All my little birdies have left the nest.

 Today is Jadzia's first day at school.

William rode his bike and I held Jadzia's hand on the short walk.  Both Adam and I had our cameras at the ready. When we got there it seemed the whole neighbourhood was on the blacktop.  Three maxed-out kindergarten classes together with their parents and teachers.  Jadzia had the biggest smile on her face.  She's a big girl now!

I gave my daughter hugs and warned her teacher that she was wearing underwear.  It's hard to say who was more excited, but it was probably me.

William's class went inside and the other class did too, but Jadzia's stayed in line at the door and Adam and I watched as her teacher took attendance. A senior kindergartner, Reagan, was chosen to take the attendance binder to the office. Since Reagan is one of Will's friends from last year and from soccer, she knows Jadzia and picked her to be her special helper.  Jadzia wasn't paying attention at first so I called her name, but Adam stopped me and said "you're not her Mom until 3:15." Sigh.

Reagan and Jadzia made an adorable pair, carrying the binder together. Adam and I left after that, but we forgot William's bike, so I was able to snap one last picture of Jadzia, waiting for the trikes to be released from the shed.

On playdates I'm used to seeing her with William's friends, next to them she is still the baby, always a bit shorter, often with her thumb in her mouth.  Today, standing alongside her classmates, she looked like a big kid.  She fit right in, not standing out as the youngest (though based on her birthday she probably is).  She's ready.  She knows her letters and how to print her name. She even knows how to use the washroom when she feels like it. My job here is done.

(Okay, I know that my job is not really done.  I'm still her Mom.  But things are definitely changing.)

Trekking with the Next Generation

How important is it to see in theatres something I have watched countless times on television? I can close my eyes and picture the scenes in my head.  In fact I have. As a kid I would invent new episodes, played in my mind for my own amusement.  Of course, none of these were in high definition; none of these were on the big screen.

How important? Very.  Important enough for me to cancel all my other Monday commitments.  Important enough to do laundry for the specific purpose of washing my Star Trek shirt.  But, for some reason, not important enough to enlist the help of a babysitter.  Yes, I made the mistake of bringing my children. To be fair, I wanted them to come.  I wanted to share this thing I love with them.  I wanted my offspring to experience the awesomeness that is Star Trek.

The show began with a behind the scenes look at how the show was remastered, how they had to go through warehouses of film footage to find the scenes needed to recut the show.  I drank it all in, while William whispered "When's the show actually going to start?"

William seemed interested in the first episode, watching wide-eyed as the Enterprise sped to the edge of the universe, pointing out the Traveler's chubby fingers. Though while the second episode played he was preoccupied with his "hunger".  Adam eventually bought the kids some candy, and William pouted because this was rationed, and we didn't let them have the entire bag.

Jadzia didn't even pretend to pay attention.  Though she was quite good at pretending to be a cat.  She also spent a great deal of time fiddling with her broken arm rest, hunting for bits of stale popcorn on the floor, and finding creative ways to position herself in her seat.  She had three bathroom breaks during the show.  Her brother had one.  My husband and I took turns escorting.

William wore light up sandles, which bathed the theatre in flickering light whenever he kicked the chair.  I took them off, but we kept accidentally jostling them anyway.  And, of course, he needed to put them on to visit the washroom.

I've seen the show enough times that I wasn't worried about catching plot points, though during one washroom break I missed most of the completely redone 3D rendering of the crystalline entity. Also I got pee on my Star Trek shirt.

If you've ever been annoyed by young children in the theatre, take solace in knowing that they are annoying their parents 100 times more.  And sadly, I now have to spend $700 buying the complete Next Generation series remastered on blu-ray.

Mommy-Daughter Weekend

While the boys are enjoying a weekend of loud cars and eating junk food around the campfire, Jadzia and I enjoyed some Mommy-daughter time.

In an effort to make the weekend special, I began by giving her a Dora nail polish set and taking her out to lunch at our favourite sushi restaurant, August 8. Jadzia is partial to edamame, so long as I squeeze the beans onto her plate for her. Even ordering what I thought was a modest amount, I was stuffed by the end.

After the restaurant, we headed to the garden store to buy some flowers for our front lawn.  I'm not really a gardener, but my reasoning was that if I plant store bought flowers in my front lawn, it would look like I didn't mow on purpose and the neighbours wouldn't call the bilaw police.  Anyway, Jadzia helped me pick some random perennials, a couple shrubs, and a tomato plant.  I planted them randomly about the lawn.  We had a watering can and after every plant was in, I sprinkled it with water and told Jadzia that was to welcome the plant to our yard.  "Welcome to our yard, little plant," she said.  Later she lost interest and played with potato bugs while I dug, planted, and hauled rocks from the backyard.  Jadzia quote of the day: "Awe! A potato bug, the cutest animal ever!" It amuses me how she can be such a tom boy in such a girlie girl way.

