Long Story Short

March Break. Trip to Ottawa. Baby Gracie! Good news from great friends. Museum of Science and Tech. Juggling and train engines. Doggy fun. First joint-birthday celebration in years! Boys awesome on the road. Running. 5K in 34 minutes with the stroller in the wind. Jake says Ma-ma. Actual birthday. Sleeping in. Fabulous dinner out with Steve. New patio furniture (front and back). CAKE! Steve re-discovers online poker, seriously cutting into my computer time. A good friend gets engaged! Owen spends one day dry, going on the potty. Jake is cutting tooth number one. Oh, and Abby home and healthy!

We'll return to regular scheduled programming soon. :)

Long Overdue

I finally got around to installing the software for our new camera (ran out of room on the memory card, just the motivation I needed!). Here are some fun recent family pics, and there are entries below for Christmas and New Years.

New Years Photos

We were in Ottawa for New Years, where we finally got to meet my lovely niece, baby Gracie, and hang with Auntie Kristi and Uncle Ryan, and visit with Auntie Lee Ann and Uncle Evan too. Good thing I cleared the camera, I'm posting these in time for our March Break trip up - maybe we'll get over to Lee Ann and Evan's house, and get some pictures of the boys with their adorable pups!

Christmas Photos

We went to Barrie before Christmas, where Owen got his train table from Grandma and Grandpa (Grandpa built it - yes, Owen has an oak train table. It's nicer than my dining room table. He is nuts about it!)

Christmas morning at home - Mommy, Daddy, and the boys.

Go ahead, make my day!

Okay, remember this lady? Well, I meant to blog about a discussion with another stranger at the track that totally makes up for that one, but I'd forgotten about it, until seeing the same gentleman there again this past Thursday. He totally made my day last week!

I was there with my StrollerFit class (which I also really love, it's offered through Belly Buttons, and the instructor, Trish, is awesome. She's going to do the EndurRACE 8K with me in April.*) Trish works us in intervals: we do a lap of the track, and then some weight work with resistance bands, or lunges, or crazy-butt-working-kick-things. The point is, we run a lot. (Well, not everyone runs - you go at your own level.)

ANYWAY! I had just finished a lap, and an elderly gentleman came up and said to me that he just had to ask: had I ever raced track seriously? He said that I had a fantastic running stride. He told me that he used to be a track coach, and that I had great form - good leg turnover, a long stride, keeping my head level, and making it look effortless. After joking that I'm glad he thought it looked effortless, I told him I'd actually been really working on my form, so he had just made my day. He told me he was at the track training to do a 10K run with his daughter this summer, so I'm sure we'll see him again. Jake liked him too - he had a big smile for him again when we saw him there again this week.

I've actually been working really hard to lengthen my stride, (it's easy to shuffle your feet when you get tired, and then I lose all the benefit of having long legs!) and keep my head up, and steady (legs doing all the work of moving me horizontally, instead of wasting effort in bobbing up and down. Think of the marathoners you see in the Olympics - the girls' ponytails don't even swish!) By concentrating on form, I'm doing the same distance with less effort - running upright with a longer stride, I cover more ground in fewer steps. (Um, this is the theory, anyway. It still FEELS like a lot of effort, but the math works.) But it's hard to evaluate myself, so it was super great to be complimented like that. (And honestly, this man had to be in his seventies. He was not hitting on me. Or maybe he was, I guess you never know, but I'm still taking the running compliment at face value.) Am superwoman running goddess. Go me. :)

* Yep, I'm all signed up for the EndurRACE: 5K on April 18, and then 8K on April 25. Both races at 6 p.m. - come cheer for me, locals! ;)

Friday's List of Ten VIII

Milestones that Jake reached this week (I'm not kidding. The kid has done all of these things since last weekend.):

10. Moved from the bucket seat into his (rear-facing) big-boy carseat. Which means that without the bucket, I am wrangling two boys when I'm out and about. He now sits beside Owen in the shopping cart. Grocery shopping just became a contact sport!

9. Stopped waking himself up in the night practicing crawling. He's finally sleeping better again. Yeah, remember this post? Oh the hubris! We all got sick, and the good sleeping came to an end. But he's really on a roll now, and doesn't need to practice, because...

8. He crawls! Like Owen, he would pull himself up and walk along the furniture before crawling. But he's finally figured it out. It's only been a few days, and he's v--e--r--y deliberate and careful, but he's definitely on the move.

7. Did I mention the pulling up on the furniture? The other day I went in because he'd woken up from a nap, and he was standing in the crib, shaking the bars. Time to lower the mattress again, and remove the climbing aid bumper pad.

6. He peed in the shower. Now that he likes to stand up holding on to things, he had his first shower with me where he stood like a big boy, holding the bench the whole time. And when you're eight months old and you gotta go, you gotta go.

5. He gives high fives! He's been clapping for a while now, but if you held up your hand for a five, he'd just stare at it. Now he whacks away with enthusiasm, grinning the whole time.

