I love the playmats you can buy at this etsy shop, Rumpus. They are adorable and so well made.
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Awkward!
I love this site so much – Awkward Family Photos
Family visit
In what would have been a comedy of errors if it hadn’t been so frustrating for all of us, my parents and I had been trying to get together for ages with no luck. You would think that we lived on opposite ends of the country. Let’s put it this way – they still had Easter stuff to give to the kids (and to George and myself, woohoo!), so it had been going on that long.
My mom called me yesterday while I was making supper and asked if it would be okay for them to come by for a few hours today. I glanced over my shoulder in minor panic. We had been out for part of the day and when I got home I was utterly lazy and hadn’t done a single thing in the way of housework beyond washing some dishes so that I could serve supper on them. Then I shrugged, realized my parents weren’t going to do a military inspection of my home, and said of course they could.
I was up at a reasonable hour today anyway, so I did some quick cleaning to cover the basics – tidying, vacuuming, mopping, dishes, bathroom – and then they arrived shortly after I was done so that was good timing. We sat and hung out on the balcony for a bit until George came home with some lunch stuff. We just had hot dogs with some potato salad and macaroni salad, but no one seemed to mind a simple lunch.
The kids were really excited to open their Easter stuff (and I am currently typing this while pausing to grab a few candy-coated dark chocolate eggs, so yay for delayed Easter goodies indeed). My parents left pretty early since they knew it was a school night for Hayley so I cleaned up the kitchen and played with the kids until supper time, then got them into a bath and ready for bed. They were obviously worn out since they both fell asleep really quickly. Pearl was a very happy Beagle and had a blast playing with my mom and dad, so she has also spent most of the afternoon and evening lazing around – tired puppy.
It was great to have them over. With our building not having an elevator and our apartment being on the top floor it’s a giant effort for my dad to visit but I’m glad they did! Maybe one day we’ll live somewhere on a ground floor so it will be easier.
Breanna had a very serious conversation, telling my dad all about her Curious George monkey.
Both Hayley and Breanna were disappointed that my parents had to leave so they rushed out to the balcony to wait for them to get downstairs just so they could scream “Bye Mimi! Bye Papa!” as they made their way to the car.
Today was a good way to close off the weekend. The U.S. may be celebrating Memorial Day weekend, but we Canadians had our long weekend last week so for me tomorrow means back to the grind!
Two girls with glasses
On Wednesday I was really swamped covering the Cannes Film Festival for work purposes, so George took Hayley and Breanna to their eye appointments. It was really weird for me because it was the first time I had ever not gone to an appointment with them. Sitting at home (even though I was working) and waiting for a phone update was strange.
In the end it turned out that Hayley most definitely needed glasses which we had expected. She had been having trouble seeing the chalk board at school and I wasn’t surprised to find out she needed some extra help. What shocked me was that Breanna actually has terrible eyesight. It never crossed our minds because she runs around, looks at books, sees everything as far as we could tell (including things we don’t want her to see, like when we’re trying to sneak something), and watches TV. She doesn’t walk into walls or get confused, she sees planes way up in the sky, everything. Finding out her eyesight is actually worse than Hayley’s was stunning to say the least.
They got prescriptions and an appointment in July to come back and see how things were going with them. Today we went to New Look for glasses because they seemed to have the best current promotion for children’s eyewear. We don’t want to go cheap, but we also don’t want to get $300 Calvin Klein frames for kids who run around outside a lot.
Hayley was so disappointed to find out that she wasn’t going to get them today. It takes about a week to a week and a half to have them made because of their specific prescriptions. Still, they picked out their frames and were happy. *I* was happy because neither of them wanted anything obnoxious. I was worried for a second when Hayley told Breanna she had found Caillou frames. They were cute in that they had a tiny Caillou and a heart on the side, but they were a really loud primary blue and just didn’t look good on her at all. Luckily she wasn’t interested and seemed to like the oval gold-framed glasses I found in her size. Meanwhile, Hayley already knew she wanted either gold or silver since one of her teachers wears gold-framed glasses. We found some she really loved in a rectangular shape.
Even though they won’t be ready and they’re only the sample lenses, I got them to pose for pictures. Hayley is totally thrilled with hers. Because of her face shape the sales guy said we really shouldn’t go any wider than these but since she loves them they’re perfect – she has to wear them every day so being happy with them is important.
Meanwhile, Breanna is pleased with hers but she wasn’t too keen on posing so I got the standard “Breanna Silly Smile” face, but it’s close enough.
