Melissa's Place

Lady-In-...what now?

2012-01-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

In the car today, as I pulled out of the Walmart parking lot in a gentle wet snow, Cole observed the wipers carefully then said, "If the wipers need to be fixed, Daddy can take the car to Lady-In-Tire."

Mommy Olympics: Event - Runny Eggs Race

2012-01-26T05:09:00.000-08:00

I had just dropped Cole off at daycare and returned home with Amelia. It was time to make my breakfast and as I waited for the water to come to a boil so I could start the timer for my eggs, I saw Amelia squat and go silent. This stance is unmistakable and the smell is undeniable.

She's been having diaper rash issues, so I had to act fast. No waiting around for my eggs to be done. But this caused a dilemna because, truly one of my favourite things in the world is a perfectly cooked boiled egg. The whites firm but a runny yolk. I almost always over-cook them. But on the rare occasion that my egg IS perfectly cooked, it is one of my life's simple pleasures.

So I made a game-time decision. I set the timer for the requisite four minutes, scooped up Amelia and raced upstairs, not knowing how long I take to change a diaper but knowing that I come from very efficient roots (even facing a five-sheeter morning poop).

Well, it ended up being SIX sheeter and I'll have you know I didn't cut corners, but I STILL had two more minutes left on the clock when I came back downstairs to the kitchen! BOOO-YAH!

Mysterious Squeal

2012-01-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, I went downstairs to watch some tv but as I leaned over the couch to pick up the remote controller, I heard this high pitched sound. I listened and I thought it was coming from the speaker, but then as I went out into the hall, it seemed to get louder. I listened at the basement door but it wasn't coming from there. Then I was surprised to also hear it in the downstairs bathroom and also in the guest bedroom. Strangely enough, it was upstairs too and I thought it might be the thermostat, but it wasn't when I pressed my ear there.

Up in the bedroom, I said to Mark, "Do you hear that?" and he looked at me with surprise. It was loud up there too but he hadn't noticed and then I looked down and I was still holding the downstairs remote controller, which was out of batteries and emanating a high pitched squeal.

Innocent

2012-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

I was in the dining room and Cole was just slightly out of my field of view for a moment and then he ran back to me and said innocently, "I didn't hit her!"
Then his sister began to cry.
He looked at me then up at the sky with a ponderous head tilt and reflected aloud, "Oopsy. Maybe I did hit her."

baby steps

2012-01-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

Amelia's been flirting with it for a few days now but today was the first time I was 100% certain...she took her first step today. (9 1/2 months old)

Cole reading his flash cards

2012-01-18T11:46:00.000-08:00

January 2012

2012-01-18T09:22:00.001-08:00

J is for Uncle Jay

2012-01-12T05:59:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, I scrounged up a few of my favourite pictures of my kids enjoying the company of their wonderful Uncle Jay and Aunt Michelle.

At Christmas, they announced they're going to have a baby, the first LOFTUS baby, in June and everyone is over the moon with excitement!

I was so excited, I even cried a bit. Okay - a lot. My little brother was an easy awesome Uncle. I always knew he would be. He plays airplanes with Cole and fire fighters and he will sit and dig holes in the sandbox for hours on end. And Michelle and Jay make room in their busy lives for family dinners at our place on a very regular basis. But now my little brother is going to have a little family of his own. And being a dad is a totally different business than being an uncle.

Birth order has dictated that I always took care of my siblings. I was older and I SO mature for my age, and also very bossy. So I thought I'd be a shoe-in for being a parent, but still the transition was tough for me. So then I wondered about my little brother. Who has he taken care of? And then I thought back to each and every time he got up early at my mother's to mow the lawn, or trim the shrubs, or put up Christmas tree lights so we wouldn't go up on the roof, or push a car out of the driveway or get it unstuck from a ditch because someone coasted down the Sherbrooke hill in bad weather. I think of how he fixes all our electronic gadgets, how he calls to check in, how he blocks the dogs from jumping up on Michelle. And it hit me - Jay takes care of everyone!

But most of all, I think of how Jay took care of poor, decrepit old Sylvie. The dog who wouldn't quit. The one who jumped out of the window of our sun porch. The one who's breath could stop a train and who's gas could probably melt the ice caps. I thought about how many times she threw up and he cleaned it up (a few thousand). I thought of how she had accidents all over the house and how he protected her and cared for her and loved her despite it all. And that's kind of what is going to make him a great dad.

How is this like parenting? To be quite frank, in the first few months, parenting can be quite gross. It's a lot of give and not a lot of immediate reward. (I know some might disagree, but this is MY blog so you get MY perspective!) And Jay is going to be an incredible Dad for so many, many reasons, but especially in those early months because he is good at doing the yucky jobs, the really awful jobs, the ones that need to be done but no one wants to do. He will do them simply because someone's got to do them and because he's got a big heart and he loves people in a big way too. So when barf and snot and drool and crying and screaming and other unspeakables happen, Jay is going to get 'er done out of love for his baby and also for his tired wife and that is what being a father of a newborn is all about.

Coke Casualty

2012-01-09T08:18:00.001-08:00

This morning, I left my can of coke on the coffee table and Amelia spilled it. I immediatley said, "That was my fault. I shouldn't have left it there." And Cole looked at me and said, "See Mom. I TOLD you we shouldn't had a baby."

Credit

2012-01-06T05:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I was in the kitchen doing dishes and Mark was in the living room trying to keep Amelia from destroying the lego building Cole was making. Then Cole ran into the kitchen and exclaimed, "Mom, Come quick! Come see my amazing....discovery!"

Then he pointed to his lego creation and yelled, "TA-DAH!"

And I said appropriately, "Wow! That's great Cole."

To which he responded, "And I couldn't have done it without Daddy and Amelia...and Mommy."

Happy Holidays 2011

2012-01-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

Aunt Sheena shaking Cole's brains out

Mark, Sheena and Mary Elaine

Isaac Jay

Jay and Michelle just announced there will be one more Loftus next Christmas!

Isaac kissing Amelia

Amelia and Grandpa

Kokum traded a VCR for this little chair at her garage sale this summer and it's a HUGE hit!

Someone loves her Auntie

History repeats itself.... the Peron, Duffy and Mulaisho progeny enjoying each other's company

(Ava, Cole and Naomi)

Callum and Cole ringin' in the new year

Mom and Cole baking dinner rolls. Cole is making his own little bun.

2012-01-05T11:59:00.001-08:00

Amelia loves to clap - 9 months old

Keys for the Kia

2011-12-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

It was the evening of December 27th. My brother and his wife had arrived from Toronto. Mark, me and the kids had driven from Burlington. Mary, Ben and Isaac had come from Ottawa. My father and his wife were there too. We all converged on my mother's house for a Christmas feast.

Kids tore open presents. Babies chewed on ribbon. Too much turkey was ingested. And the apple pie was accompanied by heavenly hash ice cream. We chatted into the evening - the kids were put to sleep. It snowed and snowed and snowed.

Sometime after 8, the lights flickered. They flickered again. Then...they went out. Everyone sat for a moment. Mary said, "Oh, that's bad." I was silently thankful the kids were all in bed. We began to wander around, trying to remember where we'd put the flashlights and candles. We'd brought Cole's flash light and someone had been playing with it near the tree. Ma had one of those flashlights powered by motion, that you need to shake and it shines for about ten seconds. So we rooted around in the dark and finally found the stash of candles and a box of matches. The room began to glow and warm.

At nine, my brother-in-law turned to Mary and said, "We'd better head over to your dad's house. It's nine." Then he said he'd load up the car. The night morphed into a winter wonderland - snow on all the branches and roads. Ben began to rummage through the bags, "I just need to find the keys."

The non-chalant search picked up in energy and urgency as the minutes ticked by. It was additionally difficult because there were no lights. We systematically felt around in the couch, in the closet, in coat pockets. Ben remembered going right to the enormous back yard with the dog to play and romp and build snowmen after their long journey. He also mentioned his coat pockets were prone to letting things out. We looked out the window at the half foot of fluffy white snow and wondered if it was possible the keys could be buried somewhere in its midst.

Ben and I put on snow gear and went out to retrace his steps. There were a lot of steps. He'd played everywhere with Frisbee. The back yard is about six hundred feet deep and a hundred feet wide. We looked and looked but found no keys.

Ben and Mary decided to borrow our car and take Isaac and their pup to my dad's and to resume the search in the morning in daylight. But the upwards slope of the driveway proved icy. Ben and I had to push while Jay drove and it took several attempts to get our van onto the main road.

In the morning, my dad had a brilliant idea. He drove Ben out to the country to a man who rented metal detectors. We tied a bag to the end and Ben went out, feeling hopeful, to comb the yard. He swooped and sweeped through the snow methodically for over two hours. Then he came in for lunch to warm up with a bowl of turkey soup, coffee and some chocolates.

Then they called the Kia dealership and inquired about towing the car and getting a new set of keys made.

Just as they were packing Isaac up to take him to my dad's for nap, my brother went out to the back yard one last time. He swept the centre, the area where the most romping and playing occurred, not with the metal detector, but with a hockey stick. He was out for just a few minutes.
And he found those wonderful keys!

Secret Country Drive - Part 2

2011-12-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

I was so proud when I got home with the antique mantle clock I'd bought Mark. I got the kids into the house and then carefully lowered the clock, still wrapped in plastic, into a giant gift bag and padded the sides with newspaper. I put it down in my study. I knew that there was a possibility that the chime was set and it would ring, but I had all day to hear it and to figure out how to disarm it before Mark got home that night. All day, I heard nothing.

Mark returned home and I felt smug with my secret. Even when asked what he did that day, Cole didn't spill the beans. And I hadn't heard the a peep or a chime out of the clock all day.

Mark and I watched tv and chatted all evening. Then I went downstairs to my study to check on things and in the silence of the night I heard "tick ... tick ... tick ...."
Ah man! Somehow the pendulum must not have stopped completely when I'd transported it home.

I shut my office door and took all the newspaper out of the gift bag. Then I carefully lifted the clock out of the bag, using my feet to pin the gift bag to the ground as I lifted. The clock ticked happily away, content that it was doing what it was made to do - keep time.

I opened up the back panel and stilled the pendulum with my hand. Then I gently lowered the clock back into the bag and replaced the newspaper. I lifted the gift bag onto my desk, tried to get the folded scotch tape to re-stick to the gift bag and then I went to sit on the bed. I decided to wait a few minutes before going back upstairs, just to be sure. I snuggled in and lost myself in a book I was in the middle of.

Then all of a sudden "GONG!". It was a definite chime of one metal hammer tapping once against a hollow metal bell of some sort. A foreshadowing or quarter-hour rehearsal of the entire meloday this grandfather was promised to play on the hour. My breath caught in my chest and I glanced up at the ceiling, wondering if Mark was still watching t.v. above me. How loud was the volume? Did I hear snoring?

Then the more important questions came: I stopped that pendulum! How was it chiming? I hadn't had time to google how to turn off the chiming mechanism and I certainly couldn't do it now without drawing attention to myself. I guessed that as I'd lifted the gift bag onto the desk, the pendulum had regained its momentum again. It reminded me of an old, retired pianist whose fingers never quite cease to play, even unconsconsciously on his bony lap when the music has long ago quieted.

