new heights, new abilities

Mom, Jenn, John and Imogen should be flying back today and will be glad to know that our house is back to health. My fever broke yesterday and I started to have some more energy by evening. Just in time, we have two birthdays this weekend and friends coming by for dinner Sunday.

Ivan is becoming mister independent. He has basically dressed himself all week. He can take off all his pyjamas and put on his clothes, except for a little help with the "bum bum and zip zip" on his pants (button and zipper). He also got to see Bob the builder for the first time and has been going around the house "fixing" things. I've had to explain that the windows don't need fixing and to stop banging them with his hammer, but apart from that, he's pretty harmless and terribly cute. He made his own Ivan the builder costume with swim goggles and ball cap.

Of course, Dominique wants to do everything her big brother does. She was also trying to dress herself, only she was trying to put her foot in the pant leg from the bottom of it. When I told her she was doing it wrong, she screamed at me. I'm hoping her screaming will diminish as she acquires more and more vocabulary. It surprises me how much she is now using "sentences"- mostly repetitions of whatever Ivan has just said, but she uses them with full understanding. Today she said "help you", pushed a stool over to the washer and "helped" with the laundry. Then the twosome "helped me" make muffins. Dominique helped by stirring the dry ingredients in the bowl and right out of the bowl. Ivan stirred with sound effects and showed me how his spatula had become "a motor". Then Dominique added the frozen pears to the dry liquids while my back was turned. This was not so good, since they were still in a ziploc back. Of course they both wanted to stir the completed concoction at the same time while I tried to dish it into the muffin tins. The kitchen has seen better days, but Brian cleaned it up and we all had delicious muffins as a treat.

You'll never guess what the healthy ingredients were! It would make my "cousin" Janet proud. I'll give you a hint to start your guessing. I was trying to use up some juice that had been sitting undrunk in the fridge.