Singing lessons from Toby

I learned a few singing tips from my 1 year old son today.

Singing is fun to do whenever the mood inspires you.  Especially if something really exciting happens, like your mom comes home from work early, or like if you’re sititng on the mat in front of the sink and you find a piece of dirt that MAY or may NOT be food and you put it in your mouth without someone taking it from you first.  Those are two special occasion that merit some singing.

And you know, you don’t have to know any particular tunes.  And you don’t have to know any words.  Just sing the words “Nah nah nah” in a soft, melodic tone, hitting random notes as you go.  And make sure to smile and rock your head from side to side and the world will know that you are SINGING and you are HAPPY.

If only life were so simple….

You know you live in the middle of nowhere when....

Toby and I have a new hobby that we do together every day when I get home from work. We look out the window.

Our house has a HUGE bay window in the front. Actually, maybe it’s not a bay window. I don’t really know what a bay window is- - it’s just something I assume a lovely big window that’s next to your couch is called. Ours is probably more like a supporting wall type window. It’s huge. And PERFECT for curious little boys.

Tired of being climbed on incessantly as I sat by our big “bay window”, I suddenly happened upon a miraculous discovery that will change our lives forever : a stool. And not just any stool, but a perfectly sized stool for little boys who want to watch for cars out the window. When Toby stands on the stool he can look out the window AND bang on the ledge AND torture lady bugs while I can just sit quietly in my chair beside him and enjoy the view.

It was a perfect plan, really, until I realized that we live in the middle of nowhere. And nothing drives that fact home more than the act of sitting patiently with a 1 year old, day after day, waiting for a car to go by. Last week, we made the stool discovery on Monday and by Friday night we had yet to see a car go by. That kid has patience. More than I have. After about 15 minutes of hopeless car watching, I usually give up, but my poor little persistent-car-obsessed-son still stood there, eating the odd ladybug and bouncing up and down on the stool DETERMINED to see a car go by.

The sad part is, on Friday afternoon we finally saw something go by. It wasn’t a car, but our 13-year-old neighbor, walking slowly to his friend’s house, past our big “bay window”. After a week of unsuccessful car watching, Toby nearly fell off the stool when I excitedly jumped up and pointed out the ACTION on our STREET.

It was all a little too much for him. He was off the tool in a nanosecond, hiding behind my legs. Maybe it’s a good thing we started small with something harmless like a pedestrian - -he probably would have had a heart attack if a truck had gone by. I’ll keep you posted.

How to Eat Birthday Cake- by Toby Henry

This special Birthday Blog was written by Toby himself.  (He dictated it to me in Baby sign language).  Here it is :

 When its your first birthday and you are presented with your very first piece of birthday cake, chances are, there will be a LOT of relatives standing by with cameras poised just WAITING to capture the expression on your face the INSTANT you make your first aquaintance with SUGAR.   This will probably be, singlehandedly, the MOST attention you will ever get at one sitting until the unlikely event that you become a finalist on American Idol and the TV crews come to your home to film your family’s reaction to your big win.  So soak it up.

Take your time.  Enjoy the sensation of the cake in your fingers.  Trust me - -they won’t let you feel mud the same way they will let you feel the icing on your very first birthday cake.  When you’ve had enough of the touch sensation, take as BIG of a pieces as you can into your hands and SLOWLY raise it to your mouth.  Do it slowly so that EVERYONE is watching.  And just BEFORE you hit your wide open mouth - -pause.  And smile.  It’s a perfect photo op.  Repeat the above process about 4 times and just when your family are at the peak of laughter, put it in your mouth.  And enjoy.

And don’t forget to wipe your hands in your hair when you’re done.

