Monkey House

I suppose the title of the post should more accurately be, “The Things Your Children Do That You Wish You Were There For,” but that’s a bit long.

As everyone knows, you can’t be there for every second of your child’s life. If you’re lucky you’re there for some of the big ones, like first steps, first “real” words, first solid poo…er…yeah, maybe we can skip that last one (though I admit, I was strangely proud!). It’s just impossible to be there. Rather than be upset at missing stuff, I just try my best to picture it, and I get a good laugh out of it anyhow, and feel glad that whoever WAS there got to see it. After all, at this stage of his life he’s usually surrounded by people who love him, so it’s great that they get to share some firsts, too.
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I’m too big.

With Cole’s birthday came the arrival of our first wave of “big things” that occupy square footage in our house. There’s a climbing play structure, there’s a ball pit, there’s a water-table-slash-picnic-table, and now there’s a playhouse.

And I’m too big for all of them.
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A few days late; on June 27 (I should check my calendar to be sure I got that right… but I’m going to go daredevil style and wait to be flamed in a comment!) my friends Heather and Sacha had their first baby! His name is Cohen, though H called him Gummi (Gummy?) for a while before he was born and a short while after until they decided on his name.

So happy! Looking forward to meeting the little goober within a few weeks. It’ll be Cole’s first long road-trip. Not sure how to co-ordinate his sleeps for that trip… night-time driving seems like a good idea, but on the other hand, arriving will disrupt his sleeps.

Think think think.

Welcome to the world, GUMMI!!!

So Cole’s mid-June birthday created an interesting phenomenon this year. My father’s day felt like my “first” father’s day, even though it was my second. And Canada day felt the same. I guess because he was so small and helpless for the true “firsts”, and we were so tied to the house during those initial weeks, this feels like the first year we got to hang out and celebrate together!

For Canada Day we didn’t get up to TOO much, but it was still great. Went downtown during the day, hung out with Grammy and Abuelito in the evening.

Downtown Ottawa on Canada Day is what it is… lots of people milling around, being happy, dressed in red and white. Sure there are drunk people around, but they’re “cheery”, not belligerent. One thing that was different was the Queen’s visit. Made it tricky to get over to Major’s Hill Park. But after a bit of a wait while she went by (I saw her hat and her hand doing the “Queen wave”) and we were free to cross.
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People visiting with Cole will quickly notice bumps and bruises. His shins in particular seem to take a beating; though, now that he’s walking I’m not entirely sure where from. It used to be my suspicion that the bruises were from crawling over our long gate (there’s a metal bar along the bottom, not just bare floor), but now I’m not so sure.

He is a head-clanging fool. Gave himself a good little goose-egg when he unexpectedly threw his head forward into Alex’s earlier this morning.

Most of the time, you don’t feel guilty about these things. As a parent, you know that you can’t protect them from everything, and you know that a few bumps and bruises aren’t a bad learning tool. But sometimes, intellectualizing these things doesn’t take away from that horrid feeling when your child is crying (screaming!) from physical pain.
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