Monday 9 December 2013

Question of the Day

Alternate title:  I am so not equipped to deal with this

Today, at breakfast, Vaughn asked, "Does Jesus live in space?"

Uhhh...

Other recent questions:  "Is Jesus magic?"

Well, yes, kind of --

"Do we have to walk in heaven?"

I guess, if you like to walk, you can --

"What does 'sexy' mean?"

Ack!

"What are these three things in here?"  (guess what he was referring to, and also, please tell me why there are three)

Sigh.



Monday 2 December 2013

It's Beginning to Look a Bit Like Christmas

I am amazed by the sense of satisfaction I felt just moments ago, looking back at my cleared driveway, the gentle flurries drifting slowly around me.  It was almost magical, in an I-just-shoveled-the-driveway-and-now-I-want-someone-to-be-proud-of-me kind of way.

It's dark.  It's cold.  I had been dreading taking the garbage out, but when I got out there, I decided that I should probably clear my walk.  And then my steps.  And then shovel a (shovel-width) path from my green bin to the carport.  And then, some kind of energy hit, and I shoveled the whole back driveway.  Well, ok, not the whole thing, but it's now wide enough to drive my car into my garage.  Or would be if I could fit my car into my garage.  Project Cleanout is still underway.

At about the mid-point, I heard some clanking and clicking.  I froze, since the sound was coming, if not from my backyard, then from my house.  Sure enough, I saw the curtains over our back door start to move, and two little heads peered around it.  Uh-oh.  As I had tucked them in and snuck out of the house only about 15 minutes before, I expected that they would be a titch distraught.  They didn't disappoint.

"Mommy!  You're not supposed to shovel the backyard!"

"Go back to bed.  I'll be in when I'm done."

I watched them re-lock the latch and lower the security bar.  I wondered if they had already locked the front door, and, if so, if anyone would get out of bed when I started banging on the door.

But, I digress.  After finishing the rest of the back driveway, hauling the green bin and black bin to the front steps, and having a nice little chat with my neighbour, I took a moment to look again at our little home.

I had used today's naptime (one hour!  no arguments!  go!) to its fullest, and our front entrance now boasts Christmas lights, festive greenery, and a wreath.  In just forty (40!) minutes, I was able to test our two strings of lights, wrap them up each side of the steps, up the posts, across the top, connect them together, run to the garage (at the time, it was through knee-deep snow), get the extension cord, plug the lights into it, feed it around the house, under the side steps, onto the back deck, over the deck box, under the deck rug, and plug it in.

Well, truth be told, that part only took 12 minutes.  The other 28 were spent running back to the garage for the timer, plugging that in, checking out the front and noting that there were 5 wraps on the right, but only 2 on the left, disconnecting them and unwrapping the right so that there were 3, stepping back to realize that there were only TWO on the left, like I first noticed, so climbing back up the ladder to disconnect the strings again and make sure that the wraps were congruent.  They weren't.  I somehow had miscounted (yes, miscounted to three), so had to do it again, then decided to wrap the two light strings around the wreath for extra stability and pizzazz.

All of this was done with incredible awkwardness.  I could picture my neighbours cozying up in front of their windows with nice mugs of hot cocoa, just to watch the ordeal.  Sure, they'd feel bad, just watching me, but not enough to end the show.  But eventually, I was done, and it looked fine.  Just fine!  Stop badgering me!

So, yes, I took that moment, and admired the lights, the wreath, the snowflakes... and held my breath as I tried to open the door.

It opened.

They're slipping.





PS - the two of them were waiting for me, on the stairs, blankies in hand.  "We're scared," they said.  "That's silly," I replied, and led them back up to bed.  "Tomorrow, you can go see the nice hockey rink I've shoveled out for you."


Sunday 1 December 2013

Tamsin Toonamint the Toddler

Well, it's official.  My baby is not a baby anymore.

snif


Tamsin turned one this week, with a reasonable amount of fanfare (for a change).  Maybe it's the exhaustion wisdom that comes with having a third child.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm at home with three kids and trying to keep all the balls in the air while Chris is in Toronto (he came home for the weekend, though!) and the date that I had picked for her party (ok, ok, it was sort of last-minute) conflicted with absolutely everyone's schedules.  Or maybe, just maybe, birthdays are about more than big, exciting parties involving lots of kids and their parents messing up my tiny house.*  


They're about cake.


"You've been holding out on me.  This cake is awesome!"


And balloons.


(and party dresses - thanks, Uncle Mal and Aunt Lorraine!)


And cousins!  Here, everyone decorates their own gingerbread man to take home.  Our resident ginger supervises with interest.



Other Toonamint factoids:  she is maintaining her 75th percentile height-and-weight stats, but still claims to be my daughter.  She completed her 1-year molaring yesterday (thank god), and surprised us on the day after her birthday by taking 3 steps by herself!  Today, she casually whipped out two new baby signs ("more" and "food") (having mastered "all done" with a tray full of carrots last week!)... all this, of course, means that I am beginning to suspect that she has been coasting along and toying with us for quite some time.

She is a relaxed, funny, sweet little girl, who love, love, loves her big brother, and tolerates her big sister (who mauls her (lovingly) at every opportunity).  Actually, wait.  She is relaxed and sweet until about 4 pm, at which point she embraces her true redhaired persona and loses her mind.  Only dinner can soothe the beastie, unless it involves tomatoes or green beans, which seem to offend her to her core.  She will pick them out of her mouth, look you in the eye calmly, and drop them off the side of her high chair.  Charming.

Until the last few days, she has absolutely hated books, screaming and squirming every time I picked one up to share, and leading me to wail despairingly to Chris on several occasions, "She's going to be illiterate!".  Today, she climbed into my lap with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and even turned the pages.  She has been pulling Dogs out of the bookshelf to read to herself, too.

She knows it's funny when she puts things on her head, and often tries to put other people's socks and shoes on her feet.  She plays independently (see also, third child and exhausted mom), enjoys going to child-minding at the gym, and is as friendly and social as her brother and sister.  She dances when she hears music, enjoys clapping her hands, and thinks there is nothing worse in the world than being stuffed into first a snowsuit and then a carseat... but then the warmth and coziness puts her to sleep in minutes.**

All in all, we're still quite smitten, and are glad we had her.  Keep growing, kiddo.

But not too fast.




* This will probably not happen again, though - it seemed too under control... we will have to start preparing her for next year.

**Note to world:  Feel free to stuff me into a snowsuit and then a carseat and carry me around, all cozy and warm.  It sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.  Especially if you can also throw in snacks.

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