These are a few of my favourite things...

Playing dressup with my pink apron

I haven't really provided an update on the various things our lil' 26 month old likes, so I thought I would take some time to do so. In no particular order:


Foods:
We're really lucky.. Sebastian pretty much likes all food but there are a few things that we've noticed he likes better than others...

For example, Sebastian absolutely loves shrimp. We think he gets this from Evelyn as we hardly ever have fish, except for the occasional fish & chips on a Friday night. Now we're actually purposely adding shrimp to our grocery list so our little man can get his full. And get his full he does! He can usually eat at least 7 shrimp in one sitting!

Sebastian also adores pickles, lemons and olives. Of course, not all together but separately he's a big fan. He also enjoys cookies, when he's allowed to have them and is a huge fan of soy chocolate milk. The regular chocolate milk has way too much sugar in it, so soy it is. If he had his way he'd drink soy chocolate milk all day! But he doesn't... one glass a day suits us just fine.


Activities:
This is a hard one to explain but yet easy... Sebastian loves doing a variety of things. He likes to watch Youtube clips on Jack the Pumpkin King from A Nightmare Before Christmas sing "What's This?" as well as Abby Cadabby, whom he adores, turning an elephant into a pumpkin via Sesame Street and various other vintage Sesame Street and Muppet Show clips, which is partially my fault as I love the old Muppet Show and Sesame Street.

Sebastian enjoys all kinds of vehicles, but mainly tractors, construction vehicles and firetrucks. He loves doing puzzles and is now working on puzzles that require him to actually fit the pieces together as opposed to putting the pieces in a dedicated precut spot.

If we let him he would watch Mighty Machines all day long, but we don't, so one five minute segment and maybe two, is all he gets. Sebastian is also an amazing dancer and singer. He literally just jumps up and down, running around and yelling, which constitutes singing for him. He makes up his own songs and enjoys it if we dance along, which we do of course. It's nice that I'm no longer dancing around the house by myself! =)

One thing that we've noticed Sebastian really likes to talk about and do is Sportsball. This is a program he goes to on Saturdays with his dad. It will be Wednesday and he'll start asking about going and talking about his coaches. It's nice to see him developing an interest in sports and physical activity in general... we may even start gymnastics in the New Year... and we're already signed up for the next session of Sportball.

Playing hide and seek is also a new game of Sebastian's. He learned this via his cousin Jeremy so now he makes us count while he goes and hides. Problem is, Sebastian doesn't have the patience to wait for us to find him. He usually jumps out laughing before we even get a chance!

Reading and colouring/painting are also very high on Sebastian's list of things he enjoys. He can spend half his morning looking at books and being read to. It's a great way to spend time with Sebastian as we talk about the pictures and what's happening with the story. We're really happy he enjoys books as much as he does.

And how could I almost forget - Sebastian also loves playing with his friends! He really enjoys his Mondays with Leah and Jeff and will talk about his friends at daycare. It's great seeing him become such a little social butterfly!

And last but certainly not the least...


Silly things:
Well, basically everything Sebastian does has some silliness to it...but I'm bias...I like silly.

Today Sebastian told his daddy that his daddy was "driving me (him) bonkers"! He also continues to want to wear his winter boots around the house and lately it's been very difficult getting Sebastian to change out of his pajamas. I guess that's the problem when he has pajamas he really likes...whatever happened to those itchy woolly kind?

I could go on and on about this kid...but I will stop for now. Again, these are just a few of his favourite things.

Tip of the Day

Don't teach your toddler traffic signals unless you're prepared to have a pint sized dictator/back seat driver!!!

Actually, I'm joking - Sebastian has yet to tell me how to drive even though he does know that green means go and red means stop. But that little tip of the day came to mind while we were running around the kitchen this morning playing Green Light, Red Light. We even incorporated the yellow light in there too. It was comical watching Sebastian run in slow motion!!

