged on the floor around. I might try the little bed again for naptime tomorrow… get used to this new sleeping method slowly, you know.

- Xavier