4. He got his first bloody nose. I put him down on the floor at the Rec Centre while I filled my water bottle, and he decided to move from sitting onto his tummy. But his winter jacket is so bulky, he didn't get his hands in front of him in time, and did a face plant on the tiles. Poor little babe, one red, drippy nostril. Along with that, he also got...

3. His first bloody lip. At first I thought it was blood from the nose, but I wiped it, and it came back. I wiped it again, and it came back. A third wipe, and it stayed gone. Thank goodness he doesn't have any teeth yet!

2. Ate his first real food. He likes his mush, but would always much rather have whatever Owen is having. Last night, Owen was having alphabet soup with vegetables. Jake sampled the noodles, and the mushy veggies, courtesy of Daddy. Owen was happy to share. Jake was ecstatic. (Oh come on, alphabet soup is TOO real food!)

1. Said his first word. He's been babbling for some time, and da-da-da-da-da recently became part of the lexicon. But said three times, it's capitalized: Da-da-da. He knows that's Steve. He looks around for him when he says it, and if you ask him where Da-da-da is, he zeros in on daddy. Too cute, because Owen's first word was "Mem", and that was me, so it's nice that Steve is Jake's first word. :)

Thank you, please keep praying!

Abby did have to have a second surgery, (the first was to try and clear fluid from around her lungs, and to insert a chest tube to keep draining) as scans revealed the level of fluid around her lungs was too much for the current tube to get rid of. But she's recovering well, and her mom reports that she's been holding her own, fever-wise, for 24 hours, which is a great milestone! I know all your prayers and kind thoughts are helping, so thank you!! I'm hoping this is the turning point, and that she continues to get better now until she and her mom can come home.

Made in...hmmmmm.

All this talk about the big three car manufacturers looking for bailout money, and most recently, Chrysler's threat to move their whole operation out of Canada unless they get X amount of money and the CAW employees take a $20/hour pay cut has me thinking. We have had lots of parts manufacturers in this area. Many closed their doors in the past few years, and the few left are cutting further and further back on staff and hours. Now, I feel badly for anyone who loses their job. But you have to admit that there's a certain... irony? Schadenfreude? (Not sure what the word is I'm looking for here...) in the situation. See, lots of people around here, whom, I'm assuming, work or did work for these parts makers have bumper stickers on their cars that read Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign! (These are always on Fords and Chrysler products, by the way, not on Toyotas, some of which are actually assembled right here in Cambridge, but that's another post for another day.)

Where the irony comes in is when I see three cars all sporting this bumper sticker parked in a row. In the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Now I get that for some people, Wal-Mart is a necessary evil (or a guilty pleasure!). I'm sure there are some people who would prefer to only buy things made in Canada who shop there because they are barely making ends meet as it is. But maybe don't drive the car with anti-buying-foreign-sentiment proudly displayed on it when you go. Hmmm'kay?

I'm guilty. I don't look for a Made in Canada label. I do patronize my local farmer's market and small, local specialty shops and bakeries, but I also shop Wal-Mart and Costco. Lucky for our family, the loss of manufacturing jobs will not affect us directly. I still feel for the people it does affect, but I don't think the situation will change, and I don't think government handouts to private industry are the way to go. These are growing pains. Have you read The Grapes of Wrath? It's a good picture of the growing pains suffered as North America moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age. Now we're moving from the industrial age to the knowledge age. Can't stop it, and bailouts to private industry are only delaying the inevitable. Manufacturing in North America is no longer smart business, sad but true. How much better would it be to use that bailout money to help people support their families, and help them re-train for the knowledge industry? A lot, I think.

(I also have some thoughts about how ironic it is that unions were formed as a result of some of the issues arising as we moved into the industrial age, but that they may also have sped its passing in the last 20 years or so. But those thoughts are still percolating, and my arm is sore from one-handed typing while Jake sleeps in my other arm. So that's all you get today. Go read The Grapes of Wrath!)

Taller Than Your Mama!

I was thinking the other evening, as I hung upside-down over Jake's crib, arms around him, giving him kisses and shushing him to sleep, how do the short moms do it? When Jake (and Owen too, back in the crib days) needs comforting at night and not to eat, I don't like to take him out of the crib. If I get up on my tip-toes, I can bend at the waist right over the crib front and snuggle him. I get a bit of a head rush when I stand back up, but he knows mommy isn't pulling him out of the crib, so it's time for sleep. I also don't have the issue of "baby fell asleep in my arms, but wakes up when I put him down". So there you go - using my height to my mommy-advantage!

(Our crib converts to a double bed frame, so I don't have the drop-down option on the front.)

Heh, my height and more specifically my long legs also work to my advantage the odd time I am putting him down all ready asleep, but forgot to pull the blanket back fully when I last got him up. I stand on one foot, kick my other leg up and over into the crib, and pull the blanket aside with my toes. All while holding the sleeping baby! I never thought of this as an accomplishment until Steve saw me do it the other day. He was mighty impressed, so I just thought I'd share.

Friday's List of Ten VII

(First a note: Abby is doing really well! The enzyme treatments are working, and her mom is very encouraged. Yay Abby! We'll keep praying, and hopefully you'll be home soon.)

