He came... There were rumors in my home that he might not come. I was told that he does not like it when kids push their parents' buttons. I was told that he was not too impressed with my daily goofiness.
Yet, he came. Santa. It shows you that adult do not know much... Thank you Santa, or Santas: because when I see my globe, there is no way that there can be only of you, and I said so to Maman. Well, t'was a merry happy christmas and merci to all the Santas who made it happen.
And the fun goes on for me as I spend a fun afternoon with Tina. Even the sun worked hard at pushing the clouds and the sun so we could enjoy a bike ride, a visit to the park, a stroll over the canal and some cozy fun inside too. My favorite parts: playing with the cat and wrestling with Tina!
First, I had a playdate with my friend Juliette. We had fun with costumes, flashlights and playing piano. As you can see, I look quite cute in her princess outfit.... And, after asking for months, Maman finally set up a playdate with my friend B. It was really fun and since we are both quite goofy it was a lively playdate!
It was Wednesday morning and we had already begun the packing frenzy before heading to Spokane to spend time with family. That's before I woke up... On Sunday, my left ear was bothering me a lot and we made a last minute trip to the doctor to get some drop antibiotics. Sure enough, my right ear got jealous and made it know to Maman by sending ugly smell signals on Wednesday morning. Another trip to the doctor for oral antibiotics this time. We sure felt bad for Aunt Gail who spent so much time planning and cooking but we decided that a trip away from home would not be too good. Despite missing out on family fun, it's a good thing we did not go since I also starting coughing pretty bad. Let's say that my sleep pattern has been less than stellar ( even less than before, which says a lot) and once again, we all did not get the rest we needed. Papa ended up preparing quite a delicious feast for us and, although my appetite has been on the decline, I must say that those cashew and ginger green beans were my favorite. After we filled up with food and wine, well ok, after THEY filled up with wine, we decided to do a photo session to have a family pic to send to Grandma who was hoping for one. We certainly were silly but luckily there is one good one of us.
In between boots of silliness, cough and sleep, it was also puzzle mania at home this week-end. It turns out that during parent-teacher conference I fooled my teacher into believing that I could do only 10 piece puzzles. When Maman said that, I had to go grab one puzzle after another and made them all in record time. Of course, I was making the 48 piece one without a problem. But, hey, I am not ready to let my teacher know about that... he would make me actually work and I have too much to do playing as it is. Here is a little video for you...
Here I am again, a few weeks older and sometimes, not the wiser. Let's review the best of for this past week. Let's start with Monday: I found the only mud puddle on the whole recess ground and got myself quite dirty. My teacher did not appreciate too much and once we were back in class, he told me to go change and clean up "dans les toilettes", which can literally be translated by "in the toilet". At least, that's how I understood it. So by the time I got to cleaning my shoes in the said toilet, the teacher became suspicious and was quite mad when he saw the mess I made. Next time, he will have to be more clear on what his definition of "toilettes" is. On Tuesday, I was looking drunk most of the day. In fact it was fever and I spent the last hour of the day sleeping in the nurse's room waiting for Papa to get me. And yes, another ear infection and another yucky bottle of antibiotics. On Wednesday, my teacher asked a group of us if we wanted to draw a picture. I said sure, why not. You have to understand that my teacher works hard at making us autonomous so when we agree on an activity, we have to find our own material. In this case, he said to get crayons and paper and to go draw on the blue table. Yes he said "on". Sure he had mentioned paper too but since I could not find any, I did what I was asked and drew... on the table. My teacher is beginning to get that I am quite literal and he'd better think next time he gives me an assignment. Anyway, it was a tough week and I was so tired that Papa got me at lunch on Friday and I slept 3 hours and 30 minutes for nap. Same on Saturday. That school schedule is getting to me. One more week and we have a break, finally.
When I am at home, it's talk, talk, talk, non stop. I make up stories faster than the speed of light. This video is long but 1/2 of it I story-tell in English and the other half in French, so pick your half and enjoy the show!
Just added this Monday,October 18: I thought it would be fun to color my nose with markers. One more time, I seem to be the only one with a sense of humor. The pic was taken by my teacher after he tried to clean up most of the marker. And the week just started!
