Fleeting Moments

Wedded Bliss

2010-09-22T21:15:00.004-05:00

Delinquent bloggers need not apply for my job, I've got it fully covered.

Holy smokes, I haven't blogged since July.

That might be just fine if we'd been sitting in a corner since July, but we've been BUSY! It was summer after all. Camping, swimming, biking, working, dancing, playing, it was a great summer. We're already back-to-school, back-to-activities. But never mind all that for right now, I'll backtrack through the pictures and try to dredge up some memories from the hard drive between my ears.

For today, may I please introduce a good lookin' cast of folks...

The gorgeous bride and her handsome groom are my cousin and her new husband. They were married on the September long weekend. The so-cute-you-could-bite-them little people are my kids. Really. I know, it's hard to recognize them. After all, Aaron is wearing pants, and you can't see how many teeth Meredith is missing and her beautiful hairdo hides the still-growing-out bangs!

More to follow. Promise.

A tale of two teeth

2010-07-05T21:01:00.002-05:00

As you may recall, high on the list of things to accomplish at the age of five was losing a tooth. After riding a bike with no training wheels and crossing the monkey bars were crossed off the list, losing a tooth remained there. Lonely. In top spot. Age six came, and still nothing more than a couple of wiggly teeth. You can imagine the level of excitement in the house yesterday when all of a sudden one of those wiggly bottom teeth became exceedingly more wiggly and I proclaimed:
"You'll lose that tooth this week."

The word of mom is the word of mom, after all.

Meredith wiggled it through bedtime stories, waggled it through bedtime cuddles, and had to be told more than once to settle down and go to sleep.

This morning the tooth popped out in a bite of toast.

She was more than a bit excited. You'd think she'd won the lottery. It was contagious actually, I got to feeling all giddy as she dashed around the house before daycare making sure all the preparations were in order.

The precious first tooth would be stored in her glow-in-the-dark tooth holder necklace for the day, then hop into the pocket on Toothy's back as she was hung on the door of Meredith's room to signal the Tooth Fairy her time was nigh.

She wanted to wear the tooth necklace to daycare and could NOT be persuaded otherwise, despite descriptions of massive calamities involving losing the tooth in the playground.

After daycare she looked a little different.

There was a bigger window in her bottom jaw.

And a different little pearly white in her hand.

I was amazed! Two teeth in one day! Had the other one been so loose that losing its next-door-neighbour-crutch was all it took for it to pop out too?

Why didn't she seem more excited?

As the story unfolded, apparently she was sitting in a big armchair with her friend and just happened to open up the tooth necklace because her friend just had to see the tooth, and it just happened to fall down the edge of the chair. An upholstered armchair with a non-removable cushion and no access from underneath.

Apparently more than one of her friends stuck their little hands down the side of the chair to see if they could find it. The proverbial needle in the haystack. As I gamely jammed my hand down the side of the chair too at pick-up time, Meredith casually mentioned that they'd found some pretty gross stuff down there.

But no tooth.

So in an effort to make sure the Tooth Fairy's visit was not for naught (and more than likely in her mind, to avoid a we-told-you-so discussion at home), she pulled out the next tooth.

It was loose, but nowhere near as loose as the one that fell out this morning. I must have asked her five times (with a grimace on my face) "Didn't that hurt?????"

On the drive home we had a talk about how likely the Tooth Fairy is well accustomed to missing teeth, the rate of children swallowing their teeth or losing them on roller coasters and all, and that perhaps should this scenario EVER present itself again we could content ourselves with WRITING A NOTE instead of PULLING OUT A SECOND TOOTH.

She dictated a note after we got home, just to advise the Tooth Fairy of the day's events.

"Dear Tooth Fairy,

I'm sorry I couldn't give you my tooth. I was at daycare with my tooth and I opened the container and the tooth came out. I lost it. I'm sorry, but another one fell out and is in my tooth holder.

From: Meredith"

Stubborn much??

End of an Era

2010-06-28T21:20:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is the last day of Kindergarten. An entire school year has passed in the blink of an eye. It feels like Meredith has been in school for three months, maybe four. Not ten. And tomorrow is the last day of this paradise on earth called Kindergarten. Meredith and I have been working on a little gift for the supreme genius of Kindergarten-ness, Madame Katie. A few weeks ago when I asked Meredith what she thought would be a nice gift for her teacher she cooked up an elaborate plan of inviting her over, making a nice seat on the deck under the umbrella, and serving her all kinds of delicious party foods and drinks.

This child loves a party.

I gently explained that her idea, though fabulous, would be tough to execute and "just imagine if EVERY Kindergarten child invited Madame Katie over.....the summer would be too short!"
So we settled on party food instead (with a few party drinks thrown in for good measure).

We assembled "Madame Katie's Summer Snacks" in a cute little metal tub that has dividers inside for six bottles and a bottle opener conveniently attached to the handle by a chain.

Meredith worked hard to do her best printing, and I'm hoping it's something her teacher will enjoy and use. I forgot to take a picture of the card she made, but the message is timeless.

"Thank you Madame Katie. I loved you being my teacher. It was nice being in your class. I will miss you. P.S. You always look pretty."

Inside, and out.

You can't make this stuff up...

2010-06-21T20:51:00.004-05:00

Or, Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in the McDonald's Bathroom.

Or, you can dress them up,

but you can't take them out.

We had quite an eventful weekend.

This weekend marked the last few days of the week that Dave was away in California for work, and his trip to the U.S. Open to celebrate a momentous birthday. Instead of heading to Pebble Beach, the three remaining household members headed to Virden (really, the Pebble Beach of rural Manitoba) to celebrate.

We were heading out to celebrate Airdrie and Kevin's wedding shower and social.

The bride-to-be looked lovely!

Some of our favourite small people were in attendance! Baby Owen, the newest of the cousins, was there and prepared to be shocked by the overwhelming family paparazzi.

Sweet Morgan worked the camera with all the assurance an older sister can bring.

These sweet faces were like an oasis in the desert by the time we finally arrived there.

I was hoping to leave the house by 10 to start the drive. At 9:00 I looked at the clock and thought "well look at that, we're almost ready to go and it's only 9:00."

That's like inviting the Bermuda triangle to relocate to your backyard.

The next hour disappeared into loading the car, coming back in the house for just one more thing, changing one child's clothes because they were soaking wet from playing in the grass, coming back in the house for just one more thing, locating the cat in the neighbours yard after discovering that one of the gates no longer latches, changing my clothes from the muddy cat, and coming back in the house for just one more thing.

All we had to do was get gas on our way out of the city and we'd be off.

At the gas station I decided to get a carwash. After all, we were all now in clean clothes and it would be a shame to get dirty by leaning against the car.

Aaron has a bizarre fear and fascination with car washes. He quite likes the manual type of carwash, but is terrified of the "blue" carwash. It's the type of carwash that has the soft cloth brushes. To him I guess it looks like he's about to be swallowed by a sea of blue octopuses. Octopi?

When we went in to pay for the gas I kept reassuring him that the car wash at THIS particular gas station was a very friendly one, and he continued to whimper with anxiety. The gas station attendant chimed in that indeed it was very friendly and in fact there were little elves that sprung up from nowhere to wash the car, but he'd have to look quickly or he'd miss them.

Ohhhhh so helpful.

So into the carwash we go, with Aaron sitting on my lap to keep him from wailing.

We presoak - no problem.

We soap up - no problem.

And then all the lights go out in the carwash and the door at the other end opens.

Our car is still covered in soap.

No elves.

After sitting in stunned silence for a bit, we drive the soap-mobile out and back around to the front of the gas station.

Again I take both kids out of the car, traipse into the shop, inform the attendant that the elves have gone on strike, get a new carwash slip, put both kids back into the car and head back for round two.

By some miracle we made it through the carwash the second time, fully washed, rinsed and dried, and headed out onto the open road.

Part way there, we made a roadside pitstop because Aaron needed to pee. I'd brought the potty along but as I was standing at the side of the road it seemed SO much smarter to me to just leave the potty in the car and teach my three-year-old how to pee standing up. As he watered the grass it occurred to me that I might have just opened Pandora's box. What was I thinking? It had never occurred to this child before that moment to even TRY peeing standing up.

I spent the next 10 miles waxing poetic about how that was only something we did when we were in the middle of nowhere with no potty and certainly was NOT as much fun as peeing sitting down.

By some miracle he hasn't tried it again since then. I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We stopped in Brandon for some lunch and a chance to play on the climbing structure at McDonald's. After wearing off some energy (and boosting their immune system...) in the climber we made one more trip to the bathroom before loading back up in the car to drive the final leg to Virden. I took all three of us into the wheelchair accessible stall as the bathroom was busy and it was the best way to corral everyone in one spot.

Aaron had his turn.

Meredith had her turn.

As I had my turn, the conversation went something like this:

Aaron: "Mommy, do you have a vagina?"

Mommy (who recognizes this conversation and now feels a deep sense of fear): "Yes"

Aaron: "Does Mer Mer have a vagina?"

Mommy: "Yes"

Meredith (chiming in ever so helpfully): "All girls have vaginas"

Aaron: "Do I have a vagina?"

Meredith: "No Aaron, you're not a girl, you have a penis."

Aaron (now wailing and throwing himself on. the. floor. of. the. stall.): "But I want to be a girl, I want a vaginaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

At which point I threatened him with loss of limb if he didn't get off the floor and quickly made a lot of conversation about hurrying up to wash hands and get on the road.

I could hear snickering from inside the stall as the dialogue unfolded, so like any mature adult, headed out of the stall with blinders on pretending not to see anyone else in the bathroom. Meredith washed her hands and I lifted Aaron up to wash his.

The lady at the next sink leaned over and smiled and said: "I've been there. One time my daughter asked her pediatrician if he was going to smell her nuts."

By some miracle we got back into the car without the ground swallowing us up entirely.

The rest of the day proceeded rather tamely by comparison. Aaron didn't break any of the shower gifts, despite his efforts to the contrary, and Meredith ate enough peanut butter marshmallow cake to sink a ship. Best of all we got to relax and visit with family into the evening.

We drove on to Deloraine that night and spent the night at Grandma G's apartment so we could sneak in a visit with her too. Aunt Lois was in from Alberta for a visit, so the kids got reacquainted with her and she won Meredith over for good by sharing the adventure of looking through an old suitcase. The suitcase originally belonged to a great-great aunt I believe, and the things in it were likely my great-aunt Bessie's. After watching her delight in exploring the treasures, Aunt Lois invited Meredith to choose something to bring home. Much to her delight, she chose a little wooden box filled with jewels!

She tells me she has it hidden under her bed, but the exact location is a well-kept secret.

Some cuddles with Grandma G were the biggest treasure of the day though.

The kids fell asleep after only 10 minutes on the road, and stayed asleep for a good portion of the drive home.

By some miracle I get to keep these kids!

Picnic Season

2010-06-17T20:58:00.003-05:00

As of tonight we're officially 0 for 2 on picnics actually held outdoors. Tonight was the family picnic at Meredith's elementary school, and owing to the rain, thunder, and my Ronald McDonald hair from the 3000% humidity, the picnic was held in the school gym instead of in the school playground.

A little inclement weather was not enough to prevent my kids from eating Freezies as long as their legs.

Did you know a Freezie that big is paradoxically equivalent to 3.5 litres of liquid? Or at least enough to make a three-year-old pee his pants in the carseat on the way across the city - a feat he had never accomplished before?

Seems every other child in the place was of the same mindset. The Freezie mindset that is, not sure what happened in their carseats after the fact. I'm sure these three mature Kinders didn't have any such toddler trouble...

The daycare family picnic was last Friday, and the pouring rain was enough to make me leave the camera at home. Little did I know I'd miss the chance to snap a photo of Aaron petting a llama with hair exactly the same colour as his. Ginger knows no bounds.

Fortunately, we brought a butterfly home with us so we could capture it on film.

Like her wispy bangs?

What's that, you say? Wasn't she growing her bangs out like more than a year ago?

Indeed I thought we'd made it through the bang-growing-out phase and were approaching the bangs-are-long-enough-to-stay-in-the-ponytail stage. In a fit of stubbornness (is that a word?) however, Meredith decided she did NOT like the hairstyle I had created for her daddy's birthday party a couple of weekends ago, and took matters into her own hands when I stepped out to run a last-minute errand (read: buy more beer).

I came home to find her previously braided hair in a fluffy mess around her head. When I asked what happened, she informed me she did not like the fabulous do, and when she couldn't get the elastic out, hand handily cut it (and a good sized chunk of her hair) out.

Voila, new bangs.

Fly little butterfly, fly......

Grad-u-huh?

2010-06-16T21:16:00.004-05:00

This little face graduated from Kindergarten today.

We've got the Diplome de Maternelle to prove it.

Doesn't it seem like we were just getting the Kindergarten Information Night invitation in the mail?
Doesn't it seem like we were just buying a backpack and pair of princess sneakers?
And now here we are, acting out song after song in French, surrounded by friends and a year's worth of construction paper and lamination.

We will never forget Madame Katie. Thank goodness today was not the REAL last day of Kindergarten. We've got about a week and a half more of Madame Katie time before mini-Madame-Katie has to say au revoir to real-Madame-Katie. I'm so thankful that the school is small and Meredith will have the chance to encounter this remarkable teacher in the hallways and on the playground. She has set the bar very high, and I'm so pleased that Meredith has spent the year with someone gifted to do what they do.

As far as we know, most of the friends will be back next year, and it will be interesting to see how their friendships change over time. I'm fascinated by the idea of looking back on these pictures of Meredith with her friends when she's a teenager. How many of them will still go to school together?

Will Mr. Blue Eyes, aka Josh still be there?

Ayden is moving to a different school in September, and we'll all miss the chance to see him and his fantastic family on a regular basis at daycare and school. Gabrielle will be back for Grade 1, as will the rest of Meredith's daycare pals.

Party-dress Kate was cute as a button and Meredith is sweet on Kate's baby brother. Maybe we can work a brother swap on those days that she's not so sweet on her own little bro.

It was a beautiful, sentimental day. The kids did a fantastic job of preparing a program for their parents to watch and I can't imagine how Madame Katie still looks so young after teaching 17 Kindergarteners the lines to a play performed entirely in French!

As if graduating wasn't enough for one day, there was more excitement to come on this wonderful Wednesday. Tonight was also the year-end piano recital. It was an exciting event, capping off Meredith's first year of piano. Her lovely teacher, Carol, hosted the recital at a local nursing home so the kids had a chance to perform for their families and some of the residents of the home. Aaron charmed all the ladies, asking question after question about their wheelchairs and walkers, and even chatting up a lady with a patch on her eye. Nothing is off limits to that kid, and none of the elderly folks seemed to mind one little bit! He sat on a few knees, tried to abscond with a cane, and sat still better than I could have hoped when the performers were playing their pieces. It's a piano school full of girls thus far....will Aaron be the one to change that?

This is the only still picture I managed of the evening, all the students and the eternally-patient Carol. She has saintliness running through her blood.

Meredith is the youngest of the students and did really well at the recital tonight. She stumbled a few times, but kept right on going. As she was playing one of her songs, one of the nursing home residents said 3 or 4 times "She's cute" in the hearing-impaired version of sotto voce. After she finished playing, Meredith asked me "Was it rude that I didn't answer that lady who was asking me a question while I was playing?"

Bravo, my six year old! Oh the places you'll go.....

Birthday Bashes - The Remix Version

2010-05-03T22:02:00.005-05:00

Backtracking from Aaron's big day was the combo birthday party that has become our family tradition. With the kids' birthdays so close in time, and Easter generally sandwiched in the middle somewhere, it just seems to make more sense to get both sides of the family together to celebrate once, rather than try to find two dates that work for most people.