Okay, in honour of the lovely warm day we had (with a warm breeze, no less!): ten things I am looking forward to doing outside this spring:

10. More outdoor running! Jake and I had a lovely 5K out in the sun today, even though the wind (which was warm) was horribly strong. Who designed my subdivision so that all the uphills are against the wind?? It was like pushing an umbrella through a wind tunnel!

9. Boys in the bike trailer! Owen loves the bike trailer, and I imagine Jake will too. The only question is: will they ride nicely in it TOGETHER?

8. Playing in the backyard. Owen was all over his playfort today, and came in covered in mud. Can't wait to see Jake out there too.

7. Gardening/lawncare. We hope this is the year that we finally get the grass to grow in the back. And I can't wait to finish landscaping around our new porch in the front.

6. More family walks. Since the snow started melting, Owen has discovered burrs, gravity's effect on strollers on an incline, and that cattails may look like sticks, but after a winter under the snow, they tend to turn to mush when you try to pick them up. Can't wait to see what else there is out there!

5. Lounging, on the back deck or front porch, on new patio furniture (we think we've found what we want, finally!)

4. BBQing! (Well, Steve tends to do this, not me. But that's why I'm looking forward to it!)

3. Moving the hockey/soccer/baseball fun outside instead of in the basement.

2. Puddle jumping! This is one of Owen's and my favourite things to do outside together.

1. Getting to see the neighbours again. We've had some changeover through the winter, but it's hard to meet new neighbours when we all drive straight into our garages, and only come out to shovel.

I say a little prayer for you

One of Owen's little friends is in the hospital with pneumonia (ask me how awful I'm feeling about making that "walking pneumonia" crack about myself a few weeks back!) Please keep little Abby in your prayers. She's stable, but had a few complications so she was moved from Kitchener to London at the beginning of this week, where they're trying a new enzyme treatment that seems to be helping. She's already undergone one surgery, poor little tyke, and if this enzyme treatment helps, she won't have to have another.

Please keep Abby's wonderful mom Kristyn in your thoughts as well. Kristyn is pregnant, in a strange town, and while she has her mom at her side, due to extenuating circumstances she doesn't have her husband there, which must be tough. And while we're at it, please also think of poor Abby's dad, who can't be there for her. I can't imagine anything more horrible than not being able to be with one of the boys if they were sick.

I know you people are out there reading this, even if you're not commenting, and I know most of you are parents. When you hug your own little ones today and count your blessings, please send an extra prayer for Abby's continued improvement and health. We hope she and Owen can play together again soon.

Where is Directions, so that I might follow him?

Scene: Owen and Mommy are sitting on the couch. Owen is eating a bowl of grapes. Mommy is playing Wii reading a parenting guide. Owen starts to gag a bit on a grape.

Mommy: Honey, remember what mommy told you. When you eat the big grapes, you need to bite them in half. Don't stick the whole grape in your mouth, it's too big. You need to take a bite of the big ones, okay?

Owen: Okay Mommy.

Owen: (holds up grape) Is this grape too big Mommy? Should I bite it?

Mommy: (concentrating on Donkey Kong, who is coming up fast and threatening my tentative first place position with all the banana peels he keeps lobbing my way a particularly insightful chapter, but wanting to encourage him to bite them all) Yes honey, all the grapes in your bowl are too big, you should bite them all.

Owen: Okay Mommy. (a few minutes later...) I'm done my snack Mommy, can I play hockey ball in the basement?

Mommy: (now distracted by Wario, who is trying to muscle me off the track and into the lava a poignant example of wonderful parenting in the next chapter) Sure sweetie. Have fun.

A few minutes later, Mommy has taken the gold in the Lightning Cup finished the book and is glancing down at Owen's snack bowl.

Mommy: (falls off the couch she is laughing so hard).

Anyone with a two-year-old at home want to take a guess at what had me laughing so hard? Owen had put his snack bowl neatly on the end table. His snack bowl, full of half-grapes. He bit them all in half, as per my instructions. When I recovered, I called him back upstairs and told him he could eat the other half of the grapes too if he wanted. He wanted, and hoovered them down. Then we shared some juice. The end.

Lightbulb Moment

Let's say you're two years old. You are trying really, really hard to understand how this wild and crazy world works. Patterns and predictability are things that help, and you expect current situations to play out similar to past ones.

Let's say that when you go to Grandma's house to play, and you like one of her toys, she will often give it to you as a bribe to take home. And let's say that last weekend at Lily's birthday party, you had lots of fun playing cars, and your Uncle Steve gave you a few (of the several hundred in his collection) to take home with you.

Is it any wonder then that you would throw a kicking, screaming tantrum when leaving Olivia's party yesterday when you were informed that you could not bring your favourite of Nathan's toys home? It shouldn't have been, I suppose, but it takes me a bit sometimes to figure out how your little two-year old mind works. I figured it out in time to explain it to you in the car on the way home, and I think you get it now. But in the meantime, everyone else just thinks you had too much cake and excitement. (Contributing factors to the scale of the tantrum, but definitely not the triggers.) Man, what a confusing place the world must be when you're two!