Picture Perfect

Well, the days of geeky school pictures seem to be a memory of the past. Sophia had her very first school photos done this year. A professional photographer (Photos by MJ) came in and did the whole class in an hour. How she wrangled that many three year olds individually and as a group is beyond me, but she did. And the end product was beautiful. We can’t publish the class photo for obvious reasons, but here are a couple of Sophia’s poses.





Oh, and by the way, Sophia has made it onto the cover of a magazine. Mind you, we are the only ones who got a copy of it.... Today’s Parent had a promotion where you could download a photo onto the site and they would send your copy of the December edition with a special cover of your child. She looks pretty good don’t you think?

Best Toy EVER!

So some of you know that we had to replace our dishwasher due to a slow leak that has ruined our year old laminate floor. Yeah, that made us happy. Really happy (insert sarcastic eye rollie emoticon). Anyway, the dishwasher (which is great and after washing never ending dishes for two weeks makes me very happy) came in a great big box. This box took up an enormous amount of room in the living room. But, it was the favoured toy for at least two weeks, after which it had to be demolished due to structural failure. This box moved from being a house (a distraction to keep Sophia from “helping” Dad install the dishwasher) to a rocket ship. Fun eh?

New Skills

[dbg pd to 16.11]

Sophia and Jacob have been consistently gaining new skills. Although some of these abilities may not appropriately be called "skills" (e.g. sophia's new ability to scream in an octave and at a volume level seemingly impossible without a dial that goes to 11), some of these are genuinely amazing. And of course, the are amazing in the sense of "if my child didn't eventually obtain these skills, we would be very worried and take them to a doctor" but still, you must admit, our children are brilliant and talented beyond any expectation.

A quick note: these talents have been accumulating over the course of a few weeks, and some some of them may be out of order.

First, we begin with Sophia, who has slowly and deliberately learned to write her name. Yes, that's right, she's merely three years old and she can write her name. Of course, it takes a bit of looking to verify that is in fact her name and not just another set of random squiggles, but the video shows a clear intentionality. The thing that makes us giggle the most is that when she finishes a letter and isn't quite sure how to stop, she will sometimes continue whatever action or gesture was last made. So an "h", which ends with a little up-side-down curve, turns into "hnnnn" (wish I had a photographic example here) - she just keeps going around and around.

Here is some photographic evidence. You can watch her create these in the video after.

Here, the "s" is light, the "P" is backwards, and the "a" is pretty squiggly, but it is a start.

Here, it looks like it is written backwards, but that last "s"-like thing is actually a leftover from an earlier attempt. See the video here:

Her people are getting more complex too, with full bodies and faces with all the features (including cheeks)

Here she signed a card. She has taken to signing her own name on birthday cards to her friends, which is, I think, very very cool.

Jacob has some new skills that are coming along quite well. The first is that he is able to throw things in a basic way. It's one of those things, where creatures develop different ways of doing things as the solutions present themselves. Convergent Evolution, I think it is called. In any case, some of us would throw by picking up an object and moving our hand and letting go. Sophia does this. The object ends up in an unpredictable location (often near or on the dog) and so we have the rule that only small soft things can be thrown. This of course is a great opportunity for a lesson in the intersection of sets - some things are soft but not small, and some things are small but not soft.

But back to Jacob and throwing. Jacob has managed to combine a "shaking" action with grasping an object to create a kind of throwing action. Not sure how he originally came up with it, but it is quite funny to watch:

You'll notice, first, his hair - we are still experimenting with different ways to make it not look like he has a palm tree on the top of his head. I mean we're talking cowlick city here. but you'll also notice that each throw takes a considerable preparation - he must first taste the object, then grasp it in both hands, then sort of shake it back and forth (while hyperventilating) until it eventually is released and flies gracefully for about a foot. Amazing stuff.

We have more skills on the way, but I will post them another time.

Welcome Baby Matthew

Sophia and Jacob recorded this little video to say Hi to Matthew. We are really looking forward to seeing them at Christmas time.

Cousin

Sophia and Jacob now have a cousin. Welcome Baby Matthew. We are so happy you are here, and we hope Momma is recovering well. Daddy is now third on the seniority list. Welcome to the club.

Two of my cousins have also had babies in the last little while. Actually it was their partners that did all the work, and it was difficult, last-minute-emergency kind of work - we are thinking of you and hope you are recovering well.

My cousins children are my first cousins once removed and that makes them Sophie and Jacob's (and Matthew)'s second cousins. I had to consult wikipedia to make sure of the right terminology. Sophia and Jacob and Matthew are second cousins to Liam and Rex.

