Trip to the Park/Family of Sickies

On Feb 6th, I spent the morning trying to get Canon to go outside...I needed to get out of the house, and the weather wasn't too cold.  I guess the main reason was because Canon was asking to see pictures of him playing with toys and playing outside...but I needed to take some pictures of him in order to show them to him.  Here's the result of our morning.

I just couldn't get him to smile, but it's still kind of cute.  I LOVE Canon's eyes!

My favorite picture from the day!!

I wanted to include these two clips of Canon too.  This first one is not necessarily a fun clip, but I thought it was a good example of Canon's language.  I think his sentences have enough legible words to catch what he's trying to say, but I'm his mother...so you judge for yourself.  Is he easy for you to understand?

Video #1

This second clip is of Canon "trying" to go down a slide.  It was a bit colder than I expected, and all the park equipment was frosted over.  The first slide he went down was a tall curly one, and he stuck at the top but ended up sliding way off the end and landing really badly.  I expected him to start crying, but he just got up and thought maybe he should just try a smaller slide this time...hence the language we used in this video.  Here his pants get stuck at the top because of the frost and needs me to help him down the slide.

Video #2

On Feb 7th, I had a really bad 24 hour bug.  I threw up a few times and had the runs...yeah, I know, you wanted to hear that, didn't you?  Anyway, I was feeling quite awful and knew I just didn't have it in me to tend Canon the way he needed.  I called Mark's grandma and she was more than willing to come over and play with Canon.  She took him out into the backyard for 1 1/2 hours.  It was AWESOME!!  I don't know if I really fell asleep or not while they were out there, but it was sure nice to just relax in bed and not worry about where Canon was or what he was doing.  She stayed while I got him lunch and then "read" him a few stories. (Technically she used a new story reader device that Aunt Connie gave Canon that has a cartridge for each of 11 stories and reads it out loud to you.  Canon has really loved this for bedtime stories.  Thanks a ton, Aunt Connie!!)  I was so happy that Grandma was there for that...especially since I had another episode bowing to the porcelain god during said story time.  Then I took him into his room and put him to bed.  I told him that I couldn't rock him like usual to sing to him because I didn't want him to get sick, but he could lie in the bed while I sang to him from the rocking chair.  He had a pretty good nap, and so did I.  Once Mark's mom got home from work, she was a pretty big help with Canon too.  I'm so glad that bug lasted only the one day.  I still didn't go into work the following day because I wanted the time to recover, but by Thursday everything was all good for me.

Mark on the other hand has been fighting a cold or something for the past...what?... couple of weeks now.  Even though he wasn't feeling all the great, he was in better condition to care for Canon that one night than I was.  Now Canon sounds like he caught whatever Mark has.  Runny nose with a nasty sounding cough...but by his actions and moods, you'd never know that Canon was sick.  This past Sunday Canon stayed home from church, though.  Mark and I had choir practice at 9am, church doesn't start until 11am. We were debating on whether to bring him home after Sacrament so that he doesn't get the other kids in nursery sick. However, by the time choir was over Canon had fallen asleep back at home.  He never naps that early in the day, so I figured he really needed the sleep, and it would help to ward off his illness.  But...who would stay home with him?  Mark and I both had to sing in the choir for Ward Conference.  Mark's dad is in the bishopric, so he was already at the church.  I didn't want to make Mark's mom miss Sacrament Meeting, and she had to be there for Primary...but Alex's singles' ward doesn't start until 1pm.  I figured he'd still be home until someone could return home to tend Canon.  He'd be sleeping (hopefully) the whole time anyway...so Mark Alex what was up, and it all worked out.  Canon actually napped for about 4 hours that day.  He didn't wake up until 1/2 hour before we got home.  He's been coughing and stuff ever since, but at least he isn't grumpy.  I wish both Canon and Mark could get over this cold though...get all the sickness germs out of the house once and for all...poor guys!

