Two weeks ago Canaan fell on the cement steps outside our house while on the way to the park with his nanny.  I'll never forget the horrified feeling of seeing the elevator doors open, Canaan crying and covered in blood and our nanny crying and saying, "I'm so sorry" over and over again.  We're fortunate that our landlord and next door neighbor is a doctor because he calmed the situation greatly til Nate arrived in a quick cab ride home from work.  One trip to the ER later, complete with waiting next to a teenager who had ODed on pills and kept falling over onto Canaan, me breastfeeding Eden on a chair in the middle of a crowded hall with a man leaning over watching, running over to the school to pass Eden off onto coworkers so I could enter the ER with Canaan, two failed attempts at an MRI followed by a sedative and a successful attempt and we were back home.  Although the nurses did not want us to leave the hospital without putting a shirt on Canaan even though his was covered in blood.  They were all certain he would catch a cold in the two minute walk and 70 degree weather.  This is what he looked like after he slept off the sedative and we gave him a bath.

Lips and nose triple the regular size

The next day he was looking possibly more gnarly with the scabs

Two days after the fall he got really sick on top of a hurt face. He was vomiting and had a fever for three days straight. For two days he was only awake 6 hours each day. There was nothing to do but cuddle and watch videos when he was awake because playing made him miserable.

Day Five his face was slowly recovering from the fall and his body was slowly making its way out of sickness

Ten days later the swelling was gone, with just a little green and black marking the fall still

With an almost-2-year-old and being more housebound due to a newborn who sleeps a lot, I've had to get more creative with our days.  That means spending more time on Pinterest looking up toddler activities.  But I also determined to do something, whether big or small, to celebrate each holiday with Canaan.  I think it makes the changing dates and seasons more fun and as he gets older he'll have a greater sense of anticipation of small holidays and hopefully some fun memories.

My friend Beth has two kids, who are each about a year older than my kids.  I'm lucky that she lives only one block away so we can meet at a park or a home with less effort.  She's great about doing activities with her kids, too, so we decided to do a Valentine's Day party together and invited another mom and baby to join.  A late lunch, cookie decorating, a photoshoot and valentine making ... except we never got around to the card making because after about 2 hours the house is an explosion and kids are running in all directions and it's just time to call it a day!

Canaan loved eating sprinkles and decorated one cookie over and over again.  Mostly he loves running outside and back inside at his friends' house and he absolutely adores Jack, who is 3 and therefore a great friend to run behind, observe and try to be like.  Eden sort of slept through most of it.  The photoshoot was a comedy of errors with kids laughing, trampling hearts, crying, smashing oreos into the rug and never sitting still long enough to get one of those adorable pictures that other people seem to succeed at.

We were packing and Canaan wanted to try on my rain boots.  

 Uh oh!

It's pretty hard to keep your balance in ginormous boots!

Meanwhile, we bought Canaan his own pair of plastic, $3 rain boots after a weekend of mud and rain at the YouthWorld retreat center, El Refugio. We constantly have at least 2 pair of his shoes (he only has 3) drying in the laundry area from all his puddle jumping so the boots seemed smart. But so far Canaan HATES them. We put them on him and he immediately started kicking his feet, walking funny, and saying "Halp. Off. Halp. Peeease. Halp. No." We left him in them, hoping he'd get used to them. Instead he toddled down the stairs to the terrace and spent ten minutes there prying them off his feet.

Cousins are so much fun.  I'm really glad my sister succumbed to my peer pressure (okay, so she was already thinking about it but our announcement just maybe pushed it over the edge) to start having babies!  These guys are just 5 months apart which is so much fun.  (Makes it super easy to pack for Jordan because he just fits all of Canaan's clothes that he just grew out of!)  While 5 months is still a noticeable difference now, they play super well together and in just a short time we won't notice any age difference at all!  

Not that it's always perfect.  They are still toddlers so that involves wanting to play with the same toy at the same time and Canaan has yet to realize that he is bigger and has more balance and can therefore knock his younger cousin over.  It also involves adults thinking that they are playing so well together that we don't have to watch them as closely.  We had a number of incidents where one boy was nowhere near where we thought he was!

(They are going to be pretty embarrassed by some of these pictures later!  And pictures courtesy of my sister.)

.... What about Eden now, Kim?  She needs a playmate!

Canaan's Auntie Kimby gave him his first haircut while she was here for Christmas.  I probably could have let his hair grow long and wild for another six months but there was family pressure and Nate was sick of combing out the crazy, gnarled knots!  It was a family event with my dad and FP taking pictures, Jordan toddling around the action and my mom and I singing "The Eensy Weensy Spider" and "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to keep Canaan entertained enough to stay on the chair.  Canaan surprised me with how calm he was and good at trying to stay still, though he started shivering near the end from being shirtless on our terrace at dusk.  

All done and posing with his new hair & Nona.