We welcome and celebrate these three new miracles, and look forwarding to meeting them in person on our Christmas jaunt to Toronto, where all offspring of the Osbornes will be in the same place for the first time in a couple years, at least.

Gymnastics

Sophia has been continuing in her gymnastics classes, and for anyone who follows this blog, you will note that she has progressed considerably since the days when she was scared of the wooden bars (and understandably so - they're tricky). She can now walk on a balance beam without help (although she does take her time and is a little wobbly) and she is very happy when she is doing summersaults and running around the gym. She had her last class of the year today, and she did really well although she did have to have a little bit of a reminder to listen to the teachers. She'll be staying in this level (called cubs) for another round before she moves up to the next level, and that's just fine with us. We'll probably do swimming in January, then gymnastics again next September.

Getting into trouble

Jacob is always interested in what is going on, and his smaller stature means he can easily get in to investigate where we are not as able to reach. In some ways, this could be great, since he could reach that hard-to-get magnet under the fridge, but most of the time is is a cause for slight stress, annoyance, and, often, laughter.

Here, we see Jacob getting in to the dishwasher. This is before we bought the new dishwasher. He also likes to get in to the new dishwasher. We just have to make sure that knives and other sharp or breakable items have been removed. From the dishwasher.

He is also a great help with the dishes, as we have already seen

The dishwasher, however is not the only place he gets into trouble. Witness here his attempt to discover "the far depths of the cupboard", a mysterious and unknown area where it is fabled that wondrous and good tasting small shiny things may be found.

filling in

as usual, we are behind in the blogging. Expect a few (backdated) posts all at once. sorry.

Halloween

Sophia had a very full and exciting Halloween this year. Most of that was because her preschool did a bunch of very cool Halloween- and fall-themed activities. About a week before Halloween,, they did a field trip to a pumpkin patch about 15 minutes from the city. We all piled into a yellow schoolbus (including as many parent chaperones as there were kids) and traveled out to the valley. The bus ride was a lot of fun, but more on that later.

The view from the bank of the river


A pumpkin / squash patch, nestled in among the trees. Most of the kids were more interested in the dogs than they were in the process of growing pumpkins.


Big pile o' pumpkins, inhabited by a big pile o' kids. This is where the kids had their snack, and some were brave enough to venture into the haunted house. but not many, and they quickly removed themselves.


Each of the kids received a little kid-sized pumpkin as part of the trip. There was an enormous pile of these little pumpkins, and I figured this would take forever since each kid was given the chance to choose the best pumpkin, but Sophia just walked up and grabbed the first one she could reach. It was, of course, perfect.


until she saw this one...


Back of the bus on the ride home, sitting with a couple of her preschool pals. They giggled and sang all the way home, especially when there was a big bump that launched them a couple inches off of their seat.

On Halloween, they had a Halloween party at the preschool. Due to a school policy, the kids weren't allowed to wear their costumes (one ignorant jerk parent can make a difference) but they did have a little "concert" as well as snacks and Halloween-themed decorations that they had worked on all week. Parents were encouraged to bring treats, and as usual, Tricia went well beyond the call of duty. Here is a tray of her mummy brownie tarts, which were absolutely delicious.





getting ready for the concert.

This is a movie of the first little bit of the concert, with the kids singing a couple of the songs they have been learning in class. Note particularly the several kids frozen solid by stage fright (or apathy. not sure which)



Pumpkin carving is also a big part of Halloween, and a couple days before Halloween itself, we carved the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch. Sophia had definite expectations about what the pumpkins would be like, and she was not a big fan of the "goop"




Finally, a close-up shot of the costume that Tricia spent so much time and energy sewing, that Sophia was not allowed to wear to school. Whatever.

Imagination

Sophie has been using her imagination more and more. Here are a couple examples

Sophia making up a story on the spot, about witches and robots, and her friend William and his dad Kelvin get into the story somehow... I think it's about Dads taking kids trick-or-treating...


Here, she uses her imagination to read a book

Giggle Baby

Jacob is generally a happy kid, most of the time. He has his moments, when he gets really angry, and is hard to calm down. Those moments are few, however, and are fully compensated for by moments like this. Sophia (for some reason) had her socks on her hands and was playing with an ice cube tray and a bendable bracelet ring thingy, and Jacob found this utterly hilarious. It wasn't funny when Daddy or Mommy threw the bracelet thingy, but when his sister threw it, he couldn't control himself. There is indeed a special bond between brother and sister.

I dare you to watch this without laughing.

