Vacation Haiku

I'm just back from Niagara-on-the-lake, a romantic two-day one-night vacation sans enfants.  My husband and I had such a good time that I'll need multiple blog entries to fully do it justice.  Although I did manage to sum up the trip in this haiku that I wrote in the room guestbook:

Yes, I'll be devoting an entire blog post to Lobster Poutine.  But for now I'll just say that I love my children.  They make me appreciate the exquisite freedom of not having them around.  My husband is my best friend (really, not just because I'm being cheesey) and hanging out just the two of us is super duper fun.  Yes, I said super duper.  Yes, my hubby is THAT fun to hang out with.

Summer

Today I strapped my kids into my chariot and rode to the nearby dress shop to buy the dress I'll be wearing to my sister's wedding. Since they were so good, quietly playing lego in front of the fitting rooms, that I took William and Jadzia to the dollarstore to choose a toy.  After running through the aisles, rolling balls across the floor, and deliberating over several options, William chose a bow and arrow and Jadzia chose a monkey with cymbals and candy.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the backyard.  We put on our swimsuits and ran through the sprinkler until a mudpuddle formed in the middle of the lawn.  We blew bubbles after that.  Jadzia ran after the largest ones gleefully exclaiming "Big Big Bubbles!"  William shot some with arrows. 

Since I told William he couldn't shoot his bow indoors, he wanted to stay outside long after the rest of us were tired, bored, and hungry. He attempted to climb the slide using the suction cups on his arrows, breaking one in the process.  Eventually I convinced everyone to come inside.  Okay, I dragged everyone in.

It was a productive day.

William goes to kindergarten

Yesterday we took William to the kindergarten open house.  Before we went William put on his new backpack and said "Are we going to school now?"  So after dinner my Mom came to watch Jadzia and the rest of us walked the short distance to William's school.  William was immediately greeted as he came in and given a ziploc bag with stuff in it.  We were told that we had to keep the ziploc and not lose it before September.  Our first test as school parents, I hope we don't fail it!

The kindergarten room was similar to the Early Years, lots of toys, blocks, train sets, colouring sheets, educational doo-dads, etc.  And all over the wall the room also had enough charts, posters, numbers, letters, and artwork to give me ADD.  We met the two kindergarten teachers, but because of bizarre regulations we weren't allowed to know which would actually be teaching him.


William was excited by the magnifying glasses and nature things ("Science!") but he ended up spending most of his time building a totally awesome truck out of lego.  Reading over the info for parents, I saw that William has pretty much already met all the educational goals for JK and SK, so I figure he's going to totally ace this whole school thing. Also, the rest of the kids that were there seemed much smaller, so he'll rule the playground aswell.

When I told William it was time to go, he said "Then why did we even come?" I think he wanted to play all day.  Well good, soon he'll be forced to.

Oh and this morning he asked me "Can we go to school today?" 

Jadzia draws Happy Faces

Seriously I think she's some kind of genius.

Funny Breakfast quotes

Jadzia: I like strawberries.  I like yummy waffles in my mouth.

William: Sometimes you have a dream where you fly a rocket to the moon and that is kind of a dream.
Me: Did you have a dream where you flew a rocket to the moon?
William: No.

William's Dream

William: I had a Power Ranger dream and people were taking our car.
Me: Power Rangers were taking our car?
William: No, we were Power Rangers and someone else was taking our car.
Me: What did we do?
William: It was just a dream, we didn't do anything.
Me: Oh.
William: And I saw that you were eating something.  You said it was cat food and it tasted like cheerios.
Me: I was eating cat food that tasted like cheerios?
William: Yeah, and it was cheerios.

About two minute later...

William: I like Power Rangers

Golden Arches

I just entered this contest from McDonald's:

McDonald’s® All-Access Moms, presented by CityLine and hosted by Nanny Robina, are inviting Canadian mommy bloggers* for a chance to get a first-hand look behind-the-scenes at the Golden Arches to learn the truth about McDonald’s restaurants and the food it serves. McDonald’s All-Access Moms will have the chance to ask the hard-hitting questions on every parent’s mind and delve deeper into the quality of food sourcing and preparation at McDonald’s restaurants. At the same time, these moms will be blogging candidly about their experiences and sharing their thoughts with parents across the country.

