Saturday, March 31, 2012

Little Friend

Poor Raf is quite poorly with a bad cold. Nights have been terrible as he wakes up every half an hour or so with his running nose, sore throat, and cough. Despite that, though, he's in very good spirits, and in spite of not having a nap today he was in an amazingly good mood.

Last night I took Raf to Whole Foods where we met Rich to do some shopping. We decided to grab some food while there and as we ate dinner in the cafe, Rafi spotted a little boy (well, big boy as he was almost 4) sitting at the food counter. Rafi approached him and smiled and then started to skip around a post, ducking under the rope that was attached. Soon enough the other little boy had gotten down off his chair and started doing the same thing around the other post. They were really laughing and smiling. All of a sudden they both started jumping - still giggling - and then running around together. Before we knew it they were running amok through the cafe, and then through the store - leading one another astray. They were laughing, jumping, and running through the store until we caught up with them and their little spontaneous friendship came to an end.

It was lovely seeing Raf make a new friend, and to see him so unabashed and happy as connected with this other little cutie. They said goodbye and we all went on our way.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

No, please.

I think I must say to Raf, A LOT, "no, please, Rafi, no, please don't do that, please no", because Raf's new recent phrase is "no, please". He will say this sometimes if he means 'Yes, please", except that mostly he just says "please" when he wants something, but he says "no, please" mostly when I say things like, "Rafi, I need to change your nappy". He says it so sincerely.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Spring Break

I was on Spring break this past week. Sadly I had so much work to do that I didn't have a chance to spend the entire week with Raf, but we did have a fun week when he wasn't with Dani (his nanny) and since the weather was glorious we had fun going to the beach when we collected him after work. Last weekend was not as nice - weather wise - so we did some cooking, baking, riding on trains and school busses at the mall, music class, gym, class, and more.








It was a very busy Saturday, as usual, today. The weekend begins with Raf's gym class. He loves it and is really getting the hang of engaging in the class. The warm-up part is still a bit hit and miss, but we're very proud that he's doing so well and likes it so much. The class whizzes by and at the end they get stamps on their hands - which he also loves! (Although this did begin a brief stage of him colouring with felt tips on his hands!)


After a busy morning at gym class, followed by food shopping with Daddy while I graded papers, we headed to Olive Garden for some lunch. We've never been here before but someone told me about the bottomless salad and breadstick deal, so I was happy to go and sample things! To say that Raf loved the break sticks would be understating things quite a bit. He devoured them! He also ate two lots of grapes and perhaps smelled some lettuce, but mostly he ate bread. The kind server put in some additional sticks in our take home bag for later. Raf ate all those, too.



After a brief nap in the car, Raf was raring to go once again (all that bread) and we took the dogs for a walk on the trail near our house. Raf sprinted about a mile and of course on the way home was tired so rode on Rich's shoulders. He never used to like it but I suppose now he's a big boy he was loving it.



After our hike we headed to a park near to our house. In fact it's located at the school where Rafi will at some point go. I felt a bit teary thinking about it! He loved the big boy slide.


Life is so tough.


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Accents

We've all been wondering, and worrying a bit, about Raf's emerging accent. Will having English parents be pivotal to him developing the Queen's English, especially since we supplement by piping in the BBC, Peppa Pig, Kipper, Shaun the Sheep (granted, there's not much talking), and old episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine narrated by Ringo Starr. On the other hand Raf's friends are American so we have no idea what to expect, really, except that much to our surprise, Raf often sounds Italian. His favourite Italian phrase is:

"Whatz zis, whatz dat?" in a thick Italian accent.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Raf meets some new friends.

I have so many posts and pictures to share... including a Valentine's post! But before I start catching up I'll post a few pictures from today. We were planning to go away for a couple of days, since it's Spring break, but I have been under the weather so we decided to just do a day trip. Rafi is passionate about sheep, right now, so we looked around for an animal sanctuary tos take him to. In the end we went to a local farm in Freeport. Now, it is a bit tricky visiting a farm when you're vegan, and while this farm is one of the 'better' farms around, it still does raise animals to be slaughtered, which is, well, sad to us. But we took Rafi up there because it's important that Raf gets to know animals, and it's also important to us that he understands where food comes from, and why it matters to his mum and dad.

Anyway, up we went to Freeport and Raf just had a lovely time seeing the sheep and lambs. He also said 'hi' to some cows, chickens and goats, and we even managed a nice walk around the campground where Raf managed to find some big muddy puddles to jump in. He had such a nice time!









Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Three new(ish) things

1) Yesterday was an exciting day for us since Rafi pooped in his potty for the first time. He often likes to sit on his potty while we read him his potty book, and usually makes very dramatic sounds as he pretends to go potty. The night before it seemed like he was making a real effort to go, but couldn't muster it! Last night, after his bath, he managed a little poop and we were so proud.. as was he. We all clapped. And when ever I say, 'wow, Rafi, you pooped in your potty', we all start to clap. No pee pees yet, but we'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

2) Raf has discovered muddy puddles... namely, jumping in them. He gets absolutely soaking, and since it's mud season here, he also gets absolutely filthy. Walks take a LONG time since we can't drag him from the puddle. He loves it. Here is is a couple of weeks ago.


3) Raf at last has a lovey! He used to sleep with trains and taken them everywhere, but he's really loving Shaun the Sheep and we found a Timmy Sheep (spin off of Shaun, I think) and he loves it. He calls it baby sheep and it goes every where with him. This morning he threw his baby doll out of its stroller and put in baby sheep and fed the sheep his milk. Raf is really passionate about sheep, right now, just like he was about peppa and Thomas Train, so I'm not sure how long it'll last.


Saturday, March 3, 2012

gyms, music, and pushiness.

I've been a terrible blogger lately. Well done to Rich for holding down things here! But a quick blog from me to share some photos of Raf's gym class. Remember the terrible first class we reported a month or so ago? Well, things have improved vastly. While he always has fun, today he really started to get into the spirit of the actual class. I do believe that he even took part in one or two of the warm-up exercises (usually he is climbing all over my back.. and though he did do that still, he joined in with the other kids quite a bit).

He LOVED the different stations, especially the rings (video below), and poor little Raf cried when the first part came to an end. I had to reassure him that more was to come. Mind you, he started to cry again when he had to wait his turn to go on the bouncy castle, but he did a very nice job when it was his time to come on out (I was a little worried about that part).

I think that these classes are really helping Raf. On Friday morning he goes to a Music Together class. It can be a bit hit and miss, and lately, when Rich has taken him, he's had a couple of meltdowns when it comes to collecting an instrument from the box in the middle. Without being there I couldn't work out why he was having such a hard time, but yesterday I took him. It was a little heartbreaking when it came to the part of him choosing an instrument. He ran to the box with the other kids but then hung back waiting for everyone to finish before he tried to look for something. The problem was that the kids kept coming back for more instruments so he never got a turn... Eventually I went to help him and took his hand and helped him move past some of the others. Raf doesn't really strike me as a nervous or unconfident boy, but he definitely was struggling to be a little assertive during class. I do love that he isn't a pushy little thing, but of course I do worry that he might be one day pushed around.

So much to worry about.