It's got nothing to do with me not wanting to clean the house to big-party-standards-level twice in a month.

Thankfully the kids really seem to enjoy it. In a way, I think it makes celebrating their birthdays easier for each of them to cope with. Kids' emotions are so much more honest than a grown-ups and it's easy to understand why it's tough for them to watch another child open gifts when they are opening none. Don't get me wrong, I abhor the practice of giving a child a gift so they don't feel "left out" on someone else's special day, but I do appreciate what a tough lesson it is to learn. Our joint family party is the day the kids receive the bulk of their presents and they're generally so enthralled in their own loot that they haven't got a moment to notice what their sibling is getting.

Or, if you're Aaron, you're so deep in a gift bag that you wouldn't see a herd of zebras if they ran through your house.

It was a wonderful day, and a terrific reminder of how fortunate we are to be surrounded by the love of our family and friends on these important occasions. Our house felt like it was bursting at the seams with people who genuinely love our kids for the special small people they are. When I tucked Meredith into bed that night she said "Oh Mommy, today was totally the best!"

Now that's worth cleaning the house for!

This year's choice of birthday cakes was exponentially less labour-intensive than last year's Atomic Betty and Thomas the Train cake frosting marathon. Meredith has decided she doesn't actually LIKE cake (Auntie Krista is shuddering somewhere....) so opted for an ice cream sundae buffet instead!

Aaron is still just young enough to not have formulated a specific request for a cake, so I tried a recipe my friend Linda has made every year for her son for at least 16 years. The title seemed fitting for our little whirling dervish, and Dirt Cake was made! It was delicious, most likely owing to the main ingredients being Oreo cookies, whipped cream, pudding and cream cheese. Topped with gummy worms and a front-end loader, of course.

Aaron wanted to eat his serving of the cake with the front end loader but settled for licking the cake off of it intead.

As if two birthdays to be celebrated wasn't enough, it was also the perfect opportunity to give Dave his 40th birthday present in anticipation of his upcoming birthday in June. I've been cooking up this plan for a year now, and was so excited for him to finally find out! Dave's headed to the U.S. Open golf tournament in Pebble Beach in June, so I figured finding out about it in April would be enough lead time to arrange flights and car rentals and all that jazz.

He was completely surprised, which was the best part of all!

Still to come, the blow-by-blow of Meredith's big day. But maybe another day, because this party girl needs her beauty sleep.

Birthday Bashes

2010-05-03T21:36:00.005-05:00

I'm three or four birthday parties behind at this point. No time like the present to catch up, before the memory fades to black because despite my attempts to argue to the contrary, if my kids are getting older apparently so am I!

Spring is the birthday season in our house. Meredith and Aaron are born six weeks apart, so spring brings anticipation of their two birthdays, Easter, and the melting of the snow all in a short period of time!

Today is Aaron's birthday, and we've finally ascertained for certain that he is three. He's been campaigning for weeks to be considered five, but I think we've settled on three as of today. I can only speculate that he's entranced by the age of five because Meredith seemed to be five for sooooooo long and there are some amazing things five-year-olds can do.

Like chew gum.

Anyhooo, today is the big day and furthermore it's his champagne birthday. Three on the third. We celebrated with milk instead of champagne, spoilsports that we are. He didn't need to get his kicks from champagne, he got them from his brand spanking new guaranteed-child-wearer-outer, also known as a trampoline.

I'm sure he burned a thousand calories before he even ate his birthday breakfast of Froot Loops. We're a no-sugary-cereal household except for two times a year. The kids get to pick a box of any kind of cereal they like for their birthday, and his choice was Froot Loops. Good thing we got the trampoline!

After breakfast it was off to daycare. In honour of his special day, we asked one of his favourite people to come by and provide a little birthday fun for him and his daycare pals. He is lucky enough to have a music session every week with the amazing Sonya from Wee Be Jammin' music. She does a music program for each of the age groups at the daycare, and Aaron has most of her material memorized. Wednesdays are usually "Sonya days" and he brings his fancy green guitar from Mexico along with him. Today he got to jam out with his guitar idol.

He and his friends also jumped, played, danced, threw scarves in the air, and generally had a rockin' toddler-sized good time. Nobody cried, and nobody peed their pants, so it was an unparalleled success.

After daycare he did another stint on the new trampoline, then chose the ever-popular grilled cheese as his special birthday meal. Good thing we pay closer attention to the four food groups the other 364 days of the year! To cap the day off, he picked ice cream at Sargent Sundae over dessert at home, so off we went. I was curious to see if turning three had magically improved his level of cleanliness when eating an ice cream cone.

It hadn't.

Good times, nonetheless.

Just imagine what the next year will bring...

Awaiting Mr. E. B.

2010-04-03T22:11:00.004-05:00

The children were nestled all snug in their beds with visions of a chubby white bunny dancing in their heads.

I'm super far behind in blogging about the goings-on of the last two weeks, but anticipating the arrival of the Easter Bunny just simply cannot wait.

Today was a homeschooler's math lesson dream. Meredith must have spent close to an hour this morning counting the plastic eggs that the Easter Bunny had left behind in years past. Then she divided the eggs into piles of matching colours. Then she made a chart using her brand new gel pens to identify how many of each colour there was. Then we discussed odd numbers versus even numbers, and she divided all the even numbered egg piles into her basket and Aaron's basket equally. Then she transferred a yellow into the greens to make two more even numbered piles, and divided those into the two baskets. Thennnnnnnnnn she counted the two baskets to make sure each contained equal numbers, and for good measure (and because I was just finishing reading the WHOLE newspaper for the first time in a week from forever) she counted them again to be doubly sure.

My accountant assures me there are 25 empty eggs in each basket.

We also decided to give the Easter Bunny a little leg up in the world and put a small 'M' on half the eggs, and an 'A' on half the eggs. Meredith dictated a note before bed that we left beside the empty eggs.

We're enjoying the preparations this year, because we just don't know how long the magic will last. Earlier in the week, Meredith came to me with a big idea. Her suggestion was to make a mud puddle at the gate at the back door and the front door so that the Easter Bunny would have to hop through it to get to the door, and then would leave dirty footprints so she'd know for sure he was "really real."

We didn't end up making a mud puddle before bed, but it did rain most of the day yesterday so I guess the ground is still damp enough.....

Considerate and fastidious bunny that he is, he helped himself to a paper towel and cleaned his paws before he got too far into the house. Looks like he helped himself to a carrot too.

Happy Easter!

Book of the Week....and birthday bears!

2010-03-24T21:39:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time since I took the time to make note of what book is capturing the interest of the little people around here. Ever since I got a Kindle for Christmas, I've been altogether too interested in what books are capturing MY interest again! It's great though to see that both of the kids share my love for books, and that they're not just reserved for bedtime-story use.

Meredith's favourite right now is a neat book called "Imagine If....." by Karen Halpern.

It's a coil bound book with each page divided in to three sections inside.

The child can flip the top, middle, or bottom section to whichever image strikes their fancy that particular day. It provides you with a subject (teacher, invisible kid, space alien), an object (presents, a race car, ice cream cones), and a location (at a waterfall, in a science lab, at a birthday party). The rest is up to your imagination. We take turns telling stories, sometimes flipping the pages randomly, sometimes choosing the panels carefully. It's so entertaining to listen to Meredith wind a tale, though in true Meredith style, it usually has several chapters!

The subject of greatest attention around the house these days though, is her upcoming birthday. She turns six in TWO MORE DAYS. We've had a countdown on the whiteboard for the last 22 days. A spare calendar has been hung below the whiteboard and has the first 24 days of March x'd off. Everyone in a three mile radius knows her birthday is coming!

Her wish this year was to have a birthday party at the Build-A-Bear workshop, so we're off to the mall on Saturday with six of her Kindergarten friends to celebrate. I'm gathering the last of the loot bag items tonight, and included will be little monogramed t-shirts I made for each child's bear. This is Meredith's first Build-A-Bear, Sarah, modelling the finished product:

And a sadly blurry shot of the rest of the shirts.

Her excitement is contagious, even though the prospect of my little girl turning SIX is enough to make me want to search out the Centrum Silver.

Vector of transmission

2010-03-20T20:38:00.003-05:00

Meredith's toy recorder will never be quite the same.
Not since it was thoroughly contaminated by the red-headed vector of virus transmission. Chief of Disease Spread.
Otherwise known as the child with an ear infection, maybe a chest infection, and green stuff oozing from every possible orifice.

Reporting in

2010-03-18T21:52:00.003-05:00

This was report card week for Meredith's school. We started a tradition in November when she received her very first report card by rewarding her hard work with a little gift. We're really proud of what a great kid Meredith is, and it seemed like a nice opportunity to acknowledge that school is her 'work' and she had a positive 'performance appraisal'. Better still, she likes the boss. In fact, I'd say we all like the boss.

Madame Katie is royalty in our household.

One of the funniest of Aaron's expressions this year, has related to Meredith's Kindergarten teacher. Since meeting her in September, Meredith has been truly enamoured with this gifted early-years teacher. Many a sentence in this house starts with "Madame Katie says...." Like so many little siblings, Aaron tries his best to do just what Meredith does. So when she talks about Madame Katie, he talks about Madame Katie. Except he can't fully enunciate all the consants in quite the same way....

Enter the phrase "Damn Katie is Mer Mer's teacher. She's gonna be my teacher too."

Ahem. It's a Herculean effort to keep a straight face, yet we practically bait the poor child into saying it more often so we can enjoy it.

Anyhooooo, the report card arrived on Tuesday, the evaluation was all good, and Meredith's reward was a shopping spree at Toys R Us for anything her little heart desire.

As long as it didn't cost more than $15.

Meredith is now the proud owner of a Littlest Pet Shop virtual pet or some such creature. She tells me it's a zebra and his name is Zee. Or Zed. Depending on her mood.
We're off to see Damn Katie tomorrow morning for parent-teacher interviews, or student-led conferences as they're now called. You can't help but feel more cheerful and optimistic about this world after spending 10 minutes with a Kindergarten teacher.

Gettin' a grip

2010-03-13T20:25:00.003-06:00

I'm ashamed to say that I rarely take the time to sit down and work at the table with Meredith. She doesn't have homework from school as yet, and it seems like the time after school and before bed is so jam-packed with activities and dinner and toy-related mediation. that we rarely sit down together to do pencil and paper activities. We spend some time several times a week practising piano together, but most of that doesn't involve the use of a pencil. It came as a bit of surprise to me then, a few weeks ago, to notice that she has changed her grip on the pencil from a traditional tripod grip, to a four-fingered or quadripod grip. When I tried to get her to hold the pencil in a tripod grip, she said her hand hurt, and quickly moved back to what was comfortable.
I'm an O.T. so I'm supposed to know something about this.
Sadly for her, my line of work involves contact with very few kindergarten-aged kids. If she was showing signs of dementia, or perhaps needed her risk for falls assessed, I'd be the O.T. for the job. Fortunately for her, I know other O.T.s who spend their day with the preschool set, and who were very helpful!

Enter the pencil grip.

Her favorite is this charming little orange number called "The Claw". Sounds much more sinister than it really is.

Second on the list is the traditional triangle grip.

Not featured in our little pencil grip photoshoot was a third style called a crossover grip that was altogether too big for her small hands, and has been relegated to the depths of the junk drawer.

I'm really amazed by how comfortable she finds the grips, and how eager she was to use them. Part of the appeal may be her recent desire to have a disability! We recently read a book called "You, Me and My OT" by Paulette Bourgeois. It's a very cute story about a grade-school girl named Emma who has an O.T. come to her classroom to work with her. After reading the book the first time, Meredith woke up the next morning and announced she "wished she had a disability, just like Emma." It's so fascinating to look at life through a child's eyes, and a constant challenge to figure out how best to respond!

In retrospect, the timing of the book and then introducing the pencil grips couldn't have been better. I'd be a liar-liar-pants-on-fire if I even pretended that I'd thought any of it through before it happened. I'll happily take the credit for how well it's going though.

Movin' on up!

2010-02-28T20:21:00.002-06:00

Doesn't he look extra happy about something?

This was the week Aaron moved out of his crib, and into his big bed. To say I had been dreading this step in development would be a bit of an understatement. Aaron is so much busier than Meredith ever has been.....the prospect of putting him in a bed he could get out of was disheartening to say the least! I love my sleep, and wasn't keen to start missing it again!
We've had some test runs, most of which have gone somewhat miserably. At the camper last summer we had Aaron sleep in one of the big beds to avoid putting the playpen back in. It took close to an hour every nap time and night to get him to sleep, and there was simply just no leaving him to manage to fall asleep on his own. The most memorable evening of trying that resulted in him removing the screen from the emergency exit window, and putting his head between the slats of the mini-blinds. We tried staying at a hotel with friends on Boxing Day, and I ended up driving Aaron home to sleep in his crib after two hours of trying to get him to sleep in the hotel room. His lap-sleeping suppertime antics in Mexico spared us a week full of painful bedtimes there!
The strategy we used with Meredith was to take the side off the crib to convert it to a toddler bed. On the first night we told her she could not get out of the bed on her own, and needed to call for Mom or Dad if she wanted to get out. We told her the side would go back on the crib if she got out of the bed. And to our amazement, she stayed in bed. In fact she incorporated the message so well that just this past year we had to reprogram her with a new message! We concluded that now, at age 5, she was old enough to go to the basement to play if she woke up early on a weekend and nobody else was awake.
We had no confidence that the same sort of conditions would work for Aaron, and yet by some miracle, they did! And some proud of his big bed is he!

Perhaps working in our favour is the fact that his big bed is a lovely loft bed, passed on to us by Aunt Judy, which he is unable to climb out of independently. The logic of raising a toddler higher off the ground to keep him from getting out of bed is questionable, yet remarkably effective. We're seven days in, and no head injury to report, so I'm proclaiming it a success.

Perhaps they are more alike than I think...

And so the crib that I well remember assembling with a giant pregnant belly in my way in our little house on Amherst Street was taken apart for the last time in our house today. We're excited that it will be used again soon though. Our new niece or nephew due to arrive at Uncle David and Auntie Krista's house in two month's time will surely find it a cozy nest as well!

Viva Mexico!

2010-02-21T19:28:00.010-06:00

We survived international travel without an international incident.
We didn't even get searched on our return to Canada, and that's saying something where travel with our family is concerned.
We've been home for a week now from a fantastic week-long holiday in Playa Del Carmen. The laundry is all done, the suitcases are put away, and I think the sand is finally out of all of our creases and crannies by now.
This is the first time we've flown with Aaron since he was about 10 months old. This time last year, we were contemplating a winter holiday, but stopped thinking quickly when we realized that the prospect of taking 1 1/2 year old Aaron on an airplane was enough to give us protracted nausea. Last year we opted for a holiday we could drive to, and spent a fantastic, snowy week at Elkhorn Resort.
Either we're a year more delusional, or Aaron has changed considerably, and air travel it was. Our flight left at 6 a.m. from Winnipeg, so we woke the kids at 3:30, popped them in a taxi, and headed to the airport with them in pyjamas. It's a five hour flight to Cancun.
Five hours.
How people fly a second farther than that with small children is beyond me. They are people of greater intestinal fortitude than I!! Though I will say, the flight down went off without a hitch, the kids seemed so entertained by everything that happened that the time passed quickly, despite the fact that neither of them slept a wink. And all seemed right with the world when we arrived at the resort and saw this view:

The early morning flight time meant we still had lots of time to enjoy the pool and the ocean on our first day, before heading for dinner. Aaron quickly established what was to be his nightly dinner routine.
Step 1. Get changed for dinner. Make oneself look as handsome as possible, so as to attract even more attention.

