Four years old

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Sherry

Four years ago today I went into a very fast, very short labour and in under four hours this little girl was born.

And somehow four years have passed and this morning when she woke me up to go pee and whispered that she didn’t want to go back to bed, I whispered back that it was okay because it was almost 9 am anyway and it was her birthday. She had forgotten about it despite being excited the night before. I reminded her that she’s four and she asked, “no more three?” No kiddo. No more three.

In four years she learned so much. She knows her numbers, her alphabet, countless songs, how to color inside the lines, how to play board games, and how to climb up everything at the park, among so many other things. She can turn on her (and Hayley’s) computer, log in, open Firefox, and navigate her way through the bookmarks of all their kid sites. Most recently she loves to help me make supper and has learned not only to assist me in adding ingredients and stirring them up, she can also crack her own eggs and scramble them at the stove (with direct supervision, obviously).

It’s hard to believe someone who couldn’t even hold up her own head this time four years can do so much now. Time flies.

She had a pretty good birthday. George and I gave her a Hungry Hungry Hippos game because she desperately wanted one, Hayley gave her a play tool set that she wanted, my sister sent a dinosaur playset (I’m not going to be surprised if she becomes a paleontologist one day), and she got a cute little outfit from George’s parents. We ordered pizza over there for supper and when we came home she had her birthday cake. Right now George and the kids are camping out in the living room after having had a movie night.

Tomorrow we’ll go see my parents and spend the afternoon over there and we’ll do her party in a couple of weeks since that will be the only time the majority of friends and family can make it.

I have many more pictures but my glass of wine and my book are calling. I’ll get to them while still trying to ponder how my little baby is a big four year old girl!

Christmas planning in mid-November? I must be crazy!

Posted on November 14, 2009 by Sherry

In that time in between growing up and having kids of my own, I started becoming ambivalent about Christmas and many times I found myself putting the tree up around December 20th or so. After having kids (especially as they grew enough to understand the excitement of the holiday), Christmas perked back up again. Suddenly it became magical for me like it used to be and I started putting the tree up the first weekend of December.

Yet here I am on the 14th of November and I’m now starting to do some prep work for Christmas. Oh, I don’t have lights and decorations up yet (though I did debate replacing my Fall door hanger with my Christmas wreath; I resisted the urge) and I certainly haven’t started my shopping yet (hahaha). However, Andrea over at A Peek Inside the Fishbowl came up with an amazing December challenge that sounds like a lot of fun.

Although we always get the Advent calendars with the little chocolates – two of course, one for each of them – I’m very interested in taking part in the Advent challenge.

Basically, instead of treats, you tuck a kid or family activity into each advent window/envelope/etc and on each day of December leading up to Christmas, you pull the daily activity out and do it. The key is to make the activities simple but fun – they don’t all have to be epic adventures and they don’t even have to necessarily require you to leave home. The point is to fill up those days full of anticipation with smaller moments of anticipation.

I still have to figure out all 25 activities that I’ll use but I’ve come up with some between seeing what others have done and ideas of my own. For instance, I have the obvious “decorate the tree and apartment” and “write letters to Santa” but I also have the outside-the-box “candlelight bubble bath for the kids” and “family game night – Wii edition”.

Not every activity has to be related to Christmas, although the majority of mine are. Basically as long as they’re fun, easy, and family-oriented they’ll be a hit.

I haven’t decided yet how to do mine. Andrea has a printable template to make paper envelopes where you can tuck the activities inside and I cut mine out; I might use it with some old Christmas bags, construction paper, and other papers I can find lying around. My other idea was to use baby/toddler socks. I have a bag of them and for some reason they’re still in Breanna’s drawer even though they either don’t fit or are missing a mate. I don’t know why I didn’t get rid of them but I’m thinking of using a long ribbon or a string of braided yarn and hanging the little socks with clothes pegs. That could be cute too, considering the use of stockings at Christmas time.

The only problem with this whole idea is that we’re not even halfway through the month of November yet and now I want to just get started already! This Advent calendar may be a great way to help with the anticipation of Christmas when December gets here but now what am I going to do about the anticipation of the Advent calendar?!

