16 months / 46 months UPDATE

Wow, is Oliver really turning four in like 9 weeks? Yesterday we bought him SCHOOL SHOES, like non-marking, velcro so the teacher doesn't have to help, indoor shoes. (Navy blue Sperry's - so cute!) I am almost a Kindergarden mom...

Koko and Ollie enjoy a riveting game of checkers.

So, the update...



Dakota has started talking A LOT. She can repeat, and use on demand Mama, Dada, Oyyyie (Ollie), all of her grandparent/auntie words (Mamo, Papa, Ma, Rara, Lala) as well as TANK-YOU, Aahh-done, No, Up, Out, Nana (nursing) and the latest cute one "Happy" which she learned from the Pharell song.

She sings all the time. If she goes near a piano, or even an iPhone keyboard app, she immediately begins singing.

She is rejecting all green foods. I am fighting her tooth and nail on this. She just recently realized that drinking almond milk in her sippy cup is kiiinda like nursing, and has given my poor body a break (a break = nursing 10x per day instead of 80).

She is wearing tons of dresses (size 18 months) and her little Reeboks and velcro sandals. She also looks adorable in a big, floppy sunhat.

She is sleeping 12 hours a night, roughly, plus two naps per day. We also know if putting her in the crib is a good idea because if she's tired she'll still cry but she'll stay laying down. If she's not tired yet she will stand up and yell. Then we just take her out and wait til she's tired later.

She's obsessed with Ollie but kind of scared of him. If he has a soccer ball she is very leery of walking toward him.

To put this into perspective, Oliver's tractor goes ~1 inch every 30 seconds. It probably took his half an hour to cross the road. Dakota's like 'how will I catch a bug at this rate?'

Oliver sometimes sounds like a kid-genius when he talks. He casually uses words like absorbent, explosive, flammable, and consequences. He'll yell to a neighbour "Gorgeous new mulberry bush, Bill!" He would sooner say "item" than "thing" and "previously" instead of "before". His alphabet is a hot mess though. It sounds like A-B-C-D-LMNO-Pee!- Q-R-S-T-and-V-and an XYZee! Now I think you sing with me! And his counting sounds like 1-2-679-10-16-19!!!! Because he wants to get through it so quick. That said, he will sit at the kitchen table and "do his school work", not prompted by anyone but himself, and will just scribble letters and numbers for quite a while. He also likes to take papers from around the house and copy them into his "school work book". He is precious. He booted up his laptop and said "Mum, you can help me get a better program for doing my school work? This word-pad is really bad."

He was recently grounded from Power Rangers on Netflix, and doughnuts. They both make him act wild, and he ends up punching and kicking people. If he's being wild he goes to his room (which is sad for his room, because it gets the brunt of his violence). His favourite way to relax is to play the Lego Juniors app on my phone.

His t-shirts were getting snug on him so Cal bought him 2 new summer outfits at Marshall's. He really likes to choose his outfit and then go "get fancy" - he'll go in the bathroom and put cream on his face and brush his hair and pretend to spray hairspray. And then come out and say "do I look cool?"

He's been begging everyone to play soccer with him in the backyard. He's also been cooking and gardening with me a lot. We picked some sage and fried it in the skillet - yum, we both thought it was delicious. He hasn't asked for a hot cocoa in a while. He is apparently allergic to beer (so he told us).

His sleeping is still pretty bad. The big issue now is that around 6am he comes to our bedroom (I think he's scared that I'm leaving for work without saying goodbye to him) and if he tries to crawl in bed I get worried that he's going to have an accident, like ON me. So we spend the next x-minutes fighting. Great way to start the day! I seriously want to go back to pull-ups!

However, he's letting me leave for work a lot easier now. I'll set him up with breakfast and then give him a kiss and say "gotta go!" He will ask me to honk as I leave and that's it. No complaints. YAY! Get this guy a trophy.

We have a few trips that we want to do this summer. Lego land for sure. Maybe African Lion Safari. There's also a new place in Toronto called the Children's Discovery Centre. And then the cottage for sure! I can't wait to get them into their lifejackets that we bought for Cuba and let them have fun!