(Also I really did brush her hair before leaving home, but the windows down in the car kind of killed that effort.)
After our adventure in eyewear we stopped and had lunch at La Belle Province for some burgers and poutine, then hit the dollar store for supplies for Hayley’s rainforest project. It ended up being a pretty good day. Luckily they went to sleep easily since my parents are coming for lunch tomorrow so hopefully the kids will be rested and cheerful.
I can’t wait to get the new glasses to see what kind of difference it makes for both of them!
Eager learner
It took Hayley a bit of time to warm up to grade one. It’s such a total difference from Kindergarten. In Kindergarten they had circle time on the floor, sang songs, did arts and crafts, had play areas with different toys, and learned simple things while sitting at tables.
In grade one everyone has their own desk, there’s no singing or dancing, and there’s a lot of sitting and listening to learn things. There’s also a shocking amount of homework, to the point that we never EVER do every single thing she’s supposed to do, because hell no, I’m not spending every moment that she’s home doing school work after she’s been sitting at a desk doing school work for hours on end.
Still, she’s finally really loving school. She liked it well enough before but we had several instances where she would play sick only for us to discover that she was just fine after we had kept her home. More than once I had to hope I wasn’t making a mistake and send her off to school despite claims of stomach aches, sore throats, and headaches.
Then she stopped. She went to school for a month straight without a single complaint. She goes to the breakfast club and she loves arriving in the cafeteria a bit early so she can have a variety of breakfast meals – they vary from day to day, things like cold cereal, hot cereal, eggs, breakfast burritos, waffles, pancakes, and English muffins. They also offer yogurt and fresh fruit every day in case some kids don’t like the meal of the day. She also loves seeing her friends and coming home to tell us all that she learned that day (right now they’re studying the rain forest and they have a project due for the end of the month where they have to pick an animal – she chose the iguana – and find out information about them, give a speech to the class (!), and make the animal out of clay).
Last week she had some sort of random bug. She was fine when she got up on Monday but then she suddenly had a bad cramp right before it was time to go. She started crying and said the cramping was across her whole stomach. When I felt her head she felt a little bit warm so I decided to keep her home. She spent most of the day lying on the couch looking sad and small.
She also stayed home on Tuesday. She started crying as soon as I woke her up, so I called the school again and let her sleep. She was better by lunch time so I said she’d be okay to go back to school on Wednesday. In the past she would get nervous about that, worried that she’d be stuck at school feeling sick, but that day she said she was looking forward to going back and couldn’t wait to go to bed so she could get up and go to school.
She wasn’t kidding. On Wednesday morning I got up at 6:30 like I always do. I usually go and take the dog out to pee before I get her up. I walked into the living room, leash in hand, and found Hayley sitting on the couch, fully dressed with her teeth brushed. I was shocked.
Then she repeated that on Thursday and Friday. Each day she was up before I was and dressed, waiting for me to get up so she could have her hair done and go to school. It was nuts.
This weekend was a long weekend here in Canada, and so she had today off. All day she kept telling me how she wished it was already Tuesday so she could go to school.
I’m glad that she’s finally super pumped over school. I just wonder what she’s going to do when school wraps up for the year in just over a month!
——-
Speaking of Hayley, she’s still a girl on a mission to save all the snails in our neighborhood. The other morning she saw that several of them had wandered from the damp grass to the sidewalk and she was worried people would step on them, either by accident or on purpose (which seems likely since there are sometimes a ridiculous amount of smashed shells when I’m walking along). She always, ALWAYS stops to pick them up. She’ll tap them on the shell very lightly so that they slip up inside, then she picks them up and puts them back in the grass out of harm’s way.
I sometimes joke with her that maybe the snails are going to get ticked off, saying, “Oh my GOD, I spent three hours getting to that damn sidewalk and she just put me back in the grass!” But really, I love that my little good Samaritan will take time out of her busy six-year-old life just to save snails.
The things I miss
I’m a night owl and I come by it honestly, courtesy of my mother.
Tonight I watched the two hour finale of “Desperate Housewives”. I know my parents watch too and I wanted to talk about it, so despite the fact that it was 11 pm, I called my mother, knowing she’d still be up. It turned out that she was up, but she had just gotten out of the bath and into pajamas – she hadn’t see the show because my dad was watching the finale for Survivor, so they recorded the show to watch later this week. I obviously didn’t want to spoil the ending so I shut up other than telling my mother to PLEASE call me after she got to watch it since I wanted to ask her what she thought of something.