Can you believe it? It's already the end of September! Is this school thing over yet? I mean, I like playing and recess, and having fun with my friend B. but this "following directions and doing what I am told to do", not too much fun. But my teacher seems as stubborn as I am and he mainly wins the arguments. I seem to be doing a lot of reflecting time on the chair. Although my friend B. and I , we think that going on the chair is fun. There are 5 trouble makers in my class; that's what the teacher said to the Ps. And I am one of them. Right now I like week-ends better and I also sleep better in my bed at nap time and thus, I am in a better mood. This week-end we had one nice day and after swimming in the morning I grabbed my bike for a ride and some fun at the playground. Maman will take her bike next time too since she had to run after me most of the way. At the pool, I am with two older girls who are towering over me. I try to impress them but they seem to think I am mainly goofy. Oh, I finally rolled over on my own in the pool so I am getting closer to moving up to the next level. Ok, Maman is tired of typing and apparently tired of getting too little sleep for the past month so she is making me sign off. Enjoy the video!
September 8, 2010 was my first day of school. Boy, was I tired by the end of the day! Let's see for the recap: - 6:30am, Papa woke me up and helped me get dressed - 6:40am, Papa held me down while Maman put drops in my ears. See, two days prior ( during the labor day week-end, I was at the doctor and was diagnosed with an outer ear infection and I really, really do NOT like the drops). - 7:10am, after breakfast Maman and I drove to the school - 7:35am, Maman dropped me in the early arrival room with teachers Nadia and Rosario - 8:15am, I am escorted to my classroom with my teachers Gilles and Edith. - 11:45am, I had lunch with teachers Edith and Roxanne. - 12:30pm to 2:00pm, nap time. I got maybe an hour of sleep. - 3:15pm, end of class; I am escorted to after school care with teachers Jennifer and Rosa. Seven, yes, seven adults in 9 hours. Rinse and repeat for the next 10 months of this school year. If I am lucky, Maman comes and gets me before 5:00pm. But I think I will not get lucky too often. Those are looooooooooooong days. But I am happy to go, I have fun and I am already making friends. Jacob and I played ghosts with our blankets during nap time and it did not go too well with our teacher Gilles. The guy has no humor or what?
More school stories later... I need a good nap now. It's Saturday and I just came back from swimming. I missed it during the Summer and was a happy fish today! Enjoy the cool, oh so cool September weather, Noah
It looks like from now on, postings on my blog are going to go way down. See, as of last Monday, Maman is back at work and she seems to be running in circles ever since.
As for me, I spent the week with friends and I am getting ready to begin preschool in 5 more days. I mainly like the idea that I have my own kid size back pack to bring all my important things over there. Raccoon will of course make the trip to school every day with me. I was told that I will have to share two adults with 17 other kids. Not sure how's that going to work because when I will need them to read me a story, the other ones will have to wait, right?
We got to enjoy the Ocean when we went to Seaside to get Papa who had just finished the Hood to Coast race. His team finished 19 over all, out of over 1000 teams. Way to go Papa!
So, here it is, snapshots from the end of Summer on the beach. Breathe...Relax...
It's August already and the fun keeps on coming. I wonder why adults need to work: they are wasting precious time when there are so many opportunities for play and fun out there. I mean, just take a look at the past week; On Monday, I went to a water park with my friend Juliette and we ran around so fast through those water fountains that Maman could not even get a decent picture. On Tuesday we met with Juliette again and we had a blast at a park that has rides and rides and more rides. You can see the pics of the ones I rode on alone but, to the chagrin of Maman, I am a thrill seeker and LOVED the fast and crazy rides; she had to ride with me on those though. On Wednesday we left for a 3 day camping trip at Lost Lake. Do you like camping? I love it and so does Papa. Maman? Not such a great fan but she made it despite being the only one bitten by all the flies and bugs. The weather was great so it helped...her! As for me, I was dirty from head to toe after 5 minutes out of the tent but it showed I had fun right? I learned all kinds of things too: we found crayfish, salamanders and a lot of chipmunks. And what about those butterfly-shaped flowers? Beautiful. Since I am an avid reader of signs, any signs, the campground's posts were great and I had to stop at each of them and I would exclaim out loud: "It's number 3 and it can have 5 people and 1 car". Bike riding around the A Loop took us quite a while since I had to stop at each sign but hey, I got to review my numbers. I also wanted to help, all the time; but you'll see that on the video.
What a day it was and I got really spoiled! You'll see some on the video but the last picture shows all my loot and all my new great books. And what about the cake? Exactly what I asked for and every thing was eatable.. well, "is" eatable since Maman did not like my idea of eating the locomotive and the 3 train cars in one setting. I am telling you, the tracks were yummy too and so was the gravel that Maman put in my cereal this morning.
I also decided to try some singing that day and created a piano piece. You can hear all that and more on the video. Merci to all for the cool cards, wishes and gifts!