Step 2. Eat 1 to 2 bites of the food offered. Doesn't matter if the watermelon is carved like a marlin or not, you still only eat a bite or two.

Step 3. Crawl in to Mommy's lap, close eyes, and fall asleep.

Six out of seven of the nights, Aaron didn't see the end of dinner. Some nights he barely saw the beginning! It put to rest any concerns I had about how difficult it was going to be to get him to sleep, seeing as we were all sleeping in one giant bed!

The bed really was the only downside of the holiday. After the first night Dave commented to me, "Hmm, that review on TripAdvisor was right, it is like sleeping on a box spring." I was kind of glad I hadn't read that review. We slept with the kids between us on this so-called mattress, and two wigglier sleepers you never have met.

We had the great good fortune of being able to travel at the same time as Dave's sister Adrienne and her family. It was so much fun to have Auntie A, Uncle Mojo, and Amy and Claire to share the holiday (and the frozen drinks!) with.

The kids loved all that time to play with their cousins, and still managed to make new friends. Aaron generally attracted the front desk staff and senior citizens from other parts of Canada. One afternoon, he and Uncle Darrell went to the bar to get drinks and were a long time coming back. When they eventually returned I asked Darrell if the line-up had been really long (as it often was) at the swim-up bar. His response? "No, we've had the drinks forever. We had to stop on the way back to say hello all of Aaron's people."

Meredith made friends with a Norwegian girl named Emma who could have passed for her twin at a quick glance!

The older cousins loved the lure of the waves and spent hours jumping and body surfing.

Our kids preferred to swim in the pool, I guess for the greater sense of control they had with their smaller size there. Meredith swam across the pool time after time, and seemed tireless. It certainly paid off, as her first swimming lesson home she graduated out of her class and is moving on to Dolphins! Aaron loved holding onto the hand rail thoughtfully placed in the pool for toddlers and persons with mobility difficulties and letting his feet float up behind him. As the week progressed, he got braver and braver and would creep ever deeper, constantly asking "Is this deep Mommy?"

Dave has been taking a photography course and put his new knowledge to quick work during the trip, taking photo after amazing photo. I'll make a separate post with more of my favourites of the scenery and sights around us. But here are a few of my favourites of our family:

Now if only there wasn't the matter of that five hour flight home.....

What's goin' on...

2010-02-03T23:08:00.003-06:00

January flew by in a haze of wintery weather and reacquainting ourselves with the weekly routine. We had the seriously nasty weather, and the unseasonably warm weather, and it seems like February is already following a similar pattern. The kids couldn't play outside one day last week due to cold temperatures, but have been out every day this week. Strange weather afoot! They've got new snow shovels and I laughed all the way to work one day last week after telling Aaron he "had to stop shovelling and get in the car for daycare." Imagine having to ask your child to stop shovelling.

The news of a massive earthquake in Haiti was everywhere in January. Images were spread across the newspaper every day and Meredith came home from school asking for money to donate to a project the grade 5 students had taken on to provide aid. I struggled with how best to describe the situation to her in a way that would help her appreciate how very fortunate we are in our daily lives without unnecessarily frightening her or overwhelming her empathetic nature. I ended up taking the kids out shopping for all the pieces necessary to creat a relief kit for the Mennonite Central Committee. It was a much more concrete way for them to see how our family could provide for another family in need. The kit contained essentials such as toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap and shampoo, combs, nail clippers, laundry detergent and so on. Also on the request list was four bath towels, so after much consideration, our relief kit was complete with Diego, Dora, Tinkerbell, and Cars beach towels. Meredith wanted so badly to add some toys for the kids, so the towels seemed to be about the only compromise we could make on the essentials. Aaron was helpful in his own way, asking if Haiti liked blue toothbrushes as though Haiti were a single person. I can't fathom the struggles of young families in that country in the days and weeks that have followed the quake, and it has made me extra thankful for the health of my family.

The other topic of prolonged discussion was our upcoming trip to Mexico! We leave in three days, and the small people in the home are some excited. Their suitcases are packed and have been wheeled around the house a million times. As they are going to miss the Valentine's parties at school and daycare, we made some lollipop valentines for Meredith to take to Kindergarten tomorrow,

and mini cupcakes for both of them to share with their daycare friends.

I'm excited about being in Mexico (and about not making meals or doing laundry for a WHOLE WEEK) but am so leery about the 5 hour plane trip with Mr. Busy Pants that it's throwing a bit of a damper on the anticipation. Nothing being done the plane ride and sampling my first margarita by the pool won't fix.

Christmas 2009 - Part 2

2010-02-03T22:53:00.004-06:00

It is completely pathetic to be so behind in your blogging that you're writing about Christmas in February.

But it needs to get out of the way so we can move on to the events that followed!

Christmas Part 2 (or partie deux as our budding francophone reminded us) involved a day full of food and fun with the Poole clan. Complete with Auntie Barb's famous cinnamon buns, and Auntie Krista's famous cheesecake. Not hard to see why we love these people. :)

Morgan was her usual sweet self, and allowed her cousins to make funny faces at her, her Auntie to squeeze her, and isn't yet quite old enough to eat a full portion of Auntie Barb's cinnamon buns. She's a keeper.

Aaron introduced Morgan to the life skill of sharing. It went something like this.
Morgan opens a lovely new toy which is a ride-on car/walker combo with lights and sounds and a shape sorter.
Uncle David quickly puts said toy together.
Morgan gets one swipe at a triangle, and Aaron takes off on the car, only to return after being threatened with bodily harm and nearly run the poor child over.
I can hardly wait until she's big enough to dish it back!

Uncle Brad nursed a nasty headache, which is a dangerous thing to have in a house full of small children with new toys. Fortunately the Advil/Magic Bag/Ashka-cat-on-the-lap worked it's wonders and he felt better in no time. Or put on a brave face so he could have his share of the cinnamon buns.

Meredith fell in love with her new rag quilt, specially made for her by her Nana. It's so bright and cheery, and toasty warm.

My children were truly blessed this Christmas to have two families that love them so deeply, and enjoy spending time together.

The cinnamon buns didn't hurt either.

Christmas 2009 - Part 1

2010-01-12T12:02:00.005-06:00

We took the Christmas Tree off to Christmas-Tree-Woodchipping land on the weekend, so it's high time to post about Christmas before Valentine's Day is kissing us on the lips. Christmas seemed to go on forever this year, which wasn't a bad thing at all. It was so nice to have the family and friends (and presents) spread out over several days rather than all at once.
Christmas morning came, and the jolly old elf had been true to his word. He tiptoed in while we were sleeping and left a bounty of goodies for creatures great and small. Even the cats had their stockings filled.
Meredith had mentioned to Santa more than once that her heart's desire was a Nintendo DSI. Cautious-for-the-sake-of-parents Santa at the mall had mentioned that his elves were finding it difficult to get parts to make these little delights so he hoped they'd be able to find enough to make her wish come true.
And they did!

Aaron seemed at risk to be lost in the giant bag Santa used to wrap his gift...

...but emerged victorious with a giant fire truck and semi truck/car carrier. He has delighted in pushing these around the house and carrying his new toy hamster in the bucket of the ladder truck. He has learned an important life lesson though, one should always wear underwear when riding a fire truck. Unfortunate injuries may be sustained if ridden nekkid.

The hamsters ( little Zhu Zhu pets that Santa tucked into their stockings) were cute enough that I was wishing Santa had brought me one too! As were the adorable new hats sent from Aunt Lois in Alberta for both the kids.

After a flurry of gift opening at home, we got dressed and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Rose's for Christmas day. There was a delicious brunch, another mountain of presents, and best of all, a full day with the cousins, aunties, uncles and grandparents.

Here's Aaron surveying the present landscape under the tree!

And here's Aaron under the tree himself. Christmas is overwhelming to all of us, not least to a 2 year old.

What seemed like several hours later the gifts were open, the kids were playing, dinner was nearly ready, the martinis were served and there came an unearthly howl from the basement. The sound was coming from Aaron who had apparently fallen off the couch and had a terribly sore arm. He hadn't been into the martinis.
The poor little guy just couldn't be consoled, and after half an hour of trying to comfort him we headed off to Children's Emergency. The roads were horrifyingly bad, thick with new snow and icy underneath. Dave did a great job of getting us there without further injury and the staff at Children's had us in and out in the wink of an eye. The doctor we saw felt his arm wasn't broken, more likely sprained and sent us on our way with a dose of Tylenol and a new teddy bear.
When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's Meredith wanted to know where her teddy bear was. Eventually she could be persuaded that not getting a new teddy bear was in fact a good thing on this particular day, as she avoided significant bodily harm.
Christmas with the Poole side followed a few days later, and was just as delightful, minus a trip to the ER. Part 2 to follow!

On the road to Christmas...

2010-01-02T20:44:00.005-06:00

Don't blink or you'll miss Meredith's Christmas Concert...

This is the best, and by best I mean only, photo we have of Meredith's Christmas concert. She did great, the whole group of Kindergarteners made it on and off stage without crying, and were the cutest little pack of elves. They were only on stage for maybe 90 seconds total by the time the got lined up, sang their song, and filed off. We have video of the event, but this was the only still picture that was captured. I can't even find her in the picture!

The kids found all kinds of ways to entertain themselves while I was tidying and baking and wrapping. Most of them involved turning the house upside down, so imagine my pleasure when they discovered the joys of iPods and headphones!

Houston, we have silence.

Headphones are a beautiful invention. Until your five-year-old decides to have a conversation with you while wearing her headphones, not realizing that her voice is TEN TIMES AS LOUD AS NORMAL.
Since that time, Aaron has started saying one of his funniest phrases too. I was trying to get his attention that day to tell him something and he couldn't hear me because of the headphones. Eventually I knelt down beside him, lifted the headphone, and spoke into his ear. Ever since then, if he doesn't hear what I'm saying he channels his inner octogenarian, runs up beside me and says "Talk in my ear Mommy." It cracks me up every time.

I walked into Meredith's room the weekend before Christmas when Dave had the kids out running an errand and found this interesting scene. All of her favourite stuffies were lined up in rapt concentration on something. What you can't see in the picture is that they're facing the lovely little Christmas tree she has set up on her dresser. I concluded that they were having a tree-gazing party. Meredith informed me later that she'd been teaching them 'school things' like how to count to 20 in French, and what sorts of things make your friends sad.

Before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve. Santa continued his annual tradition of popping in for a visit before the kids went to bed.

He was a hit, to say the least.

This was a tremendous relief to us, as our 'photo with Santa' from the mall this year features an angelically smiling Meredith, and a demonically howling Aaron. He was terrified of Santa at that particular moment. The elf working at the photo booth was a kindly soul who confided her children were now in their 20's and their very favourite Santa picture from their own youth was a crying one.

When Santa left to begin his rounds, he reminded our kids that he wouldn't be back until they were sound asleep. Bedtime has never gone so smoothly! They left enough cookies to add another inch to Santa's waistline, a full glass of milk, and a handful of baby carrots for Rudolph and then it was off to bed in their new Christmas jammies.

At what age does the sleeping-in-on-Christmas-morning phenomenon begin??

Rewind: Fall forever

2009-12-18T21:52:00.003-06:00

We had the most spectacular fall this year, after a rather cool and sunburn-free summer. The lovely weather stretched on and on. The grass stayed green, the trees held onto their leaves, and we began to believe that winter might have taken a sharp left at Albuquerque. Eventually we got a frost, and then a little more and the leaves started coming down.
And down.
And down some more.
At some point, I think people started hoping for snow so they wouldn't have to rake the leaves yet again.
But not my boys. There's nothing more fascinating to Aaron than machinery at work, and he quite enjoys it when Daddy is 'lawning' as he has named the act of mowing the lawn.

His fascination with all things mechanical continues to amaze me. He will drop whatever he is doing to run across the house and stare if he hears the blender or mixer start up. He delights in watching the can opener work. A car backing out of a parking spot is almost as good as Thomas the Train on TV.

Nature versus Nurture? Game, set and match to Nature as far as I can see!

Rewind: Birthday Bonanza!

2009-12-18T21:39:00.003-06:00

I've got a lot of catching up to do! Much of it involves cake.

The fall is a very busy birthday season in our family. None of the four of us actually have birthdays in the fall, but many of our favourite people including aunties, uncles, cousins, great grandma and friends celebrate October and November birthdays. Meredith has declared she doesn't really like birthday cake and would rather have just ice cream next year for her birthday. Aaron has no such reservations, and can devour an adult-sized piece of birthday cake in less time than it takes me to put some kind of stain treatment on his shirt afterwards.

One particular birthday party involved two uncles, and a cake that did double duty!

Happy birthday Uncle Brad!

and Uncle David!

To blow out the next set of candles we travelled much further than our own living room. At the end of November, my grandma celebrated her 92nd birthday! Don't tell her I posted her age on the internet, or it's curtains for me. She graciously allowed Meredith and Aaron to help blow the candles out.

Two year olds and candle blowing are just such a moist combination....surely that's why the cupcake was invented?

The trip out to Deloraine was one of the highlights of our otherwise somewhat sick and bleak November. Minus the drive-home-at-night-so-the-kids-will-sleep part wherein Aaron slept for 15 minutes of the 3 hour and 20 minute drive.

Delerious with fatigue? Who me?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2009-12-13T21:52:00.003-06:00

After a slow start, preparations for Christmas seemed to ramp up this weekend. There's still shopping to be done, cookies to be made and wrapping, wrapping, and more wrapping to complete. But it finally smells like a Christmas tree in our house, so all is good with the world. We always had a real tree when I was growing up. I don't remember ever going out to cut a tree, my dad usually brought one home from the Co-op store in town. I don't know whether he waited until the selection was poor, or just had a thing for Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but we had some seriously sad looking trees! It got to be a real joke, waiting to see how miserable the tree would be from one year to the next. Fortunately Dave loves a real tree too, so we've had one ever since we had a house with space to put one up. He and Aaron set off to the tree lot on Saturday and picked out the nicest tree we've ever had. The star touches the ceiling and it's so broad at the base that you can barely squeeze past it. It's gorgeous and soft and fragrant.

We set it up yesterday, let it thaw out, and got the lights on before the kids went to bed. I had been telling Meredith a few days earlier about the thing I loved to do best when I was a kid at Christmastime. After the tree was set up, I loved to lay with my head under the bottom branches, looking up at the lights, wallowing in that delicious scent, and feeling the cool breeze on my face as the tree continued to thaw. She asked if we could do it last night, and it was a thrill to share that pleasure with my own kids.

And yes, Aaron is naked.

We got the decorations on today and that was another trip down memory lane. Memory lane detours to the nut house if you take the wrong turn and have a two year old who insists on using a step stool to reach 'UP HIGH' in the tree....

This afternoon we set out to make gifts for the kids' teachers - the special people at daycare, school, and lessons that make their lives so much richer. We transformed these empty jars:

into Holiday Candy Cookie Mix.

Not without running out of ingredients part of the way through the task, of course!

After the size-small helpers were fast asleep I finished off the tags and they're ready to go. Sealed to keep salivating mouths from swiping any more M&Ms!

This week is the school Christmas Concert, so we've got another first to look forward to. Hopefully we'll sneak some more moments under the Christmas tree amidst the frenzied pace.

The world according to Meredith...

2009-12-08T22:07:00.003-06:00

I am a delinquent blogger.
Again.