For more photos of my first birthday antics please visit my online photos at : www.picasaweb.google.com/lyssandrob

Toby's New Shoes

Toby's got a few new tricks under his belt.  The first is the snarl.  I think its a way to show off his teeth but it could be his way of doing upper lip yoga.  Basically he curls his upper lip upwards while protruding his upper jaw and smiling at the same time.  Its usually accompanied by a bout of heavy nasal breathing and eye squinting.  If it were October right now I'd start making the pirate costume (oh, who am I kidding...I'd put it on my list of things to buy next time I'm at Walmart...)  IT may seem slightly grotesque but its the face he does to show us that he's AMUSED or HAPPY.

TOnight it was extra funny, though because his SECOND new trick is wearing shoes.  Sandals, in particular.  Rob and I realized that Toby has never WALKED in shoes before (he has worn them to be cute - -but not to be practical) and the last time we put on his boots he sat in a giant heap of self defeat and cried when he realized that his newly found limber feet were gone.  So today we put him in sandals.

For some reason he was naked at the time - -a combination of end of the day unwillingness to fight the "life isn't that bad I"m just trying to put your diaper back on" fight and the fact that he had tomatoes for lunch which gives him an angry looking bum.  Which merely justified the former.  But nonetheless my naked little boy was walking around naked when he noticed me clipping the tags off of his new birthday sandals.  And of COURSE, he wanted to know exactly WHAT they were and HOW they worked.

SO I put them on his feet.  And he LOVED them.

DESPITE the fact that they slipped a little on the hardwood floors-  that was OK with him -- he just walked faster.

And DESPITE the fact that they were too big for him and made a clunking sound -- that was just NEAT. So he walked HARDER to make even LOUDER clunks.

And of course, to prove it to us just how GREAT these new things were, he decided to move around the house at lightening pace, slipping and sliding and banging his feet LOUDLY on the ground while making his new pirate snarl face at us.

Thanks, Aunt Kryssie- - we like the sandals.

To sharpen or not to sharpen...

So I went to play hockey tonight and decided to get my skates sharpened.

 

This may not SOUND like blog-worthy news, but I haven’t sharpened my skates since we lived in Thunder Bay.  Which equals about 4 years.  I had myself fully convinced that not sharpening your skates was totally acceptable.  I think I heard someone once say that this one NHL player only sharpens his skates once a year.  Which, in my mind, gave me permission to only sharpen my skates every 4 years.

 

Basically,  I’m just lazy.   Not lazy enough to quit the best sport in the world, but lazy enough to do  it with old equipment and unsharpened skates and hope for the best.

 

But tonight sharpening my skates was the thing to do. Everyone was doing it.  And it was only $3 and the guy said he’d do them while I got changed- - efficient AND cheap.  SO I gave it a go.

 

Wow.

 

IT was like night and day - -as I whisked around the ice on my newly sharpened skates I felt like I’d traded in dull soup cans for Henkel knives.  It was incredible.  I realized that my pregnancy hiatus hadn’t left me COMPLETELY void of all hockey talent- - I could skate!  I could get the puck EVEN if the pass didn’t come directly to my stick!  I could stop at the blue line!  I even made a cool SHOOSH-ing noise when I stopped! 

 

It was like the day I got glasses and realized that trees weren’t just giant green blobs but actually consisted of discrete leaves that had edges and other cool things like that.

 

According to Rob, my I-don’t-play-hockey-so-I-shouldn’t-have-an-opinion-but-I’ll-put-my-two-cents-in-anyways husband, he has spent the past 4 years NAGGING me to get my skates sharpened.  To quote him directly, “I did TOO tell you to get them sharpened.  Everytime we drove past the Canadian Tire in Orangeville I’ve suggested it to you.”

 

(As an FYI - -we don’t live in Orangeville and when I’m driving THROUGH Orangeville I usually close my eyes and hope it ends soon.)

 

I think the theme of this week in my life is that sporting equipment caliber really DOES make a difference.  Maybe I haven’t been an unathletic clutz all this time- -maybe all I needed  were new skis and sharp skates!  I'll keep you posted...

Meet my nemesis : Powder

We just got back from an incredible vacation in Whistler, BC while Toby enjoyed some quality time with my parents.  I think it was  a success all round - -I’m not sure how my mom is going to cope without Toby, though, after getting used to having him around all of the time.  My dad even started getting  up early just because there was it was so exciting to be awake with Toby around.

 

Rob and I had a great time seeing friends from out West (and some from home as well) and enjoying our new skis.

 

I have to say – there aren’t many sports where a change in equipment can suddenly make you THAT much better.  But changing in my 10 feet long, neon gree, pointy tipped skis that I bought used when I was in grade 9 for a trendy new pair of rounded, short skis made me SO much better!  The first two days I gained more  and more confidence as I realized I could TURN without losing balance and not make a fool of myself.  By the end of the first few runs I was  happy to venture of the groomed runs and even enjoyed some tree runs and moguls. 

 

Saturday night it started to snow and, being with a group of skiing enthusiasts, we had a contingency plan for he morning if there was any fresh snow the next morning.

 

I don’t pretend to be well versed in ski lingo but I would have been an idiot not to have known that fresh powder in Whistler is a good thing.  SO for some reason it was me who phoned the Snow-phone at 7am and started rejoicing in the fact that there were 17 cm of fresh powder awaiting us.  I raced around our condo leaping for joy in my long johns and then making the joyous wake up call to all of our friends that about the MASSIVE amount of fun that was awaiting us on the hill.

 

Riding up on the chairlift we were definitely the first few on the hills and the fluffy cloudlike descents that beckoned us looked heavenly.

 

That is, until I tried to ski it.

 

I think it was my second turn of the morning where I lost my balance.  And the third turn that sent me tumbling into a cloud of white smoke.  And by the 5^th turn my legs were burning so much that I began to wonder what the appeal was.  But being with powder enthusiasts I didn’t have much time to vent at the bottom - -I’d made everyone wait long enough.  As someone pointed out to me that morning, “There are no friends on powder days”

 

SO I kept my mouth shut and carried on.

 

But by the time I found myself hiking UP a hill just so we could get to more of this torturously difficult powder stuff I couldn’t contain myself anymore. 

 

“THIS SUCKS”

I announced as I barreled down the hill.  I think I just wanted to get the run over with.

 

I’m pretty sure people thought I said, “This Rocks!” as I heard some cheering behind me, just before I tumbled down into another ball of powdered whiteness.  This time I lost my ski.  And my new skis are white.  And the powder was deep.  17 cm deep as I remembered from my earlier excitement.

 

It took 6 people about 20 minutes to FIND my ski and then another 10 to get it on my foot while balancing precariously on 17 cm of pure hell on an incline I’d vowed never to ski on.

 

That was the last run of the day for me.  Even though I never mastered the art of powder, I did manage to learn two things in that morning : a) Powder is overrated and b)  There ARE such things as friends on powder days.  And thank goodness for that. 

My Tough Kid

Toby dressed up as Mickey Rourke from the Wrestler last night for the Oscars.  He did this by giving himself a black eye just before bedtime.  He got so excited that I'd turned the bath on that he decided to SPRINT through the bathroom to the toilet, fall, and smash his face into the open drawer that was in his way.  Its a good thing we adults have grown out of our instinctual reactions to the excitement of bath time.

The GREAT thing is that he didnt need stitches.  Rob and I both went back into "sick kids mode".  One of us grabbed an ice pack while the other one grabbed "The Bear Book" and started reading.  We managed to keep some ice on his face for 10 minutes, gave him some advil, and had him in the bath and in bed on time.  We're a good team.

This morning, I was greeted by my beautiful boy with a jubilant smile and his multicoloured eye.

He's a tough kid.  In his first 11 months of life he's already gone through morphine withdrawl and gotten a shiner.  When anyone asks about this one all I'm going to say is -- "Oh, yeah? You should see the other kid..."