Picnic Season

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?

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.