But sometimes, something happens that just cannot go unnoticed. I have lots of things to catch up on here in chronicling the last month of our lives for our collective memory. Suffice to say that the Sick Day turned into a sick 7 or 8 days, very first report card came home, very first parent-teacher interview was attended, potty training (and emergency pant wearing) began at daycare and everyday life continued in this midst of it all. Lots of details to record as time permits!

But tonight is an ode to the tender heart of my sweet Meredith. She was having trouble settling down to sleep at bedtime. She called me back at one point because she said she had an "emergency" to talk about. This would be my own words coming back to bite me. :) Of late it seems that she is in a stalling pattern at bedtime and will call us several times for tiny little things until after about the 8th or 9th trip into her room I tell her, "Unless it's an emergency, I don't want to hear from you again. Please close your eyes, lay down, and go to sleep."

Tonight's emergency involves her morning bus driver, Veronica. We hear lots about her lunchtime bus driver, Ron, around here because he apparently gives the Kindergarten kids TicTacs on the bus, and one day brought his dog for them to meet.

Rock star status.

Veronica has more than just the Kindergarteners to deal with, as she has a full bus in the morning, so we hear more about how Veronica had to tell the older kids to sit down lots of times that day, or that Veronica really liked a particular dress Meredith was wearing one day. Tonight's news was that Veronica won't be driving this bus anymore, as she's going to drive vans now (a mysterious concept which neither Meredith nor I understand, but to which I nodded solemnly).

Meredith was sobbing with the idea of not seeing Veronica each morning anymore. What made her even sadder was that she hadn't known beforehand so she could have made her a card "to make her feel better".

I'm so very thankful for the compassionnate empathetic heart my firstborn has. It may cause her no end of pain in her life, but it will also bring her the greatest joys of love, and relationship, and kindness. I'm also very thankful that she is still young enough that a good long hug and a promise that together we will find a way to get the card to Veronica was enough to soothe her sadness.

Tonight is a fleeting moment I couldn't stand to forget!

Sick Day

2009-11-03T20:14:00.003-06:00

Today is the reason rocking chairs, and moms, and cuddle blankets were invented.

Poor Aaron has a doozy of a virus/illness/piggy flu and is capital M miserable. He's sicker tonight than I've ever seen him. Yesterday when I picked him up from daycare, he had a massive, no-holds-barred tantrum about getting into the car. Those kind of tantrums mean one of two things around here - sick child or tired child. He had a rough evening and was into bed early in the hopes that the magic of sleep would cure what ailed him.

Sadly, he's sicker than sleep alone can fix. We started and ended the day in the rocking chair.

There were a few bright spots, bursts of energy and smiles.

The walk to and from school with Meredith was a nice break from being in the rocking chair, and the kids did manage to play together for about half an hour in their new favourite toy - a cardboard box!

For all the bickering they can do at times, Meredith can be so empathetic towards him. Today she told me her heart felt broken that her brother was so sick, and she imagined mine must be cracked in a lot of places too.

May we be blessed with a quiet home and a night of that magical, restorative sleep tonight.

Spooky sweet!

2009-11-02T22:22:00.002-06:00

Happy Halloween! The kids traded roles when we carved pumpkins on Halloween eve. Mr. Two Minute Attention Span sat through the carving of two of the three pumpkins and tried to clean the pumpkins out one seed at time. Meredith was interested in using the serrated pumpkin sharp knife to cut the tops off the pumpkin and refused to get elbow-deep in the pumpkin guts.

She got a lot more interested when it came to hitching her ponies up to Cinderella's carriage and finding a driver who was just the right size. Sadly, I forgot to take any nighttime pictures of the masterpieces!

Aaron's pick was a Thomas pumpkin.

As the sun went down, the costumes came out. Meredith was so excited and it was contagious! As so often happens, Aaron followed her lead and was raring to go. We are so fortunate that she is such an amazing big sister. It's not always rainbows and sunshine, but for the most part the example she sets for him is one of kindness and compassion. Aaron adores her!

The tiger bares her true identity! When I asked her a month or so ago what she wanted to be for Halloween, she asked what the "scariest" thing she could dress up as would be. I told her there's lots of time later in life for scary stuff, and we'd stick with non-scary for now!

When the sun finally disappeared, they were off! Aaron made it to about 10 houses before he was more interested in laying his head on my shoulder than looking in his bag for Smarties. After a pit stop at home to drop him off, Meredith shifted into high gear. She and her friend ran from house to house until they were gasping for breath!

It was a much busier Halloween than we've had in recent years. We saw lots of kids on the street, and ran out of treats at our house after around 100 ghosts and goblins had been by. It may sound strange, but I love the feeling of community that comes with Halloween! We seem to spend so little time in this day and age walking up and down our own street, knocking on the doors of neighbours and saying hello to everyone we meet.

Yet one more experience in life that has taken on a fresh new perspective as seen through the eyes of my kids!

Delinquent Bloggers Anonymous

2009-10-27T21:11:00.005-05:00

I need a 12 step program to get back into blogging. Today might not be much, but at least it will be the first step! Lately it feels as though things have been in such constant motion that I'm always a step behind, a moment late, or forgetting something.

I feel like I've got about as much brains as our Thanksgiving cookie project. :)

Rest assured though, things are still much the same in our household.

Aaron is usually still naked from the waist down, climbing onto something and wearing his boots in the house. Meredith is still busy with Kindergarten, her activities, and wondering if one of her teeth is going to be loose soon.

The weekend after our anniversary marked another very big first, and the one that consumed my thoughts in my every waking (and should have been sleeping) hour. We headed to Las Vegas with some friends for a long weekend anniversary celebration. Without the kids. I felt like I was planning a military invasion with the list-making and organizing to get ready to go away. We are so blessed to have a network of family and friends whom we could piece together like a patchwork quilt to care for the kids. I obsessed over what meals to leave for them, what needed to be packed in which suitcase, how the hand-off of carseats was going to be made, and other equally riveting details. When I wasn't busy thinking about details, I just worried about how the kids were going to do.

They, of course, did great. Thanks to their own independent, secure personalities and the kindness and care of the angels that took care of them, they flourished! We spoke to them a few times on the phone, and no tears were exchanged, so that was a tremendous success for all of us I think! I'd love to climb inside of their imaginations and see what Las Vegas looks like from their vantage point!

Meredith was told by someone at daycare that Las Vegas is a playground for adults. Imagine what she sees!

Aaron can't possibly understand the concept of it all at the tender age of two, but was unfailingly sweet in asking "You at Las Begas Mommy?" when he talked to me on the phone, and "You all done at Las Begas Mommy?" when I got home.

Dave had to travel on to L.A. from Vegas for work, so I came home to a week alone with the kids. I had missed them so much that it was like a gift to have so much time with them last week. We're all very glad that Daddy got home on the weekend, though. Both Dave and I, independent of one another, thought that Meredith had grown taller and thinner in the past few weeks, and that Aaron's speech was even clearer.

Now we eagerly await the arrival of the newest members of our family, the Sea Monkeys that Dave brought home as a gift for Meredith!

Step one of the twelve step re-blogging program wasn't so hard after all!

Where does the time go?

2009-10-13T21:55:00.003-05:00

It seems this fall we're living through a series of firsts, each of which is serving to point out how grown up the kids are getting, and consequently how old I must be!

Friday was a momentous day on a few fronts. For starters, it was the 10th anniversary of our wedding day! 10 years of life for this new family of ours. We had a chance to watch parts of the video of our wedding day later in the weekend after Dave found and hooked up a VCR to watch it on! The audio only worked for a portion of the tape. 10 years ago it was recorded in the best quality available at the time! We saw faces which have changed very little in 10 years, and whom the kids recognized right away. We saw our own faces which have changed quite a bit! We saw the tiny faces of our nieces: 3 year old Amy and newborn Kasha who are now 13 and 10 years old. And perhaps sweetest of all, we saw my dad, my maternal grandmother, and Dave's grandmere full of life and enjoying that special day. It was wonderful to have this living, moving record of those people that our kids will never meet, and to hear them say "There's Grandpa Bill!" when my dad came on the screen for the second and third time.

On another front entirely, we had the first of many picture days at school. This is what Meredith looked like before she left the house:

The jury is still out on how she looked by the time she met the photographer in the school gym. From what Meredith tells me, Madame Katie fixed the clip in her hair before she headed off for her picture, so clearly the worst of the problems were dealt with! Now if we could only figure out why she smiles a Jean Chretien lopsided smile every time she looks at the camera lately....

Last in the series of firsts for Friday was a massive dump of snow! The day we were married it rained a bit, but was a lovely temperature. Every anniversary we've celebrated has been some variation on classic fall weather. Never have we tromped through ankle deep snow on October the 9th! There has been nothing ordinary about the weather for the past year though, and October is no exception. Fortunately, Dave has the hot tub up and running, so Saturday morning he and the kids pretended they were in Banff or Aspen and enjoyed a dip while surrounded by snow!

After a while, the kids were so hot that Meredith took to making snow angels,

and Aaron cooled his heels!

I can't believe all that's happened in the last 10 years. Imagine what the next 10 years will bring!

Ice, please!

2009-10-08T22:35:00.002-05:00

We required ice today, for two different purposes. Well, three if you count the fancy Thanksgiving cranberry ice skewer thingys I'm trying to make for Sunday and keep breaking.

Anyhow, I had a call from the daycare this afternoon. It was the room leader for Aaron's room. The last time the daycare called me at work, he had just vomited all over himself, so I wasn't feeling so chipper once she identified herself. Today, however, the conversation started out with "Everything's okay, and you don't need to come and pick him up or anything, but I thought I'd just call and talk to you before you come."

Sinking heart. My child is a notorious biter. As you may have heard me mention before, he's been to the director's office at daycare more than once on account of his incorrigible biting. Mind you, he hasn't bitten lately (why am I even tempting fate by writing that...) but then a couple of weeks ago there was the day where he came out of the bathroom at daycare repeatedly with no pants on. And the day he picked his friend's nose.

But today he was the victim, not the victimizer. Apparently one of his friends pushed him during library time (rowdy book-readers) and he fell, striking his poor little head on the bookshelf. Really hard. So hard that the room leader thought she'd best warn me what it was going to look like before I walked into the room.

It's definitely a nasty goose-egg with a bit of broken skin right at the top of it. And a Scooby Doo bandage on it. After the requisite checking over and kissing, it appeared he was not a) in an altered mental state despite his appearance in the picture below; or b) in iminent danger of melting down, so it was off to the rink for Meredith's first skating lesson of the season. I was hoping the day's second encounter with ice would be under her feet, not applied to a wound on her head!

Yes, she's still growing her bangs out. Yes, tomorrow is picture day at school. Yes, I've already emailed her Kindergarten teacher in my neurotic state to ask if she will PLEASE reposition the clip in Meredith's hair to ensure her school photo doesn't look like this photo. As if she didn't have eleventy hundred other things to do!

Anyhow, the rink was the perfect cure for Aaron's funk because the Zamboni was in full action when we arrived. Being a conoisseur of all things mechanical, he was very pleased with this new discovery!

And Meredith was more solid on her feet than I had dared to hope, after only one session of skating lessons last winter and months and months of time away from it. Which is not to say she didn't spend her fair share of her time examining the ice up close. It was not until about 10 minutes into the 30 minute lesson that I was able to convince Aaron that the Zamboni was not coming back on the ice while "Mer Mer" was skating, and it was not going to run her over. Tender concern.

Aaron spent most of the remainder of the lesson eating raisins out of the back of his dumptruck.

Meredith skated forward, glided a bit, fell a lot and got back up promptly. She and the two other kids played the world's slowest game of freeze tag, which was more entertaining than a slapstick comedy routine. Watching three new skaters try to tag one another, and skate under each other's outstreched arms to un-freeze was good entertainment! They concluded with some kind of beanbag retrieval game and we emerged from the rink with the same ratio of goose-eggs to people we arrived with.

Looks like maybe Aaron could have used the helmet today!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2009-09-30T20:20:00.002-05:00

Parenting is a series of hairpin curves, designed to keep you awake at the wheel.

Aaron is cracking us up with his increasing command of the English language, or at least his version of it. We had salmon for dinner the other night, which progressed into a discussion about fish, and of course into a dinner-table singing of the classic "Slippery Fish" song. I'd never heard this song before Meredith started preschool at "Penny School". It quickly became a favourite of hers, and is clearly fast becoming a favourite of Aaron's. For the uninitiated, the song goes:

"Slippery fish, slippery fish, swimming in the water. Slippery fish, slippery fish, gulp, gulp gulp! Oh no, he's been eaten by a......." and then you add in a bigger, and bigger and bigger fish. So the slippery fish gets eaten by a tuna fish (or salmon fish, if you're having dinner at our house), then the tuna fish gets eaten by a great white shark, and the great white shark gets eaten by a humongous whale. Up until now, I thought Aaron's favourite part was the slapping of the hands together like the gaping maw of a sea creature, eating a smaller sea creature. I'd completely forgotten about the bit of potty humour at the end of the song.

So Monday night Meredith, Aaron and I are singing slippery fish for Daddy, who has been living under a rock and had never heard the song before. We finished, or so I thought. A moment or two later, Aaron dissolves into laughter. He's cracking himself up. And through his giggles, I hear him saying in a funny bass voice, "Burp. S'cuse me!" Over and over again. We were all laughing watching him laugh. More infectious than the swine flu in a pediatrician's waiting room.

How could I forget that the song ends with a burp from the humongous whale? A whole family sitting together around the table giggling uncontrollably is one of the most pleasant turns in the road I've seen in a long time.

Fast forward to tonight. I took Meredith to her piano lesson, and was helping her buckle her carseat before we headed back home. I guess because I was standing on the road while buckling her, she asked what would happen if I got smucked by a car. As in, what would she do if I was laying helpless on the road.

Uhhhhh.

In all attempts to remain calm, I told her she should push the red button on the On-Star console in our car. Never mind that our On-Star subscription expires this month. Or wait in the car and shout for help and a friendly person would come to help. So then she suggested she could also get out of the car and walk down the sidewalk looking for help. Or go to her piano teacher's house to ask her to help. Or walk home from her piano teacher's to our house and ask Daddy, or the neighbour boy's mom or dad for help. "But would it be dark by the time I walked back Mommy?"

After vowing to watch very carefully for traffic while buckling her up, I thought we'd laid this question to rest. As we pulled into the garage though, she asked "If you got smucked by a car and died to Heaven Mommy, would Daddy get married again?"

Seriously. How does a five-year-old get that?

It was like taking a corner blind. I had no idea which possible answer I could give would be the one that would reassure her enough in the right direction. I swerved towards "Well he might, and he might not sweetie. Sometimes people don't get married again." Apparently this was a wrong turn. Her eyes welled up and she said "But who would be my mommy then?"

And my heart shattered into 89 billion tiny little pieces at the thought of this sweet, precocious, sensitive child in the world without a mommy. Without this mommy.

So I answered the best answer I could think of and prayed for strength. "I'll always be your mommy in your heart, Meredith." A friend gave me this suggestion some months ago when Meredith was asking about death. And then added "But let's do everything we can to be safe to make sure that problem never happens."

And off she went to eat a handful of raspberries and get ready for bed. Hairpin curve, indeed.

Endless summer

2009-09-24T21:19:00.002-05:00

We are wholeheartedly enjoying the beautiful weather we've been having through the month of September. Our strawberry plant is thoroughly confused and tonight we harvested this bounty from our own backyard!

Apparently after something like seven or eight consecutive months of record-breaking low temperatures, we're having a month of record-breaking high temperatures.