This time, I took all the newspaper out of the gift bag and removed the back panel, all while the clock was still on the desk. I held the pendulum for a moment or two and even thought for a second about stuffing the thing with tissue, then thought better of it in case the antique-ness was somehow damaged. I replaced the panel carefully and re-closed the gift bag again. Then I listened. No tick-ticking.

I went back to the bed. No tick-tick.

I picked up my book. No tick-tick. I was hardly breathing, I was listening so intently for the clock to suddenly spring back to life. It was haunting and mysterious. I imagined who else's mantle this persistent old thing had furnished. All night I expected it to re-start its tick-ticking. But it didn't make another sound. Not a tick. Not a chime.

Secret Country Drive - Part 1

2011-12-26T06:08:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, Mark asked for a "nice mantle clock". He likes unique things - not the kind of mass, produced crap you buy at Walmart. He also loves to watch Antiques Roadshow, so I thought I'd try to get him an antique mantle clock.

I perused kijiji and ebay and found a chiming mantle clock, in mint condition, for sale at a reasonable price in Cambridge. I corresponded with the seller and she was willing to come down a bit in price, so I decided to pack up my kids on the first Friday of December and drive out to the country to see the clock.

We set off at 8:30 in the morning and it was a chilly, wet morning. Then the fat raindrops began to made dull thuds on the wild shield and suddenly I noticed white accumulation on the lawns and trees all around. I was already nervous about Cole telling his father what we were up to so I was glad for the distraction. "Look Buddy! It's snowing! We drove out here to see snow!"

He looked at me speculatively from under his toque.

Then we saw some horses and a whole field of cows. "Look! Cows, we came out here to see cows and horses! Isn't that neat?"

"I want to go home," he complained.

We drove for nearly an hour and finally, came to a horse ranch with the address I'd scrawled on a piece of note paper. We pulled up the long, windy gravel drive, through a forest of trees, and up to an old brick century home. There was a paddock with two black horses with snouts to the frosty grass and then, as I got out of the car, I noticed a third tall sleek horse standing in the front lawn, just a few metres from us. He stopped to look at us as I took Cole out of the car.

"Look Cole, a horse!"

"What he eating, Mommy?"

"Grass. Isn't that neat? We came all this way to see these horses!"

Cole's eyes were finally lit up with excitement. He pointed one mittened hand towards the horse, but clung close to my leg as I unpacked the diaper bag and Amelia from the car. Then we all clambered up the big stone steps to the front door.

The lady who answered the door was so friendly. She showed me the clock and the key and we tinkered with the dials and wound it to ensure it worked. She knew one of the dials wound the chimes and that there was a way to turn them off but she'd forgotten how. She suggested I google it. Then her husband wrapped the clock carefully in a white plastic bag and hockey tape while I escorted Cole upstairs to the washroom.

As we were coming out of the washroom, the lady asked us to come into her son's room. She had pulled a big bag out from under his bed. It was filled with Hot Wheels cars. She asked if Cole would like one. At first he said, "No thank you. But Thank you for offering."

Then she pointed out that there was a backhoe. And a forklift. A crane. A cement mixer! Cole began to squeal with delight. "Thank you. Thank you!" he cried.

So as we got into the car, when I asked him if he wanted to go see the horses, he declined instantly, too engrossed in his new construction vehicles. And I knew I was home-free. If his daddy asked him what he did today, he wouldn't even remember me buying the clock. He'd think I'd handed over that wad of twenty dollar bills for this handful of treasures he held in his hands the whole way home.

More Christmas-ness

2011-12-25T09:52:00.001-08:00

Christmas Morning 2011

2011-12-25T08:28:00.001-08:00

Head in the Trees

2011-12-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

I've been watching Men in Trees religiously for the past month or so. The last time I was so engrossed in a fantasy world, I was devouring the Twilight series. But this time, it's all about New York women meeting Alaskan men and romancing it up Elmo-style.

So what is it that's so addictive about daytime television? It's not that I'm in love with Jack (as strong and husky-voiced as he is). I think it's that I'm in love with the idea of Jack. The way he's always appearing out of nowhere to rescue Marin, the damsel in distress, be it from an arctic cyclone, a pack of wild wolves, a bear or from the sting of some poisonous plant she's mistaken for wild garlic. And it's that fantastical romance and passion that ensues without all the complications of real life. Who wouldn't want to immerse themselves in that for an hour?

Then I found myself obsessing during all hours of the day and night over Jack and Marin and whether Jack would ever figure out that Lynn wasn't for him, whether he'd take a job on the Bering Sea, and whether they'd ever figure out they were meant for each other. And I wondered what was it that was so dreamy about Jack? Why was he such a good catch for Marin? Why was I rooting for him?

Then one night, as I sat in bed next to my own real-life Jack, I realized that even if the t.v.-land Marin and Jack do find their way into each other's arms (and beds) and he sweeps her off her feet and maybe he even proposes and they live happily ever after...what then? Would that make a good t.v. show?

And I realize that even though the wild emotions of the first romantic gestures of a relationship are dizzying and fun, the living happiliy ever after is a lot more hard work than the good folks on Men in Trees let on. And although Jack is burly and cute, I can't help but wonder if he can whip up a sausage and butternut squash lasagne like my man. Does he take the initiative and offer to change the seventeenth shitty diaper of the day just to give Marin a break? I know he'd step in front of a speeding bullet to protect her, but if there was only one cup of coffee left in the house, would he give it to her? Because when t.v. land romance ends and real married life begins, those are the types of questions that matter. And the more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that my real-life Jack is way better than anything that t.v. land Alaska has to offer.

"walkin'" Amelia

2011-12-20T07:48:00.001-08:00

Sibs

2011-12-19T04:46:00.001-08:00

Memories Through Candy Cane Coloured Glasses

2011-12-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

When I think back on the merriest Christmas memories of my childhood, I think of baking candy cane cookies with my mom.

I can see my mother whipping the butter and sugar in a big plastic green bowl. I can see her kneading in the red food colouring so half the batter was pink. I remember us helping her roll out the cookie dough into long snake-like pieces, then cutting them so they formed small pairs of pink and white squares and then rolling each of these into a long thin candy cane, then folding the end over carefully and laying them flat on a cookie sheet. I think we must have quadrupled the recipe because I imagine us doing this all afternoon, filling the whole house with the sugary aroma of the holidays.

Naturally, now that Cole is three, and since he loves baking, I envisioned that this Christmas would be the year that he and I could share some of our own lovely, sugar-laced moments of candy cane cookie making. It doesn't hurt that cookie dough is an awful lot like play dough and he could play with play dough for hours and hours on end.

So while Mark was out at Costco, and Amelia was bustling around the living room making motorboat noises with her lips and leaving puddles of drool in her wake, I began to whip up a batch of cookie dough.

Cole suddenly ran into the kitchen and then I heard the scraping sound of a kitchen chair being pushed along the tile up to the sink. Then he was rolling up his sleeves and washing his hands. How independent! I thought. Oh, this was going to be a good year for cookie making.

I pulled out his chair, the one with the cushion on the seat, so he could climb up. And I had just added a cup of flour and I had to nip into the kitchen to get some salt and I said to him, "I know you want to help, but PLEASE don't touch the spoon yet." And as I turned to the kitchen, I knew in the back of my mind that the wooden spoon was resting under a pile of fluffy flour, poised and ready like a loaded cannon, and beckoning all the while to an impulsive preschooler's hands.

Then POOF and, "uh oh.... Mom.... I made a mess."

I turned and there was a thin film of flour dust on the table, on the chair and on the floor. Cole began immediately to trace shapes in the flour on the table.

"Good thing we washed our hands, eh?" I said, then I added, "Please don't mix the flour until I add the salt...."

I turned again and another POOF!

I took over, moving the bowl from him. "I WANT TO HELP!" he pleaded.

"Oh yes, you can help. As soon as I get this mixed together..."

I kept creaming the ingredients together and all of a sudden Cole held up his hand, his pinky dipped with yellow creamy goo.

"What's this yellow stuff?" he asked.

"Butter," I said, wiping his hand.

I began mixing again.....

"Oh oh!" he held up the same hand, the same pinky gooey with yellow again.

"Cole, be careful please...."

I wiped his pinky clean again and then watched as he grinned and, when he thought I wasn't watching, dipped his hand in the batter to coat his finger a third time.

I sighed deeply and kept adding flour to the mixture. Then I took off my wedding rings and began to knead the dough by hand. I remember my mother doing this. I tried to let Cole do a bit but when his hands became coated, he began to shake them all around and dough got on the ground, it became embedded in the fabric of our socks, it got stuck on the knees of his pants and on the cushion of his chair. It mingled with the already present flour and cheerios on the floor. It was a crazy, crazy mess.

Then Amelia began to fuss. I put her in her high chair where she watched us for a short time, then proceeded to have a guargantuan poop. All hands had to be cleaned of cookie dough and we all had to trek upstairs for a short diaper-changing intermission.

Back down to the dining room table we went and this time with red food colouring. Now our hands were red and the pink cookie dough was flying off Cole's fingers and landing in the fruit bowl, on Amelia's tray, in our hair, on the floor, everywhere!

I rolled the dough into balls and then tried to get Cole to help with rolling it into long logs. He didn't have enough gentle energy. The moment his itchy little fingers got the soft dough beneath them, they urgently squeezed the life out of it.

I was perspiring mildly by this point and my pulse rate was definitely up. I kept trying to amuse Amelia by shaking the Cheerios box over her tray and letting a few drop out to stall her.

I gave Cole the bread knife and asked him to cut the snake but before I could guide his hand to making one centimetre cuts, he was chopping like an automatic rifle, making indents every two millimetres and unable to stop until he'd slaughtered the whole snake.

I carefully peeled the knife from his hands and set it down on the kitchen counter. Realizing he couldn't roll out the snakes without pulverizing them, I rolled out the dough and then handed them to him to bend into candy cane shapes. He pulled each one into two pieces and set them delicately on the cookie sheet. He rolled the third one into a big pink and white ball. I wondered if perhaps this year we should call them Candy Cane Bits.

Then, by the grace of God, Mark's car pulled in the driveway. And he took Cole and distracted him with unloading yogurt from the grocery bags and I could sit quietly, by myself, and finish rolling out my candy cane cookies.

When the third and last tray went into the oven, I was completely out of steam. I wondered if baking with my kids would always leave me feeling this way. I thought back to those heart-warming memories I had of baking with my mother and wondered if she had hung up a tea towel wearily after we'd gone to sleep and breathed a sigh of relief too.

Kitchen Floor

2011-12-14T04:45:00.000-08:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays, Cole goes to daycare. And although I'm not a neat person by any stretch of the imagination, sometimes the chaos of my house catches up to me and a Tuesday or Thursday seems like a perfect opportunity to play catch-up on housework.

So, Amelia by my side, I decided to mop my kitchen floor. Except that I have yet to find a mop I like. So I do what my mother used to do. I get a bowl of cleaning solution and I crouch down with a sponge in hand and I scoot square by square across the kitchen floor, methodically scrubbing and scouring. This sounds like a tedious and difficult job, doesn't it? Well, I guess that's why I do it so infrequently.

