Birthday Celebrations!

signing "blue," and then indicating his favourite Wiggle, Anthony (the guy in blue)

So, the morning of Jordan's birthday was, of course, not the end of the birthday fun around here!  In fact, it is the end of the day Sunday and we are only just winding down, it has been KER-RAZY around here!  But a fun kind of crazy.  I picked Jordy up from pre-school where they all had enjoyed some chocolate cupcakes, there happened to be ONE extra which four teachers split between them!  After we got home and Jordy had a nap, our friend Eryn came over for some dinner and to have some birthday cake, because even though we planned on a big celebration on Saturday, Mommy had to do a cake and a little present on the "day of."  And since we wanted as little cake hanging around this house afterwards as possible, we invited our kindly neighbours, Orval and Sandy from next door, over too.

 

checking out the goodies Eryn gave him

Here he says Eryn's name! 

We love the way he tosses his ball into the new glove too!

While Eryn and I were having dinner with Jordy, he said "Happy Birt-day!" about fitty'leven times, but as soon as the camera was on he refused to say it, no matter how much we asked.  He did however, say how old he turned!  We're calling it a victory.

     

Wellington's Rainy Day from Orval and Sandy

He stars out by saying thank you to Mommy, then Eryn, but I can't get him to say Mr. & Mrs. Cosby!  Instead he calls Orval by his first name, he can even say the name of their doggie, Chloe but doesn't know how to say Sandy!  Poor Sandy, left out!

Dad with Mom: freshly coiffed and enjoying a night without kids!

As many of you know, Jordan's birthday is the day before Mommy's!  On Friday, Mom went and got her hair cut and coloured and then Eryn kindly watched the Little Dumers while we went to The Boathouse for a delicious dinner.  And a surprise present was Mommy's new Kitchenaid stand-mixer which I used at midnight that night to whip up some buttercream frosting to decorate my little dude's cake!

 The birthday feast! 

Thanks to Cindi for taking many of these pics,

as I was pretty busy that afternoon and am glad someone snapped them!

For Jordan's celebration day, we got the most gorgeous warm and sunny day!  It was beautiful!  And we were happy to see the sun, as it would have been mighty crowded in the house with munchkins running all around. 

Trio of Mums: Me, Michelle & Cindi

Jerry kindly gives me a little break and holds the princess for a while

 

 Owen wanting me to hurry and take the picture already!

 Jake explains to Jordy that The Gruffalo is his favourite book!

 Ooh!  The Big Red Car from Mom, Dad & Cygni!  This gift was a huge hit!

There's not just blood, sweat and tears baked into that cake,

there is a whole lot of yellow #5....

 One of the biggest crowd-pleasers was the Balloon Typhoon.  "What on earth," you might ask, "is a Balloon Typhoon, Deb?!"  Well, it's a big inflated space (in this case shaped like a clown's noggin,) and the fan that inflates it also blows around as many balloons as Daddy and Auntie Michelle can blow up before passing out.  Add kidlets, and your recipe for fun is complete!  Check out the snaps and videos we have below:

 In that big happy clown head is a BALLOON TYPHOON!

When we first set up the Balloon Typhoon, we had to talk Jordy into coming out with us, not always an easy task, so I said, "daddy has a surprise outside for you, come outside!" And henceforth, as far as Jordy was concerned the Balloon Typhoon was called The Surprise.  And the video above demonstrates how you sign surprise.

Nolan catches one!

After all the kids left, all of us went down for a nap! We didn't have to return the Balloon Typhoon til the next day, so we invited some of the other neighbourhood kids to come play inside for a little while, then we had some family balloon typhoon fun! It wasn't long though, before we had to say good-bye to the the balloon typhoon, and Jordan was sure to say, "B'bye!" to the balloons, and the fan and the clown's head. As Mommy took the kids up for a bath Daddy packed it all up to take back to the rental place Sunday morning, bright and early. We went with him then had breakfast together. Jordy took his Wiggles and The Big Red Car with him, and I am sad to say that somewhere between the restaurant and home, we lost Anthony - the Blue guy! Looks like we're going to be doing just a little more online shopping! O'course the chaos hasn't quite ended... shortly after we got home Cygni felt really warm, and has had a bit of a fever all day. She is sleeping soundly now (nearly midnight,) so we hope this will blow over soon. But a HUGE thank you to all our friends and family who helped us celebrate Mommy & J-man's birthdays, even from afar. It was a very special weekend for both of us!

