February...

February is a remarkably busy month, and one I've never liked. February is long...for a short month...it's really really long.
We have a few fun things in February though, thankfully or I'd be right miserable for 28-29 days.
Today Braeden turns 2. Yes 2. Sometimes I forget he's not 3 and sometimes I think 'he just showed up how is he 2' but he is. Today.
We're fairly low key birthday celebrators. The boys had their party (as Ryan turned 5 on Sunday. FIVE. WHAT!) on Monday family day, we had cake, treats, visitors, and a few gifts. Fun was had by all.

Earlier in the month Nadine got the opportunity to recite "Old Mother Hubbard" at the 4H speech night at the school. She and a few of the other kids who are too young yet to be part of the 4H multiclub were asked to recite nursery rhymes or short speeches they'd prepared during the event.
When I asked Nadine if she'd be willing to do it she was quite keen.

Me: Your teacher said you did so well in class reciting your nursery rhyme she was wondering if you'd mind to recite it at the speech night at the school
Nadine (with a bit of thought): I'd LOVE to do that! So would I get up to the microphone and say "Hello I'm Nadine and I'm going to recite for you the nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard"?
Me: Um maybe.
Nadine: Hmm that'd be great!

So we went to speech night. The kids speeches and presentations were terrific. Nadine was the second to the last "speaker" which left her a bit of time to be restless and perhaps a bit nervous. But when her name was called up she went to the table that was a bit higher than her and with the help of her principal getting her a stool to stand on she loudly and with a big smile recited the sad tale of Old Mother Hubbard and her poor dog hungry dog. Then there was several minutes of post recitation giggling...

Ryan turned 5. He has had quite a birthday including the Gator that he and his siblings now share with which he can deliver loads of laundry, drive into the kitchen to ask for a snack...I'm looking forward to it heading outside in the spring.

Adam got to know our bird at the party, they became good buddies.

although I realized that I think sweetie (the bird) was eyeing up the cake on Adam's cheek

Incidentally the best gluten free cake to date :)

Today...

Ryan: Mom can you help me turn the gator into a flying car.

Me: Not very likely, what do you mean?
Ryan: I mean like the 'thing-a-ma-jigger'
Me: Ya I don't know how to do that. I think we should probably not strive for it to fly anyway.
Ryan: Could you help me get it up the stairs.
Me: no

Here's what he was going for.

Today there was an excavator delivery for Ryan, he was beyond thrilled and now has plans to dig all my potato holes for the garden this spring as well as....well holes absolutely everywhere are in this summers sights. The greatest Brandt Tractor guy ever couldn't have made these boys any happier. :)

What a week!

Yes so Nadine becoming a public speaker, Ryan becoming 5, Braeden becoming 2 and me delving into a few extra things FOR example drooling over photography workshops such as this... http://www.canwildphototours.com/, learning more about my camera, making a ridiculous list of things I'd like to get for said camera, learning all the ins and outs of being gluten free, working more than I like to sometimes and less than I like to others....etc, etc, etc has left February whizzing by. So onward toward March.

I've been hoping to win the lottery but given I don't buy tickets my chances remain slim to none...

 

a time to speak.

When Nadine gets home from school, or more specifically at dinner time, we try and ask her about her day. Some days she's willing to tell us all about the games they played at recess, the things they did in class and anything else that might leap to mind. Other times my inquiries are irritating for her, and that's ok with me, I understand the feeling when someone is asking you questions and you'd like to tell them to stuff it as opposed to trying to care about the answers.

Me: How was your day at school sweetie
Nadine: Fine
Me: Do anything fun?
Nadine: Ya. You know when I'm at school I sometimes miss you a lot and wish I could talk with you but when I am home I don't really feel that way.
Me *smiles*: got it

What a diplomatic young miss.

I put a lamp in Nadine's room last night in hopes that she could read for a bit to fall asleep instead of working herself up into being freaked out as is the norm. Her having a lamp left Ryan feeling a little lamp less. I reluctantly added a lamp to his room too.
Me: Ryan I'm concerned that if I put a lamp in your room you'll be running around all night
Ryan: No mom. I'll walk.
Me: Oh ok great.

You know when you're trying to teach children that are not quite two some please and thank you skills? There's often the time that they ask for something without the please and then you sing-song a "please" out in hopes that they'll copy you, or you've given them something and you yourself say "thank you" in hopes they'll follow suit. Well Braeden is really quite good at please and thank you. He doesn't often need reminders, sometimes but not always.

Braeden: Mom I wanna orange
Me: Please
Braeden: Please
Me *starts peeling an orange for Braeden thinking I'm really great at this manners teaching and hands
        Braeden an Orange
Me *waits a second*: Thank you
Braeden: Your Wewcom!
Me: hmmm

camels and counterweights

Sometimes it's a daily struggle not to laugh and snort out loud at the kids. I really try not to. Sometimes it's hard.

While reading together with Nadine
Me: Boys are made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. Girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice
Nadine: That is NOT true, we're made of meat and skin.
Me: good point

Braeden (with fingers in his ears): la la la la la (each and every time I start to talk)
I've always thought it's comically unfortunate when kids letter switches when they're learning to talk gravitate toward putting the sound 'f' at the beginning of a lot of words. I do like it when Braeden discusses wanting his favorite meal "funch" but it doesn't play out as well when we're discussing a few other topics...oh well.

This picture reliably makes me smile.

The kid interaction combo is sometimes fantastic. I had to get this next story second hand but I can see it playing out in my head as though I had been there.
The kids like to push chairs together in a row, throw a blanket over top and voila you have Cindy the camel. They ride Cindy across the plains of somewhere-or-other. It's beautiful great time consuming fun, until they begin to disagree on what Cindy may or may not need as far as options. Like parent's disagreeing on whether or not their new vehicle needs built in DVD players or something like that.
Ryan, is proving to be a real little man. Any of the women reading this might well be able to read Nadine's tone of exasperation and Ryan's tone of...well I don't know what word to use to describe it...cluelessness sounds harsh but...

Ryan: I'll install the counterweights
Nadine: Ryan, Cindy does not need counterweights
Ryan: You hold her still while I hammer in the pins
Nadine: Ryan Cindy does NOT NEED counterweights, we're NOT putting counterweights on her!
Ryan (begins installing counterweights)
Nadine: Ryan Cindy DOES NOT NEED COUNTERWEIGHTS, that's NOT a counterweight THAT IS A PILLOW, RYAN STOP RYAN!
yet Ryan remains a bit oblivious... :D

well and it goes on from there.

Ya, so Ryan's a real little man. Like other men I know he believes there is no bad angle for which to take a picture of a machine, truck, or bike that he loves. He got a hold of one of my cameras the other day and took a series of about 70 pictures of the red truck. He believes them all to be perfectly fabulous, and really so do I. Here is a very small sample of his work...

And that's that.

Magic.

Nadine: mom I smell something, what is that smell
Me; something
Nadine: you're right that's exactly what I smell.
Me: I'm amazing

Tim was 'magically' pulling a penny out of Nadine's ear this evening. She was quite taken with the idea that her ear was a cash keeper. But how did he do it?!
Nadine: I'm pretty sure Dad shoved that penny in my ear last night when I was in bed
Me: Ya that's probably it.

She tried the trick out on him. It went like this.

Nadine (while shoving a penny IN Tim's ear): Pretend you don't feel this.



she really is a whiz with magic.

And if I could brag honestly for a moment, quite a brilliant little reader. She read me the entirety of "Smelly Socks" this evening before bed and it was quick and it was right. Yay grade 1 :)

manners and fibs

One of the goals I have for my kids is to be polite. It's not the top priority but it is something I strive for them to adopt as a first instinct and way of life. It seems to involve constant reminders at this stage. Maybe because we're all unbelievably sleep deprived, or it may just be an age and stage thing. Either way I'm not worried about it, it just seems that I do a lot of reminding.
What do you say? what's missing? or just the look of 'really lets re-think how we're asking for that' is almost always followed by the appropriate and correct addition tack on token 'please, thank you or whatever is appropriate'...usually.
Other times it plays out a bit differently.
Ryan: Mom get me some juice.
Me: 'get me some juice???' (with a blank left for him to add the most obvious...)
Ryan: ...Today.
Me: Ya today was definitely what I was waiting for
Ryan: Ok great.

Sometimes my sarcasm seems to backfire, but it keeps my mood light in the face of constantly repeating myself.

I also have been striving to teach the kids to clean up after themselves. THIS is a work in progress and truthfully 99% of people I talk to tell me the same thing. It's a work in progress until the children leave home and then eventually it's their work in progress with their own children. Well there you have it. I've been assured by 1% that it is possible to get them to clean up after themselves, however I spend a great deal of time cleaning up after him too so...maybe I'll cut us all a bit of slack and just go with the majority rules on this one (kidding honey and luv you) :)

Another thing that reliably backfires for me is the times that I choose to fib to my kids to prevent a question bomb. I normally don't mind playing 20 questions, even if it is more like 200 questions, but every now and then I find myself in a scenario where I realize we're about to embark on a question bomb and I'm probably loading kids and groceries into the suburban in the -40' cold, having been mildly frazzled by the grocery shopping with the peeps experience in the first place and at THAT point if I sense we're on the helms of a question bomb I probably fib to the kids in order to wrap that up as quickly as possible.
For example when loading post groceries in the above outlined scenario
Nadine (noting a car alarm going off): Mom why is that car beeping over and over
Me (not wanting to discuss alarms, security, and all the other places that would go): They're just trying to tell us to have a good day.
Nadine (thinks then bellars): YOU TOO!! (horn keeps honking) Why is she still beeping I said you too!?!
Me: I dunno.

I dunno can often wrap up a question bomb but not often enough. Therein lies the foundation for a quick fib. But now when we've heard car alarms of beeping since then, we smile and say "Mom they want us to have a nice day too" and I think, 'ya I should really remember to explain that sometime'.

I have have have to figure out how to get some photos of Braeden doing yoga. I just have to. It's really something to see. Fact is other than the number of times he falls over he's actually pretty darn good at it. I've tried adding yoga to the strength and stretching portion of the 1/2 marathon training plan I started at the beginning of the month. The idea I've always had about yoga is that it's really hard work but somehow also kind of peaceful. Well not at my house. I enjoy the workout part and ultimately I also enjoy the cars being driven on my back, the kids army crawling under whatever pose is "woohoo mom you're making a tunnel". I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed  having the remote control fire truck lurch past my face but oh well no harm no foul. The kids and I like doing "extrasizes" together and even if they are literally underfoot it's awesome to have them participate with me and they continue to be a great encouragement.

People often ask if I've photoshopped these, I don't actually own photoshop so, well, no I didn't But they were sure fun to take. People often also ask 'what is it?' It's oil and water on a colored background.

chicken sick

or so that's what Ryan told me he was,
"I guess I'm chicken sick mom" after I picked him up from playschool. It made me smile for a couple reasons. I know that it's probably classified as bad parenting to smile at your child being called a name at school but first off how can one not smile a little bit at "chicken sick" hahaha actually later I laughed audibly about it, and did again just now. BUT another thing I love about Ryan, to add to the crazy long list of things I love about him is, he didn't really care if one of the other kids thought he was 'chicken sick'. His self image isn't made up of such nonsense caring about others thoughts about him. As he grows up I hope he retains that..."that guy thinks I'm chicken sick, I think that guys wrong". Know what I mean?
It's pretty significant to me that the kids understand that what others think of them bears absolutely zero on what I think of them, God thinks of them, or what they should be thinking about themselves. It's irrelevant, and I really want them to be aware of that.
"You wouldn't care what people thought of you if you realized how seldom they do!" I heard more than once growing up. Really even if they are thinking of me and thinking poorly of me...oh well, it's just not worth the time wasted in thinking about it. It's really not. Moving through life letting what other people think, or say about you affect you is exhausting, unnecessary and pretty ridiculous in my humble opinion. Why not let that go at age 4. It's brilliant!
((To add/clarify his group of playschool kids is awesomely lovely and so is his teacher, I'm thrilled with it!))

I was going to try and write a post Christmas, Christmas letter but I'm really struggling to come up with the organizational skills to do it. So here's a few highlights
Nadine turned 6 in November
       -she's in grade one
       -loves school, reading, math (most days)
       -is in ballet class and loves that
       -plans to become a veterinarian or a zookeeper depending on which day you ask, a plan she made after a trip to the Calgary zoo.
       -she's an absolutely great kid, just great

Ryan will be 5 in February
       -he started playschool this year, hallelujah for the opportunity to ride the bus
       -he still loves loves loves machines and has memorized most of the episodes of mighty machines...he's stopped quizzing me about them though (I think I frustrated him out of that)
       -highlights of the year for him included harvest with Grandpa, hauling grain with Uncle Doug or any time he gets to hang out with his farmer circle and immerse himself in what he loves
       -at the moment he and his brother are running around the house being airplanes yelling "mom check out my fuselage"
       -he's terrific, absolutely terrific

Braeden will be 2 in February
       -oh boy
       -he's a busy little man who will NOT be left behind in any way shape or form to his older siblings.
       -he is thereby often sporting a series of bruises or scrapes
       -he loves sports, machines, and picking at his siblings
       -he's randomly taken up peeing in the toilet.
       -he likes to play the live version of angry birds which involves roaring and 'flying' through the air barrelling head first into the couch.

Tim and I are good. As if I didn't know it before, 2011 made me only more confident that he is in fact completely perfect for me. Each of the 7 year we've been married (as of September) has made me more aware of that and this year was no exception.
He's self employed now which is going really well for us. He has enough requests for his time to fill up the time of many people. I guess it's hard to be really really ridiculously competent and sought after ;) He's still playing hockey every Sunday night and I'm planting the idea of him taking up running again with me and maybe just maybe working toward a local adventure race including kayaking, mountain biking and running :).
We somehow function with very little sleep and an incredible amount of coffee. God bless our children.

I'm still working casual at the hospital and have to work enough to support my camera habit. I'm now back to running thankfully, it really does seem to keep me sane.

Anyway, there's not much else to tell, I am hoping to try and be better at blogging in 2012. I do think of it as a great way to keep some documentation of the great things my kids say, do, achieve, etc...but I seem to say that every month and have never really followed through with that...We'll see.



 

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!