The September routine is beginning to settle in, despite our still wearing shorts and flip flops and pretending it's summer. Tomorrow marks two full weeks of Kindergarten under Meredith's belt. She seems to be enjoying it, and has even taken a substitute teacher in stride on a day that Madame Katie was sick. Around our house, it feels like the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" should start playing and pink clouds of candy floss emerge from the sky when Madame Katie's name is spoken (or Damn Katie as Aaron calls her....). She truly is goodness and sunshine wrapped up in human form!

It's been so fascinating to hear Meredith talk about her first impressions. After a few days of school, she was expressing to me how much she likes her teacher. I asked what it was about the teacher that she particularly liked. Her answer? "Her face, and her hair." When I asked for more detail, she said, "Well her face is so smiling, and so sweet all the time, and her hair is blonde and shiny." "And even though she's a grown-up, she's a little grown-up." Clearly being short is an asset in the Kindergarten crowd!

The challenging thing about school, for me, is that it's an experience that is only Meredith's. She gets on the school bus and goes there, and gets on the school bus and goes back to the daycare. We have no direct contact with the school in dropping her off or picking her up, which is a whole new experience. More than ever, I'm relying on what she tells me to piece together what her day looks like, and what goes on in the classroom. It has been a bit of a hilarious journey putting it all together through the eyes of a five year old.

One of the main topics of conversation is around discipline and expectations for behaviour in the classroom. Through a combination of carefully asked questions, attentive listening to her comments about the day and consultation with a fortune teller, I think I've got a grasp on the system that the teacher is using in the room. It seems that each child's name is on a clothespin, and kept somewhere on a board in the room. Various infractions in classroom behaviour result in your clothespin moving to the numbers 1, 2 or 3. Apparently one generally moves through the numbers sequentially, but some infractions are 'automatic threes' as Meredith relayed to me with eyes wide! When I asked her what an example of an 'automatic three' would be she said "Like running away from Madame Katie in the playground and going through the gate. You could get hit by a car you know, and Madame Katie wouldn't want that!"

Those children who pass their morning without receiving a 1, 2 or 3 get a reward before leaving Kindergarten. Meredith has brought home a sticker, a temporary tattoo and one day received a green gummy bear. She got the gummy bear just before lunch, I'd imagine, when she got on the bus to head back to daycare and saved it through lunch and the whole afternoon to bring it home to show me before she ate it.

At first I had an uneasy gut reaction to the 'reward' part of this system. Until the day of the green gummy bear. This tiny reward meant so much to Meredith that she brought it home to share the experience with me. That day I realized this teacher is one smart cookie. She has a short window of opportunity at the outset of this school year to get the kids to understand and internalize what acceptable classroom behaviour looks like. And she's doing it in a way that's certainly working for my little scholar. Meredith has made it through the first two weeks with only a 1. Her infraction? Using her outside voice in the classroom.

The last two weeks have also seen the resumption of swimming lessons for the kids, and Meredith's first piano lesson. Before we blink our eyes it will be October! One good thing about the upcoming cooler weather will be the chance for Meredith to wear her new favourite pants. We're so lucky to have a treasure trove of hand-me-downs from her cousins for her to choose from. Many of the pants though looked a little like this:

So I finally tried my hand at applique, after looking at these pants in the mending pile for the past several months. They were a hit! I love that my kids are still too young to turn up their noses at something handmade, and in fact think it's even better that way.

Living Room Concert Hall

2009-09-12T20:18:00.003-05:00

Meredith's piano lessons were slated to start today, but got pushed back due to a change in the teacher's schedule. None of this, of course, was sufficient to delay the first recital of the season! Meredith advised Aaron and I we were invited to a concert after supper, and set about creating her concert hall.

The venue had many of the usual sights:
* Chairs with little numbers on them to find your seat. I was told to sit in number 1 and Aaron was told to sit in number 2, even though it was apparently "a very bad number 2 but I'll practice more in Kindergarten."

* Snacks for the performance. Aaron had his 3 Smarties done before the performance started, and spent the rest of the show drooling bright colours.

* A refreshing drink. I was warned to check mine before consuming it because "I filled the glass too full so I drank a bit out of one side but I can't remember which side, so just test it with your lips before you drink."

And in a delightful twist on the usual prize-taped-under-only-one-seat, we were both awarded with a balloon under the seat for coming to the show.

Dress was casual. Or naked with a bib.

The pianist wore a daring ensemble of nudity and her favourite blanket.

The performance was outstanding. We heard "Into the Cave" and "Three Little Kittens", both of which she just learned this morning and has already committed to memory.

Yes indeed, take a bow Meredith!

And she's off!

2009-09-11T20:50:00.004-05:00

Today was the day. The highly anticipated day! The day that's been talked about over and over again since she turned five in March. The day of her 5th birthday, she was pretty sure she'd be going to Kindergarten the next day. Well, "the next day" finally arrived!

We started the day off with a special first-day-of-school breakfast. Waffles using Grandpa Bill's recipe and yummy fresh peaches. She woke up to find her chair decorated with balloons and yesterday received a beautiful flower from her cousin Airdrie.

When I was a kid, my dad used to take our picture at the school bus every year for the first day of school. As farm kids, riding the school bus was an expected reality, not a potential possibility! We decided to take the shot in front of the piano to see just how much she grows from September to September.

Then it was off to daycare to drop off Aaron and take part in the main event - lining up for the bus! It was drizzling when we first arrived, and poured rain shortly thereafter, but nothing could dampen her enthusiasm!

And here's the classic child-getting-on-the-schoolbus shot. Except that's Meredith's buddy Jenna, not Meredith! You can just catch a glimpse of the end of her backpack as she scoots onto the bus at top speed without so much as a backward glance, or a wave to the paparazzi!

The bus beat me to the school, and the kids were already sitting in a tidy little group in the gymnasium with their teacher by the time I arrived to peek. Class by class these groups of elementary school children followed their teachers from the gym to their classrooms. It was a sea of sweet smiling faces, happy nervous energy, and wide-eyed amazement. If you could bottle the energy that was swirling through those hallways today, you would have found the fountain of youth!

Madame Katie led the kids to their room, they took off their wet outdoor shoes, and then they filed into the classroom to begin this most monumental first day of school. There wasn't a tear in the bunch! My fear had been that one of these little tender souls would let out a wail for Mom on their way into the classroom and it would spread like a bad disease. But not a peep was heard, not even from a Mom!

Tonight she's tired, but successful. And Monday we get to do it all over again!

Check, check!

2009-09-09T23:20:00.002-05:00

Brand new pair of school shoes? Check.

Brand new school backpack? Check.

Two Ziploc bags, box of tissues and a cheque for 30 bucks? Check.

No, seriously. This was Meredith's school supplies list.

One five-year old so ready for Kindergarten she can already taste it?? Check, check!

The anticipation is palpable around here. I've got scads of posts to still catch up on to capture the last vestiges of summer, but it's all-Kindergarten, all-the-time here right now. After a beautiful long weekend at the lake Meredith started Tuesday in the Kinder group at daycare. That was adequate excitement for Tuesday.

Today was her chance to meet her teacher for a 10 minute 'interview'. We got a tour of the classroom, found her locker, located her spot at the table, checked out the mini-sized washroom, and ogled the fantastic assortment of toys and learning materials in the room. We moved on to test out the xylophones and drums in the Music room. That was adequate excitement for Wednesday.

Tomorrow she has A. Whole. Day. At. Daycare. With. Nothing. Kindergarten-y.

Friday is the big day. The plan is to take her to daycare so she can ride the bus to the school with her pals. Fortunately, the other ex-Monkey-now-Kinder moms are as loony as me, and are all for the plan of watching the kids get on the bus at daycare and racing (carefully, so as to not hit any schoolchildren) to the school to watch them get off. And be escorted by a Patrol to the playground. And line up when the bell rings to march into Kindergarten for the very first time.

That will be adequate excitement for Mommy for the next month or so.

Aaron self!

2009-08-28T12:09:00.003-05:00

I love how toddlers talk about themselves in the third person. Aaron's most commonly uttered phrase over the past few weeks is easily "Aaron self!" Whether it's getting his shoes on, taking his diaper off, climbing onto the toilet, or getting himself dressed, he's suddenly very keen to do it himself. He'd love to be able to buckle himself into his carseat or pour his own glass of milk, or drive me to work, but we have to draw the line somewhere! I love letting him try to do something and watching him figure it out. Often it will end up half done, or not done at all and he'll look up at me and say "Mommy help. S'hard" (It's hard!)

I took these pictures a few weeks ago now, watching him try to get himself into his pyjamas.

Insert tiny two year old voice here: "Where's Aaron's toes?"

His trusty companion, blue puppy is standing by, ready to assist. Puppy often has to help ME get Aaron dressed, when he's refusing Mommy's help but is willing to have puppy help, so I guess Aaron figured he'd keep him close at hand for assistance.

"There's Aaron's toes!"

Trust me, it is a laborious process for a two year old to get both feet completely through the cuffs of their pyjamas. I think I might have dozed off between this picture and the next.

If you think the toes are hard, try pulling your pants up over your bum! Even puppy was no help with this step.

Halfway there! How hard can the shirt really be?

Progressing well, we've found the head hole.

But wait! Don't get too cocky! Why are the arms going up through the neck hole?

Uh oh. Houston, we have a problem. We stalled here for a good long time. The shirt went back up to the neck, back down to the bellybutton, back up to the neck.....then....."Mommy help. S'hard!"

And with a little rearranging of the pieces, ta da!

Random silliness

2009-08-24T22:01:00.002-05:00

It seems like this summer is running away with us, with very few sunny moments to remember it by! We made it to the lake this weekend for a day of sun, but the weekend before was wall to wall grey skies. Well, except for a few short interludes of the blue sky we know and love! Clearly, we run a really tight ship around here. Meredith spent the day in her pyjamas, and by the look of things, Aaron spent the day in nothing!

It does cut down on laundry.

The two of them get along extraordinarily well. Shockingly well, actually. It's not all bubbles and sunshine, but they get along well more often than they squabble. In a way, I think Meredith thinks he is her little boy! It works in our favour more often than not. In true toddler fashion, he can be counted on to refuse to take part in any one of a number of essential daily functions like having his diaper changed, getting dressed, getting undressed, picking a spoon.....at the drop of a hat. In his struggle to exert control he'll refuse to let mom or dad help, but generally accepts it if we offer Mer-Mer (his name for Meredith), or she offers herself. And who can't help but smile when watching a five-year-old try to diaper a two-year-old. Not a match made in heaven if you're hoping to get out the door in 3 minutes, but plenty to make you laugh if you've got the time.

The proud 'mama' and her baby doll!

We're going to have no end of pictures to choose from on his wedding day.

The things kids say....

2009-08-16T15:15:00.003-05:00

This has been one of those kinds of days where the kids go from hopping up and down on my last nerve to doing the funniest things.

Meredith was helping me put Aaron down for his nap and he asked her to sing his "songs" for bedtime. She launched into a few of her own lullaby creations. One went something like this:
"Lullaby, lullaby, my sweet little Aaron
May you sleep and dream, may you have lots of joy.
I love my Aaron, and I love him so,
I love your smile and your lousy heart."

The first time I was sort of surprised and was thinking over the word lousy while listening to the next verse. The next verse was similar strings of loveliness, and then made reference to his "lousy eyes." I'd love to know what she thinks lousy means!

Then this afternoon when I was baking cookies I heard Aaron in the hallway lifting up the flap for the central vac outlet. Then I hear him say "Somebody?" , then whack the flap closes and he says "Nope."

We now return to our regularly scheduled bad listening and mommy freaking.

Our favourite summer food is....

2009-08-13T21:59:00.002-05:00

Cousin magic!

2009-08-13T21:42:00.003-05:00

We were lucky enough to have two of the cousins, Amy and Claire, with us for the weekend last weekend. It was an eagerly anticipated event around the Rose household, and I think it lived up to its anticipation! The weather didn't cooperate to head to the camper for the weekend, so we had fun in the city instead. Lots of time at the playground, four busy kids on the climmber and in the pool at the Y, a trip to the movies, fun making mini pizzas, and lots and lots of time to play. A bit of sleeping was added in, and the Tooth Fairy even flew by for a visit as Amy lost a tooth at the movies! As the girls left on Sunday night to head home, Meredith was crying, "It's just so hard to see them go!" We hope to make a more regular habit of seeing all the cousins for fun days through the fall and winter when everyone gets busy with school and activities.

Meredith was hard pressed to decide on a highlight for the weekend, it was a well-fought battle betweeen sharing her Tooth Fairy pillow (as yet unused for Meredith...) with Amy and finding money in it the next morning, and finally doing the full set of monkey bars at the playground!

Claire whipped up and down the monkey bars like she was made of air!

Amy played catcher for Aaron,

before schooling us all in just HOW easy the monkey bars are!

By late Sunday it was actually even warm enough to blow up the Splash Bomb in the backyard. We haven't had it out yet this summer, the weather has been so cool and rainy. Meredith has clearly grown over the winter, this year she was able to run and vault onto the slide portion of it with no problem!

And made lots of splash once she hit the pool!

Aaron was very skeptical of the whole thing and for the longest time would only crawl down the slide. Naked, of course.

Eventually he agreed to give the inflatable boogie board a try, and quite enjoyed the ride!

The week in review

2009-08-04T21:46:00.009-05:00

We've been home from our week of holidays at Falcon Lake for a week now, and I'd better get my thoughts down before I lose them. I'm pretty sure the non-stop challenge of keeping track of Aaron at the lake has knocked out a few of my functioning brain cells!

Note to self: If ever planning a week at the lake again with a two year old whirlwind, bring a 20 foot piece of rope. Tie one end to my ankle. Tie one end to Aaron's ankle. Sit down with a glass of wine.

It was a fun week. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag, but on the whole some of nicer weather we've had in this strange summer. We were lucky enough to have all the Rose cousins together on the weekends, and two of the cousins there all week long. The girls spent a fun-filled afternoon doing this:

This:

and some of this:

while Dave did a whole lot of this:

Later in the weekend Aaron did have his first tube ride, but as the awesome parents that we are, we forgot to take pictures of that. So instead we got shots of him checking out the tube on dry land (surrounded by adoring cousins)

and being choked by his own lifejacket.

I got one phonecall on the Blackberry-of-Doom the whole week, yet this is the photographic evidence we have that I was indeed on this week of vacation too!

The best part of the time away was all that time to enjoy the goodness of our everyday!

Cuddles with auntie,

cousin time,

and hour upon hour at the playground.

I think Meredith's world reached a pinnacle of happiness in one 24 hour period. In that span of time, we took the training wheels off her second bike with bigger wheels, she managed to do three rungs of the monkey bars on her own, she had a sleepover at her cousins' camper, and she ate Lucky Charms for breakfast.

More goodness followed. We celebrated Uncle Darrell's birthday

and watched the cousins in a comedic bike rodeo akin to clowns in a Volkeswagen!

Even the cats had a good time!

At the end of it all though, there's no place like home.

Sweet Morgan time!

2009-07-30T22:28:00.003-05:00

Today I had the extremely rare opportunity to spend a snippet of one on one time with my sweet little niece, Morgan. Her mom had an appointment, so I got to spend some time with her over my lunch hour, while Aaron and Meredith were still at daycare. Meredith looooves her time with Morgan and is eager to mother her and 'teach' her new things.

Aaron, on the other hand, is two. He sees Morgan in the same light I see anyone who stands between me and the ice cream in our freezer.

Enough said.

Anyhow, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of this sweet face!