Visit with Signing Santa

DCS hosted a continental breakfast and visit with Signing Santa last weekend. Jordan did better than we thought he would; he showed a lot of interest in Santa, signing "Santa" and saying "Ho ho ho!" but he still didn't want to sit on the Big Guy's lap.  That's what Daddy's for I guess.  One of my friends from high school commented when she saw this photo, "He looks disappointed that Santa brought him a sister!"  LOL.  At least we didn't get stuck with a photo of him crying!  Afterwards Jordy got to enjoy his very first candy cane, pretty sure that the J-man would call that the highlight of the day!

In other news, our ASL mentor, Maggie has already given Cygni a "temporary" sign name that we think is going to stick, as during the breakfast many people had already begun using it!  It's the ASL sign for "Star!"  (Makes sense when you consider our reason for her spoken name.)  For those who may not know, a sign name is very handy for people who are members of or work/live closely with members of the deaf / hard of hearing community, because fingerspelling one's name can get pretty tedious, and a sign name can also sometimes highlight an aspect of one's personality or a physical attribute.  Lending a uniqueness to perhaps an otherwise common name.  The catch is, a sign name is something that must be bestowed upon a person by someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, Chris and I can't just make up a sign name for Jordy.  And there are lots of good reasons for that, not the least of which is, we are not fluent in ASL and would be hazarding giving a name which has a meaning we aren't familiar with, possibly with disastrous / embarrasing results.  Well, it seems Cygni is already ahead of her big bro on this!  He doesn't have a sign name yet, though Maggie and Ingrid have told us to think about Jordy's mannerisms, or things he does that are integral to his personality and let them know as they may be able to create a sign name from that.  If any of you think of anything we should pass on to Maggie, let us know!

Some autumn ASL signs

We learned, when Maggie was here, how to sign Halloween, but I didn't know how to sign "Trick or Treat?"  So I looked it up online, and found this great link, if you would like to learn some Thanksgiving and Halloween signs:

Halloween & Thanksgiving

Trick or Treating at EA Burnaby

Daddy's work frequently puts on cool family events like one we went to today, the Trick or Treat at EA's Burnaby campus.  We decided to go, and give Jordy a little practice run before Halloween on Monday.  It took a little while but he eventually got it.  For a while afterwards he was signing "Tree" a lot, it took me a couple of hours, but I figured out he thought we were saying "Trick or Tree," or something like it!  What a funny guy.  At one point he pulled out his HA's (it was pretty noisy) and dad commented, "Oh, he's decided to break communication with CapCom!  We also got to see lots of cute kiddie costumes!  One of my favourites was a home-made one where a kid dressed as an army guy in a tank.  Anyhow, check out the picks, you'll get a sneak look at our Family Halloween Costume theme this year, yes Daddy has a NASA flight suit too!  I can't wait to get a photo of all of us together, but that will have to keep until All Hallow's Eve!

Signing "candy."

He decided he just had to plunk himself down
in the middle of the walkway to have a chocolate.

Right about here it all clicks! 

Here he is signing "thank you."

Checking out the loot! 

There's my "costume," I painted the moon on my belly!

Meeting our new ASL mentor

Ah, here I am again, unable to sleep at 3:30 in the morning!  Some of it is pregnancy, it's getting mighty uncomfortable no matter what position I sleep in, but some of this is me unable to turn my brain off!  I've tossed and turned a bit tonight thinking about a meeting we had this (last?) evening.  We have decided to resume our lessons in American Sign Language, in particular because Jordy will be starting at the DCS pre-school in January and we want to be able to keep up with his signing.  It's been over a year since we had lessons and our former coach, Ritva, has since retired.  So Tuesday night we got to meet our new ASL mentor, who also happens to be a teacher at the pre-school, her name is Maggie.  You can read her DCS profile here: but we found her to be young, friendly and energetic.  And though Jordy was a little shy at first, it didn't take long for him to warm up to her. 