I took all the chairs out of the kitchen, and put the exersaucer in the living room. I put Amelia in the living room. I took a big bowl from the cupboard and filled it with the all-natural thyme-and-oregano cleaning detergent and added some warm water. I did a quick once over with the broom. Amelia crawled into the room and tried to eat the pile of crumbs. I put her back in the living room.

I got a fresh sponge with a heavy-duty scouring pad on the opposite side and I set to work. My system is to move the bowl systematically as an indicator of which row of tiles I've already cleaned. As the glass bowl slides along the tiles, it makes a special kind of clanging sound. Amelia found this very intruging. She came in to investigate and began to follow the bowl. So I had to slowly rotate the bowl around myself to keep it away from her. Then she lost interest and decided to play with the electrical power bar.

I tried to put her in the exersaucer. She protested. I set her on the floor again and gave her my car keys. She played happily as I scoured the baseboards and wondered what this caked-on brown stuff was. I found gobs of black food colouring (remnants of Cole's fire truck birthday cake) and lots of red lentils (Cole's indoor "sand" box). Then the clunking of the keys stopped and I turned and Amelia was at the power bar again. I moved her and gave her the keys back. The clanging continued so I thought we were good until I realized she'd brought the keys to the power bar this time.

I moved her again. Then she came over to investigate the bowl of detergent again. And on and on went the dance. I moved Amelia; then I scrubbed; then I moved Amelia; then I scrubbed. I was finally nearing the last part of my scouring and I paused from my work as I noticed a peculiar pause in activity.

Amelia was sitting in the middle of my pristine floor, smiling giddily through a soother, a pool of curdled spit up encircled her bum like a halo.

Chipmunk

2011-12-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

In the living room, ten minutes after lunch, Amelia is in front of the book case eating something. I leap from my chair.

"Oh my god, Amelia! What are you eating? What did you just put in your mouth?!"

Oh nothing, Mom. Just the food I'm storing in the folds of my neck.

License Plate Renewal

2011-12-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

It's two months before your birthday, you're still deep in your year-younger mind-set, not even thinking about the celebrations and then you open the mail box one day and there is your license plate renewal form. If you're anything like us, you set it aside. You put it in the long-term to-do pile and then promptly let it slip your mind.

This year, my husband did just that. And then his birthday came and went and then all of a sudden, we found ourselves with only a day left in the month and he woke up one morning and exclaimed, "I didn't renew my license plate!"

In a panic, we dug through all the papers on the kitchen table, on the filing cabinet in the study, and in the mail slot above the key rack. And we all breathed a sigh of relief as he kissed me good-bye and said, "I may be a bit late tonight - I'll take care of this after work."

Then he glanced down at it as he was heading out the door and stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh my god! I need an emissions test!"

"I'll take care of it!" I reassured him and he was on his way.

I began phoning every mechanic in town long before any had opened their doors for business. And when I finally did start to get through to a sleepy but present receptionist, they all informed me that they were booking for a week from today. I realized I didn't sound desperate enough and so I picked it up a notch. Then finally, the good man at Master Mechanics said he could squeeze Mark in at 3:00. I said, "He can't be there til 3:15". The guy sighed and said, "Look, I'll book him for 3:00 and if he's ten minutes late, I'll still look at it."

I phoned Mark at work and he said he'd get there.

When he walked in the door that evening, he breathed a sigh of relief. All taken care of.

"Did you put the other sticker on your ownership?"

"Yup."

"And you put the sticker on your license plate?"

"It's raining, Melissa. I'll do it tomorrow," I'm sure he was feeling a bit impatient with my third degree. So I let it go.

The next day, as Mark was driving home from work on the QEW, he found himself in stop-and-go traffic next to a police cruiser. All while still moving, the police officer rolled down his window and called, "Your license plates have expired!" (This was the first of December).

Mark grabbed through the papers in the middle console and, with a shaky hand, held up his sticker, "I got it. It was raining....."

The police officer nodded and then just before pulling away added, "It's a $5000 fine, eh?"

Mark nodded and thanked his heavenly stars.

It's all about the Game

2011-12-09T13:56:00.001-08:00

Cole loves to play Bouncy Ball. He takes a very bouncy ball and throws it with all his might against his closed bedroom door. It ricochets off and bounces back and hits the bed or the wall or the bedside table or himself in the face. It's loads of fun.

Today, after the ball had rebounded and hit the bed frame several times in a row, Cole looked at it contemplatively and said to me with a very serious frown, "I think we should move the bed so it's easier to play Bouncy Ball." I was surprised at this suggestion. It seemed like a lot of trouble for such a short game. It didn't seem like the easiest way to improve our Bouncy Ball experience. But one look at Cole's face and I knew he was dead serious.

"Where would we put your bed?" I asked.

He thought only for a moment, "In you and Daddy's room."

"I don't know if there is room for your bed in our room," I said, knowing full well that that was not the number one reason why this would be a bad arrangement.

Cole ran out of the room and returned in a few seconds, "Yup. There's room!"

A Terrible Incident about a Poop in the Night Time

2011-12-08T06:16:00.001-08:00

It was a terrible incident about a poop in the night time. Okay, it didn't happen at night at all. More like quarter to nine in the morning. But the severity of the situation didn't seem aptly reflected in a title like "A poop incident this morning".

It started off as a diaper change like any other diaper change. Amelia got fussy and the smell emanating from her back-side gave her away. I laid her on the change table and she shreiked and arched her back and tried to roll off several times. I unzipped her pajamas and unbuttoned her onesie and then slowly opened up her diaper, revealing a pasty, sticky, smeared-everywhere kind of mess. It stank something awful and it still had bits of undigested carrot, leading me to wonder if she was even getting any nutritional value out of these vegetables that were turning up whole out the other end.

Like the pro and veteran-mother that I am, I hid my disgust and went straight to work. I had already removed four wipes from the "box" of wipes but I could tell right away, they weren't going to be any match for this kind of a mess. I did what I could, then while I held her ankles expertly with one hand, I reached the fingers of my left hand for more wipes and I accidentally pinched more than one wipe and tried to pull them out of that tiny slit in the packaging. (If you're a mother or father of a baby, you know this moment). The too-thick mound of moist towelettes got lodged in the slot. Okay, no problem. I pushed it back in and attempted to only pinch one wipe.

Amelia arched at that moment and grunted and tried to get out of my vice-like grip.

I held firm and tried again to take out the wipes. I couldn't just get one. So I tried to just take the big wad that I had between my fingers and really force it out of the opening. Sometimes you get four and they resist, but it is possible to get them all out. But this time, they were stuck fast.

Amelia gave one more shreik and arched hard enough that one of her feet was freed. She kicked it hard and one of her heels landed smack in the middle of the poop. I quickly grabbed her by the ankle once again to immobilize her and looked around frantically for something to use to wipe her. I looked again at the box of wipes, and in desperation, I leaned down and closed my sharp canines around the wad of wipes and really yanked.

I succeeded in tearing a small piece of tissue out in my mouth and leaving a hole in probably four layers of wipes.

I opened the dry sink frantically and underneath I saw a sample package of wipes that had been there for about three years. I took it out and ripped off the sticky seal. They were dry but I was far beyond being choosy. I yanked out a wipe and instinctively grabbed both Amelia's ankles again in order to wipe her soiled bottom only then did I remember the shit on her foot (and now on my hand).

I did eventually get her clean. I wiped all her nooks and crannies and put on a fresh, clean diaper. Then I gave myself a good scrub down. Motherhood isn't glorious. And some days it's messier than others. But in those moments of supreme messiness, it's good to know you're not alone.

Snow pants

2011-12-07T06:21:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I sent Cole to daycare with no snow pants. The transition from fall to winter has always given me difficulty in the sending-clothes-to-daycare department. As a grown-up, I wear snow pants when there is snow. In daycare land, however, you wear snowpants when it's cold or wet. For the record, I had stored some splash pants in Cole's cubby, but apparently that wasn't good enough. So my ignorance of appropriate winter wear caused a lot of drama. Because he didn't have snow pants, he wasn't allowed to go on the slide. When he came in the door at the end of the day, he smiled at me and said, "Mama, you forgot to give me snow pants!" and then he added, "All the other kids had snow pants." I felt terrible.

This morning, I decided to bundle the kids up and take them out for a run. The temperature is definitely above zero, but in a fast moving stroller, the wind can give quite a chill, I imagine. And in keeping with my lesson learned last night, I resolved to dress the children warmly. Amelia was easy enough. Insert soother. Lie on snow suit. Zip up snow suit. Place in exersaucer.

Then came Cole. "Cole, here are your winter clothes. We're going for a run and then after the run you can watch some t.v."

"I don't WANT to go for a RUN!'

"That's not up for debate. We're going for a run. Put on your snow pants please."

"I don't LIKE my snow pants!"

"Put on your snow pants and you can have a cookie when you're all dressed and in the stroller."

"NO, I don't LIKE my snow pants!"

I got out a gingerbread cookie. He began to cry.

"That's 1........"

He began to kick his feet and scream.

"That's 2....."

"NO! NO! NO! I don't want to put on my snow pants!"

"That's 3.... okay, I guess I'm going to eat your cookie."

He began to really shreik.

"Okay, you have a choice to wear your scarf or not....."

"I don't want to put on snow pants!"

I turned away, needing a bit of a breather. I took Amelia out to the front porch and put her in the double stroller and buckled her in. Now I had to leave the front door open so I could keep an eye on her. Never mind the warm air escaping out into the vast winter expanse, all of the neighbours could now see me losing this snow suit battle.

"Fine, you stay here. I'm going for a run, Cole." I tried hard to sound calm.

Then he began to cry, "Mama! Mama!"

So I picked him up under one arm and picked up all of the clothes in my other (this reminds me of a Robert Munsch book) and there was a great crying cafuffle (thankfully his crying not mine) as I tried to force his board-straight legs into the snow pants. He was having none of it.

"Okay. No winter clothes? Fine." (Real life consequences?) I lifted him up and set him in the stroller. His boots and coat and mitts and hat and snow pants lay in surrender there in the doorway as the cool winter air negotiated with his common sense.

I went and sat on the bottom stair and took deep breaths. Cole was still screaming. The neighbours were undoubtedly watching and tsk-tsking. I counted to ten very, very slowly.

Finally (after no more than a minute), Cole's cries turned into, "I'm cold! I'm cold!"

So I scooped him back up and with a "Well, why do you THINK I wanted you to have snow pants on!!!" I quickly put on his winter clothes. He was still screaming, "I don't want to go for a run!" and I was considering whether all this drama was really worth it for a half hour run, when I tried one last time, "Would you like a cookie now? You have to stop crying first." Immediate silence.

I used the old Starbucks napkin in the stroller's cup holder to wipe his tears and gave him a cookie. He chatted happily for the entire run.

And when we arrived back home, and undressed out of our winter clothes I said to Cole, "See how cozy warm you were? That's why you need to wear snow pants when Mom says it's cold out."

And he smiled his charming grin and hugged me and sighed, "Aaaaaaaah. I DO like my snow pants, Mom. I just was tricking you!"

End note: Can you count home many discipline strategies I tried without success?