Concentrating VERY hard on sitting up tall!

And the photo that made me say out loud "good gracious she looks like her dad....."

Thanks for such a special part of the day, Morgan!

Room To Grow

2009-07-28T12:27:00.002-05:00

We're back from a week of holidays at the lake, so I'm finally getting around to posting the nightie test-drive pictures taken just before we left! Week-at-the-lake pictures to follow in the not too distant future.

Meredith was very pleased with her new nightie! It looks so sweet on her, though there's plenty of room to grow. If I hadn't put the lace around the neck already I'd have taken it in a little, but there's no way I'm picking the lace off!

Her hair seems to be growing just as quickly as the rest of her, this summer!

Enter the naked little brother for his turn at "cheese".....

And a final photo, whose blurriness must indicate I hadn't had QUITE enough coffee by that point in the morning, just to show how much more room to grow there is! Who would have thought that my girl was about the same size as a pillowcase?!

Pillowcase Nightgown

2009-07-17T21:52:00.002-05:00

I've been reading a bunch of craft blogs lately, wishing I had more time to try some of the projects these crafty mamas think of! One of the popular projects is pillowcase dresses. They're lovely summery dresses made from real pillowcases. Some of the most beautiful ones I've seen are created from the kind of vintage pillowcases I remember sleeping on as a child. I think every woman received sets of these hand embroidered pillowcases as shower or wedding gifts. I set out to find some pillowcases to try my hand at the dresses and thought this would be a simple first project for my niece who wants to learn how to sew.

While I did find some pillowcases to fashion into dresses, this particular pillowcase really caught my eye. It's that rich feeling old cotton with a delicate lace detail at the bottom. I thought it over for a few days and dreamed up a cool summer nightie I wanted to try to make.

What started like this:

Now looks like this:

I can't wait for Meredith to try it on!

I can't believe my eyes!

2009-07-13T21:36:00.003-05:00

Meredith made lots of progress with her two-wheeler over the weekend at camping. Every weekend we practice riding without the training wheels, which generally involves either Dave or I running behind her, proving just how out of shape we are by how quickly we get winded!

This weekend she continued her practice. Up until now we could only let go for a second or two before she lost her balance. On Saturday, Auntie Kim helped her practice a little and taught us a new way to keep her safe without helping her so much. The secret seemed to be to stand on one side of her and hold her upper arm, not stand behind her and stabilize her from side to side. Within minutes she was biking 4 or 5 feet on her own before tipping and needing some help. By Sunday it was 12 or 15 feet. And tonight, she biked up and down our street like she'd been riding a two-wheeler for months!

Pure glee!

Marshmallows!

2009-07-13T21:16:00.003-05:00

This weekend was the inaugural roasting of the marshmallows at camping. Dave was the safety patrol and kept everyone from falling into the fire!

Well worth the wait!

Aaron was thrilled to get his turn, and reverted to the trusted combination of saying and signing 'hot' at the same time to express just how HOT the fire was!

Cost of the camper, the gas to get back and forth all summer, the seasonal camping permit?

More than we care to add up!

Watching Aaron taste his first roasted marshmallow?

Priceless.

Milestone # 687

2009-07-09T21:03:00.002-05:00

No, Aaron did not suddenly learn how to eat an ice cream cone without creating an entire load of laundry.

Meredith learned how to tie her shoes!

Or, more precisely, Meredith learned how to tie a bow using the lace from a lace-up game flip-flop shoe which she is now wearing as a shoe since she tied said bow!

Some proud, she is!

What a difference!

2009-07-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

We're settling into the routine of summer around here: weekdays in the city and weekends at the camper. It seems like I'm always unpacking or packing something, but it's really enjoyable in the end. Well, except for the part on the highway where Aaron says "all done" and we're only 20 minutes from home. I'm particularly enjoying having our weekday evenings free to play in the yard before supper, head to the playground, or pollute the local wading pool. :)

This past weekend was the annual Falcon Lake Fair, something Meredith has been eagerly anticipating since last year's fair I think. At some point in the day she said to me, "This is the day of my dream!" What a kid! I managed to take not. one. picture. the. whole. fair. day. No pictures of their delighted faces on the rides, no pictures of their sticky mini-donut fingers.

All photographic hope is not lost, however. The kids each had a turn with the camera on the weekend.

First Meredith captured Daddy leaving the camper:

Next Aaron snapped a timeless shot of our picnic table, err Meredith.

And Meredith captured Aaron trying on her new hairband and channelling Stevie Wonder, all at the same time.

We thought it would be a nice idea to get an ice cream cone to start off the ride back to the city on Sunday. We probably won't do that again. What a difference three years makes in a child's ability to eat, not wear, an ice cream cone.

The last word on D. A. D.

2009-06-29T20:43:00.004-05:00

I'm feeling rather proud of myself these days.
I started a project when Meredith was just little that became a special Father's Day tradition. I took pictures of Meredith holding the letters D and A and lined them up in a three photo frame so her letters spelled out DAD. I can't take any credit for the idea, I read about it on a parenting site when she was just little.

The first year I printed the pictures in black and white and it looked pretty artsy.

The second year I borrowed our neighbour's backyard (our neighbour might as well be named Mr. Green Thumb) and took some very colourful cute pictures of Meredith and it looked very cheerful.

The third year, Aaron was about 6 weeks old when Father's Day hit, and I didn't even pick up the camera. :(

Last year I took some cute pictures of the kids and never got them developed.

Things were NOT heading in the right direction with project-DAD-frame. So this year I hustled them off to the playground, and brought the letters along.

Then by some miracle, I got the pictures developed.

Then even better, I put them IN the frame....after I dusted the two years of accumulated dust off of it! So here's the finished product and the images Dave chose for it:

I'll try to add a few more of my favourites from the day once Blogger's uploader starts cooperating again. Too bad I didn't remember the pics all needed to be in portrait orientation BEFORE I started taking them....

Helloooooo summer!

2009-06-22T22:08:00.003-05:00

Fortunately, Dave and I both grew up camping with our families. Mind you, it often involved large and strangely stinky canvas tents that had a tendency to leak, but as kids we both loved it. Both our families seem to have graduated from tents to tent trailers and some of my fondest memories of our early dating and married years are of weekends spent in the Starcraft circa 1972 trailer at Falcon Lake with Dave and his family.

The year Meredith was born, we graduated to our own trailer and have camped in it every summer since. I remember the first time Meredith slept 8 hours in a row was in the trailer that summer. She potty trained at the trailer. She learned to love s'mores at the trailer and to this day still believes that only Auntie Adrienne knows the recipe to this heavenly treat.

Being a May baby, Aaron had his first taste of camping at only 3 weeks old. I remember that May long weekend was so cold it seemed I had Aaron in a cuddly wrap inside my jacket for most of the weekend. He was fairly colicky early that summer too, and I'm sure our neighbours wondered just what we were doing to that tiny little baby inside the thin trailer walls as we tried to get him to sleep.

This year is a big step forward in our camping life. For the first time since buying our trailer, we are actually able to use the dining area inside and have set up the table. Until this summer, there was always a bassinet or playpen in the space the table would normally occupy! Aaron is sleeping in a big bed at the camper and thus far (knock on large wooden object....) it's gone okay. Well okay except for him locking us out of the camper during his first nap in there...

This weekend was our second weekend down at the camper. The previous weekend was so cold we were wrapped in blankets when we were outside in the evening. This weekend delivered plenty of hot weather, mosquito bites, and even some time at the beach.

Meredith and her cousin Kasha buried themselves in the sand with a little help from Auntie Kim,

and found some poor unsuspecting puppy to cuddle and coo over!

Meanwhile, Aaron asked Uncle Gord who shopped for his clothes, because there seemed to be a chance it was the same person who had shopped for Aaron's clothes....

Here's to a summer of fun at the camper! Days spent with cousins, special visits from friends, Dream Cream slathered on bites and scrapes and a whole bunch more memories to save for those long winter days!

Book of the Week

2009-06-22T21:56:00.003-05:00

No, we have not suddenly ceased reading in our house. I've just ceased being organized enough to get a photo of what the kids are into right now! Today's pick is one that Aaron has wanted to have read to him probably 4 nights out of 7 since he received it at Christmas. I don't even want to think about how many times this book has accompanied him to the potty. Clearly the mark of a good book.

It's called I See A Monster and is written by Laurie Young. It's one of those great touch and feel books that babies and toddler seem to love. It's full of cheerful, bright images, a flap that opens up on each page, and something in an interesting texture to feel. The text is very simple, and the kind of repetitive rhyming structure that means Aaron is already starting to fill in the words if the reader pauses long enough, and Meredith can "read" it to him as well.

The most interesting part about the book, for me, is Aaron's reaction to different things. First it started with a page where one of the monsters was standing on a chair. Yes, STANDING on a chair. One would think my little climber had been scolded for this feat a time or two himself based on his reaction to the picture.
"Uh oh! Sit down!" Every time we read the book, the same response came out. Eventually he suppressed that one and moved on to leaning in to kiss the page when we turned to the spotted pink monster. Still haven't suppressed that one.

The last two times we've read the book, it's clear what his new favourite page is.

"I see a monster who needs a good scrub. Where is he hiding? Inside the tub!" At which point Aaron jumps off my lap, runs to the bathroom shouting "Same same same! Modder (monster) big tub white. Aaron big tub white."

Good times.

Father's Day

2009-06-22T21:43:00.003-05:00

This picture is one I'd take along to a desert island:

The Thursday before Father's Day Dave was invited to the daycare to take part in a special Father's Day Adventure, cooked up by The Amazing Karen and the Monkeys. Karen tells me the kids have been working on it since the day after the Mother's Day Tea. :)

Essentially, they transformed one of the preschool rooms in the daycare into a jungle safari adventure. There was a pit of poisonous snakes, a pond full of pirahnas, a bat cave and more. As is standard on every jungle safari, there was also a handwashing station before the dads and kids settled in for some jungle snacks of beetles wings and worms and red ants. The kids sang some songs that would break your heart to hear....still trying to figure out how to post video to here, so if someone has a tip for me send it my way! They had made all kinds of decorations for the room, including scary snakes from even scarier 80's neckties donated by the dads!

Each child also got to bring home one of the jungle animals they'd been working on. This elephant is made of paper bags. Entirely. Paper bags and paint. Have I mentioned recently that Karen is Amazing and there's clearly one reason I go to work instead of stay home full time with my children....

The dads all got a fabulous new tie to replace the ones they had donated, this one fashioned by their very own 5 year old.

Like the very loving dad he is, Dave put his on the next morning and wore it to work (or at least in the car....not sure what transpired when he actually got to work) and made his little girl's day.

Sunday drive

2009-06-18T22:24:00.003-05:00

I have a feeling this may be a preview of things to come. Dave charged up the battery for the mini Jeep, and they were off to the races. Or at least Meredith was. She's getting the hang of steering it really well this year, and loved the ride. Aaron looks like he's checking the seatbelt, wondering about air bags, and getting ready to ask his sister for her license and registration.

And there they go....

See you later!

After a brief hiatus....

2009-06-18T21:13:00.005-05:00

Seems like the month of June has been jam packed with activities! I've got some catching up to do to keep pace with the goings-on around here. It seems that finally summer weather has arrived, after the coolest, rainiest June I can ever remember. Meredith's buddy, Sherris, from daycare had a birthday party a few weekends ago now, and it was cool enough to wear stockings and a sweater to the party! This picture is extremely misleading with regards to the temperature as the kids were taking a VERY brief break from jumping their brains out on the fabulous bouncer in place for the party!

The break started out as a chance to gaze at the fish pond, and even feed the fish a flake or two. When the poking-of-the-fish-with-a-long-stick began, it was back to the bouncer.

And what's a birthday party without a pinata to whack! After a few attempts by the assembled 4 and 5 year olds, the ties holding the pinata to the swing set broke, but the pinata showed no signs of breaking.

To the tremendous amusement and amazement of the assembled parents, James, the birthday-girl's dad HELD THE PINATA WHILE SMALL CHILDREN WHACKED AT IT.

What can I say, better than candy.

Sleep, anyone?

2009-06-06T14:13:00.005-05:00

It has been a busy busy week at daycare for the two smallest people in our house. I fully expect by tonight they will either fall asleep in their supper or have raging crying fits through supper and, once talked down off the ledge, fall asleep quickly in their beds!

The week started with a visit from the Literacy Links facilitator who is checking out Meredith's readiness for Kindergarten. She'll be coming for four weeks, an hour at a time, to work through various literacy skills with Miss M. Needless to say, she didn't have a lot of remedial suggestions after her visit on Monday! Monday also was Welcome to Kindergarten night so Meredith met Madame Katie, checked out her new classroom, and received a goodie bag stuffed full of Kindergarten prep stuff. She spied the class pet (a fish), played with the toys, and speculated about which cubby she'd keep her shoes in. The next day she asked if she could start Kindergarten right away instead of waiting until September. She so excited. I'm tearful.

Aaron began the transition from the Infant room at Daycare to the Toddler room. It's a big step, away from the physical space he has become so familiar with over the past 14 months, and more importantly away from the four incredible caregivers who have been by his side five days a week. It means moving to a bigger room, new toys, and sharing the same playground that Meredith plays on. He's so excited, I'm tearful. :)

Meredith had a full day of fun on her farm field trip with Nana on Wednesday. We are now well versed in the technique for picking up a chick, as it's been described to us all in extraordinary detail on more than one occasion! Apparently she also got to milk a goat. When Daddy asked her if she drank the milk, she looked at him as if he had two heads and said "Daddy! It wasn't ready yet!"

Not a hundred percent sure I want to know what she thinks happens to the milk to make it "ready."

Thursday, Meredith went to Kids Fest with her pals from daycare. As it rained on and off all day, I kept feeling sorry for the soggy kids and damp teachers, but apparently they managed to take in mostly activities in tents so they emerged only slightly moistened! The Amazing Karen tells me the kids had a blast and were exceptionally well behaved. How do those daycare teachers do it.....

In honor of Kids Fest, Meredith wore the "Friends" t-shirt she and her Monkey buddies made (under the supervision of The Amazing Karen) at daycare. How cool is this?

To top it all off, Friday was Dave's birthday!

Mmmmmm, Ice Cream Sundae Pie!

Time for a nap for all of us, I think.

Nana Fest 2009

2009-06-01T21:10:00.006-05:00

We've eagerly been anticipating the arrival of this person:

for some time now! Nana (aka my stepmother Marilyn) has come from B.C. for a visit. If you see someone running from our house with her hands over her ears, looking for a moment of solitude, that might be her. :) Please offer her a cup of tea. She's been to swimming lessons with us, to daycare with us, read stories, wiped noses and baked muffins with us. And on the weekend she rode in the car with us for the 3 1/2 hours it takes to get to Deloraine and the 3 1/2 hours it takes to get home. As I was packing a bag of snacks to take in the car shortly after the kids ate breakfast I could see she was wondering what I was doing.

I said, "I give it three minutes before one of them asks for a snack in the car."
She said, "But Aaron just ate three bowls of cereal for breakfast."

1.5 minutes into the trip, the first snack request was made.

We kept driving for a bit, distracted by the cars and dogs and TRACTORS, but eventually the first snack was doled out as the ants in the pants got worse. And the second snack. And when she passed back the third snack she asked the question of the day:

"What happens when the snacks run out?"

"Pray for Tim Horton's."

Anyhow, so off we went to Deloraine on the weekend so Nana could visit her family and the kids and I could fit in another visit with Grandma G.

We visited every playground in town, stopped for ice cream, and took Grandma out to visit the cemetery again.