It really was amazing to see him watching her face and hand movements and almost immediately copying her language!  There was one moment when Daddy got one of the scarier Halloween toys out that I use as a decoration (it's a ball shaped like a scary head, and when you squish it, orange "brains" come out; when J-man sees it he shakes his head, "no," and backs away.)  After Dad put it back on the shelf, she signed to the toy, "stay away!" a couple of times and he imitated the sign right away! 

It just blows my mind how much kids pick up and how quickly at this age.  And this example really reinforces to me that we are making the right decision for Jordan, to put him into the DCS pre-school program.  He just lit up last night, and though he always signs a bit with us, he just went off signing all over the place last night!  It was great to see him excited that someone was speaking his language!  For me, it is thrilling to think that his personality could open right up, if given the right setting where his choice of language can be allowed to flourish.  Now, there may be some of you that are concerned that we don't want to encourage his speech, and that is not the case at all, we do and we are.  Whenever he exercises speech we tell him enthusiastically how great it is that he said whatever word he has said.  But I believe one of our greatest desires as humans is simply to be understood, and in particular for a child Jordan's age, there is so much that they want to express that they do not have the vocabulary for; this is even more true for Jordan than most un-impaired children.  He seems right now, to be more inclined to sign than speak, and Chris and I simply wish to give him all the tools we have within our power to learn with.  We are trying to follow his cues.  I attended a brunch put on by DCS early this month, where I got to meet, and hear the stories of, other veteran mothers of deaf / hard of hearing kids, and a common piece of advice was, "give your child language."  That's what we are doing.

That being said, this time around, learning ASL with Maggie is going to be a whole lot more challenging than it was with Ritva.  We could pick up on Maggie coming from an educational background right away, there was structure and agenda even in this informal meet-and-greet situation.  I really had to pull out my best ASL chops.  That isn't saying much but at the same time, my signing skills are more than Chris' and I need to watch in future that I am not hampering his learning by translating for him when I know what is going on or usurping the conversation, both of which I did a lot in this meeting!  And we really had to be very observant to not miss anything Maggie was trying to tell us, asking for a lot of repetition and fingerspelling; by the time we were done, I was a drained mentally.  I'm excited and we know we are doing the right thing, but it is a bit intimidating to be a couple of old dogs learning new tricks!  We'll see her again on November 8th for our first real lesson.

On a completely different topic, Our photographer has sent us a link to her blog and a sneak-peek of my belly pictures.  If you are so inclined, you can find it by scrolling down to the bottom of the blog page to the Fun Links section, it says Sneak Peeks, etc.  But be forewarned, (old-fashioned grandpas in particular probably want to skip checking out this link,) I am far from fully-clothed in most of them; as I have told my facebook friends, Barbie-doll I ain't!  But it was fun to take the time to celebrate my "baby bod'" and I look forward to having something to remember this special time in my life, which I will never experience again.  And despite my series of complications this time around, it really is an amazing feeling to carry life within.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For a little Valentine's Day Treat, we have got some fun pictures of Jordy with a balloon I got him for the occasion. After viewing them, I think you will find as we do, that he is more like a little boy and less like a baby!

Doesn't he look like such a big boy in this shot?

His first Lolly, but from the look on his face, not his last!

Mommy absolutely LOVES this photo!

