My Little Monkey

I must preface this post by asking you to please ignore the giant pile of dishes on my counter in the following pictures. Jared and I had really bad colds and didn't have energy to do them for a few days!

Alright - now to the point of this post! My little monkey - aka - Cohen. We had a Curious George cake for him on his first birthday for a reason. He is one busy, curious, adventurous, and resourceful little baby! A few days ago the kids and I were all playing in the basement. One of them went upstairs for something and left the door open. Cohen, of course, took this as the perfect opportunity to escape being in the basement. Who needs toys when there's an entire main floor of things he's not supposed to get into?!?!? I wasn't overly concerned until I heard dishes being moved around. I wondered what on earth he was doing and when I came upstairs, this is what I had found:

 

He had pushed the kitchen chair over to the sink, climbed up - and IN - and was splashing in the pot that I had used to cook macaroni in the night before. All I could do was shake my head. He was soaked from the waist down so he got a quick rinse in the tub and a change of clothes. And then I had to flip the chair back on top of the other one so that he couldn't move it back over to the sink.

Of course, since this incident a couple weeks ago, he has since gained enough strength in his arms to push the chairs while stacked one of top the other - meaning nothing in my kitchen is safe anymore. If he can climb high enough to reach something, it's fair game for him to play with. At least, that's what he thinks! I remember my mom telling me stories of myself doing similar things as a small child. And I laughed! Now that I have my own child doing ridiculously crazy things like this every day - not so funny anymore! It's fun to watch him explore and try new things - but I can't tell you how happy I will be when he is finally big enough to help clean up the messes he makes!

The End of Life as We Know It

This past Wednesday, Sept. 14th was both a joyful and sad occasion in our house. It was Xavier's very first day of Kindergarten and while I am so excited for him and the things he will learn, the friends he will meet, and the experiences he'll have, it also marks the end of life as we've known it for the past five years. There is no more picking up and going wherever we want mid-week. Trekking off to stay at hotels in Dauphin or Winnipeg when Jared needs to be out of town for work. No longer are Jared and I in control of our schedule. Rather, it will now be determined by the all-important school calendar. Which days does Xavier have school, which days are holidays? When is Spring Break?

It's not that we are not excited for this time in our lives. It will add a new level of structure to our days - and since he's only every Day 2,4,6 this year, we do still have a little bit of flexibility. But, case in point - Thursday night we went to the Keith Urban concert. Originally, we planned on just spending the night in the city, hanging out at my in-laws' on Friday and on Saturday going to the Rock the River concert at the Forks.....Until we realized Xavier had school on Friday and so Jared and I made a lone trip into the city on Winnipeg for Keith Urban and drove home that night when it was done. It just hit us that - oh yeah! - we're no longer free to roam about the countryside on a whim anymore. It will bring many good changes to our family, I'm sure. But it will definitely take a few weeks to adjust to this new schedule in our lives.

 {all ready for his first day!}