Are you in?

Kicking off the weekend

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Sherry

Sometimes the weekend feels like a letdown at this point in my life because there’s nothing in particular that stands out. In the younger years, before kids, weekends meant staying out until the wee hours, having brunch well past normal brunch times, and just kicking back and relaxing.

With young children there’s no going out until the wee hours – the only one who still does that is George and when he does it’s only because he’s playing a gig and thus working. We don’t go out for brunch because strangely kids are not as into the incredible joys of brunch as adults are, silly kids. As for kicking back and relaxing… well, it’s more about kicking than relaxing. While I would love to spend an afternoon lazily reading my current book on the couch, alas that just doesn’t happen often (ever).

On the other hand it’s not so bad. While I can justify staying out until 3 a.m. just for the sheer hell of it, at least I didn’t have to set the alarm for 6:15 tomorrow morning and although the kids won’t sleep in until a luxurious hour, it’s still better than sunrise.

We don’t go out for brunch but George often makes brunch for us on one of the two days, cooking up eggs, bacon, and toast (I need to put in a request for sausages sometimes I think; bacon is good but sausage is BETTER). The kids do like that, and so do I.

There’s not much relaxing going on but without the time constraints of school and homework we can do anything we feel like – going to the park or into the woods when the weather is good, playing Wii games, watching movies past bedtime, whatever.

So really it’s not that weekends are bad when you’re a parent of young kids (from what I understand, that’s one advantage of teenagers – at least they like to sleep in so there’s that much). It’s just different. And different is pretty good most days.

We kicked off our weekend today. Hayley went straight from school to her grandparents’ house. George and I had Butter Chicken and since I know Breanna’s not keen on that I had her help me make some scrambled eggs with vegetables for her supper. She helped. She cracked her eggs, whisked them with the milk, and then I started scrambling them, letting her finish up. She was so proud she ate both eggs and half the vegetables.

Then George went out and Hayley was still out as well so I gave her a dinosaur bath and then we made popcorn and watched The Little Mermaid*. Hayley arrived home halfway through so she joined us and they both went to bed easily and quickly.

I’m now enjoying some Shiraz and chips and looking forward to what the next two days hold (preferably a little extra sleep for me tomorrow what with the horrendous sleep I’ve been getting lately!).

What are your weekend plans?

*When I suggested it Breanna was all over The Little Mermaid. Lately she’s very into any movie that features a boy and girl, preferably a prince and princess-to-be, and she loves when they kiss. I think I may have my hands full by the tween years, God help me.

Families make the quiet woods louder

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Sherry

When I walk the dog in the woods with no one but me, her, and whomever is singing on my iPod, the woods are a quiet place. When I walk in the woods with just Breanna, it’s mostly quiet with the silence peppered with questions here and there. Breanna is a little version of me in that sense, she loves to be in the woods.

When I walk in the woods with Breanna, Hayley, and George… well, then the woods aren’t very quiet at all. Still, it’s a nice way to pass a Sunday afternoon. The weather today was ridiculous. At one point I debated taking off my coat but decided against it since I didn’t want to have to carry it. It was sunny and warm and just beautiful. It’s November and I’m in Canada. I know very well that it’s not going to last so it was great to enjoy it.

I also got to prove to the kids that I wasn’t lying when I said I found an old rusted-out car in the woods last Spring.

The bonus of course, is that Breanna crashed at bedtime, taking no more than five minutes to fall asleep. Hayley… well, Hayley is still awake at just past 9 pm, but at least she’s reading quietly in bed. I’m hoping she’ll drift off soon since she has to be up early tomorrow.

I don’t think it will take me long to fall asleep either. I think I’ll kick back with a glass of wine and some television and call it a night. Let’s see if I can start my week off without being completely exhausted!

Igor! Pull the switch!

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Sherry

Quite some time ago George and I started doing Friday evening movie nights with Hayley. We’d either get a movie we hadn’t seen before or just watch an old favorite, we’d have some snacks, and we’d let Hayley stay up a bit later.