He has also chosen his third word and it's his approximation of "Grand-pa." Every time he sees a photo of one of his grand-dads he says it. Granted, he also says it about every other older looking gentleman with gray or white hair. But the point is he says it. It sounds like "Puh-pah" It is so cute to hear! Which brings us to his other means of communication, which is ASL. He has quite a vocabulary at this point, and is learning/using more all the time. Here's a list we've been jotting down of words he uses for those who are interested, (the words with asterisks denote ones he also has a sound for):

1. Mommy / Daddy
2. More / Want
3. Banana
4. Dog *
5. Bubbles
6. Hat
7. Cat
8. Car *
9. Airplane *
10. Snake *
11. Bath
12. Bye-bye
13. Duck *
14. Cow
15. Horse
16. Frog
17. Bird
18. Fruit
19. Milk
20. Help
21. Cereal
22. Fish
23. Monkey
24. Apple
25. Bear
26. Cookie
27. Grapes
28. Penguin
29. Cold
30. Hot
31. Swimming
32. Ice Cream
33. Cheese
34. Baby
35. Hearing Aid
36. Turtle
37. Ball
38. Mouse
39. Juice
40. Me
41. Socks
42. Train
43. Light
44. Shower

And we`ve included some video of Jordy signing, once again, sorry some of it is at awkward angles, etc. But it`s tough taping an active little dude, trying to keep his grimy paws off and balancing a book at the same time in some footage:

And finally, just a little gem that made us giggle:

Big Blue

Just had to make a super-fast post to share this with you, a photo Daddy took of Jordan during his nap today:

Other bits of news, Jordan went down the slide on his own yesterday and today! And he has been signing banana regularly, though he has modified it a bit. The sign for banana is usually with your index finger pointing up, and you use your other hand to "peel" your index finger like it is a banana. He brushes his thumb with the fingers of his other hand. He does use this sign interchangeably for any other fruit (for example if you are giving him grapes, he will make the sign,) but if you say the word banana, he uses this sign.

We've missed a few signs of the week, so I'll post the links below:

The sign for "nice," which, is incidentally also the sign for "clean"

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/24Nice.m4v

And the first letter of Daddy's name, "C"

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/31C.m4v

Jordy WALKS!

Oh buddy! The day has finally arrived. Daddy has been practicing with the little fellow for several days now, and last night, August 18th, Jordan took his first unassisted steps:



Not much else to report, we've been keeping busy with work, but Miss Jovita, one of Jordy's daycare ladies, said something to me the other day that every mother wants to hear. She said she was watching him closely while he was eating his lunch and he seems so smart to her, and she said, "I feel like there is something special about him." To which I gushed, "Well, I think he is special, but I am his Mom." But she corrected me, "No, every kid is special, but I mean, I think he is going to be someone big someday! And I am going to remember and tell everyone I used to look after him." Awwwwww! What that's our little dude!

We're a bit overdue for the signs of the week:

From the 9th, "Coat."

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/Sign_of_the_Week_Coat.m4v

And from this week, "Wind."

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/17Wind.m4v

Mmmmmm-wa!

Time for playin' in the pool!

At last, summer has decided to show it's face around these parts! The delay in sunshiney weather can be blamed on me; in early June I decided to beat the rush and buy one of those portable A/C units to keep us cool upstairs -- kind of an early Father's Day gift, but also something to help keep the Little Dumer comfy and sleeping through the night-- and sure enough, as soon as I did so it proceeded to be the coolest June in memory! This does make me think of Grandpa Cam; he used to say he could make it rain in the Sahara, all he had to do is wash his car! But I digress, I meant to make the point that last week it finally got warm enough to let Jordy try out the little kiddie pool we got him for his birthday, we really thought we'd have gotten a lot more mileage out of it before now! So one hot afternoon, I filled it up and got the boy into his trunks and plopped him in. Holy Hannah! Was he ever mad! It was a wee bit too cold for him, and I should have filled it earlier and let the water warm up a bit in the sun I suppose! Well, lesson learned! He eventually calmed down and enjoyed it!

Is she going to splash me with the cold, cold water again?!

One of Jordy's toy bugs! Wouldn't want to find a real one of these in the pool!


Here you can see his two bottom teeth! Speaking of teeth - another has come in! We have spotted upper left lateral incisor -- that's FOUR chompers!