Socks

2011-11-28T05:36:00.001-08:00

It's nearly winter. At the very least, it's late, late fall. Christmas trees are up, frost often greets us in the morning and I've broken out the snow scraper when warming up my car at least twice. This means that feet should be socked at all times when walking around the house. I'm not saying we all need to wear sweaters and I'm not advocating for parkas on all outings. But I think socked-feet mean a warmer body all over.

Yesterday, I put dark blue socks on Cole first thing in the morning as he crawled out of bed. Shortly after breakfast, he removed one staking his usual claim that "it's wet" (which it never is). Amelia found the blue sock under a kitchen chair and happily chewed on it for a while (then it really WAS wet). While Cole watched cartoons during my shower in the morning, he took off his second blue sock and it became wedged between some couch cushions. Later it somehow found its way to Amelia's mouth too.

After Amelia's nap, one of her socks fell off in her sleep sack. By the time I noticed, we were in another room, so I found a lone pink sock from the laundry basket and threw it on her, not caring that they were mismatched.

In the afternoon, after Cole's afternoon nap, I put two striped socks on him. By supper, they were both in the living room on the floor and, you guessed it, Amelia was chewing on them too. Then I realized later that the pink sock in her mouth was not his but hers. She'd kicked one off in the high chair and she'd carefully brought the other foot to her mouth and pulled it off her foot.

At that point I gave up. It was probably fifteen minutes before bath time and I knew I'd lost the sock battle. I gathered the half dozen drool-sodden socks from around the living room and threw them into the hamper (or onto the landing near the basement steps). My socks were still on. I like having warm feet. And socks keep the discarded cheerios and crumbs from sticking to my feet. Why my kids kept driving me crazy like this I had no idea.

Then I was sweeping up after supper and I reached under the dining room table with the broom and discovered a small, neat lump under my husband's chair - his socks.

Amelia

2011-11-26T11:27:00.001-08:00

Lean On Me

2011-11-22T12:02:00.001-08:00

Recently, I pulled out my old Ipod for a short run at the gym. When I was scanning through the playlists, I noticed one entitled Baby Roebuck. I remember compiling this seemingly-appropriate list of songs for my sister when she was pregnant with my nephew. One of the songs was Lean On Me.

You just call on me brother, when you need a hand,
we ALL need somebody to lean on....

And isn't that the truth?

We get into so much trouble when we try to do it all on our own. Or when we're too ashamed to ask for help. I guess when I chose this song for my unborn nephew's CD, the intended meaning was that he know that he could always lean on his parents and on me, his auntie, and on all of his family, no matter what life would throw at him.

But also, as a new parent, we often think we are supposed to be the new parent all alone. First we think that as a mom, we shouldn't need to ask our husband to get up during a night feeding to help us or just so we won't feel lonely. Then, even once we've accepted that we need to lean on our partner, we are hesitant about asking for other bodies to lean on. Mothers and Fathers and Sisters and Brothers and Parents-In-Law. It all goes smoother when we acknowledge that no one has to do it alone.

My friend, Jen, came to visit me today. I was talking to her about what it's like to be a parent. She knows my husband, but she knew him long before we got married and had children. It made me reflect on how much I've leaned on him since those first years that we knew each other and how much our relationship has changed. And I said to her, "Becoming a parent with someone is an opportunity to fall in love with them all over again, for totally different reasons." I guess the more you need to lean on someone and they don't let you fall, the more your love grows.
She told me this short scene she witnessed last Valentine's day:
She was at a nursing home where her parents live. Her father was away and she was there with her mother, in the common room, with a small crowd of other residents, listening to an accomplished pianist. Her mother was unconsciously moving her fingers to the melody, their muscles remembering the weight of the keys beneath them. Another lady was tapping her feet with the rhythm. Then, she saw an elderly couple, both with walkers. The old woman set her walker aside and so did the man. They reached for each other and began to dance to the music. They didn't need their walkers when they had each other.

Lean On Me.

Dancing

2011-11-21T06:38:00.001-08:00

Dancing

2011-11-21T06:28:00.001-08:00

Amelia with her homegirl, Jaime.

Nana and Amelia

Papa and Cole pause from their intense digging for a photo opp.

Cole got this cool doodle kit from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Knorr.

Amelia "enjoying" her first snow fall in Peterborough this past weekend.

Cole and Porpor digging some snow.

Sibling love

Grandpa and Amelia

Kokum and Amelia

Nana: Out of Commission? I think NOT!

2011-11-14T04:48:00.001-08:00

This has been a busy week. Cole's birthday resulted in a parade of visitors and family through our little home. We were lucky enough to have Nana and Papa most recently. But just a few days into their visit, Nana's hip began to bother her. Then it REALLY began to bother her. Then the pain moved to her back and then she could hardly get out of bed or walk.

This really, really, REALLY frustrated Nana. She loves to come visit and be like a saviour to us. She likes to zip around the house at about 200 km/hr tidying incessantly, picking up my kids, sporting my heavy baby in a front carrier, walking to the store and purchasing vast volumes of indulgences and bringing them home. And she IS incredibly helpful, so it really pained her that this injury was slowing her down.

Yesterday, while Nana was diligently taking her rest on the couch, flat on her back, so she could heal, I heard Cole ask her for the umpteenth time, "Nana, will you play with me?"

"What do you want to play?" she asked him.

"Hide and Go Seek!"

So, first, Nana counted and Cole ran and hid in the dining room, beside the folding door to the living room. From Nana's spot on the couch, there was no way she could see him. So she counted to ten and then Cole giggled from behind the door. Then he raced into the middle of the room and yelled, "HERE I AM!" and they both laughed heartily.

"Your turn to hide, Nana!" Cole yelled.

Nana was eating some popcorn, so she put the bag in front of her face while Cole counted. When he yelled, "Ready or not, here I come!" he saw her on the couch hiding behind the popcorn bag and began to giggle. He ran up to her and pulled down the bag and laughed and laughed and laughed.

So there you have it, not everyone can play hide and seek with a three year old when they're essentially immobilized. That is just ONE of Nana's many super powers.

A gift and a gift and a gift and a gift.....

2011-11-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

A person very near and dear to my heart, who shall remain nameless (I'll call her Marguerite), sent along her birthday gift for my son, Cole, with my mother who was visiting today.

My mother handed me the big gift bag and inside was a clear plastic-wrapped package with a label affixed to it with birthday wishes written by Marguerite. I unwrapped the plastic wrap and inside was a bundled Little Chef set with a beautiful little apron, chef's hat and a tea towel. It was beautiful. And then I set it aside and found three more identical bundles of Little Chef aprons, hats and tea towels. Four identical gifts. Kind of odd.

So I e-mailed Marguerite and asked her if she'd accidentally bought 4 of the same gift. Or perhaps she'd intentionally purchased four, perhaps for some other kids she knew, and accidentally wrapped all four in Cole's gift bag. Or maybe she'd asked her husband to wrap the gift and he'd made the mistake.

She wrote back: I don't understand. Four of the same thing?

I tried to explain again but she didn't understand, so I phoned her.
We hashed it out and this is what we surmised must have happened:

The store receives these cute little chef outfits in bundles of 4 and they're supposed to be unwrapped when they're set on the shelf. Marguerite innocently picked up the package and went through the Self Check-Out. She scanned the bundle (well, the top one) and plopped it into her bag and away she went.

Buy one; get three free!

The Fire Truck Birthday - Cole turns 3

2011-11-06T11:07:00.001-08:00

How to Stop the Tickle Monster

2011-11-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

In our house, the one and only way to stop the Daddy-Tickle-Monster is to say, "I LOVE YOU DADDY!" very loudly and clearly. I know one of my favourite memories of this time in our lives will be hearing Cole's laughter and then a desperate squeal of, "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU, DADDY!" and then, "I can't hear you...." and "I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU!"

I was touched the other day when Mark was tickling his little baby girl in his arms and she was giggling and Cole was eating macaroni at the dining room table and he looked up and shouted, "Daddy, I love you!" Was it out of reflex or was it empathetic? We'll never know, but I like to think that my little boy was rescuing his sister from the grips of the dreaded tickle monster.

Yesterday, I took the kids to the Sears Portrait Studio. I got them dressed up nicely and packed extra clothes into the diaper bag. I made sure they were both in good moods and I brought toys. We got to the mall early and I bribed Cole with the least messy and most healthy muffin I could think of (raisin bran) and I pumped myself up with a cafe mocha.

Once we were actually in the studio, Cole wasn't into taking off his shoes and socks. He wasn't into sitting on the white screen on the glowing "star" in the centre. He didn't want to follow any of our instructions and he CERTAINLY wasn't going to smile.

Amelia, on the other hand, would sit on the star, for a moment. Then she'd crawl off in one direction while Cole raced off in another. I finally said to Cole, "Can you sit on this star, please?" And he noticed that if he sat near the star, it disappeared. It was actually a light being projected down from up above somewhere.

"It keeps going away!" he exclaimed.

So the photographer grabbed a bright gold star from a Santa sack and held it up above her head. She started to try to be silly with the star to make Cole laugh. She was a punk chick, asian lady with too much purple eye shadow and when I started to sing the Fireman Sam song and she tried to sing along, it became clear she didn't know the words. But to her credit, she raced up to Cole and tried to pretend to tickle him with the star.

"I'm going to tickle you if you don't smile!" she teased.

And he began to laugh. And then he tried to hide behind me.

"I'm going to tickle you if you don't sit down!" she called.

And as she raced up to us with the gold star poised to tickle his belly, my little boy cried out, "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!"

The photographer looked surprised and touched, "I love you, too, I guess."

reading

2011-11-01T05:22:00.001-07:00

Halloween Fun

2011-10-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

Cole's friend Evan visiting us.

Everyone in the crib.

My nephew the lion.

Holding On to Peace

2011-10-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

My sister has a friend from her church named Sarah. And this friend now has four children under the age of three. She has a son who will be three in January, twins who are a year and a half, and a newborn who is only a few weeks old.

I have been reading Sarah's blog. And it is very unlike mine. Instead of ranting and raving a lot about how difficult it is to be a stay-at-home mother for a while, she talks about her faith and her spiritual journey. Lately, she referred back to a post she'd done a while ago called Hold Onto Peace. She said that when she and her husband decided to start a family, they decided that this time of raising their children would be a time of peace. And they bought a wooden dove to hang in their nursery to remind them.

I've read that post several times a few weeks ago and I've thought about it every single day since then. I guess because I rarely think about this time of raising my kids as one of peace. This morning, Cheerios are littered like land-mines all over the kitchen, while Amelia gags on the wrong end of a wooden spoon and Cole roars around the dining room table on a riding toy. Is this peace? After nap time when Cole wakes up cranky and crying and wakes up Amelia who then screams and when I try to put Cole on the toilet he does the "plank" in resistance, is this peace? At supper time, when Mark is negotiating with Cole to at least TRY the specially made mashed potatoes if he wants a chance at a cookie and I'm shovelling mush into Amelia's mouth but she's grabbing the bowl and smearing it on her face and her eyes and in her hair and now she's doing the "plank" and our gourmet meal is getting cold, is this peace? I look around several times a day at the discarded toddler socks in the kitchen and under the couch, at the crayons and stickers and playdough stuck to my son's knees, at the train tracks all over the coffee table, at the pile of Little People houses and buildings "hiding" behind the arm chair, at the mountain of picture books that my sons has removed from his book shelf, at the laundry folded into piles on the piano bench and the next load awaiting me in the laundry basket by the baby gate, at the scribbled to-do list next to this computer and I wonder, is this what peace looks like?