On Sunday we lazed about in the morning, then went to Bronte Creek for the afternoon.  Jadzia and I both wore red dresses and pigtails but, since it was just the two of us, there was no one around to take our picture together. No matter, she's cuter than I am 

There were adorable baby ducks in the pig pen (pigs were MIA), but Jadzia's favourite was the large snapping turtle in the nature centre.  Normally content in his aquarium, the staff took him out for a run and he promptly fell asleep in the grass.  Note, I say "he" without actually knowing if the turtle is male or female. Jadzia, on the other hand, uses "she" as her default pronoun when talking about gender ambiguous creatures.  

That evening, we went to a barbecue potluck at my friend Cara's house.  Everyone chipped in for fireworks and we had a really nice display.  Lots of Jadzia's friends were there and without William it seemed a lot more quiet and subdued.  Not because Willliam is overly rowdy compared to other kids, but because for some reason William and Leyla become insane when they are together.

 Anyway look, I used the fireworks setting on my camera:

So my sweet daughter was up way past her bedtime (by about 3 hours), seeing as the sun refused to set early.  She was still awake at the same time in the morning though.

 On an unrelated note, this is what our robins look like now.  When the boys come home, I'll have to get Adam to set up his camera again.

U is for Unicorns

"U is for Unicorn, the shyest of beasts."  The unicorn is the only mythical creature that appears in Wallace Edwards' Alphabeasts.  In the book, the animal hides behind a tapestry showing a unicorn's head. You never quite know whether it's a real unicorn behind there, or just a white horse. 

Recently, my daughter has been drawing pictures of unicorns.

If you're wondering, Jadzia confirmed that the phallic shape protruding from the pink unicorn's midsection is its penis. Our dog is male, so many of Jadzia's animal drawings are similarly endowed. Interestingly, she insists that this unicorn is a girl, even though my daughter otherwise knows the difference between male and female genitalia.  I didn't ask her why the brown unicorn has two faces.

Finally, a post on unicorns wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the most powerful goddess in the universe.  We know that she is all-powerful because she has the magic ability to be both invisible and pink at the same time. Perhaps this is something to do with ultraviolet light?

R is for Riding

Last Saturday marked an incredible event.  No, I'm not talking about the Next Level improv workshop, although that was  cool.  I'm referring to the training wheels being removed from my son's bicycle.

Adam and I took turns holding our son upright while he mastered the art of balance.  At first he was listing to one side and then the other, toppling despite his parental assistant's grip on the bike buddy.

 Once he got up to speed, however, we barely had to touch the handle.  Adam even worked up the courage to let go for a second:

William wasn't the only one learning to ride:

Of course, Jadzia rode with training wheels, but this was still a big moment for her.  To date, she's only ridden tricycles and has been quite timid about pedaling herself.  This was her first chance to really try out her newly-acquired princess bike.  She pedaled it all by herself.

Later, Adam bought William some knee and shoulder pads and that really boosted his confidence.  By Sunday, he only needed help starting.  Then on Wednesday we went to the park with his friend Aedan.  He realized that he couldn't keep up if he always had to wait for Mommy to push him, so he figured out how to get going without me.  Now he can totally bike on his own, and it took less than a week for him to learn!

P is for Pee and Poo

That's right, I went there.  As most of you who are reading this know, pee and poo belongs in the toilet, where it can be easily flushed away and is unlikely to cause a painful rash or messy cleanup.  You'd think that someone who has spent their entire lives soiling themselves would welcome the new and improved method.  And you'd be wrong.  People are very resistant to change. They enjoy the comfort of being wrapped in cushy plastic.  They enjoy having the excrement lovingly wiped from their nether regions.  They even enjoy seeing their mother's frustration.

By "they" I'm referring to my daughter, Jadzia.  Yes, she is SO OLD.  I've told her.  Kindergarten is coming.  Deadline: September. She's still in a pull-up full time.

We've gone through several toilet training attempts.  I've bribed her with various forms of candy, with nail polish, with praise.  Our most successful attempt occurred a few months ago, when I let her go half naked all the time.  While our basement began to smell like urine, most of her pees and poos ended up in the potty.  She even climbed onto the big toilet by herself.