There are different ways to celebrate one's birthday; I chose to celebrate mine by going to the dentist for my first x-rays and cleaning. And you can ask the radiologist, the dental hygienist and the dentist, I definitely behaved like I had grown today: yep, I am 3! The day finally came and it was a lot of fun; you will get to see part of it tomorrow but first, here is me, growing in front of your eyes during this 3 minute slide show. Thanks a bunch for the great birthday wishes I received today. I will write later but right now, I decided to snooze since tomorrow is another exciting day at the zoo!
After a week in Montana, we headed to Wyoming for yet another road trip. Shorter certainly but whow, the thunderstorms were impressive. What? Oh, Maman said that I actually slept through all of it but I still remember the thunder. After a first chilly day, we had great weather at our 6100 feet destination. So many fun things. Maman and Papa seemed really excited about seeing the mountains every day; sure they are impressive but what about all that water every where, and the sticks, and the rocks. Way more cool. I did enjoy the rides in the backpack again but it seems that Papa's shoulders and back did not quite appreciate them as much. I really, really, really wanted to ride the tram, so when the day finally came, I was very excited. It's breathtaking. Of course the parents had to do a 10 miles hike from up there at 10 000 feet when all I wanted to do was go up and down: hey, it's free for kids under 5 so they could have left me there. On the plus side, there was a lot of snow on the trail and I got to throw some pretty good snowballs! Splash!
Two videos of that trip for you; the second one has all the good pics in a slide show.
During the trip, we saw quite a bit of animals or at least animal traces. I am getting good at finding the poop kind of traces! There were animals we saw but did not have the camera or were not quick enough. A lot of different birds, deer and a moose are not featured, but we saw them! My encounter with ant hills was pretty good except for the part where I stepped on one and they came crawling all over my body. Maman had to remove all my clothing to get them out. Those things can bite you know! Maman made this little video for me mainly because it contains bugs and I am totally into bugs right now. I just checked out 2 books about them at the library today.
We are back! That was quite trip and I spent a LOT of hours in the car. Good thing Maman brought about 75 of my books to keep me entertained. There were a lot of experiences in Montana: playing along the river that runs on edge of the property, helping Grandma in her garden, running around with my cousin, seeing dear, getting ants all over my body and tasting all the great food Grandma made. So here is the first video of our trip!
Would I choose to get up at 4:45am? No. Was I excited when Maman woke me up at the said time? Amazingly, yes; and you know why? That's because we were heading to the Festival of Balloons, a mere 20 minutes from home. We got there at 5:30am, just in time to see the first balloon being blown with air: cold air first and warm air second; wow, you should see the flames shooting up high! Impressive. It was quite a show I must say and my parents are letting you know that the pictures don't give credit to the ballet of balloons up in the blue, super blue sky of this morning ( yes, it was today!). But we still invite you to share the moment. And if you wonder why Maman had the time to load the pics, sort them, arrange them, find music, make the movie, export it, upload it and all? That's because I am on a nap marathon, finishing my 3rd hour! Yes, Maman, you can thank me later.
I certainly learned a lot of new things today and this is maybe why, as we were playing in the yard later on I said to Maman: - What does "blind" mean? - Well it's somebody who cannot see. ( this was followed by a few more questions and...) - Maman, what do the other words mean? - What words? - All the ones that are in my head.
This was another great week-end. We had family visiting and it was fun to play with Ashley and Brenna: we had sort of a baseball game going in the backyard, a cool story time with Papa and a funny breakfast conversation. I thought I was funny but my cousin Ashley is even sillier... hear her talk about wagging her tail! It was Father's day too and Maman and I decided that Papa would love to have 15 yards of mulch delivered just for him. Maman and I helped him a little bit but it took him the whole week-end to make the pile disappear. Luckily on Sunday, I found some ripe strawberries in our yard and I made a delicious pie for Papa... and for me too of course! I have a cool Papa! He is a little crazy too: after shoveling mulch and pushing wheelbarrows all week-end, he still did a race tonight to celebrate the first day of Summer which, by the way, was as warm as a first day of Spring. Brrrr. Enjoy the video!
In a little over 40 days, I will turn 3! I must be growing right? Don't be fooled by the fact that I am 35" tall and still wearing some 18 months old pants; there are other obvious signs that growing is going on:
- Take the high chair: it's gone. Man I was sad to let it go. It was my table quarters for over 2 years and I felt like the ruler of the universe in it. Sure, the new sitting arrangements are good too but it comes with way too many rules. I mean, do you know about M.O.P.? I bet you don't. It's the first acronym I am learning (after TGV that is): it means "Mouth Over Plate"; it can also become M.O.T. ( mouth over the table). All I can say is, I am trying but the parents are hard to satisfy.
