June 27: Life Lately

Post wedding vineyard lunch on the drive home with R.  I think I would live by vineyards again.

 

Birthday party in the park. The boys joined a swarm of over 32 kids...

Each morning we wake up and they are all crowded into our bed.

Mr. Biddles!

Oh The Places I'll Go...

Oh the places I'll go....

May 30th: Birthdays

May is a month of birthdays for us.  And of course I never take pictures of anything.  Seth kicked it off with cake pops for breakfast, steak for dinner and 12 friends at a trampoline place.  Lots of Lego was the theme of the day.

Then me. I was sick and writing my book - but we still got a night out together - a nap, a movie and a quiet house was how I rocked in my 37th year.

Then it was Avery - who seemed neutral on the birthday front.  But we had a Kung Fu cake (which actually looked cool but I didn't take a picture) and had lurid and vaguely frightening bright icing. There were balloons and the nice thing about our street is that's its an instant party.

In between that, lots of other kids parties as well - Fort York, making pizza and so on.

Pizza party

Seth's dream realized: Jabbas Palace. Later destroyed. R crushed as hours of work -gone.

Cake on street

Random life

Going for Dosas.

Hanging. 

Growing. 

Monday January 7:

It's an ugh kind of day.  Not helped by the back to school routine on a cold January morning.

Fighting it with the bobble baby.

November 30th: Seth Art

Jet Ray 

Angry Birds Fighting 

Sum Dog - The Animal Game 

Utah Raptor 

Monday October 15th

Fall is my season.

I love the colours (but really who doesn't?)

I love the sense of efficiency and ironically for a season that's all about dying, the sense of renewal.

Resolutions to be made, new projects and now that the hot days of summer gone, its perfect to bundle up and get to work.

And even though I walk everywhere I can, its really only the morning walk with Seth to school that brings me around trees and leaves (the downside of city living).

Delayed shot of Day 1, Grade 1

Monday December 4th: The Anniversary Post Script

Expectation and lived reality usually differ, but this is especially true when kids, particularly your own kids are involved.

And so it was, with the long awaited "Anniversary Weekend."

The hotel was booked, complete with a couples massage, a bottle of champagne and a late dinner reservation.  I had even vaguely floated the idea of buying something suitably cliche and lacy - I didn't get around to it of course, but anyway... it turns out it was just as well.

By Friday at 1am both boys have hacking coughs which soon morph into vomit.  Ugh.  Cue R and I spending the rest of the night changing sheets, getting water, dispensing cough medicine and bitching about who did the last round and who is doing more (me clearly).

Saturday morning dawns and we're both cranky.  It's also clear that no one, not even (or especially) family should be asked to cope with a second night like that. Plus, the boys would go crazy if we left them overnight somewhere when they're sick.  Only the dinner reservations can be changed without a fee - so we're stuck with a hotel room (literally around corner from our house) and the spa appointment. 

All is not lost however.  My sister in law comes to stay with the kids while we have our massage (R falls asleep in exhaustion, I think about making soup for their coughs).  We go home, we take the kids with us to the hotel - I optimistically bill it as a holiday family sleepover, yeah!

So instead of champagne, we take turns swigging a half bottle of average red wine from the hotel mini bar (the boys are putting animals in the glasses), the dinner plan becomes eating the kids leftover pizza with a McDonald's sundaes.  The kids are loving it though: the tv is bigger! The bed is bigger! You can see into other people's rooms!

We all pile into the bed.  Twenty minutes later, Avery is sick everywhere.

All the towels get used up as we try and mop up the mess.  I open the window and crack a couple of mini bottles, we take more sips in between cleaning up the bed, the children and ourselves. I hope I have enough cash on me for a serious tip.

We do a second round of baths.              Everyone collapses in exhaustion.

There is no glamour in this I think.

The morning brings room service and with it a slightly happier family.

So it was not at all what I'd planned.

But it was a reminder for me that relationships are not actually about the big planned events, but somehow finding fun in the tedium of the everyday, with someone that you can hopefully look across a pile of rancid towels at 2 am and think, I'm glad its him.

Even if it takes the help of a few small bottles to source that kind of zen. /rs

Wed Nov 9: The School Walk

When I was pregnant with Seth, one of the images that stressed me out was the idea of being one of those Moms, always stuck in car, ferrying my kids around.  The "school run" is a new phenomenon (as is all the attendant modern day anxiety that goes with it) but leaving aside the ever pressing issue of what to wear, the tension and traffic that I've seen at our school, would make you learn ride a bike, that day, just to skip it. I've seen yelling and this is Rosedale.

We're lucky that we've always lived close enough to walk the kids to school (well a deliberate decision) since I don't drive in the city and we actually don't own a car but use this.  It works for me (though not always for R).  Or increasingly Seth.

But I've always loved walking around the city, and being downtown with the kids means there's always something to see, do, eat or talk about.
Plus, there's the bonus of an added workout.

The kids don't always walk though. Since I'm always running late, they travel in style in our red wagon, complete with a blanket, snacks, drinks and even leg room.  So really more then they would get on most flights today....