Thankful

One of the things I miss most about Canada is that thanksgiving is held at the beginning of October. It's the first to the fall/winter holidays and isn't lost in the shuffle between Halloween and Christmas. The idea so celebrating gratitude for our blessings is really important to me since I'm not so good about it on a daily basis. We always put up our blessing tree and nightly added blessings to it. We had a lovely meal the day of and lounged about playing wiht the kids and then the following day we made a major Black Friday purchase. After nearly four years without a television, we bought one as a part of our early Christmas present. That evening we enjoyed Phineas and Ferb without squinting at a computer screen. The thing is HUGE! And now I can't help but ask the kids in a deep bass voice if they want to watch, "on the BIG SCREEN TV".

The following day we went out for dim sum and some play time in Encanto Park. They have an amusement area called Enchanted Island made for young toddlers and so considerable time was spent deciding which would be the 5 best rides to spend their tickets on.

It was clear Keila was more eager to try the "cary" rides so long as she could convince Isaac to go with her. With some urging from us they hopped on a dragon 'roller coaster'. Honestly the dragon head was much more terrifying than the ride). Keila proudly got on saying, "I be brave!" towing Isaac reluctantly behind her. They sat in their respective seats, Isaac resigned to his much dreaded fate. I think reality hit keila all of a sudden and this terrified look crossed her eyes as she decided to get out as quickly as possible. Isaac watched her go, rather bewildered and suddenly shout, "hey, I'm not going if Keila's not going!" And that was that! Kent and I tried to encourage them to try again but neither would hear anything about it.

Actually she looks terrified in most of the pictures with the exception of the carousel.

Little man was tuckered out. He loves looking around at the outdoors.

We wandered the park some more and caught a few nice pictures of Isaac chasing birds and a cutie boy with a smooshed nose sleeping on Mama.

Thankful for relaxing holidays!

Withdrawals

I have an addiction of sorts. It's kinda hard to explain but when I get my 'fix', life feels great, like a little piece of heaven. So before any of you get too concerned its what Keila calls 'bebe smell'. When we bottle feed Elias I nestle him close to my left shoulder upright and rest my chin on his head. I breath in his scent as he settles into the rhythm of eating. He stops to look at me if anything distracts me from this and will even holler as if to say, "Mama, we need this time!"

And he's right, I do need that time. It's a time to just be prsesent, to smell that baby smell of sweet slightly sour milk and to feel the silky warmth of an infant's body. It refreshes me, helps me remember that it's all worth it and everything is so temporary. It was my consolation when he could no longer nurse.

At last, I am being weaned to only one dose a day. Elias has acquired some new head gear that should help with the shaping of his head as well as his muscles since it becomes easy to favor certain muscles when you have a tendency to lay to one particular side.

Elias is always a trooper and only sighs rather deeply when we put it on. He was back to Mr. Bobble-head initially and would tire rather easily. I've been amazed at how hard he works to build up his strength and now it's as if he doesn't have it at all. No whining on his part, he just accepts and gets to work.

Me, on the other hand, I feel like I need to be in a padded room. I can't stand that I can't easily kiss his cheeks or rub his little faux hawk or nuzzle his head. It's hard when I feel that I'm limited in how I show him my affection. Hopefully the needed shaping will occur quickly and when it's through he will still love having me breath in his baby fine hair. In the meantime I need to learn to be more like him, just accept it and work to fine another way for our special time.

Initially thought of printing labels for him like "stuntman in training" or "shoot me out of a canon!" but he is cute as he is. He's nearly sitting on his own now. We're so proud of our little man.