- Now, what about my crib? That thing had been my pad for even before I can remember. Apparently, that had to go too. I am telling you, this growing thing means letting go of a lot of the stuff you are attached to and, since I am pretty much attached to routines, it has made me do some crazy little dances. All is good now and after falling only once from the big bed, I dig it. You can see that on the slide show.
- The biggest growth has to be my brain though. Not saying it's for the best as it looks like my figuring out that I can have a lot more say in what's going on, has not been met by tons of approval by the parents. They will certainly credit me later for keeping them in shape and for keeping their brain active. Look, I can fire a thousand "why" questions each day and still, they answer.
Well, there it is. Growing up is fun and I cannot wait to be an adult: I am keeping a list of all the fun things that are around me right now but that my parents say or for adults only. I have the feeling, some days, that I am being tricked so I am keeping my eyes open; although I have yet to see a kid drive a car.
Since I came back from France, the weather has been very interesting in these parts of the World. Let's say that in the past 20 days, it has rained a little bit or more likely a LOT every single day. The grass is certainly green but one has to be sneaking the mowing part in between showers... We were not hoping too much that the weather would be dry for our 3 day trip to the Pacific Coast and, indeed, it rained but never when we were out and about! We even got to enjoy briefly what should be a daily dose of warm sunshine this close to Summer.
We had a fun filled week-end though and my friend Juliette and I were as happy as clams in a bowl. We had many adventures in the backyard of our vacation residence, on the beach, in a very cool forest and on a hike to a lighthouse. Well, see for yourselves!
I am back! And you thought you were finally done watching lengthy videos; well, get ready, because from April 20 to today, it has been pretty busy. Our trip to France was really great and my head is spinning just thinking about all the things I did and all the people I met. We were barely back that we then went to Bend to cheer Papa during his Pole Pedal Paddle race- by the way, his team won the overall team race; not bad for 45 and over!- Anyway, Maman and I have been trying to deal with the jet-lag this week and she has been working like crazy to put our fresh memories in videos... 5 of them total so it might take you a while to go through them, but, as always, they are also for us to enjoy. But before we begin the video roll, I have to give you a little explanation as to why my head looks somehow weird on some pics. It turns out that I was having too much fun and met quite strongly with a very hard wall. It's better after a month, but it is still not quite back to normal. I guess I can brag that my first big bump was in France. For the visual, see the pic below and don't hesitate to click on it if you want to really say "ouch".
Now, let's begin the tour. Oh, by the way, a week before flying to France, I decided to be potty trained day and night and I am now wearing underwear all day and waking up Maman during the night so I can go potty - I wonder what those dark circles are under her eyes?- In this first video, I invite you to St Brieuc where I stayed with Papi and Mamie and had a lot of fun riding my bike ( that I brought with me), playing, reading, eating, trying my tennis skills and goofing around with Papi.
While I was in St Brieuc, thanks to a very sunny first week, I spent a lot of time at the beach with my cousins and had all sorts of fun trying to do exactly what Malo, 7 year old, was doing. I tend to like older kids better and Maman is a little worried that I might do about just anything they try, like climbing big rocks! The beach is mainly for getting sand all over you, for splashing and falling in the water...I also went fishing: Oh boy, that was fun.
After a week of fun at the beach, it was time to explore the countryside and I am so lucky that Tonton Daniel and Tati Annie have a farm. Feeding the donkeys, getting fresh eggs, seeing the pigs were all great but my best experience ever was riding the tractor. A real TRACTOR! I was ready to move in the farm after that plus, I had a very good time with Tonton Daniel too!
I had many other experiences like being on Jean-Pierre's boat, riding Simon's motocross, finding a 7 year old French girlfriend named Gabrielle and having plenty of silly fun time with Louna in her very cool backyard. There were other places we went but Maman was so busy talking sometimes that she forgot her camera. Take a look...
So we came back late evening on Wednesday the 12th and we packed our bags and left for Bend on Friday after Maman spent all Thursday cooking since we were going to share house and food with 14 people. It was hot and sunny and I got to play with my 8 year old American girlfriend, Keely. Her brother is great too because he let me borrow his very cool trucks. I also got to tackle their big sister! The best part of Bend, aside from the trucks, was my first canoe ride with Papa, right on mirror pond which was at the foot of the house we were staying in. Very nice: the house and the ride. I even stayed still for the whole ride.
Well, it is finally the end. I hope you enjoyed it... with moderation. Until my next adventure at the beach at the end of the month, Your friend Noah René PS: I have now officially entered the "why?" phase after 6 months of "what is this?". Now that I have the two going, Maman seems to get more and more thirsty. Too much talking maybe?