Though it has been warm, most days are quite tolerable. We haven't had to spend a day camped out in front of the air conditioner yet. Jordan and I even had a beautiful afternoon at the park last Friday. We sat in the grass with a snack, I watched Jordan snooze a little, then when he woke up I put him in the swing -- his favourite -- and I blew bubbles for him and the other kids as he swung to his heart's content. It was such a pleasurable afternoon in such a simple way, I think it was the epitome of contentment for me, really. When we got home Jordan played a bit and I decided I just had to get a picture to share with you of his super-cute shoes with the Jolly-Rogers all over them!

This is a really fun age for us to be experiencing Jordy; everything he does is a wonder or comedic! Here is a video I took of him enjoying some music from The Wiggles TV show, I call it "Big Air Butt Stompin'":

He also learns things from daycare that are really cute too. When I went to pick him up one day it was getting pretty near on to closing time, so he was the last of the infant group to be picked up. I had passed Carson, the second to last baby and his mother on the way in, and when I mentioned it to Miss Jovita she said that Jordan had blown him kisses good-bye. Well, I had never seen this before! So later that night I told Daddy about it and this was the result:

Oh man! Couldn't you just eat him up with a side of whipped cream? Okay, I admit, there are times when I'd pass. On Friday when Ingrid came by, she did a follow-up of one of his development assessments and one of the questions was, "Does he ever exhibit willfully disobedient behaviour?" Um, yeah. He's really testing out our boundaries and patience. Jord's latest things are dropping food off the side of his high chair, and putting his hand in the toilet bowl. Both of which he likes to do while looking you in the eye after you have just said, "No." We do our best to not reward this behaviour with any exciting reactions, but he has gotten a little slap on the paw once or twice. In general though, he is still a happy little man, and usually very good.

Though we've missed a couple of Tuesday's worth of the Sign of the Week, I only have one to post for you, "Bread:"

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/17Bread.m4v

The folks at Signing Time must be on holidays!

A Jordan-sized Ice Cream Cone

At Eastside Mario's last night, Jordan got to enjoy his very first ice cream cone! And it was just his size!

Jordy with his friend the billy goat

And Mommy forgot to tell you guys, but last weekend we took Jordy to the petting zoo at Queen's Park. He got to see and hear all the barnyard animals live! It was really cute when we got to the gate and he saw the goats and sheep; he absolutely lit up and right away started signing dog. I remember Ingrid telling us that it is pretty normal for everything with fur and four legs to be doggie at first. We had a super fun day!

And today we have a new sign of the week, bike:

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/10Bike.m4v

Alas, Poor Smokey!

We are sad to report, that our favourite grey furball passed away in the wee hours of Tuesday Morning. We were broken hearted to find out, it happened rather unexpectedly, but the good thing is, we are fairly certain he didn't suffer or feel poorly before he died; he wasn't sickly and was eating his food in the last few days prior, and usually animals don't eat when they feel bad. Mommy and Daddy are going to miss the Smo' greatly, he has been a good and loving friend. At least Jordy is at an age where it isn't difficult to lose a pet. We were kind of looking forward to seeing what kind of mess the two pals could have gotten into! But maybe we'll get Jordan another pet to love again someday.

On a happier note, Jordan has a second tooth! In all honesty, we aren't completely sure when it poked through, but last week, I was lying on the floor, with the Little Dumer on my chest and when I looked up I could see very clearly in his upper gum, an incisor poking out! Hooray, we have teeth! So now in the tub whenever we give him a bath we now brush his teeth and sing a tooth brushing song.

As promised, I finally picked up Jordan's report card from Water Babies 2. Check out the photos, the underwater torpedo shot is particularly fun.

Water Babies 2 Class Photo at Hyde Creek Recreation Centre, it's been decorated in there to look like Port Coquitlam in the early 1900s, such a great facility!

Daddy and Jordan in the lap pool

torpedo!

We also received our portraits from Brightstart. I didn't order much because, not only was Jordy not really smiling in any of the proofs, we had just gotten his birthday portraits done a week or so before, so I just got a class photo and a bookmark for myself.

And finally, the latest installment of the sign of the week is an essential for when you are having birthday cake at someone's house, "more."

http://c1900242.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/03More.m4v