Sarah's house must surely look similar to mine. Even if she's the most diligent and organized house-keeper and mother, surely her children all cry in synchrony too and surely they wipe their boogers on the underside of the table too and surely, surely, SURELY there must be moments when she thinks she's losing her mind. Is this peace?

I guess peace can exist in small moments, snippits throughout your day when no one is talking or throwing anything or screaming. I guess it can happen when your kids are entranced in a television show instead of fighting over a toy and you and your husband exchange an appreciative glance across the table and finally have a chance to savour dinner. Peace can be a place you go to in your heart when you're standing in the mall and your son has thrown himself onto the ground in a screaming fit of rage over the injustice of not getting a second timbit. It can be an inner retreat and you can hold onto it with all your heart when the turmoil of being a parent rages around you.

Peace can be opening your front door and seeing your mother's enthusiastic smile and gently handing her your baby and going to have a shower.

We don't have a wooden dove in our nursery. But I guess sometimes, we do have peace too.

Mommy Triage

2011-10-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Motherhood is the most uppy and downy of rides. It's the most bipolar of states I can ever imagine.

There was a moment last night when both of my kids were in the bath tub and Amelia was sitting there splashing and Cole was giggling and tickling her feet. Then he reached over and gave her a hug and said, "She's so cozy!" It was one of those precious moments where I felt like I had exactly the most wonderful version of the life I've dreamed of.

Then there was another moment earlier in the day, during nap time. I'd just put Cole to sleep twice and he was kicking his wall and yelling that he hates naps. Amelia was screaming in her bed and my heart was racing. The house looked like ToysRUs threw up in the living room and the counters were littered with dishes from lunch and breakfast. Every surface was sticky or crumb-coated and I was just praying for the strength to make it until Mark got home.

Being a mother is definitely like a roller coaster. But being a mother of two is like being an Emergency Room Triage Nurse every hour of the day and night. There is a constant state of triage when you have more than one child. Snotty noses, ingestion of dust bunnies, licking the undersole of daddy's slipper - these are all very low on the totem of importance. Nearly anything else will trump these everyday occurances. A toddler saying he has to poo when he's not wearing a diaper trumps an explosive shit by a diapered baby any day. If the shit goes up the baby's back and makes an orange stain on the onesie, this ups its importance but it STILL gets trumped by the toddler. If the explosive sound is accompanied by a mess that escapes to the child's outside (i.e. the leg holes) and the child is somewhat mobile and then able to spread it around, then this trumps the undiapered toddler's claim about needing to poop. These are the types of decisions you need to be able to make on a moment to moment basis. Each time someone cries or yells, "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-Meeeeeeeeeeeeee!" you will ask yourself: Is this life or death? Is someone going to get hurt or terribly maimed? Is this going to make a big mess? Is this going to result in more work for me in the short term or long term?

Hundreds of times a day, you need to decide to put down one child in a safe place, to tend to the other one. Baby's crying in her crib is very low on importance when all you want is a shower and it's quarter to four in the afternoon. Not turning your toddler's brain to mush by watching too much t.v. was very high in importance about seven months ago, but since the new sister arrived, it has dropped off the scale. Because wearing clean clothes requires laundry and not becoming an episode of some freakish TLC program requires some daily tidying and cleaning and when the baby is sleeping, this is probably as high on the triage list of importance as it gets. Do nearly anything to keep the other kid from waking his sister is the mantra at our house.

It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of it all. But every now and again I try to step back, take a deep breath and remind myself that this is Cole's childhood. And this is Amelia's babyhood. They only get to live it once. I only get to live it with them once. I only get one chance to be the parent I wanted to be. And every moment, good and bad, is a chance to be that.

Does it almost look like I'm juggling?

Sunglasses

2011-10-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Cool Cousins

Grandma

2011-10-22T03:55:00.000-07:00

This is me and my sister Maryann probably on the big rock at the Loftus cottage in autumn. Every time I see the perfect maple leaf I think of my grandma. Amelia has her smile, and her name. Marguerite, but everyone called her Peggy.

This Green Pepper

2011-10-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

My mom came to visit me yesterday and she spent the night. What a nice visit we had! She helped me with the kids and filled the house with laughter and music and energy. And I helped her learn how to send text messages and perfect her Sudoku skills.

This morning, we were eating some leftover turkey burgers and I was puttering around in the dining room with Amelia when I heard her call from the kitchen, "Is this green pepper hot?"

I had picked a handful of unripe peppers from my garden. They seemed like green peppers, but they were supposed to be sweet red peppers. Anyway, they had kind of a bitter or unripe taste, but they were perfectly edible.

Without paying her much attention or looking at what she was holding, I said, "No. Not hot. Do you want to take it home?"

But she was just asking so she could add something to her turkey burger. Then she took a bite. Then she was spitting it out and I was laughing. She said, "It's hot!"

I said, "I told you I microwaved it a bit long." (Referring to the patty)

"No, it's a hot pepper!" She went over to the sink and started to drink water from her cupped hand, "Where is my tea?"

I took her mug from the piano and brought it to her, giggling despite myself. "It's not a hot pepper, Ma. It's just an unriped pepper. It's a bit sour but..."

"No! It's a hot pepper!" She was spitting into the sink now.

"It's just a sweet pepper that hasn't ripened yet," I explained. Then I remembered what she'd called my little daughter as she threw a tantrum this morning and I teased, "Look who's being a drama queen now?!"

Then I looked up and her eyes were watering and they were getting a bit puffy. Her nose was turning red and she was obviously uncomfortable.

"It's not a sweet pepper! It's a HOT pepper! Hot pepper!"

I turned to the fridge to get her a glass of milk, remembering somewhere that milk is better than water for things like this and when I opened the fridge door I saw, on the top shelf, the hot peppers my neighbour Paul had brought over the other day. They were green, maybe scotch bonnet. But one was missing.

"Oh my. You DID eat a hot pepper, Ma!" I realized suddenly.

She looked at me with tears streaming down her face, "I KNOW!!!!"

As Kids

2011-10-19T04:49:00.001-07:00

Maryann, Jay and I when we were young at the Loftus cottage.

The latest Loftus family pictures - Summer 2010

more October 2011

2011-10-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

Cole and I made these two Mr. Potato-Heads. Once we added the moustaches, he decided the one on the left was Grandpa Mike and the one on the right was Grandpa Dave.

Dad and his kids.

When she smiles, the whole world smiles with her.....

Real Crawling October 2011

2011-10-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

Amelia crawls at six and a half months.

Amelia sits

2011-10-11T07:08:00.001-07:00

Inclination to Disassemble

2011-10-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

My little brother was inquisitive from the very beginning. Long before he realized his dreams of being an aerospace engineer, he was taking things apart in order to examine them and discover how they worked. And long before he was adept at putting them back together, he was not. And that resulted in many, many broken contraptions. Sadly, one year he disassembled his little magnetic race cars, the remote controlled ones that zoomed along the track and up walls and stuff. When he put them back together, they didn't work any more. I don't know if my mother ever complained. If she was anguished by his inclination to disassemble, she hid it well. All I ever heard her say about her son were words of praise. Things like, "My son is SO curious. He is so creative and smart. My son is going to be an engineer."

This past weekend, I took my little family back to Peterborough for Thanksgiving. We spent one night at my mother's house with my brother and his wife. My brother, or Uncle Jay as we lovingly call him now, is very good at playing with my son Cole. At our place, we're always busy trying to get supper on the table or feeding Amelia or cleaning up drool or folding laundry. But when Uncle Jay is around, Cole just hungrily devours all the attention Jay dotes on him. They play and play and play.

At some point, they had discovered my mother's stash of flash lights and they were playing in a darkened bedroom with them. Then, suddenly, Cole was upstairs with me in the kitchen with the futuristic flashlight. The one that works on kinetic energy. You pump it in your hand and a little magnet inside slides up and down the shaft, through a coil of wires and then the flashlight works. Suddenly Cole was unscrewing the face of the flashlight, removing the black rubber seal and the lens and then all the little pieces were falling out onto the linoleum. I scooped them up quickly and tried to put them back into the flashlight in the order I'd seen them tumble out, but when I clicked the switch, the flashlight no longer gave light.

That is when my brother came upstairs. He took the flashlight apart again and reassembled it. He asked if there were any other pieces lying around. And when it still didn't work, Cole began to look worried. He said to his uncle, "Porpor's going to be mad." Uncle Jay, still examining the flashlight said very calmly, "She'll be alright."
Cole smiled and looked at me and said, "Uncle Jay said she'll be alright." Uncle Jay explained to Cole in a way only his sister could understand, "I took a lot of things apart when I was a kid, Cole. I broke a lot of stuff." Cole smiled at this reassurance. Then, as if to justify all of the "broken stuff" Jay had left in his wake and all the learning he'd done in his youth, suddenly he reassembled that flash light to its proper working state and Cole grabbed it up and ran off. Sometimes he's so much like my brother that I accidentally call him Jay. I hope I can embrace his inclination to disassemble as much as my mother did Jay's.

Saucy Speller

2011-10-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Cole resists going to bed at night. He will call us into his room to give him a toy. He'll call us for a drink of water. He'll call for us to cast out the monsters using various methods (flashing the lights on and off, putting the monsters in jail, or using flashlights to chase them away). Sometimes he'll just call "Mommy! Mommy! Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Last night, he was pulling one of these routines when suddenly, as if he was fed up, he called saucily, "DAD! D-L-L-D, DAD!"

Pretty in Purple

2011-09-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

This is Amelia trying to catch the camera and also trying to figure out the mechanics of the pre-crawl.

Family Love

2011-09-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

This morning over breakfast, I said to Cole, "I love you, Cole."

"I love you too, Mommy."

"Thanks, kiddo."

"You love me, Mommy. And I love you, Mommy."

"That's right. And I love Daddy and he loves me."

"And Daddy loves me and I love Daddy," Cole added.

"Do you love Amelia?" I asked.

"No."

"You don't love Amelia?"

"No. Her drools on me."

Papa weekend and Fire Station Open House

2011-09-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

In the Eye of the Beholder

2011-09-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Cole was supposed to be napping. He'd been in his room for an hour and a half and he was still wide awake and talking to himself. So when I finally got Amelia down for a nap, I went and crawled into bed with him and closed my eyes in hopes he'd get the idea.

I felt a delicate hand on my face, "I like your eyebrows, Mommy. They're beautiful."

"Thanks, Buddy. Go to sleep. Close your eyes."

"You can close your eyes but I can't close my eyes."

I closed my eyes again.

"Your arms are beautiful, Mommy."

"Thanks, Sweetie."

"And your tummy is beautiful and your cheeks are beautiful and your nose is beautiful and your fingers are beautiful and (pointing to my cleavage) your heart is beautiful and your shirt is beautiful and ....." he paused to look closer at my cleavage, "YOU have a HOLE right THERE!"