Still, we managed to talk on the phone for over 20 minutes. We talked about the weekend, the weather, the fact that her friend from work got me the autograph of the first Canadian astronaut in space, books, and other shows.
In the end we only got off the phone because my mom has to get up early for work on Monday, holiday aside (Victoria day) since she works for an American company. Otherwise, we would have kept going, because it’s only necessity that forces my mom to bed before midnight, not genetics.
When my grandmother was still alive and her house was still standing, my mother and I used to have epic late nights during the summer. With my sister being five years younger than me, she’d be in bed at a reasonable hour, but I remember that all summer when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, my mom and I would stay up late.
We would sit in the kitchen until at least 11 pm, and then we’d head upstairs (my dad would be in the city all week for work, coming up north on the weekends). I’d sprawl across the bed with a book or magazine and my mother would sit in a little wicker chair, reading too. We’d both read a bit but we’d also interrupt each other to chat. My mom and I could sit and talk to each other – easily – until 1 or so in the morning. More than once it was almost 2 am when we finally said good night and I’d finally head off to my own bed for some sleep.
I’ve always been able to talk to my mother. Sure, as a teenager there were a multitude of things I never shared with her, as will be the case when my own girls are teenagers, but overall, I never had a problem talking to my mom. I love to talk to her on the phone now, but sometimes I wish we could just go back to the house that no longer exists and just talk until the hours become ridiculous, until we’re both yawning and all but nodding off, and just relive those days.
(My mom hates that picture, taken at Christmas time, but that’s only because she has no idea how much it means to me.)
A weekend of Mother's Day
Considering the fact that Mother’s Day is only one day, I actually had a really great weekend altogether. My one disappointment was that I didn’t get to see my own mom due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control but hopefully it will work out for getting to see her next weekend. Other than that, Friday through Sunday were awesome.
George’s sister and her husband came for the weekend and since the kids were excited to see them, they ended up staying at George’s parents’ house for supper. Because of that, George and I actually went out to eat by ourselves. We didn’t go for a fancy meal – we actually just went to Kentucky Fried Chicken to try out that new Star Wrap thing. Verdict: More filling than it looks, pretty tasty, and was clearly invented by someone who was completely stoned (chicken strips, salad, tortilla chips, sauce, and cheese wrapped in a soft tortilla? Definitely made by a stoner). However, what made it great was that we were able to just EAT in peace without having to deal with anything else and we were able to talk without interruption. That’s a nice change of pace! Afterwards I took the dog for a long walk in the woods and then had an hour of quiet to finish up my work for the weekend before the kids came home.
Speaking of the woods, I found a new spot I had never seen before and was greatly confused by what was sitting in the middle of it. Because who the hell expects to see a REALLY old and completely rusted out car in the woods, especially when there are currently only footpaths, no roads.
Weird.
Saturday was the day that my parents were supposed to come over for dinner so I passed the morning by cleaning up and getting ready for the visit while George did some shopping. When my mom called to tell me they couldn’t make it I thought maybe we could invite someone else to come over for dinner instead. However, when George’s sister showed up to take the kids out for awhile, we ended up asking if they could go over there for supper again. When they said yes and George and I were alone once again, I ended up being able to get the one “present” that I really truly wanted for Mother’s Day.
Not that, you pervs.
We went to see Star Trek! Seriously, I have been climbing the walls waiting to see it and I assumed the weekend would be too busy for me to get to the theater. When George asked me to go check the showtimes at the theater I would have done a backflip if I was physically able to perform one.
The show started at 6:40 and I was so paranoid that they’d sell all the tickets out that we were there about 40 minutes early. It didn’t sell out but the theater was definitely jam packed with only the first two rows empty (the rows where you can’t move your neck for three days because of craning to see the screen).
I can not lie to you: That movie was amazing. Seriously. It was exciting from start to finish and I’m not entirely sure that I blinked at all for the entire two hours because I was afraid I might miss something. George had to slip off to the washroom for a minute halfway through and when he said he’d be right back I think I asked him, “are you insane?!”
I only saw it a few days ago and I already want to see it again. Chris Pine as James T. Kirk? AWESOME.
The kids went to bed pretty quickly once they got home after 9 pm, so that was nice since it left me a few hours to enjoy a couple of glasses of the red wine that we had lying around.
