Luca is already two - holy crap. Two-year old Luca is highly entertaining, incredibly frustrating, adorably affectionate and a bit of a pain in the behind when he wants to be.
He is also a beautiful, gentle big brother to Annick.
He talks a LOT, mostly in his own language, but uses real words when they are important (particularly involving butter). And he is obsessed with counting. He lives in an amazing world where the biggest number is 16, where numbers 1-6 are mostly in French and 7-16 are in English, where there is no English number 5, and only occasionally a number 8.
He likes to read with mama and papa, but has also started to 'read' to himself.
Papa has started him on the ice hockey too.
Luca has started to enjoy outings, like the aquarium. Ooh - sharks!
At night before bed, Luca reads in his reading corner with papa, and sometimes they look at photos of people we love.
We've started him early on helping out in the kitchen. We expect breakfast in bed for our birthdays by next year at least.
Little yellow bear gets a go in the swing!
Ah ma's shoes are very comfortable and make an awesome clicky sound on the floor.
First two three weeks of Annick have been lovely - she is pretty easygoing, sleeps a lot, feeds well (maybe too well) and smiles a lot too.
Not real smiles yet, but hopefully when they are real, they will be as frequent!
She is strong for a little one, just like Luca - lifting her head already during tummy time and has an impressive set of lungs on her. Both she and Luca got comments from the maternity ward midwives on their bellowing abilities, apparently it's a family trait.
She has a good head of hair on her - dark like Luca when he was born and mama, but this will probably change - she has a weird outcrop of blonde hairs at her left temple. Grey eyes too - but they may change also.
Skinny little chicken legs and long feet, long fingers and thumbs too.
She is a little water baby and likes baths but particularly showers.
She likes going out in the porte-bebe - here she is at Myer!
Meerkat.
Gorilla.
She often looks a bit suspicious - for good reason, probably.
Nous avons fait un party pour le petit garcon, avec Ah Ma, Ah Kong (aka Ah Nong), Ah Koo (aka Ah Dooooo), Mei Ling Ee, oncle Jerome, aunty Jenny et aunty Katie. Yay!
Papa a fait un bon escalope de veau pour son petit fils. Et le fettucine alfredo!
Les BALLONS.
Un bon gateau et un garcon chanceux!
Les cadeaux - un livre de Spot en francais - hourrah!
Annick's second cafe - Gypsey & Musquito on Bridge Road. The third one - Demitri's Feast on Swan Street. Dear lord, we are raising a babycino-swilling hipster baby.
Annick's fourth cafe - Bread and Jam for Frances, Luca's old baby stomping ground when J was working in Hawthorn.
Luca talks A LOT. Mostly in some unidentifiable language that is somewhere between Swedish Chef and ex-Yugoslav dictator, but he's clearly having a real conversation. A common word in his language is 'bi-yau' (I may not have spelled that right), as used in the following sentence: "bi-yau bi-yau bi-yau". We are still to find the Rosetta Stone on this, but it seems to mean something relatively benign:
He does say a lot in both English and French though and has started in the last two weeks to put words together - "big truck", "bib wet yes?" and the perennial favourite, food words with "more" in the front - "more lait", "more beurre", "more eggs", "more l'eau". And recently, the new concept of "no more", particularly when it comes to eggs:
Other favourite and much used words include "bebe", "pomme" (still pronounced "momme"), "wet", "hot", and rather adorably, "happy" which is chanted over and over again, when, we guess, he is happy, such as here, walking with papa and mama and Annick, and then using another favourite word ("WOW") when a big truck goes past:
A quiet day, but we went out for breakfast! Annick's first cafe - The
Abbotsford Club for a superlative double ristretto from El Salvador with avocado toast.
Compare this to two years ago, and Luca's first cafe - Laikon Delicatessen for an excellent short mac and a biscuit.
Annick... or Luca?
Luca... or Annick?
Also compare prawn dumplingness.
Luca 22 May 2010
Annick 6 May 2012
And newborn parental self-portraits.
After breakfast, a quiet day at home although Jason had to pop into work for half an hour. But got to come home and do this:
