Now I’m not going to say it too loud, but I think Winter may possibly finally be over. It was only about 8 or 9C today, but it still felt fantastic. Tomorrow should be 11C, Wednesday 17C, and Thursday is calling for 18C. I am ecstatic. As a bonus, there is also no rain being forecast over the next few days.

We celebrated this by going outside after Hayley got back from school. We took her out for her first bike ride of the season (which started off rough since she fell off trying to get off the sidewalk). I tried to teach Breanna how to pedal her tricycle but her response was basically the toddler equivalent of a “HELL NO” so I ran back upstairs with it, and she just walked with me, looking for birds, while George walked with Hayley and her bike.

We ended up at the park and although there’s still a bit of snow here and there on the sand and on the grass, it’s nothing like it was before. It was such a beautiful day and my mood pretty much felt like Hayley in this picture:

We were only about an hour or so, but Hayley was really tired. She didn’t want to come home, but she had woken up last night and couldn’t get back to sleep until sometime around HolyShitO’Clock, so she was more exhausted than she would admit. I did get her to walk to the store with me so at least that made her happy about having to stop the bike ride.

I don’t think I ever really realized until this year just how much my mood is tied to the seasons. I do okay at the beginning of Winter but it just drags on so long here that by “Spring” I am just crabby and not quite depressed but almost. Today I almost bounced as I walked along and I am so happy with the forecast for the rest of the week.

Please, please let this be it for snow and cold.

If you’re hungry for breakfast and want something different, I have a review up for the new (and tasty) Kelloggs cereal, Wild Animal Crunch. Yum!

Seriously. West Jet popped up with a one-way flight to L.A. for under $200. Granted, it would mean I’d have to fly from Montreal to Toronto, switch flights, fly from Toronto to Calgary, and then switch again once more to arrive in L.A. The flight leaves on Monday and arrives 25 hours later on Tuesday. A bit long, but still, less than $200 so how much can you complain, really?

Why was I looking up flights to California? Because over the past several days it has SNOWED. AGAIN. This morning it was snowing sideways. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was just warm enough that most of it was melting as it landed, it could have been January outside our windows today. And it was damn depressing. I’ve had enough of snow. In two more days we’ll be halfway through the month of April. In seven more days it will be a whole month since the calendar declared that it was Spring. I seriously can’t take anymore snowfalls, so my brain copes by fantasizing that it would actually be plausible to hop on a plane for a warmer destination, never mind the fact that I have nowhere to stay, two kids, and no passport.

Why L.A.? Why not? I always wanted to go there anyway. And it’s probably pretty unlikely that they’re dealing with snow in mid-April down there. Especially since I just checked and apparently the weather there today is 93F and sunny according to ForecastFox.

I would have taken a picture of the falling snow but I was afraid I might cry and then I wouldn’t be able to see through the viewfinder. Besides, I had to pack some snacks before heading off to the bell tower with my sniper rifle. Any other Winter-sick folks care to join me?

On Thursday, George and I were invited to attend Hayley’s Kindergarten classroom any time between 5:30 and 8:30. The school was having an open house of sorts, what they called “student-led conferences”. Basically it entailed having the kids invite their family to come and see their classroom, check out some of their work, and get a bit of a view of what they do in class on a daily basis.

Hayley showed us around, showing us where she sits, pointed out her artwork around the room, showed us the journal they write in every Monday, and so on. The journal was fascinating to me to look at. Every Monday they choose one activity that they did over the weekend and they would draw a picture of it. At the beginning of the school year, Hayley would draw the picture and her teacher would write out the sentence below it, saying what she had done. Now, though, Hayley does the picture AND writes the sentence. It’s just amazing to me to see her progress in writing!

She also took us on a tour to show us where their “borrowing books” are that they can bring home, the computer they use for educational games (how awesome is it to live in a time where they have a computer in the Kindergarten class?!), the different play areas, and she showed us all her favorite toys to play with.

Breanna enjoyed herself too. We couldn’t get anyone to babysit so we just brought her with us and she wasn’t quite as disruptive as I had anticipated (although she did get paint on a wall by accident, yay for washable paint!), mostly because in stereotypical Breanna fashion, she made a beeline for the play kitchen and spent most of her time pulling out cups and bowls and food and doing what she frequently does at home.

Hayley really enjoyed showing Breanna around too, telling her all the things she’ll be doing when she starts school. She gave Breanna a spot on the circle to sit, and gave her a book. That lasted for a few seconds longer than it took for me to take this shot and then she was back at the kitchen.

After our tour we had a chance to just chat a little with her teacher. She told us that as long as Hayley puts effort into her work, she’s very capable of doing everything well, just that sometimes she gets distracted by the other kids. It seems, from what she said and what I heard her saying to other parents, as though it’s pretty common in the class, that they all get distracted some days. I guess it’s their age. She also told us that one thing she works hard on is to teach the kids to be kind to each other and mixes the small groups up a lot so that everyone has to learn to play with each other and that Hayley is not a kid to say mean things to the others. That’s so nice to hear, that she’s nice to everyone, even the kids she’s not crazy about. What a relief to know she’s not being hurtful!

The best thing the teacher told us though was about Hayley’s reading. George and I were already very proud of her with her reading. Ever since she started reading on her own, she is much more interested in trying to read something herself than letting us read it to her. She needs help with some words, but generally she’s doing very well. What I didn’t know is that she’s reading beyond her age group. The teacher told us that Hayley has moved on to reading grade one level books. In fact, she said that she won’t even give Hayley Kindergarten books to bring home anymore, and that when they practice reading on the whiteboard in the morning, she challenges Hayley with words that are not Kindergarten level.

