Happy sleeper

Alice is becoming a very good sleeper... twice now she has slept right through the night, and her naps are generally long and peaceful. The nuk is proving useful of late, as a new trick to initiate sleep.
(Fashion credits: thanks to Sue and Steve for the woollen blanket, to Doug and Candy for the colourful ensemble, and to Meo and Doco for the sheepskin.)

Whine before you dine

Lily the actress in one of her heartbraking I'm-hungry-and-food-is-not-ready scenes.

There's some on my boots!

You expect me to walk in this??
La première véritable neige qui est tombée sur Montréal a rendu Lily perplexe... vais-je salir mes bottes blanches et mon nouveau snowsuit de chez M.E.C.?

L'insaisissable nature de Alice T.

I swear it exists... Rachel and I have seen it! In a rare occurence, truer than a UFO sighting, we've spotted the fleeting passage of a real smile on Alice's face. I'm afraid our Canon PowerShot A70 is yet too slow to catch it, but it's there :-)
The best opportunities tend to present themselves when she's done filling her tummy and her potty... the moment then arises where for a second or two she has nothing to do or to worry about (and neither do we, believe or not) — and there it is: that wee smile, that ever so soft "areu" laughter provoked by the "gaga" faces of her mother and father leaning over her!

Learning, learning...

I sit and I push these coloured beads along
Putting on the socks Taitai made
Comme elles apprennent, ces petites créatures humaines hautes comme trois pommes! On a presque rien à leur montrer; elles observent et répètent les gestes des grandes personnes, ou bien découvrent l'univers carrément par elles-mêmes. Lily veut tout faire et fait tout. Tous les jeux l'intéressent, tous les livres aussi... s'habiller, se déshabiller, faire la vaisselle, le ménage... prononcer tous les mots dans les deux langues... chanter toutes les chansons et les danser aussi... Souvent elle s'étonne elle-même de ce qu'elle réussit à faire. Par exemple, aujourd'hui elle a fait un gros pipi pour la première fois dans le petit pot, et pourtant elle faisait juste semblant comme d'habitude.

Youpi, Roza est de retour !

"Go away mommy," said Lily, as she often does when she feels parental interference might ruin a nice situation. Roza, our dearest babysitter and good friend, is back from Israel where she had been for many weeks staying at her sister's place. And Rachel can leave home with utmost piece of mind, with Lily — and now Alice too! — in such good care.
[Thank you, Paula and Émile, for the great jungle armchair!]

Quand le papa est parti...

... il faut ménager la maman ! Mes deux petites dernières ont l'air de faire bonne compagnie en ce vendredi soir alors que Rachel est seule avec la marmaille pendant que je suis en comité de direction à l'hôtel Sacacomie à discuter de l'avenir d'une autre compagnie.

Serious helmet

Check this out. This is my brand new bicycle helmet. It's a safari-type model from Louis Garneau and I just got it from the M.E.C. store on Saturday. I wore it for the first time on a bicycle trip this morning, but I had been wearing it quite a lot inside the house before. Just in case I bang my head against the kitchen counter, you know...

My dad took me on his bicycle to Roche, papier, ciseaux - my bigger daycare hangout. The kids are all my age and we're twenty altogether and I have lunch and a nap in the afternoon when I go there. My other daycare digs is Pirouette, twice a week but only until noon. Mom or Dad pick me up for lunch, so I eat at home and I have my nap in my own bed on those days.

Anyway, life is cool. And my helmet is red and green.