Auntie Kimby (and her way cooler than ours camera) caught you and your dad doing one of your favorite activities: flying.  

Sheer delight overwhelms your face as your body soars upward, contorting like a rag doll.  The minute that you start your downward descent your fingers come together and you sign and say "More, more, more."

Canaan has now officially entered his own social realm.  He got his first personal birthday party invite!  

Canaan and I frequently go to one park near our house in the morning and a different one in the afternoon.  In the mornings we would often encounter a little girl, Eva, and her nanny.  The two enjoyed playing together and became friends over the course of six months.  It wasn't until about a month ago that we came upon Eva in the park with her mom ... who turned out to be a teacher at the school we work at.  So while we haven't yet had a chance to know this co-worker well, our kids have been developing their own friendship.  Hence his first personal invite to a birthday.

Eva turned two and celebrated with all the usuals.  Cake, candy, and toys!  Canaan liked the different play stations that were set up and especially enjoyed coloring at the kiddie table and watching the older kids throw and catch balls.  He ate mini hot dogs, tried to be grown up by drinking his own apple juice, gave the birthday girl a kiss, and definitely cried when he had to leave to go home for a late nap.  

Because we failed to send you to the pediatrician a month earlier when you were supposed to get your shots, you have 19 month stats instead.  

You are now 33" tall and weigh 24.4 lbs.  You are in good health and your pediatrician gave you a prescription with nothing but a smiley face on it that said, "Keep doing a good job." 

You love to make a variety of animal sounds.  The lion is your newest.  You'll repeat almost any word if we ask you to try to say it, but usually they sound nothing like the original.  But words that you can say and words you understand surprise us every day!  Your favorites are still "agua" and "nunga" (which is supposed to be "avion" but sounds nothing like it.  You are working on getting your "up" and "down" sorted out and you call both of us "mama" until we remind you which is "dada."  You LOVE to pretend to count with us even though all the numbers sound the same from you.  You love the "Eensy Weensy Spider" and ask for it by "Pider" and doing your fingers.  You love your mom's made up train song and do your arms like a train to get her to do it.  You love any roughhousing with your dad and you are usually already signing and saying "More" before you've even finished whatever fun thing he started with you.

Meal times are all over the board.  Sometimes you are a happy eater and sometimes it is a total battle.  Currently you eat a banana in pieces every morning and you wake up saying "Mana" until you get your banana.  You still do better with pureed food but we are trying to make you eat some of whatever we have for dinner.  Some nights are successful and some are very frustrating :)  

You have a lot of energy and a lot of spirit.  Which means you go non-stop all day and don't like to sit.  It also means you throw some tantrums when you don't get your way.  You fall and pop right back up usually.

You are still super friendly.  You run up to dogs, kids, and adults of all ages at the park, wave to strangers and say "Hola" at the mall and generally want to be cooed over.  You love to give kisses and kiss your mom's tummy, leg or even a stranger's lips.  

Last Sunday my mom and dad decided to tear out the tired looking bushes from the planters on our terrace.  It was declared a family gardening afternoon.  

While dad hacked away and mom pulled weeds and added dirt to her flower bushes, I did what I do best!  I made a mess.  

I dumped dirt OUT of pots instead of into pots.  I shoved twigs from the bushes down our drain pipe and I used the broom to push dirt around the whole terrace.  

Sometimes I was maybe a little helpful but mostly I just got lots and lots of fresh, dark dirt under my fingernails.

We discovered that Ecuador, too, has Gymboree shortly after moving here.  We decided to sign up for it, knowing it would be a place where Canaan could climb and tumble during the dreary, rainy months.  But another main reason why I wanted to do it was in order to meet other Ecuadorian moms with kids Canaan's age.  

The first woman I met there who became a friend is actually Uruguayan, not Ecuadorian.  We discovered we live four blocks apart and after an invitation to an asado at their house one Saturday, also discovered that our kiddos share the exact same birthday!   Now we tend to meet at the park between our house once or twice a week and let the kids play together.  

Canaan trying to land a kiss!

Pretty proud of the smooch.

Pauli is very nurturing. She likes to feed Canaan and help him up after he falls. Canaan loves to run circles around her and to make Flor, Pauli's mom, run after him and catch him. Flor is very culturally Latina in the sense that since she found out I am pregnant, she insists on doing all the chasing and picking up of Canaan whenever we are together.

A little while ago, when we knew our 6 months of Gymboree were set to expire, I talked to Flor about starting a play group. She loved the idea. We started meeting, alternating between her home and my home 2 weeks ago. Right now the play group has one Uruguayan pair, one American pair (us) and a Romanian pair! It's pretty comical to try to communicate some times and languages fly around the room as we communicate with our kids and each other. This week we are adding an Ecuadorian mom and daughter to the group so that should be fun!

Play group at Pauli's house.

This was quite the fun activity for both of them!

Play group at our house last week.