She then graduated to underwear.  I don't care how many diapers you've changed, there's nothing more disgusting than poopy panties.  You can't tear them at the sides like diapers so they must be slowly peeled from the body, smearing excrement on their legs and your hands.  If you ask my daughter, she'd tell you that poo belongs in the potty, but in practice she doesn't follow her own rules.

I have since given up all attempts at toilet training.  It causes too much frustration, and Jadzia enjoys the power struggle too much.  She'll go on the toilet occasionally, particularly when we're out.  Mostly number one.  If she has to poo, she hides in her bedroom.

My daughter is smart, which is part of the problem.  She's too smart to be tricked out of diapers.

J is for Jadzia

If you don't know yet how awesome, talented, intelligent, and adorable my daughter is, I suggest you check out the video below.  You might have to strain to hear her. Jadzia only has two volumes, sweet and quiet, or whining and screaming (be glad you're hearing the sweet volume).  Alphabeasts by Wallace Edwards is one of her favourite books, and she insists on being the one to read it.  As you can see, she has the whole thing memorized. I've been trying to get her to do this on video for a while (she won't do two takes in a row if something goes wrong).  We finally succeeded yesterday. Being an alphabet book, I thought this was a perfect addition to my A to Z challenge.

H is for Hike

Saturday we went for a hike at Spencer's Gorge, an area characterized by beautiful waterfalls and hazardous cliffs. While my children were never actually in danger of falling to their deaths, I found myself constantly shooing them further away from the cliff's edge.

We saw several waterfalls, people walking their dogs, lovely stone bridges, a pit full of leaves to play in, and a field for rolling. I'm not sure who was more tired, the adults or the offspring, but only my husband had a nap afterwards.

D is for Drawing

My three-year-old daughter, Jadzia, has always enjoyed putting crayon to paper. She has recently become more prolific and also more able draw stuff that looks like something.  Below are a few of my favourites.

 Elephants are probably Jadzia's favourite animal to draw. This one is standing on a Mr. Potatohead and a pretty bow.

This is a wooly sheep.

My husband feeding the ducks. She used to draw arms and legs sticking out of a head, but as you can see her people now have bodies. And this actually looks like my husband.  Also, if you look closely you'll note he is holding some bread to feed the duck with.

Pig.

This is our family standing by our fridge, while our friends Columbia and Garrett hang out with our dog Worf. Columbia even brought popcorn!

Here's another picture of Columbia, which she uses as her facebook profile.  It really looks like her in an abstract way, because she is always smiling. That's the thing about Jadzia's portraits, they have childlike simplicity (of course) but at the same time somehow the people she draws are recognizable.

So as not to show favouritism, I'm also posting two of my son William's drawings below. William's art is more fantastical than Jadzia's, and most often involves laser guns, monsters, robots, and aliens. His style is similar to mine in that way and I'm delighted that his taste seems to lean toward Sci Fi.  He's not as prolific with creating, however, hence why I'm only posting two.

 The angry sun-like thing is actually a spiky monster.  At William's instruction, I added the lobster-clawed super hero shooting lasers from his eyes. Not sure what the other stuff in the picture represents, but it adds great atmosphere.

This is a robot that William drew in his reading response journal for school. I'm not sure why a book about farm animals prompted this particular response, but I find it delightful.

Snow!

Perhaps it's global warming, or perhaps snow has always been elusive in the month of December, when the Christmas season has us collectively wishing for a blanket of white. We got rain instead of snow on Christmas Eve and then, a few days later, a tease. A thin layer of crunchy icy stuff that is no good for snowballs, snowmen, snow angels, or sledding.  We went outside anyway.

Yesterday we had a real snowfall, I threw snowballs for Worf on our evening walk.  The temperature threatened to climb above zero before the morning.  I awoke today relieved that the snow was still here, packing snow, snowman snow.  I got the kids dressed in their snowpants, mitts and hats.  I told them that if the tobogganing hill was too sticky and slushy, plan B was to build a snowman in the schoolyard.

Fortunately, the hill was covered in slippery snow, if a little muddy at the bottom.  The stark white maple leaf on the palm of my mittens is now beige.  Looks like it was meant to be that colour.

I immediately wished I'd brought a camera.  Jadzia helped to straighten the sled before they got in, making sure they would go down at just the right angle. William held his sister, protecting her as they slid down together.

I went down a few times with the kids, but then my eldest made it clear that it was better without a grown-up. He was right, I slowed them down and caused the unbalanced sled to spin out of control.