Scary Halloween

As is evident from the picture, excitement was at an all-time high a few minutes before the great Halloween "trick or treat" ritual. While Flor and Gabriela were off running the streets in NDG with Annie and her gang, Alice and Lily stayed at home with Rachel and I to give away buckets of candies and chocolates.
Lily, dressed as a tree fairy covered with leaves from head to toe ;-), was in charge of handing out the goodies, and she did an excellent job of it. With one candy in each hand she awaited every new wave of kids running up our stairs with their costumes and big open bags. One-two for you, one-two for you... Lily was refuelling as fast as she could and kept everyone happy. Until the fearful moment when she came face to face with a true monster! Some teenage kid had dressed up with a long black cape and a hideous gray gooey rubber mask with hollow eyes and gaping mouth. Lily screamed and cried and sobbed and shuddered and could no longer function for a long while.
I tried to reassure her later on by asking another teenager dressed as a squeleton to remove his mask and show Lily his face, but she never quite recovered the same abandon and fluidity in her giveaway function.
A week later, she still re-enacts at least once a day the "monster face off" gesture. Alice, on the other hand, retained her composure through the whole Halloween affair, much as she does on the picture :-)

Exercices de bedaine

Like a little turtle, Alice attempts to plough adead with all fours as soon as we place her on her belly. No actual "moving" is going on yet, but faint grunts point to some significant effort.

Note: this looks like any other picture, but it's actually a video!

Growth spurt...?

Lily is eating as much as four adults these days, asking for "more chicken, please", "more potatoes, please", "more noodles, please", etc, etc. Rachel and I are hoping this is just a passing phase... due to some momentary growth spurt.

La main à l'ouvrage

En espérant que les bonnes initiatives de Lily-la-propre perdurent jusque dans l'adolescence — n'est-ce pas Flor ? :-)

Potty training for a 1-month old

The eager potty-trainee candidate being coached by her awesome potty-trainer! pooh-pooh... ooh-ooh...

Petite fée des bois...

Getting ready for the Pirouette Halloween party!

Hello, dear cousin Eva !

Papa and me | Blue eyes... for now | 36cm head circumference

"Little Eva is born and she looks healthy and full of beans already. Congratulations to uncle Philippe and aunt Alysha! I am so looking forward to meeting this young person whom I feel will be connected to me in a very special way some day" — Alice.

La Vita è bella

The first smiles have started, not quite sincere perhaps but evocative of interior blisses blossoming out of cosmic farnientes.

Encore un peu jeune pour choisir entre le ballon de soccer et la poupée qui fait pipi, en voilà une qui se la coule douce et savoure ses quatre semaines d'existence sur notre boule.

My five women | Mes cinq femmes

Je ne saurais imaginer meilleur entourage le dimanche matin pour prendre un croissant au petit déjeûner! On dirait presque que tout ce beau monde vient à peine de se réveiller d'une longue nuit de sommeil, sauf que Rachel continue de dormir par morceaux de 2-3 heures à cause de la petite créature posée sur le plancher, et moi je me suis levé à 6h30 à cause de la créature blonde à rayures assise à sa droite pour aller hurler des ordres et des encouragements à son équipe de soccer pour leur premier match de la saison d'hiver...

I love these five women, who fill all my days with joy, giggles and... a whole lot of running!

Homework

Gabriela and Flor do homework almost every day of the week... this picture was taken on a Saturday. As far as Lily is concerned, drawing is always fun and nobody can ever touch a piece of paper with a pen or pencil in our house without Lily having to join in.

Cause for rejoicing | Une grande première

Unlike Alice who is well on her way to being toilet-trained by the time she's 2 months old, Lily has never really fancied that potty we keep around the bathroom at all times. But recently, she's made some attempts at (at least) sitting on the thing, thanks to Flor's playful coaching with the "baisser le pantalon" routine. On this picture, we witness a celebration dance after Lily's finally (accidentally?) deposited one drop of pipi into the container! Yey!

Visites familiales | From East and West

The morning news | Louise reconnecting with babyhood | Cole examining babyhood
Cole est arrivé hier soir de Vancouver et a fait la connaissance d'Alice et renoué avec Lily qui n'a pas lâché son "Doco" d'une semelle depuis qu'il a franchi la porte. Belle coïncidence: Louise, Louis, Raphaël et Charlotte se sont joints à Papi et Taïtaï pour un lunch dominical à douze! Les chouettes jasettes ont fusé autour de la bonne soupe de Rachel...

How nice to have Doco with us for a couple of days on a visit from out West; and what luck to have Louis and Louise and kids over for lunch along with Andrée and Laurent, all coming from the East!