Sebastian and I just returned from a trek down to Fort Erie. Originally we planned the trip to coincide with our living room and upstairs getting painted, with the thought being that we would leave the day painting commenced and return to a brand new home. However, the painting was pushed back a week and since I was off from work we decided we'd still go down to spend time with our family.

This was actually the first trip that I have taken alone with Sebastian that involved overnights. We left on the Thursday and came home yesterday on the Saturday. The first night was a little rough as Sebastian was waking every 2.5 hours (or so it seemed) and he was up for the day around 5:30. Luckily both him and I had a nap later that day! Then on Friday night he slept straight through the night until his usual waking time of 6:30 so that was really nice.



Sebastian had a lot of fun playing with his cousin Jeremy. In fact, he had such a good time that when we came home he said he was sad and that he missed Jeremy. Poor kid... he basically ran after Jeremy and played non-stop the entire time we were there. He also enjoyed spending time with other extended family during our visit. I think we both took some time having to adjust to coming home. Not that we didn't want to come home and/or see daddy of course, but Sebastian really enjoys seeing his cousins and it really makes me wish we lived closer to family so that Sebastian could see his family more often. Oh well... one day.

And again, thanks to Jeremy for being such an awesome older cousin. I can only hope that Sebastian is as cool as an older cousin to his new cousin who's arrival we are all anxiously awaiting for. And for the record, we say it's going to be a she! =)

His first doughnut!! Courtesy of Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob who are famous for always bringing doughnuts!

S is for Sebastian

Today Sebastian and I were sitting together reading his Baby Einstein's "My First Book of Letters". At the end of the book there is a brightly coloured alphabet. We took some time singing the alphabet while I pointed to the letters. While doing so I pointed out to Sebastian the letter S, reminding him that Sebastian started with S as well as D for daddy and M for mommy.

Tonight after dinner while Sebastian was helping Jamie wash the dishes, which consists of him standing on a chair and watching, I took out the book to see if Sebastian would show off his mad letter skills. Sure enough, when I asked him what letter his name started with he said S and then pointed right to it. Without me even cuing him he pointed to the D for daddy and then, with some assistance, remembered where the M was.

And, seeing that it's not every day that your child recognizes the letter to their name for the very first time I wanted to share....

Hoping everyone is staying warm,
Kim

Today we took Sebastian to his very first Santa Claus Parade. And it was not just any old Santa Claus Parade, it was the Toronto Santa Claus Parade, in which it is estimated that over 1/2 a million people attend and some even arrive 3 hours early just to get a good view. And I'm not making that point to brag... I'm making that point because both Jamie and I hate crowds and it's amazing the things that we now do for the sake of Sebastian!

We joined up with our friends Stacey and Brendan and their son Campbell and braved the cold and snow for 3 hours (the parade itself wasn't 3 hours but we arrived 1.5 hrs early to ensure we got a good spot, which we did) to see the big man himself - Santa Claus! Sebastian seemed to really enjoy himself and we even watched the parade again when it aired later in the afternoon on tv (and we even saw ourselves!!).

As for Santa, well I think he's gotten himself another fan... Right now as I'm typing away Sebastian's upstairs getting ready for bed with his daddy and I can hear him talking about Santa Claus, stating "He's my friend. He's a nice guy." He's even showing Santa how well he brushes his teeth!

Playing with Campbell while waiting for the parade to start





Santa Claus!!

Best Mommy In the World... (self declared!)

Jamie & I took some time this evening to back up all of our photos, including the pre-Sebastian years. While doing so I thought I would share the very first video taken of Sebastian. It's definitely not the best video (you have to turn your head to see it properly) but well, I find it quite humorous.. Poor kid!


P.S., and the joke is apparently on me. The other day I asked Sebastian who was the best and he said "Daddy!!". Guess he's on to me....

History

"And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -- yes, we can."

Last night history was made. The people of the United States voted for change - Barack Obama is the first African American President of the United States of America.

And as Sebastian is too young to remember this beautiful day in history I wanted to include this as a memento of this wonderful occasion.