I was just getting bored of watching others have fun, when William exclaimed the he had to go pee.  He wanted to pee in the bushes, but since he was wearing snowpants and a jacket I wasn't sure how that would be accomplished.  Nor did I want to try.  It was time to go home anyway.  When he started to fuss, I lured them both away from the hill with a playful snowball fight.  I pretended to be attempting to evade their attack, using the toboggan as a shield.

Despite William's repeated insistence that he "couldn't hold it", neither he nor his sister walked any faster than they normally would.  To be fair, they were both dressed like astronauts.  However, since he didn't seem to be in a big hurry, I made him wait a minute longer so I could run inside and grab my camera (they looked too cute in their snowsuits).

And he didn't pee his pants!

Oh, Christmas Time

Having junked our artificial tree at the end of the season last year, yesterday we went on a mission to chop down a real one. We took a tractor ride into forest of pint-sized pines, whereupon a grumpy farmer told us he was only making one trip because the ground wasn't frozen enough. We looked at three different types of trees; green ones, blue ones, and more green ones.  Finally we settled on green.  We wandered through the rows of pines, rejecting some, picking out maybes and then forgetting where they were.  All the while Jadzia was kept in low spirits due to the cold, a lost candy cane, and general three-year-old crankiness.  We finally found the perfect tree (we got cold and hungry).  Adam sawed it down and then we bought hot dogs and chili at the farm store.

It's been a week of Christmas memories.  On Friday we had lunch with Santa at the community centre.  By we, I mean William and Jadzia. Santa doesn't feed grown-ups.  My children were the only ones who opted for food before seeing Santa. It meant that Jadzia had chocolate brownie up her nose when I snapped the Santa photo, but I don't think you can really tell in the picture.

Thursday was William's Christmas concert at his school. He chose a bright green shirt to wear and stood out beautifully.  His class recited a poem called "I don't want mittens for Christmas" and sang "Mittens and Gloves". Not exactly old chestnuts, but they did very well.  I was able to enjoy myself despite the overtired three-year-old on my lap, who wanted desperately to go on stage with her brother.

In other news, I was sort of tagged in a Christmas Meme (as part of my writing group) and it seems appropriate (appropriately lazy) to answer those questions here.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?  Hot chocolate tastes better, but egg nog is more Christmassy. Never make hot chocolate with water. That's blasphemy (and not in a good way).

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Both.

3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Coloured.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?  Nope.

5. When do you put your decorations up?Sometime in December/ when we feel like it.

6. What is your favourite holiday dish?Christmas log.

7. Favourite Holiday memory as a child? The memories I had this week are right up there.  I guess I`m not technically a child though.  So I`ll go with this one: My grandparents celebrated on Christmas Eve. On years that we stayed at their house, we would hide in the kitchen, then Santa would ring a bell.  We would run into the living room and all our gifts would be laid out.  We never saw Santa, and I swear the whole family was in the kitchen, all adults accounted for. It must have been the real deal.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I consider myself a Santa Claus agnostic.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?Except when we went to my grandparents, we usually opened Christmas morning. Although we got one gift (always a book and occasionally a book and pjs) on Christmas Eve.  My inlaws also celebrate Christmas Eve, so there is present opening at their house then, but at our house Santa`s presents get opened on Christmas Morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? The Christmas decorations box pukes all over the tree and we call it done.

11. Can you ice skate?Since I was two.

12. Do you remember your favourite gift? My daughter, Jadzia. Born 5:15 am, December 25th.

13. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Family. Warm fuzzies.

14. What is your favourite Holiday Dessert?I told you! Christmas log.

15. What is your favourite holiday tradition?I love everything except the financial stress.

16. What tops your tree?A slightly dilapidated red star from an Ikea ornament set.

17. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Both.

18. What is your favourite Christmas Song?I used to like `We Three Kings` because of the camels with sneakers.  `Santa Baby`is a good one.  Also `Here Comes Santa Claus`. Edit: Oh! I totally forgot about Tim Minchin's White Wine in the Sun, which is both funny and touching and very well captures the meaning of Christmas.

19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?I can take them or leave them.

20. Favourite Christmas Show?Will Vinton`s Claymation Christmas Celebration which my family watched every year from the time it came out in 1987, until it faded into obscurity.

21. Saddest Christmas Song? Christmas songs should not be sad. They should be joyous.  Songs about war and hunger are okay as long at they are upbeat. There should never be any songs about a little boy using a sob story about his dying mother to scam someone into buying him an expensive pair of shoes.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The most stressful part of my day.

I live a two-minute walk from my son's school. It lets out at 3:15ish.

At 2:30, I get my daughter dressed. Regardless of whether I dressed her in the morning, by 2:30 she is without pants. This involves chasing her around the house waving a pair of pants and a pair socks and yelling "Come here Jadzia!"  She does not come when called.  The dog does though and he will always attempt to eat the socks.

Jadzia poos around the same time and I'm trying to toilet train her so that means rinsing out a pair of undies.   She will not poo on the potty. Ever.  A lot of the time she defecates immediately after I've dressed her and I have to dress her again.

Today she wants to wear her new one-piece snowsuit.  Once I start dressing Jadzia, our 50-pound puppy gets wind that we are going and runs up, wags his entire body, knocks my daughter over at least twice, and attempts to eat our hats/mitts/boots.  I leash him up in a harness that he hates but theoretically discourages him from pulling.

The alarm on my watch is set to 3 pm, just in case I forget the time.  It goes off just as we were heading out the door.

After five steps, Jadzia stops to play with the rocks in my neighbour's driveway. This patch of gravel is unremarkable to me, but she will not leave the area voluntarily.  At this point I have to carry her.  Have you ever tried to carry a three-year-old that doesn't want to be carried?  How about one wearing a one-piece snowsuit?  How about one-handed while holding the leash of a 50-pound puppy?

I somehow manage to carry Jadzia to the corner.  I put her down as soon as we cross the road.  Immediately she runs to examine something so close to the street that my heart does a somersault.  This time it was a branch.

The rest of the way I "hold Jadzia's hand", which in this case is code for holding her by her forearm to keep her from running into traffic.  She falls to her knees like a rag doll forcing me to drag her.  Of course I can't really drag her, so I have to pick her up again.

Meanwhile, Worf, the 50-pound puppy, jumps on every person that passes by. Children, parents, whoever. I chant "Sorry. Worf! Leave it! Hey! Sit! He won't bite. He's friendly. Sorry. Sorry" all the way to school.

I put Jadzia down once we reach the kindergarten door.  She does not stay near me, but we're not near the road so whatever.  She watches William get ready through the window, but when he comes out she runs into the fenced off area for kindergarten recess, or hides behind the fir trees next to the door.

By the time I gather her up, William is way ahead of me.  He either doesn't pay attention to where I am or doesn't care.  He wants to walk with his friend whose mother is much more efficient at wrangling children. In fact, all the mothers are better at wrangling their children, and their kids stay near them and listen to them.  Even their dogs behave.

I tell William to wait and Jadzia to hurry up.  I'm yelling into the wind and no one hears me.  I concentrate on Jadzia because I know William will not run into the road or do anything crazy. Jadzia stops to lick a metal signpost (seriously).  Luckily, it is not cold enough for her tongue to stick. I worry that it will be soon.

I'm so visibly frustrated at this point that a random woman stops to ask me if I'm okay.  I mumble that I am. Worf jumps on her daughter. I feel like the worst mother in the schoolyard.

When we finally get home the children dawdle at the end of the driveway.  They can tell I'm stressed and this makes them less obedient.  I have to count to five to get them to come in the door.  Once inside, they do not  give me space.

Jadzia's 3rd Birthday Party

Before you have an aneurysm wondering where the time went, I must tell you that my Christmas baby won't be three for another few weeks. We had her party early for obvious reasons.  We did what we always do for birthdays.  We invited everyone she loves to our house and ate food while the kids played.

The most stressful part of a party is the before party clean-up.  My husband did most of that (yes, and you can't have him), while I prepared a cheese plate, a fruit plate, a veggie and dip plate, and spaghetti casserole. The kids helped me bake a cake. Jadzia asked for strawberry so I added strawberry jam to my usual half-butter half-icing sugar icing. The result was so sweet I got a sugar rush just from licking the spoon (and I have a fairly high tolerance).

We didn't plan any activities beyond eating and opening presents, but everyone had a great time anyway (or pretended to).  Jadzia's Babcia was there, and her Omi and Opa, her aunties, her uncles, her cousins, and her friends.

She got an obscene amount of gifts, and each one was carefully chosen by someone who has loved her since she was a baby.  I know from experience that the present a child is excited about when they open it, is not always the same as the present that she plays with on a daily basis.  She chose gifts in boxes over gifts in bags.  She didn't really care what was in them.

Until her friends had left, of course.

Just before bedtime we drove to that insanely decorated house on Spruce Street.  The perfect end to a perfect day.  (And to think, I still have leftover Brie).