We lost movie night for awhile and I don’t really know why. I’ve done them several times with either both the kids or with just Breanna if Hayley is out somewhere but it had been quite some time since we did the full family movie night. Somehow it came up yesterday so I suggested that we do it this week.

We popped some popcorn for the kids and put on a new-to-us movie. If you haven’t seen Igor yet and you have kids in roughly the same age range (or even a bit older, there’s some good humor that younger kids don’t really catch), I strongly suggest you give it a try.

Basically it’s about a land of evil scientists and all their Igor assistants and how one Igor learns that you don’t have to be evil to be successful. It sounds saccharine when it’s put that way but it’s a bit spooky (not too scary though – even at just shy of four years old, Breanna wasn’t afraid), it’s fun, and George and I both laughed more than just a few times.

I love movies that are good for kids but even more than that, I love when kids’ movies are fun for us too!

No snow just yet please and thank you

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Sherry

Repeated pretty much every Thursday night at 10 pm…

The scene: Grey’s Anatomy has just ended and George has walked into the living room to see if something he deems better might be on now.

George: Sigh. Stop crying.
Sherry: Sniff. SNIFF. I’m not. I have… a cold. And a lot of dust in my eye.

Funny how I get dust in my eye every Thursday night, isn’t it?

*******

Today Breanna asked me if we could go to the park for a picnic like we did back in July (even if it was short-lived thanks to the rain that came along). I had to gently break it to her that it’s now almost Winter and it’s far too cold to be sitting around having picnics in parks right now.

She was disappointed but I built her a fort and she was happy with that. Later in the afternoon I asked her if she wanted to come with me to walk the dog and she brightened up right away. After bundling her in a warm coat and a hat with the hood pulled up over it, we grabbed the dog and headed outside. Immediately she turned around in circles a few times and then looked up at me in confusion.

“Where’s the snow Mommy?” she asked with her eyebrow cocked at me. I explained that there wasn’t any snow yet, it was just cold. She was so annoyed with me for mentioning Winter when there wasn’t a single flake of snow to be seen. She cheered up quickly though, walking beside me and telling me all about how she was going to run and jump in the snow and make a ton of snow angels.

At one point she tipped her nose up into the air and said, “I can smell the snow! I think it’s coming soon!” And then she skipped along as she held my hand, smiling at the thought of all the snow she would roll around in as soon as possible.

I’m happy she’s happy. I’m just not happy at the thought of snow. Please don’t tell her, but as much as she wants to keep sniffing for snow, I’ll be spending just as much time crossing my fingers and hoping it holds off a few weeks longer.

Besides, the leaves are SO hard to find under 20 centimeters of snow.

Culture for the elementary school

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Sherry

Being a member of the Governing Board at Hayley’s school, I received an email one day asking us to vote on approving a last-minute field trip for grades one through six. The trip was to go see a play called “Simon and the Egg” which is about the environment, climate change, and how we’re all responsible for doing our part to help out.

I immediately said yes because it sounded like a good idea – many kids haven’t seen a play at that age and anything that brings about awareness for environmental causes is okay in my book. When I received the permission slip, I signed it, slipped the small fee into an envelope and sent it off with a little note telling Hayley’s teacher to let me know if she needed a volunteer.

The trip was divided over three days with grades one and two attending the play on Monday. First I received a call at 9 am and her teacher told me that she had received confirmation from one of the moms and she wouldn’t need me this time. No problem. Not five minutes later she called back to tell me the other grade two class had no volunteer because the mom was at home with two sick kids, and would I mind going with them?

Well, no I wouldn’t mind one bit. I know most of those kids by this point anyway and was happy to go with them. The best part was that Hayley didn’t even know I was coming so she almost fell over in shock when she passed me in the hallway and saw that I was there. She was a little annoyed that I wasn’t volunteering for her class but we were all on the same bus and the theater was very small so it didn’t make much difference in the end.

The theater we went to was incredible because it’s an very small venue. There isn’t even a stage for the play, it’s performed directly on the floor, right in front of you. You get to sit so close that you almost feel like you’re a part of the play itself. It was also a one-man show which – as a person who took acting classes once upon a lifetime – always impresses me. Monologues are incredibly scary since you have no one to play off but yourself, your imagination, and your audience, so I give massive props to actor Michel Lefebvre for doing a fantastic job.

