January 24th: R's Birthday

In which we had two nights (two!) without any of the kids.  And so we impersonated the lives of "hipsters in the city" or at least what we think those without kids might do....

This involved: a movie, evening drinks, browsing Indigo, early morning yoga, brunch and the paper, a walk to Kensington Market, amazing tacos, browsing Holts, Starbucks, an attempt to see a play, replaced by impromptu massages and take out Korean.

Actually, just writing out that list makes me think that really only parents of three would cram so much activity into a 36 hour period.

F

Catching Up: A Year and Some Months Later

I'm no longer 35 and I suppose my birthday experiment was a fail since I stopped blogging.

Except that I thought alot about the blog. Primarily I thought about all the pictures that were just on my iphone or R's blackberry that might get lost.  And I thought about how we have no family albums.  And I thought about how I am doing nothing to capture our family life and yet someday I know I will regret it.

And I realized I wanted to come to this space.  Not to build an audience or to generate ad revenue which I removed but for me, since without the public aspect, I go back to old problem about journaling about my own issues or to dos.

I also realized that I felt pressured to take on some kind "voice" for the blog that wasn't actually me and it sort of constrained me.

But how do you catch up on a year that included: a family cruise to Belize, taking the boys to India, a birthday party with 24 animals, selling my book, having another baby, plus the usual camp, school, and day to day craziness.

 Randomly I guess.

Summer Recap....

Argh, repeat, I will not berate myself for not posting, I will not berate myself for not posting.  Instead, I will in the spirit of all things back to school commit to regular postings, (I will I will!) - um, every other day?

In the meantime, I will try and remember some of our summer highlights, is it a cliche to say that cliche's seem increasingly true as you get older (I'm thinking of how they say time goes faster as you get older and this entire year is disappearing for me) which has me stressed, but instead will think about:

• Deck time, campari and soda, bread salad (much better than it sounds, all grilled veggies, basil and goat cheese); 
• Mastering my first bbq! Grilled pineapple, peppers, salmon, steak, hot dogs, chicken...
• Swimming lessons with the boys (a lack of swimmies meant Avery's diaper would gradually swelling up, much like the character from Charlie and chocolate factory); 
• Guilt at the work that I didn't do enough off and now must must catch up on (I'm all about repetition today) 
• Kyaking with R on a grown up weekend away (golf, kayking, movies, massages and visiting J. Meisel), do pokey hotels counter stunning scenery? A discussion tbc.; 
• The family vacation to Vancouver: a beaver plane and hidden private lake; whale watching (thankfully the orca's showed); the amazing aquarium and our boys discover room service (ice cream under a silver dome nice!). 

In a way highlights of the summer seems like its cheating the entire point of the project - to capture the little things at the time, and each day. Oh well.