It was a beautiful prairie day.

As an added bonus, we also got a visit in with Nana's brother and his family on the farm where she grew up. There was something to suit everyone's fancy:

a new friend for Meredith

and the stuff of books and dreams come to life for little Aaron!

It was a great, busy, exhausting weekend. I think we all slept deeply last night.

Next up on the list of events for Nana Fest 2009? Accompanying Meredith on her nursery school farm field trip on Wednesday. Stay tuned!

A little Irish Dancing

2009-05-29T20:39:00.004-05:00

It's been another busy week, and I'm finally getting around to putting together the pictures from Meredith's dance recital on Sunday. This year she did Irish Dance because a) it was two blocks from our house and b) it was two blocks from our house. Well it doesn't hurt that we're part Irish to add to all that, but the convenience of the studio was a HUGE attraction! Last year was her first year of dancing and she did a combination tap and ballet class. She liked it well enough while it was going on, but was happy enough to try something new this year. The dance studio also offers adult lessons, so I danced for several months this year too. It gave me a new appreciation for how difficult and incredibly athletic Irish Dance is. My season ended when the foot I broke 12 years ago started complaining heartily about being jumped on! Fortunately, Meredith is much more elastic than I!

A big part of Irish dance is tradition and the kids learned the foundational steps of Jump 2 3's and Sevens. Most dances are based around these steps. Also very traditional is the school costume, a design particular to that school of dance. In Meredith's case, she is a part of the McConnell School of Dance, so her costume was their design. Another key element is hair. Every dancer from the small to the tall, had to have hair in curly ringlets. I'm guessing it's got something to do with accentuating the appearance of the dance, as the dancers mostly dance with their arms straight at their side, and their feet doing all the work. The older dances all wear hairpieces, but the little ones had the option of a hairpiece or having their own hair curled. After curling her hair for an hour and a half, I began to appreciate the appeal of the hairpiece. :)

Her shoes are so cute, they're so small. It still amazes me that my kids have tiny feet, given the size of my own feet! They're called ghillies, or soft shoes. If she dances again next year she'll also begin to learn hard shoe technique.

It was such a strange flood of emotion when I saw her dance onto the stage with her group. I began sobbing! I think I was so overwhelmed with how adorable they all were, how proud I was of what she had accomplished, and a real sense of amazement that my little girl was old enough to be performing on this stage!

Sadly for us, the studio is moving next year. On the positive side, they're moving to get a better physical space and to allow for some expansion. On the negative side, it's not likely to be two blocks from our house! We'll see if September finds Meredith back in her ghillies again!

The Three Princess Grads

2009-05-25T22:15:00.009-05:00

This was a very busy weekend! Saturday we were invited out to Virden to celebrate the university graduation of three of my cousins. Airdrie has been done school for a little bit now, and is hard at work. Or so she tells us. We're pretty clear on the fact that she plays games all day at work. Ashleigh and Erin have both finished up their degrees this year, and are making that leap from school to work. It was a beautiful day, and a great reason to celebrate!

Kudos to the woman who made it all happen, my amazing Aunt Judy. Not only did she raise these three beautiful, compassionate, intelligent girls, she saw all three of them through their university degrees, and emerged on the other side with her sense of humour intact!

Of course our little princess wanted to be a part of the action too, so complete with her own tiara, she joined in the celebrations. See any family resemblance?!

Aaron started the afternoon out innocently enough.....with a bit of fun with his buddy Uncle Brad.

He then moved on to scaling the railing of the deck:

Trying to get his head stuck in the fence:

Wading into a sea of junipers:

And capped it all off with a visit from the freaky cat-next-door.

Not to be outdone, Meredith tried to convince Ashleigh and Mike to make funny faces for the camera. After every picture she would turn to them and say "Did you make a super funny one that time?"

Keeping the little cousins in order, and behaving like a perfect lady all day was baby Morgan.

She had a nice heart-to-heart with Grandma G,

listened to Meredith tell stories of all the things she was going to teach her when she got bigger,

and only looked slightly askance when Hurricane Aaron touched down.

Meredith fell asleep within minutes of leaving Virden. Aaron, on the other hand, stayed awake for over an hour and a half, finally dropping off to sleep somewhere around Carberry, by which time it was after 10 p.m. Where does he get the energy from?

Sunday was a whole new day with a whole new adventure: Meredith's Irish Dance recital. Pictures to follow another day!

What's this?

2009-05-22T21:00:00.003-05:00

Look what came in the mail today:

It didn't come to the wrong address. It's for her:

Oh. My. Goodness.
It's not like it's a surprise to me, I registered the child for Kindergarten, after all. But really. I have this tight feeling in my chest every time I think about her starting school. I never expected to feel this way. I figured I'd been through the hardest days, those first few weeks after I went back to work when she was one. Then I had the gift of another whole year of being at home when Aaron was born. When both of them started off to daycare, I was convinced THAT was the hard stuff. She was so sad in her first few days of daycare. I've never come so close to quitting my job, jumping ship on my career as I was in those days. Then gradually she made friends, began to look forward to her days there, and begged to stay longer at pick-up time. Now the daycare staff and the kids are a central part of all of our lives and she is flourishing there.

Just like she'll do in Kindergarten. She's just that kind of kid. Very sociable, so extroverted and self-assured, eager to make new friends and see new things.

She's not likely to be the one with the tears come September.

Fortunately, there was no mail of the sort for Aaron today. He's officially enrolled in drool-er-garten by the looks of his shirt today!

The Soccer Shiver!

2009-05-20T20:53:00.002-05:00

Meredith is playing soccer again this year, and the year is off to quite a start. The season was delayed a week because the field was too wet. The second game was cancelled on account of snow. In May. And last night's game made me wish I'd brought a winter jacket, mittens and a hot drink! Meredith seemed impervious to the cold in the first half and ran around merrily trailing the activity around the ball. She's playing with her good buddy Ethan and any time she takes every chance she can get to either chat with him, or get the ball to him. She spent a stretch of time in goal last night and had LOTS of opportunity to throw the ball back into play (read: she was scored on over, and over, and over again!). Every time she threw the ball in I could hear her shouting "Ethan, here you go! Here's the ball!"

The two of them are one day apart in age and nearly a foot apart in height by the looks of this picture! By the second half of the game, however, she could be found mostly warming her hands inside her shin pads.

The team is made up of kids aged 4 to 6. A vast array of sizes and abilities. Some of them actually seem to get the point of the game.

Aaron is itching to get on the field and run around with the kids too. In the first game we had to stop him from running onto the field to take Meredith her water bottle. Considerate little brother! He is definitely concerned with her well-being. If he gets a cracker, he always holds out the other hand for one for "Mer Mer." Last summer when he was just beginning to talk, he stood at the side of the wading pool while she was splashing about with her hat in his hands calling "Mer Mer, Mer Mer, Mer Mer" and patting his head over and over again to sign the word hat!

Anyhow, last night he brought Teddy Bear along for the ride. He watched the early part of the game, while the sun was still shining and the temperature was less bone-chilling before heading home with Daddy to a warmer climate.

Pray for sunshine tomorrow for game 3! We've had rain, we've had snow, we're just waiting for a plague of locusts.

Fun at the Fair

2009-05-18T20:13:00.005-05:00

It has been an action-packed long weekend, despite the ever-changing weather. It's amazing how one extra day at home with the kids makes it feel like we've had a holiday. Saturday Dave and Meredith collected the camper out of winter storage and we got it ready for a summer of use. Sunday we took it down to Falcon Lake to get it set up for the season, and today got lots of little jobs done around the house.

Unexpectedly, we also found ourselves at the fair on Saturday night, at the invitation of a friend of Meredith's. Apparently it's a yearly thing in this neighbourhood, and made us realize that we're never home on May long weekend as we'd never heard about it! It was the same midway that sets up at the Falcon Lake fair, so it was like an appetizer for Meredith, whetting her appetite for the fun to come later in the summer!

It was Aaron's first taste of a midway, at an age where he could take at least part of it in, and eyes were agog!

The girls warmed up on the merry-go-round,

and kept Aaron safe on his first ride! He looked a little unsure when it first started up, so Meredith held his hand like the sweet big sister that she is.

Before long, he decided the fun outweighed the frightening!

The icing on the cake, was the tremendous accomplishment of being able to ride the 'Dragon Wagon' without Mom! These are but two of the many great pictures Dave captured of the two girls in all their glory!

We've spent many of the 48 hours since then going through each and every ride that might be at the Falcon Lake fair in July and that she might just be big enough to ride alone.

Just like Mom!

2009-05-15T22:51:00.003-05:00

We're really looking forward to a three-day weekend around here. Seems like the past week has been non-stop! Though we did get a reprieve from playing soccer on Thursday night because it was soggy wet and only 2 degrees. Ahhhh, May in Manitoba! At least we're not feeling badly that we won't be camping this weekend as we usually do on May long weekend.

Anyhow, tonight after the usual work and daycare day, the kids discovered their new favourite plaything. Mommy's nametag.

They took turns wearing it around the house, using it to declare their official status to qualify them to do all kinds of jobs.

Aaron seemed to think the credentials required some examination...

As is all too clear from this picture, Meredith wants to grow her bangs out. I'm not sure if can survive the shagginess that's going to entail.

And in a classic parital-decapitation, Meredith had her turn with the camera too...

Happy long weekend!

Mother's Day Tea

2009-05-07T22:08:00.005-05:00

Today I was invited to a Mother's Day Tea at the kids' daycare. Meredith's teacher, the amazing Karen, organized a party where the 8 Monkeys (Meredith's group) invited their moms for tea and entertainment.

The kids have been practising their songs for weeks. They've been preparing snacks for days. They've been growing plants for their moms for who knows how long. I want to know how many extra plants the amazing Karen had to plant to ensure each Monkey had a plant for their mama today!

Anyhow, we got there and lined up to wash our hands (hygiene first....). Then the moms sat at the table while the Monkeys fixed each of us a plate of snacks and a cup of tea.

They were so proud of the 'nests' they had made, and the sugar cookies and the melon balls that looked not so much like a ball!

Next came the entertainment. And how entertaining it was! They had a set of three songs, then they were so pleased with themselves they did the whole set again.

For an intermission, they presented the moms with the special gifts they had made. A beautiful card, a certificate for the World's Best Mom and a fabulous hand made brooch.

What greater gift could a mom get than the love of this child!

Thought provoking

2009-05-06T22:53:00.003-05:00

A quick note before I go to bed. Today we went to see our pediatrician for Aaron's two-year-old check-up. As the kids and I were driving towards the clinic I was talking to Aaron about what we were doing to sort of prepare him for it, I guess. I told him we were going to see the doctor to check how healthy he was. I said, "Do you think the doctor will listen to Aaron's heart?" Aaron said "Da" (his version of yes.....he's secretly part Russian). Then he said "thump thump thump" which is the noise we make when we're playing with the stethescope out of the doctor kit at home.
"Do you think the doctor will check Aaron's ears?" "Da, ears."
"Do you think the doctor will check Aaron's teeth?" "Da, teef."

Then we drove along in silence (well, silence except for Aaron saying "thump thump thump" over and over again) until Meredith said "Mommy, do you think Dr. Rajani will look for the love in Aaron's heart?"

Wow.

I said I thought that was a great question, and that maybe Dr. Rajani would check that out. She percolated on that for a bit then said "Does he have to cut open Aaron's chest to look for the love in his heart?"

Where do kids come up with these things?!

"No Meredith, he definitely won't cut open Aaron's chest. Maybe he'll just listen, and look and watch and see if he can see the love in his heart."

Fortunately, Aaron received a clean bill of health, and no chest splitting was performed.

And just because I love it, here's one of my favourite pictures of Little Miss Thought Provoking (and her furry faithful sidekick) from a couple of months ago:

Aaron turns two!

2009-05-03T20:59:00.002-05:00

How did we get from here...

...to here so quickly?

Aaron turned two today. It seems completely impossible that two years have passed since the day of his birth. I was so shocked when he was born that he was a boy. Meredith had been predicting that "the baby" would be a girl for months, and I fully believed her. I figured she had some psychic sense about it, but apparently she had a 50/50 chance of being right. :) I don't remember the moments right after his birth clearly at all, the rush of hormones and excitement have made it all a blur, but Dave tells me I asked a LOT of times, "Are you sure? A boy? Really?" It took weeks before I could remember that he was a boy in that middle-of-the-night-nursing fog. He's not going to be thrilled to hear that when he's a teenager, I'm sure!

He's definitely a boy! It's been fascinating to watch him grow and develop. He's been exposed to a lot of dolls and stuffed animals and strollers and 'homemaking' kinds of toys around here because Meredith has received so many of those things as gifts. He'll happily play with those things, but just when you think he's giving the baby such a lovely stroller ride, he finds his green tractor and drives across her eyes! He can see a tractor at a thousand paces. He can hear an airplane over top of his own tantrums. Anything with wheels holds a special place in his heart. He's definitely a boy!

So in celebration of his big day today, we decided to pay Uncle Darrell a visit at the fire hall where he works. He got to 'drive' the truck,

watch all the lights blink and flash,

and best of all, shoot a water-filled fire extinguisher!

Meredith enjoyed herself just as much as her little brother. I think Uncle Darrell may have enjoyed himself too, as Meredith told him several times he had to be REALLY strong to be a firefighter!

We wrapped up the day with a trip to Sargeant Sundae for ice cream in lieu of birthday cake, and a full load of laundry for all the clothes Aaron managed to get dirty with one baby cone. It's a great day to be two!

Grandma G

2009-04-30T22:57:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful trip out to Deloraine on the weekend, minus a tiny little moment or two of the 7 hours spent driving! As per usual, the kids were up bright and early Saturday morning so I think we were on the road by 8 and in Portage by 9 to pick up Uncle Brad. Aaron said the words Uncle Brad about 180 times between Winnipeg and Porage.

Once we had him loaded up it was off to Brandon and a stop at Tim Horton's for caffeine refuelling for the adults, Timbit refuelling for Meredith and tractor, construction vehicle and van refuelling for Aaron. The Tim Horton's on #1 highway gets a LOT of transport truck traffic and there just happened to be a table available right beside the window where all the vehicles from the drive-thru and all the big trucks exited the parking lot. As if that wasn't enough, it's also right next door to a heavy equipment dealership. We're talking the big yellow front end loaders and graders and backhoes and whatever else they're called.

Insert the sound of a nearly-two-year-old boy's head exploding here....

Meredith and I stood in the longest line I've ever experienced in a Tim Horton's while Uncle Brad and Aaron watched the trucks. We could hear Aaron from across the restaurant saying "Bye bye big tuck!" "Bye bye van!" "Bye bye car!" the whoooole time. Seriously, Tim Horton's ought to pay this tiny little man for making everyone's donut-eating, coffee-swilling experience just that much brighter.

It was as we went to get back in the car to continue on to Deloraine that I realized I had forgotten the memory card for the camera in the laptop at home. D'oh! A whole weekend full of great pictures waiting to be taken and me with no card. Anyhow, on we travelled, introducing Uncle Brad to the melodious strains of the Backyardigans and the inevitable "All done. Too tight. All done. Too tight." routine from Aaron.

The whole purpose of the trip was to visit my grandmother, aka Grandma G. She was given the nickname Grandma G by the eldest of her great-grandchildren because it was a lot easier to say than Great Grandma. She's 91, still living in her own apartment, and a force to be reckoned with. The rest of the weekend was spent visiting, doing a few odd jobs around the apartment, and driving around the countryside. Meredith hadn't been there since she was about 2, so it was a great chance to show her the farm where I grew up, the schools I attended, and the amazing view from the side of the Turtle Mountains. She's also mature enough now to begin to digest what the cemetery is all about, and how meaningful the graves of my parents, her Grandpa Bill and Grandma Roberta, are. She had lots of interesting questions, a solemn little face, and a heart full of compassion when she saw the grown-ups tearing up.