The play was probably a little over the heads of the kids because of their ages. The story wasn’t blatant in-your-face “save the environment!” in its message, it was more abstract and I think that they probably didn’th catch all the nuances that the adults and older kids would. Still, it was a totally stunning visual experience which had the entire audience of children enthralled. In all honestly, my own mouth was hanging open more than once just because it was all so beautiful and so well done.

In the end, what I loved most was that it didn’t preach – no one tells you what you need to do, you’re left to figure out for yourself where your responsibilities lie. I like that, especially from an educational viewpoint because it lets you ask the kids questions. On the way back I asked Hayley what she thought we needed to do in general, and she said things like more plants and trees, no littering, picking up garbage… Kids are often more aware than they might appear on the surface.

Overall though, even if the kids didn’t catch as many things as I did, I’m just ecstatic to know that they saw a play. One boy on the bus asked me what a play is when we were driving out there and for this generation to understand, I had to tell him that it’s similar to when characters on television tell you a story except in a play you get the story right in front of you. I don’t think he really got it until he saw it for himself.

Arts aren’t necessarily a top priority in the education system anymore, so knowing that the kids at Hayley’s school are getting to experience some culture and theater made me very happy. It was nine bucks well spent and I’m glad that we, as a board, unanimously voted our approval because I think it was really beneficial.

If you happen to be from the Montreal area, I urge you to check it out yourself, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Quiet weekends are pretty good

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Sherry

I ended up having a fairly peaceful weekend, something that doesn’t happen often what with having two kids and all. George’s sister was in town after not being able to get out this way for awhile and the kids were both so excited. We went over to see George’s parents on Friday because his dad was celebrating his birthday. Although George had to go out I went with the girls and we had cake and tea, and Hayley got her belated birthday gifts from her aunt and uncle.

The crown that Breanna is wearing is from a craft kit that Hayley got as a gift. And isn’t it a shame that the kids obviously don’t like their uncle at all? I mean really. Can’t you just see how much they can’t stand him? (Yeah right. As you can see, they LOVE him.)

On Saturday they spent some time just doing the craft crowns and hanging around the apartment, followed by a quick trip to the Dollar Store with George. I had about an hour or so of peace and quiet during which I actually took a shower without having to worry about what anyone else was doing. Let me tell you, that’s a total luxury for me.

I was just about to start preparing supper when the phone rang and George’s sister invited the kids over to eat with them. That was fine with me! After they left I made supper for just the two of us (though Breanna requested that I save some stew for her – good thing I did, that’s what she ended up having for her snack!) and I actually ate an entire plate of food without having to get up to refill someone’s cup, break up an argument, or anything. Another fine luxury, eating a meal in peace.

George went to buy some red wine and to drop something off for a friend and I spent a couple of hours surrounded by practically no noise. There was no TV, no music, no computer games, no sibling bickering, nothing other than the usual neighborhood sounds of cars driving by and the occasional set of footsteps out in the hall.

After the kids came home and went to bed, George and I tried to watch Drag Me to Hell but we only got halfway through it before Breanna started coughing in her sleep so we stopped it there and finished it on Sunday night. (For the record, it’s seriously not worth the 90+ minutes of your life unless you enjoy horror movies that aren’t actually scary, are utterly predictable, and have cheap special effects. Seriously, I said that it looked like they only had a $1000 effects budget and George added that half of that must have been blown on pizza and beer. Really bad in this day and age.)

Sunday was another relaxing day and the kids went out with their aunt and uncle one more time for a couple of hours to wander around the mall and to get ice cream. I love my kids, but I must admit that it’s kind of nice to have occasional pockets of quiet time to myself here and there!

The weekend went by so fast. And unfortunately so far the week is dragging by. I could have sworn it was Wednesday today but it’s only Tuesday. Booooo.

