We Like to Move It Move It

Today Ryan, Ivo, Burl and I went to see Madagscar 2 - it was a gooooood time.

Burl is really into animals these days - he already knows and loves lions, giraffes and zebras. The other night he brought the lion toy into the bath with him - when Ivo indicates by word or grabbiness that he wants the lion, Burl shakes his head saying "No, no, Owee - Mine!" Burl knows hippos - but is not in love with them as evidenced by his dissenting opinion when all of us were taking on roles from the movie, Burl did not want me to be the hippo - no one else seemed to disagree with the casting, however, ahem.

Ivo laughed and giggled and ate a lot of pop corn. This was his second movie in Canada, the first was Wall-E, same theatre, back in August. Ivo got to sit on a booster chair that velcros onto the seat. He loved it.

Ivo's been having a difficult time lately - and I have only theories and guesses including; actual growing pains, flu, low-grade undiagnosed infection somewhere, appendicitis, giardia... It's a chicken and egg situation over here; is he acting out cuz he feels bad? is he feeling bad cuz of all the lectures he's getting for acting out? Am I an awful parent? Am I ruining his life and his chances for future happiness?

This afternoon, after the movie and the unnecessary trip to mcDevils - where I thought we could get Madagascar movie toys - but we couldn't and it was too late (maybe the ad I saw was on UStv...), Ivo had a possibly sugar induced meltdown/tantrum that took an hour to diffuse. I think it was ice-cream related, but, I'm not gonna lie, it seems like he's been tantrumming everyday over something (or things) fairly inconsequential for over a month. The most frustrating, because nothing can be done about it, is when he freaks out over something irreversible, ie, "I WANTED TO FLUSH THE TOILET!" "I WANTED TO BRING THE CAR IN THE GARAGE!" "I WANTED TO ANSWER THE PHONE!" He will not let whatever it is go. WILL NOT. Even when the situation is reproduced so he can do whatever it is, he refuses to accept/adapt, what he wanted is gone and we all have to suffer, for ever.

Poor guy. We actually took him to the emergency room/urgent care center at the hospital on Wednesday night because he was having severe abdominal pain... The dr found nothing. We're waiting for urine test - but not expecting anything. Ivo's got an appt to see a family physician on Nov 19th - this is something he needs anyway - and now that he doesn't have appendicitis, I'm pretty sure nothing is wrong, but g-d, I'll just leave it at that.

Otherwise Ivo is awesome. He's got amazing ideas, imagination, energy and heart. The boys and I went to the park on Wednesday after Ivo's preschool (which he's taken to loudly refusing to go to at the last minute at least once/week). It was a great time and some of these pics are from then. Ivo's schoolmate Lindsay and her mom and brother showed up which was great great fun. On the way home, Ivo asked me why Lindsay had come to the park. I told him she probably had asked her mom and thought, "maybe Ivo will be there." And that her little brother thought, "maybe Burl will be there." And then Ivo said, "...and Lindsay Mom thought, "hey, maybe Sandy will be there." Sweet.

Today while he was singing loudly at the kitchen table and had been asked twice to use an inside voice, Ivo told me "but I wanna sing 'yo gabba gabba' loud so everyone can hear me." There was something so cute and perverse about that... I don't know what it is...

This morning I went to my first yoga class in NB. There were only 2 other students today and here's how small the town is; when asked where I had relocated from, one woman said, "Oh, you're Ryan's wife?" and then the other told me that she grew up next door to Ryan. This seemed a little too much. Here's how small the world is, the teacher has recently moved to Canada (and is in the process of getting her perm res) after teaching English in Singapore.