"I'm going to roll over, Buddy. Go to sleep, please."

I rolled away from him.

A few minutes later I felt light hands on my back, "... and your back is beautiful, Mommy....and fuzzy....because of your shirt...."

It was hard not to giggle.
A few minutes later, I gave up and let him get out of bed.

September 2011

2011-09-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

This is Amelia and her bff Jaime Pickering.

Don't you love it when they help out with laundry.

It Takes a Village ...

2011-09-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

How many grown-ups does it take to care for a baby?

I remember how naive I was when I was expecting Cole. Parents and In-laws offered to come and stay and help out, but I wasn't sure how I would feel when the baby arrived and I wasn't sure how much privacy we'd want for our little family. So I politely declined.

Then when the little insomniac was a few days old, I found myself crying into the telephone begging anyone with a heartbeat to come and hold my baby for a short while so I could sleep. I remember it even occurred to me to stand out on the sidewalk and offer the first passer-by $20 to rock him for a bit so I could rest. In these blurry, chaotic days and nights, I wondered how it was that it only took two of us to create this baby but it obviously would take more people than that to get us through. When my sister arrived to help out, I remember thinking that four adults was just about the right number. 4:1

Now we have two kids. Amelia is nearly six months old. Cole is two years and ten months. And I was fortunate to have my mother-in-law come stay with us for the first month of Amelia's life. We kept Cole in daycare full time for 3 months and then Mark was off for the summer with us. So up until two weeks ago, I had NEVER spent an entire day alone to care for my two children. The thought of caring for both of them for an extended period of time was petrifying to me. It seemed an impossible task.

Yet here I am, two weeks in and surviving. I can pack them up in weather-appropriate garb and truck them around the neighbourhood in the double stroller. I can run errands. I can buckle both safely into the car. I can feed and clothe both in the morning. I can't bathe both of them yet, but I can leave one naked and screaming in the crib while I pluck the other soapy and slippery one out of the bath and race him to the toilet. I can use the magical power of television to comatize one while I nurse the other. I can't nap during the day any more, but I can get one to dust while I vacuum and baby bjorn the other.

I was asked by a good friend, Ali-V, if having two kids is more than twice the work of one. I said that at this juncture, caring for my two children is about 170% of the work of caring for one.

My husband tutors in the evenings and last year he re-organized his tutoring so he wouldn't leave until after our son Cole was asleep. Tonight was his first tutoring job of this school year and he asked me what time of night would be best. I surprised myself by answering, "Any time."

"Any time?" he asked.

"Yup," I said, "I can handle it."

Suddenly, I can look at the offspring that I brought into this world and safely say that I can look after both of them simultaneously. 1:2. Look how far we've come!

The Real Life Memory Game

2011-09-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

Remember that game called Memory that you played when you were a kid? You flipped over two cards and tried to match them. Did you ever wonder how this applied to real life? Today I figured it out.

It's starting to feel like autumn. And this means that in order to avoid the scornful looks from the elderly strangers in coffee shops, I need to put appropriate footwear on my baby. Amelia has about sixteen pairs of shoes. Only half of these are not boots. And half of the shoes won't stay on her feet past the front door. Of these, I could not find a single matching pair of shoes this morning as I was leaving the house.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is the exersaucer. It's like a black-hole for footwear. It will suck off the shoes, no matter how well they fit, and then it will slowly peal off the child's socks too. And whoever looks under the exersaucer to retrieve socks and shoes? Who has that kind of time?

So I want to put on the cute pink sandal-y Robeez, but I can't find both of them at the same time. I know I've seen them in the baby's room. I find one on the stool of the rocking chair. I also know I've seen them in the kitchen by the exersaucer. Or was that the same one that is now in the baby's room? Maybe I thought to myself, "Shoes don't go in the kitchen. I'll just put this somewhere SAFE," and then brought it upstairs. And I know I saw shoes in the living room because when Amelia was fussing while I was on the phone, I handed one to her to chew on so she'd be quiet. But was that the same pair? And there are pink shoes in the front hallway, but they're not there now. I know at one moment, Cole got angry and threw a pink shoe down the stairs in protest of something.

The poor kid ended up having to wear hand-me-down penny loafers and they SO didn't match her pink dress.

Walking with Babies

2011-09-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

When Amelia was a few months old, despite the fact that she screamed her lungs out every time I put her in the car seat or stroller, we walked around and around the neighbourhood. One elderly gentleman leaned on his rake as I passed by and exclaimed, "That has GOT to be the MOST walked baby on Earth!" But Cole was far more walked than Amelia. I walked Cole so much that when Amelia was only a week old, the stroller I'd used for her older brother just gave up the goat and lost a wheel half-way across the intersection of Fairview and Woodview.

With two kids, walking is much more of an adventure. Here's the walking adventure we had this morning:

I wrestled Amelia into a fleece snow suit and Cole into his sweater as they both protested. I had an errand to run - yogurt and prunes from the Metro. I rolled the double stroller out of the garage, the creaky one I'd scored at Once-Upon-a-Child. Cole was still yelling that he didn't want to go.

"You can take Echo the robot," I suggested.

"NO!"

"Okay. I'll let Amelia pick her seat. Maybe she wants to sit in the front..."

"No, I want to sit in the front...." and with that he raced out the door.

I must have looked a sight, with sleep-tousled hair, a zombie-like daze on my face and two hooded kids in tandem in front of me. I was leaning into the stroller both to use my weight to propel it into motion and to hold myself upright.

We raced through the grocery store, all too aware of the time-bomb that is Amelia stirring in the stroller. And when we arrived at the cash register I pulled out my wallet, flipped it open, only to find my debit card and credit card weren't there. The moment I saw the empty spots, I knew I had no cash and no other way to pay for the groceries. I also knew that my cards were tucked in the front left pocket of the jeans I'd worn yesterday, probably in the hamper heap in our bedroom.

I apologized to the cashier and then I zoomed around the store returning the items to their respective spots. As we left the store, Amelia began to fuss more loudly than before.

We got home and I ran into the house, got my cards and made the decision to risk it all and attempt a second trip to the grocery store. Back to the store we went. Back down the aisles collecting yogurt and prunes. Back to the same cashier. This time with money. We paid. And as we were just leaving the store, I looked down and Amelia was asleep.

Bless her heart - my baby never sleeps in the stroller. So we took the long way home around the block. As we approached our house, I decided to convince Cole to go on a longer walk so I didn't have to wake Amelia. I suggested we walk to the creek bridge. No sooner had he agreed than Amelia woke up.

So we hurried along the bumpy side walk to the creek bridge, hoping Amelia wouldn't decide to revolt against the confinement of the stroller until our trip home.

We watched the water rippling over the rocks for a few moments then we turned around and went home.

We got home and I unloaded Cole from the stroller when he noticed that Echo the robot was missing. So, of course, we had to strap back into the stroller and retrace our steps.

Echo was at the creek bridge and all was well. But I had to walk home, past the same construction workers I'd greeted three times already, with Amelia in one arm and Cole happily clutching Echo in the other.

Free Compost Giveaway

2011-09-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

The halton region gives away free compost twice a year. You just need to bring your own shovel, containers and a donation for the food bank and you can take home the equivalent of 8 garbage bags of still-steaming dirt to satisfy your gardening appetite. And I'm not afraid to admit that not much gets me as excited as the free compost giveaway event.

This year, I decided to take my son, Cole. He's nearly three years old and loves to dig holes in his sand box. Sadly, the small sand box can barely meet his digging-in-the-dirt needs, so taking him along seemed like a great idea.

We put on his splash pants and his Bob the Builder crocs. He ran into the back yard and got his plastic orange garden spade and I found his Lightning McQueen gardening gloves. We loaded up the Mazda and away we went.

We drove way up Bronte Road and turned left into the landfill. Then we zig zagged through the windy roads until we came to the happy Partnership West Volunteers. I handed them my two canned goods and then asked Cole to hand me the one he was holding. He misunderstood me and offered me his shovel.

We followed the orange safety cones and then entered the big dirt parking lot with long lines of mounds of warm compost. I backed the car up to a pile and unloaded my son and our tools.

The atmosphere at the compost giveaway is surprisingly festive. It seems to draw a certain type of crowd - humble and frugal gardeners, giddy at the idea of feeding their crops for free. It also feels great contributing to the carbon cycle. We rake our crispy leaves out onto the road for leaf pick-up in the fall and they get speed-decomposed with heat and whatever other magic they do here at the landfill and the end result falls right back into our hands. It's wonderful.

I've almost mastered my technique. If your container of choice is paper yard waste bags, like me, then make sure you line the bottoms with newspaper. Because if the warm compost sits in them for any length of time beyond a day, the moisture will interfere with the integrity of the bag. Also, you need to bring a bucket. That way, you can fill your paper bag half way, THEN put it into the trunk of your car and then continue to fill it using the bucket. Also, a bucket is the perfect height for a 3-year-old to deposit his shovel-fuls of dirt into.

Cole got right to work. He had on his red gloves and gripped his orange shovel. And each time he turned around with a heap of dirt balanced on the shovel and I was emptying the bucket, he giggled and said, "HEY!" He even tried climbing the compost heap at one point. The compost was light on the shovel, so it was easy to scoop. And on such a cold morning, the mounds were giving off a welcome warmth.

As I filled the fifth bag, I said to Cole, "This is the last one. We're going home soon. Thanks for being such a good help."

Cole paused in his shovelling and turned to look at me. What a picture he made standing knee-deep in dirt, holding that orange shovel with a fine speckling of dirt all through his copper hair and on his face. He looked up at me dreamily and exclaimed, "I want to stay here forever!"

Peaches and KD

2011-09-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

Cole'sfavourite meal of all time is cheezy shells macaroni. So I give him a very, very small portion andsome fruit or vegetable and bribe him with more macaroni to eat some of thehealthier foods. (Don't tsk tsk at meuntil you've had a finicky toddler to keep alive.)

Today,I cut him three small wedges ofpeaches. He has decided he doesn't likepeaches, but he'll eat the yogurt and he'll bite a peach if I'm eating it. As always, I give him just enough macaroni tocover the bottom of the bowl. He scarfsit down in seconds and requests more.

"Havea piece of a peach then you can have more."

"Okay,"he chirps and picks up a wedge and nibbles barely enough of the end to changeits shape.

Ilook at him sternly, "Eat a whole piece please."

"Idon't like the red part."

"That'snot the pit. I took the pit out. "

"Idon't like the red part."

"It'snot the pit!"

"Idon't LIKE it!"

"Fine.I'll eat it." And I nibble off the red flesh and hand it back tohim. He grimaces and takes another smallnibble.

"Idon't LIKE peaches." Amelia begins to fuss in her exersaucer.

"Justeat one bite."

"Iwant you to HOLD it for me!"

I am thinking a lot of profane things, but I bite my tongueand pick up the peach and he takes a small bite of the end.

I gethim another small bowl of macaroni.

Herequests a third bowl.

"Youhave to eat all of this smallest piece of peach."

I biteoff the red part.

"Holdit for me, Mommy."

I holdthe peach and he takes a bite. Before he can change his mind, I distract him bybiting into the last piece of peach and making agreeable noises and then sayinghow delicious peaches are. I eat therest of it.