*******

I’ve been suffering from a complete and total lack of creative inspiration. I had to force myself to sit down and write this just to try to break through it. I’ve also been neglecting my camera. I took a few photos while over at George’s parents’ house but I’ve been going days without taking a single picture, and even when I do they seem to sit on my card for days before I finally dump them to my computer and actually do something with them.

I don’t know what’s going on. I think I need to make myself carry my camera with me even if I don’t feel like taking any pictures, and just try to take a few shots a day until this block goes away.

A propos of nothing in particular, here’s at least one other photo that I took over the past week.

Breanna wanted to print out a blue superhero mask that she found online but I need a new ink cartridge so I couldn’t. She was disappointed so I drew one by hand, colored it in, cut it out, and gave it to her. She was thrilled! Other than the fact that it’s not green, she reminds me of Super Why.

It’s so incredibly frustrating to be a creative person by nature and to find myself completely unable to do anything. Let’s hope this passes quickly.

The weekend already

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Sherry

A propos of nothing, these are the two photo poses sent home from the school for us to choose from for our Grade Two photo of Hayley this year.

I love them both – I’m so glad she really smiled big this year! – but we eventually decided to order a package of the photo on the right.

I woke up feeling a little bit surprised that it was Friday this morning and that the weekend was just around the corner. I guess I was a little thrown off by a couple of things, one being that it had been a four-day weekend so the week started on Tuesday. The other thing is that Hayley came down with some sort of bug and missed school on Thursday and Friday, so the whole week was just a big mess, logistically speaking.

I wasn’t able to send her to school because not only was she feeling under the weather, she also had a fever. I would be mildly concerned about H1N1 but she isn’t exhibiting any of the other common symptoms of the flu – besides, my kids get a fever with every illness. Still, fevers are not tolerated in schools at all right now because of concerns so there was no point. They just would have sent her back home as soon as it came back. Breanna’s been sniffly the past couple of days as well, so it’s just that season again.

The bummer about it is that friends of ours are having a birthday party for their daughter and son on Saturday but it’s looking like we won’t be able to make it. I don’t want to make anyone else sick, I don’t want the kids to be out if they’re feeling icky, and I don’t want them to get worse – especially Hayley since she’s missed two days of school for it. It’s too bad, I was really looking forward to it because it’s always a lot of fun, but hopefully we’ll see them soon. We’ll see how the kids are tomorrow and make a decision then.

On the other hand, it’s also George’s birthday on Saturday (old man!) so if the kids are still too sick to go, we’ll put them to bed and watch a movie together instead. I’m a little bit ticked off because we ordered a mic for George for his birthday (it’s not much of a surprise, he found it and asked me to order it since I have a PayPal account, but hey at least he gets exactly what he wants that way!) on September 30th and it still isn’t here. That’s totally ridiculous. I know it’s shipping from California but come on. It’s not like it was being brought here on foot.

According to the tracking info it only left the U.S. on the 7th, I don’t know why that took so long. And now it’s sitting in Montreal since the 13th but for some strange reason it hasn’t budged any closer to us. I know George is a big boy, it’s not quite the same as ordering something for a kid but still, it sucks to not have your birthday present ON YOUR BIRTHDAY, you know? From now on I’m only shopping from online retailers that use couriers because this postal service from the U.S. to Canada sucks.

(I was interested to learn that the tracking number doesn’t change after crossing the border so I was able to easily find the package on the Canada Post site too. That’s at least helpful. Having it sit there for three days, not so much.)

He looks pretty good for a ~~senior citizen~~ ~~old guy~~ birthday boy, doesn’t he?

Hayley’s school was supposed to have a movie night tonight but it was postponed until another to-be-determined date and she couldn’t have gone anyway, what with missing two days of school and all. To make up for it, I offered to do a movie night at home. I made popcorn and put it in the little popcorn containers that we have (they’re so cute), spread out a blanket on the floor, and put on a movie. Hayley chose some Star Trek for the evening’s entertainment. Clearly the ~~geek~~ apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

It’s not quite the same as hanging out in the school gym with all your friends while only barely paying attention to a movie, but it went over well anyway.

In the meantime, here’s hoping I can keep the germs at bay. I have two meetings next week and no time for being sick! Please pass the Lysol!