Aaron tore around between the headstones and in perfect Aaron style, eventually sat down on Grandpa Bill's marker to survey the rest of the cemetery. It gave us all a smile and as Brad later said, looked just as though he was climbing up on Grandpa's knee for a bit.

Magically, Uncle Brad also spotted two perfect prairie crocuses growing up in the grass of the cemetery just as we were about to leave.

All in all it was a great weekend, and I'm hoping we'll get back out in about a month. With the camera. Until then, here's a picture of Grandma G with the kids from our last visit with her at Christmas.

Mr. Potato Head Picasso Style

2009-04-24T22:28:00.003-05:00

The kids had a blast tonight playing with one of Aaron's birthday gifts from last weekend's party, a Mr. Potato Head with a bezillion accessories. Meredith was having fun making the most bizzare looking potato creature she could dream up.

Then tested out how closely her own face could match that of her creation...

Meanwhile, Aaron searched for the matching holes in his own skin to attach the accessories to himself...

Tomorrow morning we head out to Deloraine for a long overdue visit with Great Grandma. I'm practising achieving a Zen state in my head in anticipation of 3 1/2 hours in the car. :) Poor Uncle Brad has no idea what he's in for when we pick him up along the way....

Book of the Week

2009-04-24T20:20:00.003-05:00

In truth, this entry should be titled book (or at least author...) of the last 12 to 18 months. Meredith loves her Berenstain Bears books, and has for quite some time now. She has this freakishly amazing auditory memory, and one of my favourite memories is of her 'reading' the Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist to me when she was just barely three years old. Word. For. Word. We've accumulated a few of the books from garage sales and our own purchases, and are lucky enough to have on loan to us the entire library of the Virden Pooles' Berenstain Bears book collection. Fun to think I'm reading the same thing to Meredith that Aunt Judy and Uncle Ross read to Airdrie, Ashleigh and Erin!

The current favourite of the Berenstain Bears books, is "The Truth". Like all of their books, there is a moral or lesson to the story, and this one is (not surprisingly...) extolling the virtues of telling the truth. I wonder if she is so taken by this book right now because she herself is testing out the concepts of truth and honesty.

She's always got a willing audience when she feels like reading aloud, be it human or feline!

You will recognize the now trademark "No Mommy" hand position Aaron is demonstrating...

Potty talk

2009-04-23T22:00:00.003-05:00

Aaron seems to using the potty more regularly these days, both at home and at daycare. Seems in the last few days if his diaper is off, he manages to make it to the potty in time to work it all out. It's kind of like his office....the bathroom step stool is his table, and his kind sister keeps him supplied with a steady supply of reading material! Our potty of choice is this fabulous Baby Bjorn one piece potty. It's lower to the ground than most, has a built-in 'shield' at the front, and no pot to pull out to dump. Read: no pot for Aaron to pull out to dump on the floor!

In addition to using the potty more regularly, he's taken to saying "No Mommy!" more regularly, as was happening here:

I love this one....clear evidence of what hard work potty training is!

Good thing the weather is starting to warm up. Walking around the house with no pants could be chilly mid-winter! Yellow rubber boots clearly make the outfit...

A whole lotta birthday!

2009-04-19T22:34:00.005-05:00

Today was the massive family & friends birthday party for Meredith and Aaron that we've been planning for what seems like weeks! Because their birthdays are only six weeks apart, and those weeks fall around Easter and Mother's Day, this year we decided to try celebrating their birthdays together with the extended family and friends. We chose a date that was a little late for Meredith, a little early for Aaron, and gave it a whirl. It was a blast, and I think both kids had a great time. They are both so very fortunate to have such loving aunties, uncles, grandparents and friends.

What I had not bargained for was just how long it would take me to pull together two birthday cakes. I love making the kids' cakes partly because I have such fond memories of the cakes my mom made for me as a child. Meredith was not to be deterred from her desire for an Atomic Betty birthday cake. Atomic Betty is the star of a cartoon Meredith happened upon somehow, which has become her fast favourite. It's a pretty neat cartoon actually, it's Canadian made and Betty lives in "Moose Jaw Heights" when she's not out fighting crime as a galactic guardian.

Meredith stood on a stool at the counter and watched me ice this cake for what seemed like hours yesterday. After a preliminary "But that's not really the colour of Atomic Betty's hair....", her comments were so encouraging and sweet. I felt like a world champion cake decorator by the time it was done, given her heartfelt reaction to it!

Aaron is really into trains right now, so I'd planned to make a Percy cake since he likes green trains the best of all! After the prolonged stint of Betty-making however, I wasn't feeling terribly atomic myself, so the plan for his cake got downgraded a little. Many thanks to Alanna for her loan of the fabulous track/train cake topper!

He was thrilled with the cake, and I've resolved to make his first next year. :) So on to the best part of the day, singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles.

Completely charmed with the sounds of 30-some people singing Happy Birthday to him....

And even more pleased with himself once he'd blown the candles out (thankfully without spitting all over the cake.....)

We moved on to sing it all again to big sister and she drew in a big breath to blow...

Can't....fight....the....urge....to....blow....out....her....candles...too....

Summarily returned to his seat by the long arm of the law....

Mission accomplished!

Moooo!

2009-04-16T00:13:00.007-05:00

Over the Easter weekend, the kids and I had the chance to visit my friend Sharon and her family on their farm south of Winnipeg. Having grown up on a farm, this seemed like a particularly wonderful thing to do during calving season, and fortunately both kids were gung ho at the prospect! The drive to the farm was a blessed interlude of silence as they napped the whole way there. I considered just continuing to drive....

But then I would have missed the sight of a calf only two hours old, a visit with Sharon and her husband Don, a glimpse of the barn cats, and the nonstop exclamations of "tractor!", "tractor!", "tractor!"

Who knew the inanimate objects would be as big of a thrill as the cows!

Meredith fancied herself quite the farmer, having figured out how to climb the stairs on the combine. Aaron was clearly just in search of something sharp to bump his head on.

Thanks for a great afternoon Sharon!

Book of the Week

2009-04-14T08:37:00.002-05:00

I've got lots to catch up on, seems like Easter weekend was a hive of activity!

First, a book from our bookshelves that's seen some extra attention in the past week. This was a favourite of Meredith's when she was smaller, and was a gift from my friend Judy when she was born. It's called Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell.

Owl Babies is a sweet story of three baby owls, Sarah and Percy and Bill. The baby owls wake up in the night and their Owl Mother has gone hunting. The story follows their speculations as to where she's gone and how long she'll be. Most reassuring of all, she does come home in the end, and says "What's all the fuss? You knew I'd come back."

Aaron hasn't paid the book much attention up until now, and it appears the first reading was enough to knock the slipper right off of him!

What waits at home

2009-04-09T22:48:00.003-05:00

I had an absolutely, horrifyingly hard day at work today, all wrapped up in trying arrange care for a frail, terminally ill man who is alone in the world. I felt such profound empathy for this sweet man, and his frightening situation.

How blessed I am, at the end of a day like today, to have these beautiful children to come home to, and a husband who came when I called. What waits at home is the best part of life.

A Sniff of Spring!

2009-04-07T21:01:00.004-05:00

We went for a walk after work/daycare today to pick up something Meredith had forgotten at Irish Dance yesterday. For the first time in months I was able to get the bike trailer through the back gate. There's been too much snow and ice built up around the base of the gate to open both sections enough to maneuver the width of the trailer out, so I've been lifting it over the front fence instead for what seems like an eternity!
Meredith fell asleep on the walk home. Not sure how this is possible when Aaron was sitting right beside her shrieking words at the top of his lungs. Apparently he's learned the word 'pocket' so this was a prominent feature of our running commentary as he put his water in and out of the pocket in the trailer over and over and over again. The fascination of a new word (and a new pocket) was only interrupted by "air-pane! air-pane!" and "doddie! doddie!" which I'm pretty sure in this context meant doggie, NOT daddy or dirty which sound exactly the same right now.

I guess when a girl is tired, a girl is tired.

And apparently not too happy about waking up!

Fortunately, the sidewalk beside the house is a clear patch of concrete and out came the tricycle and mower. Happiness is!

It did all our spirits good to play today, and bedtime was a piece of cake!

Mr. Naughty

2009-04-02T21:51:00.004-05:00

It's a good thing Aaron is so darn cute. Today he seemed to wake up with an extra dose of naughty in his veins. He would have gone to daycare in nothing for a diaper, had it not been for Meredith. Just in the last week he's begun using the word "NO!" with the regularity that most people blink. Or breathe. He adamantly refused to let mommy or daddy help him get dressed, get into his booster seat, or get his breakfast. She got his clothes on. Sloooowwwwwlllly, but she got his clothes on. She got him to sit at the table. She got him to eat some breakast. Thank God for Meredith!
So eventually he got dressed. Ate. Got to daycare. Tried to bite another child.
This is not the first time this has happened. He has an 'incident report' hanging on his little locker a few days a week due to biting. It's frustrating, and mortifying, and sad. The daycare staff are so amazing, and are doing a great job of dealing with Aaron and dealing with me! Today they tried something new. Aaron was sent to the daycare director's office, and had to sit in the chair by her desk. They've tried having him in a highchair in the infant room, in the kitchen area in the infant room, and sitting in the hallway, so they escalated it today. 23 months old and in the principal's office already. :) Hopefully the seriousness of it all will eventually sink into his little red head.
When we got home, he went straight to the wet snow and water on top of the hot tub and splashed it until the front of his clothes was saturated.

Then in classic Aaron fashion, just before I could blow a gasket, he picked up a little scrap of something off the deck and began dancing and playing his "flute" to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell.

It's a good thing he's so darn cute.

Book of the Week

2009-03-31T20:36:00.005-05:00

I'd love to keep track of which book is the flavour of the week around our house. Meredith is a real book lover, and our trip to the library is one of the highlights of her week I think. She's loved books from a very young age, and would sit to listen to a story shortly after she turned one. I began to worry that Aaron wouldn't develop the same love of books, as he can't sit still to eat, never mind read a book!
Fortunately on his own he seems to have come to a book-loving place! Quite often now I'll feel a sense of panic because I can't seem him and it's quiet. Too quiet. Whereas a few months ago that would likely have meant I'd find him with his hands in the toilet, or disassembling Meredith's CD player, now it's more likely that he's encountered a book and is making friends with it.
This week's flavour is the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle. I'm guessing someone has been reading it to his group at daycare lately, because about 10 days ago I found him penguin-strutting around the house saying "bown beah, bown beah, da da da see". We scoped out the copy hiding in his bookshelf, and it's been a faithful companion ever since.

While his favourite page is the teacher, he spends a lot of time looking at the green frog too. He's magically attracted to green. He'll choose the green diaper from the stack of Fuzzi Bunz, he'll eat the green Smartie from a group in front of him, he'll choose the green bowl over any other colour. Clearly he knows redheads look good in green.....

My Birthday Girl.

2009-03-30T22:21:00.006-05:00

Shockingly, Meredith turned five at the end of last week. We were at Elkhorn Resort for the week, so had a special day for just the four of us on her birthday.

I haven't got a clue where the past five years have gone. And yet, I have absolutely no recollection of what life was like before her. I can't get over how she's changed in five years, and how I've changed too. I still remember clearly the first night in the hospital, when it was just she and I alone in the room for the first time. She was sleeping the well-earned sleep of a newborn and I couldn't fall asleep for fear I wouldn't hear her if she needed me.
Little did I know, I'd never sleep deeply again.
I slept with my glasses on that night, for fear I wouldn't be able to see her clearly.
Little did I know, I'd grown eyes in the back of my head that day.
At her birthday party yesterday with her friends from daycare I was talking to some of the other parents about how magical this age is. She is so capable of thought, and reason, and unending conversation about fascinating stuff. But when she is hurt, or scared, or sick, she still curls into my arms like the baby she once was.

I don't want her to grow up any more. Charmingly, she tells me I don't need to be sad about her growing up, because she's never going to live anywhere but with me. :)

Loveys

2009-03-19T21:21:00.005-05:00

I don't remember having a particular lovey as a child. I do have a bear now that I remember from my grandma's house in Deloraine. He's very shabby, needs a bit of stitching up in fact, but is still very special. As I recall, my brothers and I took turns and shared him when we stayed there. And we stayed there a lot as kids while my mom got treatments.

Meredith received a soft white kitty as a gift from one of my coworkers when she was born. It sat in her crib beside her until she became aware of it. Once she was old enough to know it was there, it quickly became a favourite. Not wanting to have it all end in a lost-lovey-crisis I went out to buy another one. Lovey insurance. But the kitty was expensive and I was cheap and decided to buy a different kitty. A kitty from Winners.

Never buy anything that you might want more of from Winners.

Soon the new kitty became the favorite kitty. So I went out to try to buy another one of that kitty. Now would not be a good time to review the math involved in the gas and time spent finding a second new, cheaper kitty versus having bought one more of the original kitty in the first place.

After scouring more than one Winners I found a second kitty. Except instead of saying "My First Kitty" on its chest, it said "My First Teddy".

'Kitty' as she was originally called lived with us. In various incarnations she was named Pinky. This was to distinguish her from the original white cat (still much beloved) named Whitey. Or Whitey-dee-dee-dee when called by her full name. Pink kitty #2 (aka Teddy) lived at our friend's house where Meredith went to daycare. To my knowledge, Meredith never knew she had two pink kittys until around the time Aaron was born and we brought her nap-time things home from the home daycare.

The kitties now tend to travel in a pack, and are rarely separated. They are differentiated by being called "the one with the perked up ears" and "the other one". On letter 'S' show and tell week, Meredith took her kittys because they are 'special' and 'shabby'. They've been to Mexico, to B.C., and back and forth to nursery school enough times to make a map of the route. They've wiped away more tears than I care to remember.

I hope Meredith will look at the pictures I've taken of the kitties some day when she is much older and remember the feeling of world-spinning-completely-as-it-should that she has now the minute she holds them.

Welcome home

2009-03-17T20:29:00.003-05:00

I spent some time in Gimli on the weekend at a board of directors retreat. It meant I was away from the house Friday night, and most of the day Saturday. When I got home Saturday, this is what was waiting for me.

So sweet it still brings tears to my eyes!

It's also been a really lovely few days of listening to Aaron learn to say some new things. I said goodnight to the kids by phone on Friday night. When I said "love you" to Aaron over the phone, he responded back "lah looo"! Then on Monday night, it was "Love you Aaron" before I popped him into his crib, only to hear him answer "Lah loo Mommy!"

Tonight while I was making dinner, I caught the two of them in Aaron's room.

Not hiding under the crib, not wreaking havoc. Reading.

These are the moments to hold on to when they're having a tug-of-war over the most lucrative piece of Littlest Pet Shop, or the better bowl of strawberries!

Why?

2009-03-11T21:27:00.005-05:00

I don't keep a journal. I wish I kept a journal. Or updated baby books beyond the first month or so. Or printed photos for a photo album. Or scratched notes on a napkin, for Pete's sake!

But I don't.

My kids just keep growing, and as more time passes I want to freeze some moments in time. The good, the bad, and the ugly! It's time to find a way to scratch a bit of a message in the sand and keep track of these fleeting moments. I've already forgotten so many of the little details of the past nearly five years of motherhood, it's time to get started!