Papa's first question to Maman after listening to the " 32 and counting" video was to ask if the sound file was edited: could it be that I had just been saying the words one by one and, with the magic of editing, made it sound like I was counting ? It was just enough skepticism to get Maman to bring the video camera out and give Papa the visual proof. Enjoy!
32 months, that's how old I am and I am attempting to count that high. I seem to have a great start until 10 in both languages but then, as you will hear, I am a little bit creative. I have been busy this past month and I can now add " washing car" to my list of chores and gardening, which both end up with a full bath for me too. Enjoy the sound file and the pictures!
I love books. I really do and I spend quite a bit of time with them. Lately I have enjoyed a lot of audio-books; I listen to "I'm dirty" about 6 times a day ( it's not a favorite of the Parents) and that's after my "Tubby the tuba" phase, where I requested the book probably 3 to 4 times a day. Right now, I also enjoy this cool audio-book: "A frog thing" which Maman seems to like too.
Maman decided to record me while I was reading "Go Dog Go" another one of my favorites. Now, you'll see that I tend to read story fast, which means that I read only a few pages from the book. Maman also wanted to add a little translation of things you might not understand: - "the tile of the book"- yes, I meant to say the TITLE. - "the umpire, the catcher and the number"- you get it, the last one was meant to be the batter! - and sometimes I do say things in French since Maman was next to me.
En route to OMSI, where 2 year-olds have the attention span of fruit flies... that's what the title should read according to Maman. In less than 2 hours in the Oregon Museum of Sciences and Industry, I did manage to do over 40 activities, most of those recorded on camera. I sure have fun in that place and, I might have looked like a fruit fly, but I was watching the bazillion groups of elementary kids that descended on the museum that day and their attention span did not seem much better than mine; I am just saying. Enjoy!
A year and half ago, when I first discovered the joy of painting, I had no idea how much fun it would really be. Somehow though, my idea of a finished product and Maman's idea of a finished product changed along the way. She had this weird idea that she was going to frame whatever came out of my creative brain. Nonsense, right? So here it is, just for you, my idea of Art. Maman calls it Ephemeral Art or how you will not see any of my paintings anytime soon in a gallery near you. Enjoy! PS: don't be alarmed if you think that the video is doubling in speed towards the end, it's to avoid boredom...
Do you know that Spring colors are about a month early here? Check the collage above: it's me holding my first flowers of the season in 2008, 2009, 2010.
While we are waiting for the video software, Maman decided to play with her new toy: a digital voice recorder. She can now spy on me while I go on and on and well, it's more spontaneous and less obvious than when she tries to get the video camera out. So here is a little piece for you and since it would be boring with just the sound, there are also pictures taken in the last few weeks. Oh, it's in French so here is a little synopsis of the story if you are not yet fluent in French, which you should all be by now, right? The pigeon ( the stuffed version from Mo Willem's books) and the squirrel. - The pigeon is a bird and birds walk... and come see us. - And what else can they do? He can prick... Really, why? Because they have beaks. - And how is the beak? This one is not sharp - It's not sharp? No. - And what else can they do? They can fly - Ah, why, what do they have? Wings, they have wings; They have eyes, they have EYES - How many? Two - And you? Two ( Seeing the squirrels outside) - Look...they are gone...the squirrels - Where are they? Well, they left... THERE...THERE... there. - What are they doing? They are going down, down, down... he goes in our house. - Is that a good idea? No - Where do squirrels live? In the tree, so that he does not go in our house.
Maman is still dealing with the aftermath of having her last computer crash; getting the new computer: easy. Getting all the software to work on Windows 7: a pain. So here is a video that is not quite yet up to standards.
I have really been enjoying my bike lately. I even took it on a MAX excursion and rode on the waterfront. Fun! I cruise with my feet up most of the time and yes, I take some risks too. I am good at balancing but not so good at using the handlebar for navigation purposes as you will see in the video. My majors stumble looks painful but amazingly, I do not have a single scratch from it. Thank goodness for my helmet with a visor though, or I think my nose would have been flattened. Enjoy and be assured that I was not hurt in the process!
Unbelievable. Here is the proof that I am being exploited in my own house. Yes, all day long, I have to do chores after chores. Now, just between you and me, I LOVE chores. The other day I was chanting "I love vacuuming" and I stopped when I saw the big smile on Maman's face. My favorite chore: cooking. You get to play with big machines, you get to make a mess AND you get to eat the result of your work. Side note: It's only because I take cooking so seriously that Maman let's me handle what could be seen as pretty dangerous tools. Enjoy!