Busy long weekend

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Sherry

Being Canadian, this past weekend was a long one. It was Thanksgiving so Hayley had both Friday and Monday off from school. Friday saw me scurrying around like a bit of a crazy person, preparing for company on Saturday. I worked and cleaned and worked and cleaned, and that’s about it for Friday.

George had to play that night, and I intended to get to bed early but I’m not particularly good at doing that if no one is around to shoo me off towards my pillow. Which is why, I suppose, I found myself – at 12:30 am no less – wiping down my kitchen cabinets, washing the kitchen walls, and cleaning the dust off my ceiling fan blades.

At 1 am I realized I was insane and headed to bed, except I heard a sudden knocking sound. The cat spends most of her time behind the washing machine so at first I thought she was scratching herself and banging her leg against the metal. Then I heard it again and looked out the peephole only to find two people I’ve never seen before banging on the door down the hall from us. One was a tiny little woman and the other was a very tall and burly man, the latter of which POUNDED loudly several times.

In all honestly, I’m sure it was the woman’s family, and maybe her phone wasn’t working and no one had heard from her in awhile so they had come to check on her. Still, I had no idea how they had gotten into the building since you need to be buzzed in, and they were freaking me out. It’s a sad state of the world today that while my first reaction was to want to open the door to inquire if they needed help or a phone or whatever, my second and more logical, safe reaction was to keep the door firmly locked. There are semi-regular home invasions in the Montreal area and while they are usually in houses as opposed to apartment buildings, I was taking no chances – especially with two kids in bed.

Eventually they left but I was pretty rattled (particularly since the woman came right up to my door and cocked her head as though she was listening for someone inside) so I didn’t really sleep until George got home. Whew.

On Saturday we had Hayley’s birthday party. We had wanted to have it the weekend of her birthday but it wasn’t in our post-holiday budget so we waited until now to throw her party; she didn’t mind. Since it fell on Thanksgiving weekend, one of our friends offered to roast a turkey and stuffing. It was delicious and a big hit. We also had George’s roast pork, my potato-onion casserole, rice, and mixed vegetables along with all the usual things (crackers, cheese, etc). There was definitely enough food! Another friend made a ridiculously amazing pumpkin cheesecake complete with Oreo cookie crust, caramel, chocolate ganache, and pecans. Gah!

Hayley was in heaven because most of her gifts were Barbie-related. She’s finally become super interested in playing with them which is kind of nice since I usually had no idea what to tell people when they would ask what she wanted as gifts. She got a Barbie dog grooming center, a beach cruiser, and a kitchen set, all for Barbies. Ecstatic! She also loved her cake. She wanted a beach cake since she had so much fun at the beaches in Halifax and that was pretty easy to do. I even decorated the “beach” part with some of the (boiled and washed) shells that we had picked up and a hand-drawn starfish. I also put a little Orca figurine in the “ocean” part of the cake. She was really happy!

On Sunday we went to George’s parents’ house to have Thanksgiving dinner. It was just the four of us, his parents, and a family friend so it was quiet but very nice. And really it’s never actually QUIET with kids, right? We ate a lot of good food, had some good laughs, and earlier in the afternoon I slipped out and took some pictures of the woods to capture the slowly changing leaves. I’m worried that we won’t have a particularly colorful Fall since the wind has been blowing the leaves off before they get super bright, but I’m still hoping.

It was nice to walk in the woods alone with nothing but my camera for company!

Monday was pretty quiet and one of Hayley’s friends came over to play Barbies, but everyone was tired so it wasn’t as exuberant as it might have been otherwise. I was really happy once 10 pm came around and I was able to put my feet up and watch some prime time television (oh okay, it was “CSI: Miami”) and then go to bed.

This morning was rough since I was tired, had a wicked sore throat, and it was also freezing cold and raining out. Still, it was good to get back to routine again. It’s a short week so it won’t be too bad and it will be the weekend again before we know it.

I hope all my fellow Canadians had an equally wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! You can see all the birthday party photos over here and all the Thanksgiving photos are over here.

Chaos Theory

Category Archives: Kids