I holdCole's peach out to him. He eats most of it and I try to stuff the rest intohis mouth. He begins to protest and so Iremind him, "Just eat it all and then I'll get you more cheezy, cheezyshells."

Hefinishes the tiny slice of peach and then eats all of his third bowl ofmacaroni.

Heleans over, peers into his empty peach bowl and complains, "HEY! You atemy last peach!"

"Yousaid you don't like peaches."

Heexclaims indignantly, "I DO! I DO like peaches, Mommy!"

2011-09-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Melissa Cooks and Mark tends the kids

I'm on maternity leave and if you've ever been off on a parental leave you'll know that although you feel delirious with exhaustion much of the time, it's also kind of boring. To feel some sense of the old me, I told Mark that I want to cook supper once a week. Some background on our family - this never happens. Mark is a formidable chef and no one cares to eat the simple, comfort food that I make, but I needed this and once a week, Mark and I swap the roles we normally have from 4:30 to 5:30.

In my heart of hearts, I felt that I would be getting a break. I thought that watching and entertaining two kidlets for the dawn of the witching hour was far more difficult than having the kitchen to myself and preparing a meal, following the directions, and pretending to be just a cook with a mission. ESPECIALLY since the recipes I usually choose are not difficult and a lot of the chopping and prepping can be done earlier in the day during the snip-its of moments when the kids are happy or sleeping or in a t.v. coma.

Yesterday, I prepared a chicken curry and a very simple quinoa pilaf. I chopped everything earlier in the day and I blended the curry sauce earlier in the day too. But suddenly at 4:30, I found myself racing around the kitchen, wondering if the quinoa was cooking too fast and was the curry sauce flavourful enough. Was the chicken going to cook at the low temp because it was not thawed all the way when I started and why was the home-made chicken stock kind of gelatinous? The dirty dishes were piling higher and higher and I couldn't wash them because I didn't have time to clear the dish rack. I could hear Cole whining at Mark and Amelia was fussing in the living room. I was summoned three times to see Amelia crawling, but she wouldn't do it until I left the room.

Mark checked in on me close to 5:30, wondering how I was doing. I was frazzled to say the least. I remembered how most evenings, at this time, Mark would be coolly producing some delectable delight, all dishes would converge to perfect doneness at a minute or two before the estimated dinner-hour. The dishes would be all cleaned, the counters wiped. Mark would prepare any separate bits of meal for Cole, like pealing and cutting pears, and he'd serve all of supper and bring out the glasses of milk too.

The curry and quinoa was edible but not flavourful. And I'll still make supper once a week, if for no other reason than to be reminded how much I appreciate all the hard work that my husband does for me on the other six days.

2011-09-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Christmas

Cole really really really wants Christmas to hurry up and get here so he can have Cranky the Crane and a Fireman Sam firetruck and other select toys. I tried to explain in terms a preschooler could understand. I said, "First, the leaves need to fall off the trees and then it'll snow and THEN it will be Christmas."

Then he said to me, "Mommy, get a really tall ladder, Mommy. And Mommy, get a bucket, Mommy. Then, Mommy, then climb up and up and up, Mommy and put the leaves in the bucket, Mommy. And give them to me, Mommy and I will put the leaves on the ground, Mommy. Then we can wait for snow."

2011-08-29T06:38:00.001-07:00

Cole shares with Naomi (Chilly and Julia's little girl).

It was love at first sight.

2011-08-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Amelia does the worm

2011-08-28T08:49:00.001-07:00

2011-08-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Liz and Kev invited the Roebucks and Perons over for supper at the Loftus cottage. Aunt Liz took the following beautiful pictures.

Cole and Daddy go tubing.

Uncle Ben, Cousin Connor and Daddy go tubing.

Roebuck family picture (complete with Frisbee)

2011-08-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

Swimming Lessons in August

2011-08-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Swimming off the Dock at Auntie Jo's cottage

2011-08-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Thank you Aunt Liz and Uncle Kevin for the cute outfit.

Who would have thought it's August?

2011-08-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

2011-07-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Big Mother-of-a-Bug in the Laundry Basket

It's laundry-line season. Not only because I now have two kidlets (both pukers), but also because every day is hot and thirsty.

Shortly after we moved into our new house, I told my husband I needed a laundry tree (no room for a proper laundry line). He objects, out of principle, to towels that feel like sandpaper on the nipples, however, he understands the illogical rationale behind pumping power into an air conditioner to cool our house, then paying to heat up a laundry dryer. It makes no sense. The sun will do it for free. And I do love free!

We have a smart metre, so we fill the washing machine with clothes and soap and set it to delay to start at 5 a.m. Then, when we awake groggily from our various noctural adventures with the kiddios, I hang out the laundry for the day (with bamboo clothes pegs).

Tonight, I went out to take downt he laundry with Amelia. I brought Iain some jalapeno and cheddar corn bread, then I parked Amelia in the bumbo beside the laundry hamper and started to drop clothes pegs into the basket and clothes into the hamper. Then suddenly something was moving in the laundry basket and I am ashamed at the shrill shreik that escaped my lips. I am also ashamed that I took a leap back, ready to bolt without my baby.

When Iain came to my rescue, I was wielding a bamboo tomato stake and prodding the red checkered boxers that seemed to be moving in the laundry basket. I was a bit shy when he had to dig way down into the depths of our clothes to fish out the big winged creature. I shreiked again, to my own dismay. Apparently it was a cicada. At least that's what Iain said. All I have to say is "Ew" and "Thank goodness we decided to keep the ugly chain-link fence!"

2011-07-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Isaac and Cole jumping

2011-07-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Cole reads to Amelia

2011-07-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Cole at Swimming Lessons

2011-07-21T06:32:00.000-07:00

2011-07-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Face injury

Amelia screamed in the car for nearly two hours on the way home from Ottawa, which was bettter than nearly three hours on the way there. Alas, I hadn't clipped her nails recently and she scratched her face up pretty badly.

This morning, Mark commented jokingly that she looked as if she'd been in a brawl.

Later, Cole said to me, "Amelia has an owie on her face. Her was in a bar fight."

2011-07-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

A Quick Trip to the Library

On our way home from swimming lessons, I thought I'd stop in for a quick trip to the library. NOT to look at books, only to pick up two videos on hold and collect Cole's first Reader's Club prize. I had both kids with me, but I still figured it'd be a quick trip if I just went in and did these two things.

I took Amelia in her car seat and Cole held my hand. We went straight to the room where the holds are kept and I took them to the librarian and we checked them out. Then, we showed her Cole's Reading Club log and she said we had to go upstairs to the Children's floor to collect our prize. That is when I should have just gone home. But I didn't.

We ambled over to the elevator, got in and Cole pushed the button. The elevator gave that sudden negative-g feeling and Cole got worried. We quickly got out of the elevator and found the Children's Department librarian. She gave us a poster and some stickers for Cole. Amelia began to cry. I popped the soother back in.

We went back to the elevator. Cole said he didn't want to go in the elevator. I said I couldn't carry Amelia and hold his hand on the stairs, so we'd have to use the elevator. He agreed hesitantly but said he was worried. When the doors shut and the elevator began to move, he began to cry. Amelia began to wail again. I popped the soother back in. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. I scooped Cole up in my free arm and hobbled towards the exit with two screaming children. Everyone looked at me pitifully. If only they knew the rest of the story to come. They would have saved their pity.

Cole agreed to walk when we arrived at the exit doors and he pushed the automatic door openers. We walked through the parking lot and were nearly at the car when Cole said, "I have to pee." I could hardly believe my luck. I said, "You have to pee?!?" He said, "Yes. I have to pee."

I looked around at the bushes and shrubs and then looked back at the library. We made a break for it. I said, "Hold it, Buddy. Hold it." And we ran towards the library. Inside, we ran to the washrooms. I plunked the screaming Amelia on the floor and ran into a stall and pulled down Cole's pants and plunked him onto the toilet. Yay! We'd made it.

I turned to close the stall door and Cole's penis got away from us and sprayed all over his pants!

I hadn't brought the diaper bag into the library. I weighed the options of letting him walk buck naked back to the car, or making him wear wet clothes. Then I saw Amelia's yellow receiving blanket on her lap. I took it and folded it in half to form a big yellow triangle. Then I knotted it around Cole's waist, toga-style. I put Amelia's soother back in.

And we walked back to the car some forty five minutes (and several gray hairs) later.

2011-07-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

2011-06-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Good-Bye

It's strange to live the significant moments in your child's life with more emotional awareness than them. For instance, a baby's first birthday or Christmas is far more exciting for the parents than the kid, right?

Today was one such an occasion. It was Cole's last day at Beth's home daycare. He has been there for over a year and a half, since he was nearly one year old. Now he is two years and seven months. When I first visited Beth's house, he was four months old (a month older than Amelia is right now). In Beth's caring hands, he learned to sign, to babble, to talk, to run, to climb, to slide, to swing, to talk, then to talk in full sentences, to count to ten, to identify colours, to sing, to dance and to share. How on earth do you thank someone for that? How do you thank them for being trustworthy and capable enough that you'd leave your baby with them the first time you were ever away from them for so long? How do you say good-bye to Beth when your son has no idea how much he'll miss her.

I tried to get him to hug is friends, Madden and Evander. He said he was angry, but I don't think he meant angry. I think he meant he felt sad. And Beth gave him a big hug. As we walked away, she and I were both blotting our eyes. Cole called good-bye over his shoulder at her in a casual way that could have meant it was any other day, but then, he looked at her a little longer and while he held tight to my hand, he called good-bye to her one more time.

2011-06-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

Dave and Darren

There is an older gentleman who lives down the road from me. His name is Dave and he has a collie named Darren. The two walk about two dozen times a day around the neighbourhood. Dave wears white knee socks and shorts and is very friendly and waves. My husband is always forgetting which one is Dave and which one is Darren. If you go out to the grocery store, you'll drive by them somewhere in the neighbourhood. And when you return, you'll drive by them again. If you're up at 3 a.m. nursing your baby, they'll walk by the picture window. If you're enjoying an early morning tea, they'll walk by too. If you're in the back yard with your toddler playing in the sand box, they'll walk by. If you're hanging up your laundry and your baby is screaming on a blanket at your feet, they'll walk by too. I almost wonder if he ever goes home, or if he just does repeat laps around the block.

Well, yesterday I went for a walk at 2 p.m. to the grocery store. (I had been to the park earlier). I was pushing the stroller with Amelia in it and I saw Dave and Darren up ahead. Dave smiled at me as I greeted him and then he said, "Isn't this your SECOND walk today?"

2011-06-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

Handedness

Cole was eating a breakfast cereal bar with his left hand. We've always suspected he was a lefty, but we still aren't 100% sure.

He asked me to just wash his left hand (it was the stickiest). I said, "Is that the hand you like to use for eating?"

He said, "No."
I said, "Which hand do you like to use for eating?"
He said, "Nothing." (Which means 'neither')
Then he explained, "You don't EAT hands!"

2011-06-22T04:32:00.000-07:00

http://outsideathome.blogspot.com

My sister has started a new blog on the topics of gardening, renovations, and all the wonders of outside in your own back yard. She has graciously allowed me to be a co-blogger, alias, Miss Greenish Thumb.