Lullaby Requests

Sometimes I think it's cute that Canon makes requests for which songs he wants to hear at bed-time.  For a couple weeks he always asked for Teach Me to Walk in the Light.  At first, I didn't even know that he knew that song.  I asked if they sang it in nursery at church, but that wasn't where he heard it.  Oh well, I couldn't refuse that song.  Nowadays it's more  Bah Bah Black Sheep and Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I still like to sing longer ones like I Need Thee Every Hour or I Know That My Redeemer Lives.  I find that the longer I sing to him, the more calm he gets for bed.  However, I really don't want to take the time to sing him all the way to sleep.  He'll have a little sibling soon enough...I can't take that much time singing kids to sleep!!  A few times over this past week Canon has woken up super early for how late he went to bed, once at 2:45am.  He came down and knocked on our door to get me up.  Really all he wanted was for me to come upstairs and rock and sing him back to sleep.  I like that he enjoys the cuddle time, and it only happens before sleep time...or when he's hurt and needs comforting.  Throughout the day, there is hardly any voluntary affection in sight.  :)

Mark's Job & Canon's Sleep-Time Behaviors

For those who haven't heard yet, Mark has gotten a job!  Ok, ok...so really it's only a short-term contract position. Someone from church said that his firm was looking to hire a bunch of attorneys for contract work on a big case.  It's doing really boring discovery work for the firm in Salt Lake City, and it only lasts for about 5-6 weeks or so.  However, we are very glad for it because it's $35/hour for up to 45 hours/week, depending on how much he works.  (Normally Mark would charge about $150/hr for work with his own clients, but when he only is able to bill about 3 hours/week, this contract job is a much better wage for the time being.)  They allow him to take off time to do what he might need to for his own practice.  The firm has hired about 8 attorneys to help with this "very boring" discovery work, and the case's deadline is Feb. 24th, so it's not very long-term.  We're happy for the little bit of help though.  We've prayed for SOMETHING for so long; there's no complaints here.

Canon has been doing some things that I think are cute...but kinda frustrating too.  Imagine that...it's like he's a 2-year-old or something.  It takes him longer to go to bed at night because he is always trying to stall me leaving.  Will always ask for one more story.  Then he'll ask for one more song after lights are turned out.  Once I tell him that I'm saying "good-night" and "Remember, it's not ok to get out of bed.  You need to stay in bed. I'll see you in the morning when you wake up.  I love you!" that's when Canon starts calling my name without making any requests other than, "come here!" and "come back!"  Over the past couple weeks he somehow got into the habit of having a sippy cup of apple juice in bed.  HOW ON EARTH DID THAT HAPPEN??  I really didn't like that, so I've been working on trying to break that.  Now when he asks for it I either tell him he can have water, or that he just doesn't need a drink.  Most of the time I just need to have a thick skin and say "no!"  (They taught me in middle school how to say no to drugs...but who teaches us to say no to our kids?!?!  When they ask so nicely for something that in and of themselves are not bad- like apple juice- it's not easy to think of a way to make the rejection light for the kid.)

I wonder how long Canon stays awake in bed before going to sleep sometimes.  Last night I went to a RS meeting where we worked on humanitarian aid projects.  When we got home around 9:30pm, Canon heard my voice and came out with a huge excited grin.  When I gave him a disapproving look, he changed his expression... not sure if he was going to be in trouble, but he was still so happy to see me.  Apparently Mark had finished putting Canon down at 8:30pm, but when he heard my voice he just had to come see me.  So I took him back to his room and rocked him and sang to him...only one song that time.  And tonight he had been there for about 30 minutes.  I went upstairs just to see how he fairing, and I saw that he was peeking out of his door.  He heard the voice of Alex's girlfriend, Lauren, and he wanted to come out to see her.  (I think he has a little crush on her.  He is so excited to see her every time she's around.)  I let him come out and give her a good-night kiss on the cheek and brought him back to his room.  He gave her a little shy wave and "buh-bye" that I thought was really adorable.... but I couldn't just let him be awake because he's cute.