On Sunday I didn’t really get to sleep in, but I did get to lounge around in bed for several hours and I dozed on and off which was nice. Hayley brought in all the stuff that she had made for me in school and a pendant that she and Breanna had picked out for me the day before, then Hayley made toast for me for breakfast in bed (George handled the coffee though!). A couple of hours later, George made bacon and eggs for brunch too, so I was pretty full for awhile.
We mostly just took it easy after that. We went over to his parents’ house for an hour later in the day because we had a DVD with all the photos that I took at his sister’s wedding (all 200+ of them!) and the photos from their honeymoon. It was fun to look back at all those pictures.
Once I got the kids into bed, I just spent the evening relaxing with some TV, the Internet, and a little more wine, and that was the perfect end to a really good weekend. In a move that is so utterly uncharacteristic of me that I wonder if I was abducted by aliens, I didn’t take any pictures of myself with the kids for Mother’s Day. I’m not sure why I didn’t, I guess I was just too busy. Busy being relaxed. And really, that’s not too bad in the end.
I hope everyone else had a great weekend too, especially the moms!
*******
In other news, I have a review up for Colgate Max White toothpaste.
Also, I totally forgot to link to this when I wrote it, but I vented a slight grievance that I have with Scholastic over at the Canada Moms Blog.
Is it lunch time already? Good lord, where is the time going today?!
How to find some peace
The other day the kids were both driving me crazy. They’re going through a phase where they can barely be in the same room together for longer than three minutes without some sort of epic fight breaking out. And I swear to you, they can – and will – fight over anything. ANYTHING. They’ll fight over who gets the one lone yellow bowl and who has to have a blue on (I’m about to throw the damn yellow bowl out). They’ll argue over who gets to lock the door when someone leaves. It never ends.
It got to a point where I was seriously debating walking to the nearest mental facility and insisting that they lock me inside a nice soft room until both kids reach adulthood but I’d probably change my mind after the first couple of days (maybe a whole week?) so something less drastic was in order.
It turns out that a dumb Beagle on your leash, Jason Mraz on your iPod, and woods spread out around you can do a whole lot of good for the soul. Remember what I said about how we need a yard? What we really need is a place with a yard that backs onto a really huge wooded area. I felt so much better once I was away from street noise and people and was just surrounded by trees and plants and dirt paths. I would do so well in a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere. With a good high speed Internet connection, naturally.
But seriously, this kind of landscape does wonders for the spirit.
In other non-stabby news (with a nod to Angella for the term “stabby” which is so accurate, isn’t it?), Hayley decided that she really wanted to cook something. She’s been getting her own sandwiches from time to time but she wanted to make something more substantial. I wish I could remember who it was that mentioned it on their blog (if you remember, please tell me!) that the danger with kids cooking is that they could burn themselves on a hot stove, but so what? That’s how they learn. That stuck in my head for awhile.
I’m obviously not about to let my six-year-old handle a pot full of boiling water and she’s not ready for unsupervised cooking, but just some basic stove use? Well, why the hell not.
Thus, the other day when she came home from school, instead of giving her a yogurt or something simple for a snack, Hayley made herself some scrambled eggs. She was super excited when I said that yes, she would be making them on the stove and no, I was not going to do any of it. I narrated to her, telling her what she needed to do and I mimed things for her (like cracking the eggs into a bowl and how to whisk the milk in) but she did every single thing herself.
And she did indeed burn herself a tiny little bit on the edge of the pan, and the world didn’t end. She basically reacted like me, except that she said, “Oh, OUCH!” whereas I would have used a slightly stronger expletive than “ouch”, but she was fine and she kept cooking.
The only time I finally stepped in was when it was time to dish the eggs out into two bowls so that she could share some with Breanna. For one thing, I wanted to make sure Breanna got more than one bite in her bowl, and for another, the frying pan is a bit heavy and I didn’t want Hayley to lose her grip and drop the eggs all over the floor – not because it would be a huge mess, but because it would have triggered one of those “really tired post-school kid meltdowns” of epic proportions.
She was so very proud of herself and is already looking forward to doing it again. Maybe I’ll let her make us breakfast this weekend. It IS going to be Mother’s Day after all!
Breanna won’t be ready for real stove cooking for awhile but she has helped me pour and stir things before when they’re not directly on the burners, and the same day that Hayley made the eggs, Breanna made her own tuna sandwich, first helping me mix the tuna with the mayonnaise and then making the actual sandwich herself. The only thing I had to do was cut it (square, please, never ever triangles!).