I've seen the movie Supersize me, but since I'm not a vegan and don't work for PETA, I'm not sure how "hard-hitting" I would be.  I decided to enter anyway.  I filled out the online form, copied and pasted a sample blog entry, and answered some questions about my family and our mealtime traditions.  The most difficult part was making a video explaining why I should be chosen.  How do you say anything on camera in only 30 seconds?  Here is my attempt:

And here's another video I made to explain the last one.  (Actually I recorded it because Jadzia began screaming as soon as I stopped recording her):

Wish me luck.

Super Omi Turned 80 Today

And she has no idea.

My grandmother has had alzeimer's since before my kids were born.  When my husband and I were dating, she was already starting to forget and repeat things.  She used to flirt with the security guards in her building.  She cooked for me all the time.  She made liver and bacon, homemade schnitzel and spätzle, rouladen. She always made you eat too much, never taking no for an answer.  She told everyone I was her favourite granddaughter, and bragged that I "sang like an angel", even though I only ever sang along to the radio.  She cheated at rummikube. We would laugh together, talk about music, and men, and the world. She would give me a quarter if I got a question right on jeopardy before the contestants did.  I was her smart cookie.

Omi has always loved kids, so my Mom thought that she might respond if I brought my kids in to see their great grandmother. It wasn't a party, nor even a celebration, only an attempt at giving Super Omi one last happy moment.  We stopped at Tim Horton's on the way and bought timbits for us and a yogurt for Omi.  Mom entered the combination to unlock the door and we saw her sitting in the hall.  She was sleeping in what my Mom calls her lazy-boy wheelchair. Her body looked thin and slumped, her skin pale. Her grey hair was combed straight.  Her bare feet were wrapped in white pillow-type things.  Her toenails were yellow.  She opened her eyes briefly, but didn't really look at any of us.   We wheeled her into the small courtyard and sang her happy birthday. 

We ate timbits and played catch with a football we brought with us.  At one moment, a woman walked across the courtyard, ripped a vine out of the garden and dragged it inside, leaving a trail of dirt on the floor.  We chatted with William about life and death and what Super Omi used to be like, then we left her and went to the waterfront and enjoyed the splashpad.  In the end we had a pretty nice day.

New Sod!!!!

Have you every seen anything more glorious?  I thought not.

Unimpressed?  Well up until this afternoon our backyard looked like this:

And for the longest time it looked like this:

And we spent the better part of the day doing this:

Now are you impressed?  Well here's that picture again so you can gaze fondly at our masterpiece:

Unfortunately, gazing fondly is all we can do with our new yard at the moment.  It must be watered religiously and not walked on for four weeks!  Gah!

BTW:  We took this opportunity to bury a time capsule. I'd tell you what's in it, but that's between me, my family and the citizens future.

William the Scholar

My son is awesome at building with lego, and playing video games.  He has the uncanny ability to say the most insightful things, and hold his own in discussions of life and death, evolution, astronomy and the possibility of extra terrestrial life.  However, he is notorious for his unwillingness to put crayon to paper.  While his sister colours on every available surface, William has only recently (and only occasionally) let go of his perfectionist tendancies long enough to attempt a happy face or racecar (the latter often followed by the remark "This is not actually a very good racecar. Can you do it?") .

So a couple of days ago when I bought a kindergarten printing book at the dollar store, I had very low expectations.  I showed it to him, but I didn't even suggest we try it.  Imagine my surprise then, when today I saw this:

He got out a marker and started filling out the book all by himself.  He did most of the capital letters and then went on to the small letters, at which point he declared "I'm not very good at the small letters."  I told him he was doing fabulously, but his standards for himself are much higher than the standards of others.  He takes after me that way.


And yes, he is left-handed.  How cool is that?