Considering the fact that George and I are both bookworms, that was one of the best things we could have heard. I really hope that she always enjoys reading this much.

Friday was a ped day, so on our way out of the school we bought some treats from a bake sale that was being held in the front hall of the building for a snack and we let them stay up a bit later than normal bedtime just so they could unwind from all the excitement.

I’ve been confused ever since. I’m so sure today is Sunday when it’s actually only Saturday. I’m sure I’ll enjoy that when I go to bed tonight and realize I don’t need to set my alarm for 6:30 am. We don’t have any major plans for today. Yesterday we had some errands to run and we stopped at Toys R Us because we had two gift cards from the kids’ birthdays that we still hadn’t used. Breanna – see above about her kitchen obsession – picked out her own toys as soon as we passed through the play kitchen area of the store, and came home with a frying pan, a bunch of mixing bowls, utensils, and some more toy food. She just seriously loves those things. Meanwhile, Hayley got herself a computer game, but her biggest excitement came from the toy I had in mind when we walked in. She’s been obsessed with Mariposa ever since her aunt bought her the DVD, and I knew they had some Mariposa Barbies on sale. She came home with a very beautiful Mariposa doll and she loves it. She hasn’t moved an inch without that doll since we came home yesterday.

And on that note, I think I’ll clean up the living room a bit and maybe re-organize some of the toys so it doesn’t look like an exploded toy store in here, and then I think we’ll go for a walk since the weather is pretty decent today. Enjoy your weekend!

I seriously need to make this. It would be kind of fun to put it on the bathroom ceiling, over the toilet.

When George isn’t busy writing and recording his own songs or collaborations with his friend, he often works on music for other people. With his friend, he’s been working with their production company, Persued Productions, to create a gospel album by a local artist, Mark Henry. The last song they worked on was so incredible that they shot some video footage of it to get it up on YouTube.

I’d love it if you could take a few minutes to listen to the song, “Nail-Scarred Hands”. Obviously it’s heavily religious (which is obvious by the fact that I said it’s a gospel album, and the title of the song is pretty clear!), but even if you’re not Christian, it would be great to hear some feedback. Mark has a great voice and I love this song – it’s been on heavy rotation around here. And if you ARE Christian, I’d love to know how you feel about the song from that perspective as far as whether the song touches you and so on.

Thanks!

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This is just awesome. I especially love the very last line.

Since last night was Earth Hour, I had intended to put the kids to bed at 8 pm like I usually do, and turn off almost all the lights. I assumed that Breanna would go to sleep quickly and I planned on leaving Hayley’s small lamp on because she’s afraid of the dark. Then I would come out in the dark living room and hang out online since I could run my laptop off the battery power without using electricity.

Except that yesterday we visited my parents and Breanna fell asleep on the way home so she wasn’t tired at 8 after her 20-minute power nap in the car, and Hayley was extremely worried about the idea of turning the lights out even with the promise that she could leave hers on and even the hall light if she needed it.

I didn’t want to miss Earth Hour, so I said what the hell and figured since it was a Saturday, bed time didn’t have to be a strict rule. Instead of putting them to bed only to have to fight Breanna to sleep and have all the lights blazing, I let them stay up and we celebrated the hour together. We lit three candles in the living room and spaced them out so there was a cozy glow, and then I opened the blinds to let the light in from the street lamps as well. It was dark but not scary dark for two little girls, and I never even bothered to touch my computer since we sat on the floor or the couch and read books by candle light. I also explained to Hayley how people didn’t have electricity at all once upon a time and had to rely on candles or lanterns at night. She was fascinated by that, so I’ll have to keep Little House on the Prairie books in the back of my mind for future reading for her.

We did cheat just a little twice, both times in the bathroom. Our bathroom has no window so when the lights are out it’s pitch black in there. I wasn’t comfortable walking around with drippy candles with two monkeys at my feet, so when both Hayley and I needed to use the bathroom, the three of us would go together and we’d turn the light on and hurry.

Hayley was disappointed when 9:00 pm rolled around and it was time to go to bed. Still, she was tired by then and fell asleep quickly. Breanna still took an hour to fall asleep after that but I just watched Law & Order: SVU in bed until she drifted off. When I came out, I was reluctant to light the whole place up so I turned the hall light off since Hayley was sound asleep, and I only turned on my desk lamp in the living room, rather than two lamps like I usually do.

I watched the 11 o’clock news that night and was disappointed to hear that, unlike Australia’s raging success last year, Montreal was a bit of a fizzle. Apparently not all that many people bothered to turn off their lights; I knew our neighborhood wasn’t taking part much by glancing out the windows. Still, they turned off the lights on the cross on Mount Royal, turned off the giant beacon light on Place Ville Marie’s rooftop, and I know that aside from ourselves, my parents took part (my mom said she was going to light candles and listen to the hockey game on her transistor radio) and so did some of our friends who did the same thing we did.

Hopefully next year more people will take part. In the meantime, I’m glad that I did my small share and I’m glad that I involved my kids. After all, they’re the ones we’re trying to protect right? We’re trying to save the planet for them and their children, so all the better that they were up to enjoy Earth Hour with me.

Did you turn out your lights in your city?

I give up. Seriously.

I still have some work to do so I thought I’d go make myself a cup of tea. I boiled the kettle, then when it was done I unplugged it. I went and got a tea bag out and dropped it in a cup.

I like my tea to be pretty dark so I left it for a few minutes, then came back to remove the tea bag and put some milk in.

I forgot to pour the water in the cup. The tea bag was sitting, dry as ever, in an empty cup.

How many years can you get away with blaming faulty memory on kids and resulting sleep deprivation? Do I need to find a new excuse?