Counting down the days till Spring

Please forgive me for the grumbles, but I’m bloody sick of winter. This year we’ve had much more snow than we’ve had in years, and it still hasn’t been that much. Generally speaking, I don’t mind snow.

The boys loved the snow, which is great…Even if it was cold, if there was snow to play in they loved being outside. We had so much fun building forts or even just shovelling.

What makes it less fun is  when the weather fluctuates so dramatically as it has this year: snow would fall, then it would get warmish, so the snow would start to melt, then the next day it would get freezing (-15C or more) so all that melted snow then freezes into ice. Hard, slippery ice. Everywhere.

But it’s March now, which means that Spring is coming..Yay!! We even change our clocks this weekend! Today is sunny and warmish. I know it’s just a tease, and that we’ll have many more miserable days before Spring is truly with us, but I’m getting hopeful. It’s extra helpful that Easter is early this year – March 31. Brendan has been getting excited about it for a couple of weeks, since he found some Easter-themed books on the bookshelf. We’ve been reading them daily. We also had some practice Easter-egg hunts with the plastic eggs from last year, an our Easter baskets.

Brendan and Nathan are extra excited because this is the first year that we can dye eggs. With Brendan’s egg allergy, it’s never been on our list of Easter traditions; we’ve decorated egg and bunny cut-outs, we’ve made baskets, and we’ve decorated plastic eggs with stickers, but no dyeing eggs. He’s still allergic to eggs, but I was lucky enough to find wooden eggs this year, thanks to a friend of mine. She told me about a Canadian company that sells all sorts of wood products, including eggs of different sizes. here it is 

The wooden eggs will take the dye in the same way as regular eggs.

The eggs came in the mail the other day, and I’m pretty excited to try it out with the boys…when I was a kid, dyeing eggs was one of my favourite Easter traditions. I’m pretty glad that I can finally let me guys experience it.

Here are the eggs, uncoloured. Stay tuned for the results! (Next week is March Break, so we’ll likely take a crack at it then…)

sick days and Christmas cookies

Brendan started school in September. He’s in JK, and spends a total of two hours and forty minutes at school every day. It’s such a long stretch, that sometimes I even have time to go to the grocery store with Nathan before I have to turn around and pick him up again.

Many mornings after drop-off, I end up hanging out at the school with Nathan while we kick, throw or bounce the ball that he’s decided to bring along that day. Just in case he forgets to bring one with him, we have a stash of about 15 balls in the back of the car. For some reason he likes to bring a ball to the car when we drive anywhere and toss it in the back. I’ve never fully understood that fascination, but it does make sure that we have a ball for all sports where ever we go.

Yesterday and today, however, Nathan was robbed of his morning run around the playground. We went to the school, brought Brendan to his classroom, helped him take off his rain boots and  coat and then discovered that he really didn’t feel well enough to be there. Not in the least. He had a headache, and felt a bit warm. So right after O Canada, I helped him get re-bundled and headed back home with both boys in tow. The past two days were his first sick days, so I wasn’t quite prepared for how to properly entertain Nathan (who feels just fine, thank you very much) while looking after his big brother.

Can you guess which one is sick?

On Brendan’s part, there was a lot of tv watching. On Nathan’s, a lot of throwing balls “up high in the sky” (or, more accurately, at the wall).

I did come up with a few genius activities. I had a package of egg-free gingerbread cookies ready for decorating. The end result reminded me why I try to avoid giving Nathan too much sugar. The boy was practically bouncing off the walls. I’m fairly positive that he ate a handful of the red sugar. Good times. They both even ate some of the cookies, even though they taste marginally better than cardboard. I guess the icing masked the flavour of the cookie.

At this point I think he’s just eating the candy off the cookie, but knows to avoid the cookie itself.

Not known for his refined tastes, if I would have let him, he would have eaten every.last.crumb.

Today, after much tv watching, we completed the finishing touches of the Christmas tree (they took care of the bottom half of the tree), and made some ornaments. At first, they showed zero interest in putting anything on the tree, and then out of the blue started working their way through the box of unbreakable ornaments. Nathan spent more time leaving mini bells around the house than on the tree, but the result is pretty nice I think.

Tomorrow, Brendan will definitely be going to school. I think that whatever has been ailing him has passed – he spent half an hour running sprints upstairs before bedtime. He’ll be devastated when I break the news to him in the morning. No matter how much he loves his teacher (and he adores her), he still puts up a decent fight most mornings. Hopefully that won’t continue forever.

Oh Christmas tree

the long and winding road

I’ve been silent for a while. Life, as always, has been busy, but there’s more to it than that. I started doing freelance editing about two days after I quit my full-time job, and for the past few months many of my nights and weekends have been spent in front of the laptop. Some nights I would work a full 7 hours after tucking the boys into bed. I couldn’t even think about writing anything interesting, and the last thing that I wanted was to spend any more time in front of my laptop. I’m at the end of a long stretch, though. The final book that I’m editing in 2012 will be completed by the end of the week, and I’ve decided that I’m going to take a much lighter workload from now on. I need time to think, time to play with the boys, and time to just relax. I haven’t had enough of that lately.