Eye Doctor

The whole family trekked out to the eye doctor today, and Sophia had her first ever eye exam. It was quite a painless experience, all in all, and Sophia's eyes are of course perfectly fine. The optometrist said that they usually start to look at children's eyes around 3 years old, and that the government pays for routine eye exams up till kids are like 18 years old or something like that. She also said that Sophia is a little bit farsighted but that's very normal for kids her age as they are still growing into their skulls, and the shape of their eyes will change. Jacob was along as well, but didn't get his eyes checked. Instead, he spent the time wandering around the attached glasses shop, charming the people working there and getting into absolutely everything.

A little side note - the eye doctor has a set of pictures of animals and such that she uses for younger kids and folks who can't read. No need to do that for Sophia, though - she did the regular eye chart with the letters. The eye doctor says that she almost never gets kids as young as Sophia that can use the letters for the eye test. Once again we discover (although we really already knew this) that our child is a genius.

 



(sorry, the sound is quiet in the video. Watch her feet jiggle as she concentrates)

Halloween Costume

What do you think?

 
 

New Park

The weather this fall has been quite strange. A snow day a week ago, and now it it is "unseasonably mild". A while ago, I noticed that there was a fancy new park where an old wooden one used to live, so we figured we'd go and check it out. The park has a big fake rock suitable for climbing in the middle, and a set of three climbing structures off of the rock with various scales of slides and climbing apparatii. There's even a pair of plastic drums, a car dashboard complete with transmission, and a voicepipe. All in all, quite the cool place. We have dubbed it "the orange park" since the pipes are orange and blue. We've ventured there many times since discovering it.

Sophia is always the most happy when she arrives at the park to discover more kids playing there. She always goes right up to them and introduces herself and starts to play. This usually means she instantly makes a friend and they play together until it's time to go. Once, however, there was a group of slightly older boys (maybe 6 or 7) who were playing their own gross boy games, and try as she might, Sophia was not allowed in to the group and she was even teased a bit. I felt bad for her but everything is a life lesson after all.

Here are some photos of the park

 
 

and here are some of Jacob in the leaves.

 


and, for reference, here is sophia in the same leaves a couple years ago

Tall Skinny Half-Caf Latte

 
(just kidding)

Sewing Fantastic

Tricia has been sewing up a storm lately, making all sorts of amazing things including pajamas and underpants for Sophie. Tricia's crowning achievement, however, was this year's Halloween costume. Sophia chose to be a witch, and Tricia made this stunning outfit. it took her a big chunk of time and effort but the result is worth it. More photos of Sophia wearing it will come soon.

 

Help with the Dishes

Jacob is such a little help around the house. Everything he sees is an opportunity to clean up, and generally contribute to the welfare of the household. Of course, that is what we'd like to believe, but really, he is always into everything. Sometimes its cute enough not to be completely annoying, as in this ultra-adorable discovery of the dishes. We made sure there were no super-sharp knives in the cutlery basket, of course.

Handwriting

Sophia has been practicing her "writing" and has been mimicking us as we make lists and things. Her dexterity with the pen is definitely improving, and she loves to play with her "phonics book", which is an enormous book of pre-k activities like drawing triangles and identifying which thing is biggest. She spends hours going through the book, and I think it is good practice for homework (never too early, right). She has been able to draw basic faces for a while now, most recently including eyes, ears, cheeks, nose and mouth, (all of which are round squiggles), this linear "list making" is a relatively new development. It's clear that she knows what writing more-or-less looks like, and is trying to replicate that.

 

Snow Day

October is a little early for snow, but this is saskatchewan after all and these things have been known to happen. It wasn't much snow, but we made the most of it, making rudimentary snow angels and little tiny snowmen.

 

 

 

Sophia loves to swing in the snow (go figure) and her favorite swing game is to knock daddy over. Daddy sometimes chooses not quite to go along with it, what with the grass stains and the falling over, but in the winter, it is much easier to fall over without significant damage to jeans, knees, or dignity, because of snow and extra padding. We can't really credit the snow and breaking a fall today, but the extra padding helped.

 
the windup...

 
and he's out! (see the nice snow angel?)

 

 

Getting along famously

Sophia and Jacob are siblings. And they do fight. Most recently, whenever Jacob pick up a toy and starts to play with it, Sophia suddenly gains interest and will grab it from him. A few weeks ago, Jacob would not mind, simply moving on to another toy which Sophia would then steal. But a few days ago, Jacob started to get indignant. Whether it's the new teeth (more evidence soon) or whether he is just starting to be aware of justice or is just inhereiting his father's temper (sorry my buddy), it is starting to change dynamics in the household. Sophia no longer gets away with grabbing Jacob's toys, and as a result, she often asks for "when sophie gets angry" as a bedtime story.

Regardless, the two of them get along very well most of the time. Here is evidence.