Milestones

Well we've had quite a week, it was one of those run around a lot and not accomplish much kind of weeks. We had a some great milestones though.
Nadine turned 6! Watching the kids personalities and interests develop fascinates me. I really do love the way their minds learn and how they explain and reteach what they've learned. Six seems to be a great age. It's full of information...full. I am apparetly a little less thick in the head than when she was five, so that's encouraging. It seems, somehow I ended up with one of the sweetest little girls on the planet, and for that I am truly thankful.
Nadine is in school swimming lessons this week, she's also practicing her munchkin-ness to be a munchkin in the Wizard-of-Oz play for the Christmas concert at the school.
We had 6 girls here yesterday for a 6th birthday extravaganza. Nadine had a great time. We painted Christmas ornaments, decorated cupcakes, and there was intermittent episodes of shrieking leaving Ryan and Braeden pondering the complications of having so many girls in one place...

Ryan had one of his own great milestones this week. Deflating an apparently self righteous police officer on a playschool field trip. Being known as a person that lacks in a lot of sentiment I will tell you this story brought a tear to my eye, if only I could have been there to see it myself. Wednesday was a busy school day. First day of swimming lessons for Nadine (which I went to help and watch) and a playschool field trip for Ryan (which Tim went to help supervise). I thoroughly enjoyed swimming lessons, and Tim was thoroughly entertained by the field trip. He found out a lot of interesting information about the families that Ryan goes to school with :)
The tour started at the fire hall. To see the fire truck was a highlight, and I do mean highlight of Ryan's day. Fire trucks are cool I'll admit, and it impressed Ryan to see one. Far more impressive, evidently than the police car. A police car can't shoot water, there's no extra gauges or connections...fire trucks are just cool.
Now for all the police officers I've known who are great, the next part of this story is irrelevant. However, I'm sure we've all met (after all these people are in every field of life and work...anesthetist leap to mind but in this case the example was RCMP) the pompous, arrogant, self important guy who for some reason is left to tour the playschool through the police station. So the playschool got a tour of the Sargent's desk and a political lecture about how there was no Sargent there right now and the implications of that (as though the 4-5 year olds cared or were going to write their MLA?). "Does anyone know anyone who's been in jail?" huh?! "Ya my mom's from here" one child piped up...incidentally inaccurately but sometimes it's nice to have something to add during an interrogation. I think it's odd he decided to tell the kids all about the drunk tank...but whatever, we each have a different approach to our job.
So while they all sat together in a holding cell Ryan asked the officer
Ryan: Do you have a fire truck?
Cop: No but I have a police car and I could show you that!
Ryan: No I wanna see the fire truck
Cop: (deflated realizing he's less interesting than the fire hall)
and Tim's heart sang :) and mine smiled when he texted me at swimming lessons to tell me about it.

Braeden has had the milestone of sitting on the toilet, backwards, with a Richard Scary "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" book propped up against the tank.

What doesn't "Go" is Braeden, but that's OK. Secretly I really really don't want him to get partial to that before we travel for Christmas. Potty training through the mountain passes in December is a lousy idea in my opinion. Really limited dangling or squatting spots off the side of the road if there's a need for that.

I've finally finished the 2011 Christmas calendar, which every year as I fight with the Costco uploading photos function I say something to the effect of "I'm never doing this blankety blanking thing again" while drinking rum and egg nog...that part helps. Every year I do another calendar though. That calendar and I have a love hate relationship...but I suppose some day I'll enjoy having those to look at again.
What I'm really looking forward to is wrapping up 2011 but with 4 weeks to go...woot woot bring on 2012!