2011-06-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Divo Concert

Mark went to a Divo concert yesterday.
Cole asked, "Where's Daddy?"
I said, "At a concert with is friends."
"A concert?"
"Yup."
"Like the Wiggles?"

2011-06-19T14:03:00.001-07:00

Father's Day

I tried to explain to Cole about Father's day on Saturday. I said that all Daddy wanted for Father's day was to sleep in and watch t.v. And then at bedtime, I wanted to see if Cole remembered. I asked, "What special day is tomorrow?"

He thought for a moment and then relied, "Tomorrow is Father's day...but the next day is MY day!"

2011-06-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Lifejackets

Cole decided yesterday that he wanted to wear his lifejacket.... in 30 degree weather, in the sandbox. His little red lifejacket is far too small for him. His yellow lifejacket fits, but it certainly isn't easy to bend over to pick up a shovel or a pail while wearing it.

After playing outside, Cole and I came inside to eat a snack. Cole asked if he could wear his RED lifejacket next time he went outside. I said, "I think your red lifejacket is too small." He looked at me very seriously and said, "Tomorrow the sunshine will make my red lifejacket bigger!" I said, "I'm not sure about that. Maybe you should just wear your yellow lifejacket." He shrugged and said, "Tomorrow the sunshine will make my yellow lifejacket too small."

2011-06-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Storytime with Mom

Cousin Isaac

Cousin picture attempt #1

attempt #2

2011-06-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Cozy Cozy Blanket

Cole loves his cozy cozy blanket. It's a thin synthetic duvet (the cheapest one at Ikea) with a cover of motorcycles and trucks. Even if I have to wash the cover, tears fall.

With this hot weather, Cozy cozy had to go away. Cole was waking up drenched in sweat. So Mark explained to Cole that Cozy Cozy went to the North Pole, where it is always cold, to keep Santa warm. I think he was trying to appeal to Cole's charitable nature. A few nights passed without incident, then a cool night came and I made the mistake of bringing Cozy Cozy back. Upon hearing we were in for another week of hot weather, Cozy Cozy disappeared this time and Cole hit the roof.

So, this morning, on June 16th, Cole was blessed with a phone call from the North Pole. Santa reassured Cole he'd return his blanket by this evening and that he'd get an extra prezzie this Christmas for being so thoughtful. My word, the things I never imagined that parenthood entailed.

2011-06-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

Appreciation

I have given birth to a mini-me. Cole didn't look like me when he was a baby. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, informed me that he was a spitting image of my husband. And then he grew shocking copper hair and he didn't resemble either of us.

Over the winter, we put him into gymnastics. I was certain he would love gymnastics. He is a gross motor boy. He loves to run and climb and jump. But from the first class to the 14th class, certain activities brought tears to my little boy's eyes. Walking in a circle during warm-up, made Cole cling desperately to my leg pleading to be picked up. He didn't want to go on the trampoline for the first month. Thinking perhaps he was just having difficulty with the transition from being an only child to being an older brother, we tried to be understanding. We tried not to worry that our child wasn't good at following instructions or taking turns. I tried not to worry that he was anxious about new social situations. But WE became more and more stressed as Saturday mornings approached and I believe all (Mark, me and Cole) breathed a sigh of relief when gymnastics was over.

Then we signed Cole up for soccer. He loves to play in the yard and kick balls, so this seemed great. His best friend, Ana, was also in the same programme. What better incentive. But for the first two practises, it has been a repeat of gymnastics. In fact, as Mark put it, "Soccer makes gymnastics look like a walk in the park."

Cole doesn't want to kick the ball. He wants to be held. He wants to play on the swings. He says he has to go to the washroom. He seems anxious. And soccer is supposed to be fun!

But as I reflect on my childhood, I remember how I refused to go through the ritual to become a real Brownie. How I cried and froze and wouldn't do it! I remember at a piano recital, how I sat down to play, pushed on the first two notes (not hard enough, evidently) and no sound came out. I threw my head down on the keyboard, wrapped my arms around myself and cried and refused to be consoled. I remember awkwardness as I started baseball. I didn't understand some of the rules, I threw the baseball bat by accident and hit my coach, and when it came time to suggest a team name, I was so stressed that I said the first thing that came to mind, "pork chops".

But I went on to eventually, in my own time, "fly up" and become a Brownie, not in front of all the parents, but at a later date, just with the other Brownies. And at the end of the year, I was nominated Most Improved Brownie. I enjoy playing the piano, just not in front of other people. And my baseball team ended up being the Bancroft Bulls (NOT the Bancroft Pork Chops). And through it all, my parents accepted my slow warming to new situations, they accepted my sensitivity and they continued to hide their frustration, if any festered in them. They reassured me over and over and over and over again that I would eventually learn my seven times tables and that it certainly wasn't worth losing sleep over. This is the kind of patience that you come to expect in your own parents, but once you are the parent, you realize how difficult it can be.

I am so grateful that my parents always accepted who I was, albeit a little neurotic, right from the start.

2011-06-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

Antithesis Mom

My sister has a friend named Kate. Kate is fantastic. I know Kate personally but also through my sister's accounts of their friendship. Kate is an avid quilter and crafter and dumpster-diver and canner of foods and I am convinced that if I lived in Ottawa, Kate and I would be bff.

When Kate became pregnant, I thought of my transition to motherhood. I thought of how I loved to do all those crafty things and to exercise my creativity in my spare time and how I felt, to a degree, that my freedom to hobby had been torn from me. In many ways, with the birth of my children, I've mourned my independence. And even though I love them and now I couldn't imagine life without them, it is limiting having a child. In the first few months, my children seem to cry a lot. I carry them a lot. I wake many times in the night and spend a lot of time bouncing them, swaddling them, shushing them and soothing them. My back often aches and sometimes I think that motherhood is not for the faint of heart. And I am not afraid to tell any mother-to-be that life with a newborn is not my favourite part.

Kate, on the other hand, is the antithesis of me. It would seem she loves being a mom at every single junction. She loves dressing Kate in cute outfits each morning. (My children wear PJ's around the clock for the first few months until the puking subsides.) I post facebook comments like "Someone save me from the eternal sleeplessness that is motherhood" and Kate posts comments like "I love making baby food". I once said to my sister, "I wonder if anyone can stand sitting and rocking their baby in their arms for hours and hours on end?" and she said, "Kate loves it."

Well, my baby is crying (14 minute nap), thus cutting short this blog. I hope I can put on my Kate-kind-of-mother attitude today and see all the wonderfulness of motherhood.

2011-06-08T07:51:00.001-07:00

Sharing

Cole was eating pears. I asked if he'd share with me and he said yes. I asked if he'd share with Amelia and he said, "No, Amelia doesn't eat pears!"
"What does she eat?"
"Baby milk," he informed me.
"Why can't she eat pears?" I asked.
"She has no teeth," we had been explaining this to Cole for a while.
"When she gets older, she'll get teeth and then she can have pears?" I asked Cole.
He nodded emphatically then added, "And I can share my toothbrush with her!"

2011-06-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

A sense of time

Yesterday, Cole and I went to the library. We returned some books and picked out some new ones. Then I gave Cole his card to give to the librarian and as he handed it to her he said, "I'm two!" She said, "Wow."
Then he added, "I have a green dump truck. It's going to be my birthday."
She said, "Oh really? When is your birthday?"
He said, "I don't know." So I helped him, "Your birthday is in November, Cole."
"November," he told her.
She nodded approvingly and flashed me a knowing grin.
And then he said, "It's going to be in half an hour."

2011-06-06T06:27:00.000-07:00

Ah Man!

Cole is picking up some sayings from older kids.

I told him he was having pizza for supper and he said, "Ah man!" I told him Aunty Mary is coming to visit and he said, "Ah man!" (He loves Aunty Mary). Apparently, Swiper (from Dora the Explorer) says Ah Man if you stop him from swiping.

I was eating a piece of toast and Cole saw it and said, "Is that MY toast?" and I said, "No, it's my toast." To which he exclaimed, "You've got to be KIDDING me!"
(Mark said he got that one from him - he yells that at other drivers who do silly things because it seems a bit more benign than the things he wants to say to them.)

And at supper yesterday, Mark asked Cole, "Would you like more milk?"
And Cole said, "Yeah baby!"

2011-06-06T05:55:00.001-07:00

Cole's first soccer game

Amelia and Jaime

...and Callum

Look what Jaime can do!

They don't look 4 months apart, do they?

Annabelle and Amelia

My sister

2011-06-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Rabbit

We have a rabbit in our yard. Cole thinks it's cute. Mark chased it and tried to catch it because it's eating my onions.

This morning, I said to Cole, "Where is that rabbit?"
He said, "That rabbit eats mommy's plants."
I said, "Which plants was that rabbit eating, Cole?"
Cole said, "The green ones."

2011-06-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

Zellers

On the way home from daycare, Cole said, "We should go to Zellers to buy me a toy." As an excuse I said, "I don't have any money, buddy, sorry." He repeated, "Can we go to Zellers to get me a toy, please?" I explained, "At Zellers, we have to give them money to buy toys."

Cole thought for a moment then suggested, "We can go to Zellers to get money. They have money at Zellers Mom." I said, "No, we have to GIVE them money to get toys at Zellers."

Then he thought some more. "I have money, Mom. In my piggy bank. We can get money from Ham (name of piggy bank). Mom, I can share it with you."

2011-05-24T04:42:00.000-07:00

Amelia

Cole asked to hold his little sister

Cole playing his Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's old piano

Cole's soccer uniform

Grandpa Dave gets the gas bubbles out

Porpor plays Frosty the Snowman for the twentieth time

Grandpa Mike and Amelia

Cole on his new Police two-wheeler

Grandma Kathy works her magic

2011-05-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Little Sister

The other day, I dressed Amelia up in a nice little girlie outfit. This was a special occasion because usually she just wears PJs day and night. Cole likes to climb up on a box of diapers near the change table and peak over at his little sister. I asked him, "Doesn't Amelia look pretty in her pink outfit?"
He replied, "Not yet!"

2011-04-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

2011-04-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

Bikes (Less than a week after Amelia's birth) With the lovely warm spring weather, Cole and I were discussing bikes. He was indicating that HIS bike is the blue bike and the white bike is Daddy's bike (the one that pulls the trailer) and that the orange part (the trailer) is also Cole's bike. And I added that Amelia doesn't have a bike because she's too young. And Cole said, "I can hold her."

2011-03-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hei-ling and Hei-ling

2011-03-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Monday March 28, 2011

4:58 a.m.

Amelia Marguerite Hei-ling Peron

was born at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital

7 pounds 12 ounces

19 inches long

We can already tell that no one will ever say, "I wonder if Amelia is hungry? I wonder if Amelia is unhappy?"

Amelia is very good at letting us know.

It's like she knows she has a big brother and has to be quite loud to be heard.

Her eyes look dark. Her hair looks brown at first glance, but upon closer inspection, there is some blonde and red in there. It's not that she has no eyebrows or eyelashes, they're just very fair. First bath at the hospital.

We were so lucky that Mary had already planned to be in town until supper time on Monday, so she got to see the baby!

Cole's first peek.

Grandpa Dave and Amelia