Do your kids cook?
This, that, and other stuff
We had a busy weekend. Luckily it wasn’t the crazy, stressful kind of busy. Just busy in the sense that we had plenty of moments to enjoy.
Friday night, Hayley’s school held another movie night in the gym. The admission is free and they sell popcorn, drinks, and chips to raise funds. They were showing Bedtime Stories and since it’s not animated I had a strong suspicion that Breanna wouldn’t be interested at all, which would leave me following her all around the gym and cafeteria for an hour and a half. Instead, she went with George to get some ice cream while I took Hayley to the movie. When we were outside the school Hayley picked a couple of dandelions to give to her principal.
I made a good choice in not taking Breanna this time. Last time it was Wall-E which she loves, and even then she wandered a lot. This movie would not be her thing. Actually, there were an awful lot of kids in the gym who weren’t paying much attention – it was mostly all the parents watching the movie. Still, they had fun and that’s what counts. They seem to mostly just enjoy coming to the school out of uniform to socialize. And by the way, it’s a really cute movie for slightly older kids. I enjoyed it and want to see it again to fill in the parts that I missed (such as when my drink got kicked over, ahem).
When Saturday rolled around I was on a mission to finally – after ten freakin’ years – do something to make our balcony look nice. It was a good start last summer when we got our bistro set, at least we had somewhere nice to sit (which was why it was a shame it was so darn rainy), but for years I had been saying that I wanted to plant some flowers. For reasons that I don’t even understand, I just never did.
First, one of Hayley’s friends invited her over for the day, so we headed over there to drop her off. After that we went straight to Canadian Tire. Breanna had been disappointed that she wasn’t joining Hayley, but once she wandered around the garden area with me, helping me pick out flowers, she was much more cheerful.
I don’t know much about flowers, I’ve never had a very green thumb. Honestly, I have killed every plant I’ve ever owned. I went with what was familiar and what came with indications that they would thrive in full sunlight since we get constant sun from about 11:30 am until sunset on our balcony, with no overhang to provide shade. I ended up getting pansies in yellow, orange, white, and purple, as well as one geranium plant. They all make me smile because my grandmother on my dad’s side always had those in her window boxes. I also got a packet of wildflower seeds for fun.
When we got home, Breanna and I ventured out on the balcony with a giant bag of earth, some plant pots, and our flowers and we got to work. I realized I didn’t have a proper shovel, but we managed with our hands and some sturdy spoons. Ghetto gardening!
I didn’t get any good pictures of the pansies that are in the longer boxes up on the railing because it was a little too windy to get a good shot. Just ask Breanna.
After we were done and washed up, we were invited to go join Hayley for some pizza for dinner. Breanna was thrilled to go play with the two big girls and I was thrilled to have a glass of wine and talk to other adults. By the time we got home, both kids were so tired that they were out within about ten minutes, sound asleep.
On Sunday morning, Hayley wanted us to all go do something fun together and it was a nice day so we decided to go to the park. When we were headed out we saw our neighbor’s daughter; she’s in grade two at Hayley’s school but because they’ve known each other for years they often hang out together, especially when they go see the handball games at lunch. We ended up inviting her to come along and they all had a lot of fun. I was happy to take a lot of pictures, and was even happier when George took over the camera and took several shots of his own. I love seeing his pictures. This one that he took of Hayley hanging upside down from the top of a ladder is awesome:
I also liked this sequence. He took a picture of Hayley who was inexplicably climbing up the OUTSIDE of a play structure, and then he immediately swung the camera my way to capture my reaction to Hayley’s acrobatics. I was muttering, “please don’t fall. Please don’t fall. I am NOT going to hover but please don’t fall.”
Then I took the camera back.
Breanna was so tired that she fell asleep on the couch at 7:30 while I was drying Hayley’s hair post-bath and I had to carry her to bed, slip her diaper on for the night, and then I was able to tuck her in. Hayley was in bed at 8 and out less than 15 minutes later. It was the quietest bedtime in ages and I was able to watch the early release of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that Paramount had sent me (I love my job). I loved the movie so much, I gushed about it a little over here.
You just can’t complain about a weekend that was filled with movies, flowers, playdates, and park outings. I can use more of those please and thank you.
Shadow project
I found this today via Andrea at A Peek Inside the Fishbowl – it’s a photo project that involves creating silly shadows and then taking pictures of people as they walk past them. Doesn’t that look like fun?