Random
*Gulp!* Only three weekends left before Christmas?! Oi!
Let me drop some random news meanwhile, since the blog might become a little quiet in the next days:
- Half a week went by, and Xavier still has not pulled down the Christmas tree. I added the lights after he went to bed, tonight; we’ll see what happens…
- A whole lot of snow fell down yesterday, and it affected our day in many ways, especially our evening – dust off the car, make our way at low speed to the babysitter’s place, pick up Xavier and manage the babysitter’s driveway – whose snow guy didn’t show up – get home to find out our own snow guy has forgot about us (a good 3 feet of snow in front of the driveway!), Frank shoveling the walkway and the opening of the canvas garage while I unfreeze vegetable stew (yay! for meals cooked in advance and waiting in the freezer!)… Frank, after he got into the house, turned to calling back his brother, calling back my brother to help him set up his Internet connection and went by my parent’s to fix their email; all of this left me to care for Xavier pretty much by myself for part of the evening, and I’m going through all of this tale to put some emphasis on the thought that went through my head during that time: I have no idea how single mothers – or fathers, even – do it. I have no idea. I mean: usually I don’t have much problem taking care of my son on my own, and this evening went relatively well, in fact, but there was still a lot of action around with the snow, etc., and I’m trying to imagine someone who has to handle a whole household by herself, being both parents at once, with a toddler requiring attention through it all. Wow. (That’s one of the best times to mention “I love you, honey” to my very dear partner.)
- Xavier started expanding his vocabulary. His words are still chewed and garbled, but it’s pretty amazing to see him assimilate language these weeks.
- I have an appointment at the doctor’s tomorrow that will confirm it, but baby 2 seems in excellent health to me: she’s kicking, kicking, kicking, nonstop, and with strength! She promises to be a real handful! When pregnant with Xavier, I would feel him move well and regularly. This time, however, I don’t know how baby 2 is placed, but I feel every little movement even more, and it doesn’t stop!
- We took our 16-months-old to see Santa at the mall. Remind me to scan and post the picture one of these days… It’s a good shot of Frank, hehehe.
- I persevered through all of this season of Beauty and the Geek. I finally made it to the finale and winner, which was tonight, but I missed it because our supposedly cool tv receptor that Frank installed isn’t working, again.
- Frank just told me I would better not use the “Publish” feature right away to post this entry, because he pulled our website offline to mess with the server.
- Frank is actively loosing ground on his request for funds for buying a new computer to use as server.
Alright, that will be enough. I translate and I’m off to bed. (And apparently I only post this entry tomorrow.)
Rendez-vous des Coureurs des bois, Pointe-du-Lac : Les Français.
"They roared their terrible roar, they gnashed their terrible teeth, they rolled their terrible eyes and they showed their terrible claws!!!" (Xavier has that part memorised, lol!)
2 cocos
Orléane is now... 
Xavier is now...
That baby language phase is utterly brilliant, isn’t it? Such determination to be understood and pride in knowing that he got his point across. Just awesome.
I kind of wish we had a “snow guy”. I *am* the snow guy. I am SNOW MAN!
I assume you write these en Français first, and then translate to English?
I agree. I often sit in awe of single parents. I can barely take care of myself.
Also, j’adore quand Benjamin cherche ses mots, doigt a la bouche, les yeux vers le ciel. Too cute.
I’ve been saying a firm “Non” to Xavier so many times in the last two days that he spent a small part of the evening just repeating a very clear “Non” to us – he wasn’t refusing anything really, he was just imitating me in this manner, and he seemed kind of proud just to be able to say the word so clearly, and with such determination. Other than that, it is true that communication is improving by leaps. I can now tell when he’s thirsty and looking for his water cup, for instance, as he’ll use his approximation of the term to identify his need, and stuff like that.
fv it’s funny how easily I can imagine Ben doing that. Very cute indeed.
I used “snow guy” because I wasn’t sure about “snow plough/plow” and was feeling too lazy for look for the right term. Still do, I guess.
Our snow guy charges about 200$ for a year of hassle-free snow management. I sort of like to clear out snow, but I also like to choose when I do it – on a mild evening, with light powder snow, rather than early morning, running late for work and swearing at the roll of snow from the street sweep. I can content myself by taking care of the front porch and the back patio at my convenience just fine. Also, we have a canvas garage (term for this…?) so we skip on clearing up the car, as well. We’re pretty pampered.
Re, translating: In this case I did (and thus I hesitated on translating the last sentence as such, but I decided to leave it be). It’s not always the case, however. In fact, I often write in English first, don’t know why… maybe because French is for talking. Depends on topics, too, I guess. Kudos on getting the cédille in!
I didn’t know what a cédille was until just now. (And look!! There’s my aigu!) Rock on!
Re: canvas garage… perhaps you mean a “car port”? Like, not a garage per se, but just a sort of automotive shelter without a big door in front.
I wonder how one goes about getting a snow guy in Ontario? That sounds like a fabulous deal, although I totally agree about liking to do it myself when there’s no pressure. It’s very medative I think.
Not a car port – we actually call those by their English name around here, although the term is sort of deformed to “carpott”. Nah, this is what I mean right there : Tempo Shelter. We usually use the brand name – abri tempo – to designate those around here.
Nice accent aigu.
Just don’t use it as a noun… cédille is a noun, while aigu is an adjective, so you need to say ‘accent aigu’. There’s just one kind of cédille, see, while there are three kinds of accents : aigu (é), grave (è) and circonflexe (ê).
Tal : No idea! With all the snow the weather people are foreseeing for this winter, I think it WILL be a good deal.
Snow guy will make it up for previous low-snow years.