2012: Year in Review

I say it's not too late to do a "Year in Review" sort of post. After all, 2012 was just a few weeks ago. So here's a look back at crazy 2012!

First-second quarter of 2012: The Little Man was weaned! We started in the spring and finished mid-June. He was 32.5 months. Woohoo! 

We looked into our infertility treatment options and made peace with it.

Then the Little Man got diagnosed with ASD, finally!

I got a new full time job! But there's no post about it for me to link to :(

We took a road trip to see The Wiggles for their final tour!

The Little Man then got diagnosed with apraxia and I was upset.

We all went gluten free! (More updates on that soon!)

I finally came out to his daycare worker about The Little Man's diagnoses.

We revisited fostering and are still hemming and hawwing....

We talked about goal-setting and everything we've achieved this year.

We had a crazy experience trying to find a banana on New Year's Eve.

Memories to last a lifetime! 

Is there anything special I've forgotten that you remember? What special dates in your family will remain etched in your memory from 2012?

Out The Mouths of Babes

I am a beach bum and I'm happy my son inherited my love of the sand and sea. Maybe it's because I took him to Barbados when he was only 3.5 months old or maybe it's in his genes. I don't know, but I'm glad he likes the heat and water like I do.

We've also taken family vacations to Florida three times so far and plan to go back at Christmas. I keep a magnet and postcard of Fort Lauderdale beach up on our fridge to remind us of good times and weather. Recently, the Little Man has been demanding to see them and he points at them and says, "beach! Go now!"

One evening, we decided to talk to him more about it. He was adamant and persistent, without getting frustrated (good on him!) to get us to understand what he was saying. After a lot of jumbled, incomprehensible sentences came out of him, we broke it down from the beginning.

He said, "beach. Me happy and Dada happy."
Ok, but what about Mama? Wasn't she happy, too?
"No," he said. "Grandpa go in wawa, say 'Bye-bye!'"

Oh my goodness! I couldn't believe what came out of his mouth!

Fighting back tears, I said, "yes, you're right. We put Grandpa in the water and said 'Bye-Bye.' Mama was sad."
"Go see Grandpa!" he demanded.
"No, we can't see Grandpa. He's dead. Maybe he can see you right now, but you can't see him. You can see his picture...."
And by then he was distracted by something else.

It's just amazing because the Little Man is almost three now and he's talking about my sister and I pouring my father's ashes in the sea in Barbados when he was just 16.5 months old.

He sat on the beach and played in the sand while my hubby watched him and took pictures of the whole event.

There he is playing happily. Who would have thought his brain was busy burning this memory into his brain?
It's amazing and I'm glad he remembers this and his Grandpa.

Just goes to show, you never know what will come out the mouths of babes :)

Those Lasting Memories

After my dad died, I got hold of a viewer and my hubby and I sorted through his collection of Super 8 films. They were badly labelled or not labelled at all, so it made for some interesting discoveries (70s porn anyone?)
We finally got through ALL the Super 8s and I brought in the good ones for processing.

The good stuff:

-My parent's wedding
-My sister's first birthday and first steps
-My sister playing in a wading pool with like, two drops of water because my parents were insane and paranoid
-My grandfather and uncle
-A surprise birthday party my mom held for my dad, which he hated and she never surprised him again.

The weird stuff:

-My parents never thought to turn the camera on themselves.
-My mom at work, at Bell Canada, and everyone is smoking in the office.
-My father always shot random women's asses - did he not realize other people would see these things? (and I can just picture my parents watching them together and my mom giving him hell)
-A tape called "Barbara." "Barbara" dances a bit. Then she's on a bed in a bra and undies. Then she puts on sunglasses and a hat and dances some more. Then she dances with a man. He gets a little too grabby and she hits him. They continue dancing. That's the video.
What drugs were they taking? Who the hell is Barbara?


Lessons learned:

-If you own a camera, take pics of *yourself* sometimes because looking at foliage and whatever other stuff you think is interesting is not as interesting as *you* over time.
-Take more shots of *people* and not things.
-Name the files appropriately, with people's names if you can, dates and descriptions, not just "old" or "Montreal." It may be obvious to you now, but it may not be 30 years down the line to someone else. Name footage as if someone 20 years from now needs to know what the heck it is.