Yes, they are in the trunk section of the car. No, I wasn’t driving so they remained safe the whole time. Although they begged me to let them sit back there for the drive home.

And beyond my work, there has been a lot going on. Brendan started school, we had part of our house reno’d, Brendan turned 4 (OMG!), and I have rediscovered my love of cooking delicious meals. I will get back to writing about the wonderfulness of my children, I promise. And I will share photos of our brand new office and anything else that seems remotely interesting to me, but which might bore the average person to tears.

I will oblige and share a photo, but for today, those worthy subjects will have to wait. Right now I feel like writing about something that has been tugging at my heart since I heard the news.Today I discovered that an old friend died after a long battle with cancer.

In the wonderful and weird world of Facebook, I found out by seeing a post on my “newsfeed”, that came directly from her wall. I haven’t spoken to Tina in about 10 years, but we kept in touch via the occasional facebook message, and I sent her words of encouragement as she navigated through her cancer treatments.

I’m sad in a way that I can’t describe, and I have no one with me to share my grief. My lovely husband met Tina briefly many years ago, so has no memory of her, and while he will gladly listen as I try to recapture my memories of spending time with her so long ago, he won’t be able to reminisce with me. But this is where the weird and wonderful world of social media comes in. After I saw the first post about Tina’s passing, I clicked on her page to see if I could find out more…details are scarce, and there is no online obituary, which makes me think that she must have died either early this morning or sometime yesterday. I was amazed to see all the condolences already on her page, messages directly to her, or messages to her family members. Wishes and prayers and remembrances. I found an odd comfort in seeing long-forgotten names of former classmates, those who also remember the fun, smiling young girl who I remember. Those of us who knew her long before her first bout with cancer shortly after high school. Even though we have lived hundreds of kilometres away from each other for so many years, I never stopped thinking of her as a friend.  I am blessed to have known someone who was just so genuine and sweet.

But my grief is an odd one because I really haven’t known her for years – other than the occasional message, I didn’t know what she did on a daily basis, who she spent her time with, or what her dreams were. It’s been too many years to count since I could have told you anything intimate about her life. But she has always held a special place in my heart. I’m sad and angry that her life couldn’t be everything that it was meant to be; I’m sad that she had to suffer and struggle so much. I’m sad that she didn’t get the happy ending that we all hoped she would have.

Thinking about Tina, I am brought back to our walks along the Detroit River when we had nothing else to do. I can still hear her voice as she made a joke about my name on one of the first times we hung out (with our friend Laura), “Bev would you like a beverage?”. It was a silly joke that for some reason has always stuck in my head. Now I’m grateful for that random memory – it brings me back to a time and place that will always bring a smile to my face, remembering the funny young woman who was taken much too young.

Week three and we’re still standing

Yuppers, that’s right folks, three weeks into this whole “stay at home mom” (or SAHM) stuff and all three of us are still standing (four if you count the husband).

I’m very proud to announce that I haven’t been dipping into the vino before supper time. Despite a few days when I felt like it would really help me. So Hooray for me! Pour me drink! (erm. maybe not).

We are starting to get over some adjustments of being used to different routines and schedules, and I think most of us are getting used to the new routine. It’s a wonderful thing. The best part being that I don’t have to deal with a minimum of 150 work-related emails in a day (I wish I were exaggerating). I LOVE not being tied to my computer, but instead being able to sit down and do a bit of work, and a bit of corn-holing whenever I have a free moment.

Like right now. The glorious time of the day known as Nap Time. Typically, Brendan doesn’t nap but he had an early morning play date at the park, so is pooped. He fell asleep while watching How to Train Your Dragon for the 10th time. He just discovered it a couple of weeks ago and is now hooked on dragons (and Spider-Man, and Iron Man, and Superman.)

I’m currently ignoring the big pile of laundry staring me in the face, and decided that I’d share a couple photos from the past week. Part of me is hoping that gnomes will come by and fold my clothes for me while I’m on the laptop. Weirder things have happened.

Speaking of weird things, if I give Nathan two mini sandwiches, he will eat a few bites from each, but never eat all of a sandwich. He loves carrots, though. I submit into evidence exhibit A:

Nate had the yellow plate; carrots gone, evidence of bites from two sandwiches. Brendan insisted that he wanted to eat a banana, but abandoned it after one bite. Also notice that he didn’t touch his carrots.

And, as promised, adorable photos of my children. Because I know that is the real reason why you are reading this. 

Yes, it’s blurry, but this is standard of half the photos I take of them. Because I’m too busy to go running to find my real camera everytime they are doing something cute. Yum, cake batter.

A sprinkler is the most amazing thing. Look Mommy, look. I’m getting wet.

Round 1 was a draw

This was a short week – the lovely “Civic Holiday” long weekend the first Monday in August. But, I can’t stress how much this week did NOT feel short. It was my first week as stay-at-home mom, not counting the (two) times I spent an entire year at home with my boys when they were newborn. Now it’s just official and everything. I have no EI cheques coming in the mail every week, and my final pay cheque from my job was deposited yesterday. It was a bit difficult to accept, knowing that the predictable influx of cash would be gone. Of course, also gone is the predictable (and painful) cheque that I pay to the daycare centre every month. I could have a house that is much nicer than my current house for the monthly amount I was paying those people. I never doubted it before, but this week proved that those splendid ladies (and man) at the Centre deserved every penny we were paying them.

I want to state, for the record, that I LOVE spending time with my boys. They are funny, and fun, and smart and silly and active. Very very active. Days one and two were good – we spent time at parks, went “swimming” in the wading pools, played in the backyard. We even had a play date with one of B’s friend’s. I was exhausted by the end of each day, but I felt like we were going to be just fine. I think I even tweeted about it, that’s how confident I felt. Then the universe decided to laugh at me a bit and see how I could handle two days in a row with lots of rain. Rain that keeps you in the house, because even trying to get to the car would leave all of soaked through, even with umbrellas.

oh, and did I mention that I get killer migraines every time it rains? Unfortunately, my kids don’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for me when I tell them “mommy has a headache”, so I powered through and somehow we made it through both days all in one piece. I’m not going to sugar coat it, it was hard. Last night I felt the same level of exhaustion that I did in the early days, with brand new babies; it’s the non-stop demands for attention, feeling like I never have a moment to myself. Breaking up so many disputes between the boys. Just like when they were new, I will find a routine that works for us, and we will all get used to being together all the time. I just hope it doesn’t take that long.

I did discover one wonderful way to entertain and occupy the boys – my new laptop. As they all do, this one has a built in webcam, so we spent about 40 minutes yesterday taking pictures and videos of ourselves, using the various video enhancements. It`s really fun when you can pretend that your hair is on fire, apparently.

the orange stars do not exist on my table. They are evidence of the spectacular tricks you can add to images and videos on my webcam application. yay technology!

Brendan had wandered off by the time this one was taken. He was probably playing with one of his many Iron Man action figures.

ok, I’m back.

I’m going to keep this as brief as possible. Firstly, and perhaps the most important reason for my desire to post right.this.second is this: I’m in a coffee shop (I’ll get back to this) and the man at the table beside me is wearing sandals that I just can’t accept as acceptable in this setting. I don’t even know if sandals is the right word. But I don’t want to call them shoes. They are like those kids socks where there is a hole for each toe. And they are leather. I just can’t. I wish I had chosen another table, but it’s too late now. The other place I thought of sitting for optimal comfort is now taken. I might even be able to ignore them, but he’s swinging his leg back and forth to the music that’s coming from the coffee shop’s sound system. It’s like he’s begging me to stare at him.

What am I supposed to do? Oh Internet, even though I have neglected to write at you for a couple of months, please advise me. Why do these things even exist? I’m sure they weren’t designed to be worn for a leisurely stroll to the local independent coffee shop, and they certainly weren’t meant to be paired with 20-year-old black jean shorts and a too-small t-shirt.

[EDITED TO ADD: So I got home tonight and couldn't stop thinking about these shoes. They looked like something that one would wear when doing something active - not while sipping a cappuccino and click-clacking away on a laptop. Call me obsessed. I looked them up. If you are interested, here is what they look like. I'm sure they are comfortable and perfect for running or some other physical activity, but they really shouldn't replace regular old shoes. Is it wrong that they creeped me out?]

OK. Enough about the clothes of strangers. I have news, Internet. Are you ready?

I have quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom to the boys. I may need to invest in a vineyard, with all the wine I’ll be drinking. (After 4pm, of course). Along with that, I’ll be attempting to work as a freelance editor. It’s been a while since my primary work was editing – I’ve been managing editors for the past four years – so this should be interesting. I’m starting out slow – I just have to edit an entire book in about three weeks. No problem.

That’s why I’m at the coffee shop – I needed to get out of the house to try to concentrate on the work at hand. Tomorrow will be my first day in my new role. I’m excited and nervous. I can’t wait to get to know my kids again. I am looking forward to seeing in person all the fun things that I’m told they do while they were at the day care.

And who can blame me, really. Take a look at these two – they are pretty adorable. When they aren’t fighting, that is. OK, I should really get to work. That’s why I’m here, after all. Oh, and to eat the cookies. I just had one that was chocolate chip with dried cherries and I think I would marry it, if I weren’t already married. yum.

When pictures say more than words

This is what greeted me at the back door when I came home Friday night.