And time just marches on . . .

. . . look at her! Already chilling out in the exersaucer, laughing at the crowd. Do I never get to just stop time and look around and try to hold the moment? Apparently not. You can still track down pictures of Leif in this same exersaucer, if our old website is still running somewhere out there in cyberland. www3.telus.net/babyhead. It may not exist anymore.


Well, to keep on the theme of time, I'm proud to announce I've let go of some control in the kitchen (see, I CAN grow) and even more proud to inform you that the boy can feed himself! Check out peanut butter sammy-man:




The final installment in this time-themed intro is this pic. To see my firstborn holding my third born is beyond words. My 16 year old punk-rock self would be blown away. The present-day me can't grasp it either.



. . . okay, moving on. Hannah would like to be talked about please. She's working away at soccer, but it seems an aspect of her personality previously unseen has cropped up. I'm not exactly sure of the descriptor for it, but I think of it as the first-strike-I'm-out point of view. When she tries to do anything for the first time, if it doesn't work, she's really, really not cool with it. She's both sad, and pouty, and heartbroken, and angry. It's tough to watch, tougher to get through. She'll ask me how to write Ivy, so I write out I-V-Y for her to copy. And her version ends up looking like those spam-blocker 'type the letters below' type things, where you need to squint to figure out what the letters look like. And she's upset, it's 'not right!!!'. I'm thinking 'give yourself a break love, you're only 3 and a half'. But to her it's more like she's the only one in the family who *can't* do it. Leif can write, I can, Kit can. Leif can play soccer . . . so when Hannah's coach says kick the ball over here, and she kicks it over there, she turns and walks off the field in tears. It sucks, a lot. But we're working on it. Here's her save while playing goal in her wee class of crazy 3 year olds.




I don't know if this pic will be clear or not, but you need to see her eyes . . . she is glorious!  I needed to share her big bright blue orbs.






So check out this pic, from our photo session on our big bed the other day.




In the background is one of my favorite paintings, can you guess why? Cause she's asleep! Doesn't she look peaceful? Anyway, one day we're lying around in bed (homeschooling at it's best) and hannah ays "that lady looks like Mummy" and I say "Oh really?" and she says "yeah, except your feet are different". Er . . . .

I tell you, she's un-describable, a new word I created perhaps?

So, an update on the back yard. The weekend involved a lot of this:



I harangued Al into helping out, and the 'just one day please' turned into 3, and then they had to go. Then Kit used his charm and got his parents over to help out, and I found the three of them out there in the dark, 9:30 at night, guided by the light of the construction lamp and Susan's direction from the pattern layout in her hands, they finished the brick work. It looks awesome!





The places with wood are being blocked out for custom work. We're going to do poured concrete, and possibly some marbles and kids' drawings or something in there. Then it's furniture, irrigation, final touches and voila! We will live out there all summer. I hope the plants don't die before then. I keep forgetting to water them. (Don't tell Kit).

And so fine travellers, I leave with this really cool picture. Anyone remember that Bugs Bunny when Bugs falls asleep and his den floods and his bed floats out and along a river right into some weird Dr. Frankenstein's castle and the doc has this helper monster thing that has no arms and is covered in red fur? Remember that guy?

This picture totally reminds me of him:





good night my lovelies


love always
Big C


There's talk of a Leif & Hannah funny faces photo shoot, so stay tuned!

And hopefully the next post will include news of the arrival of Ryan and Shona's fabulous new baby. Can't wait!

*this post was written to Hayden's "I hate bunkbeds". Leif likes it for the yoga lyrics. :) *

What's goin' on?

Not much. I'm writing this to the background sounds of the dryer, and a lovely english woman reading The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit. No, I haven't hired a British nanny. Our long-awaited book on tape CD's have arrived. Woohoo! While Leif is enjoying lying in bed and listening to them, it's doing little to quiet Hannah's regular cries of "I'm still hungry/thirsty/too tired/too awake/it's too dark/it's too light/I don't want to go to soccer/Anna's/french/swimming . . .'. Seriously, she's fine. She loves her classes and she just ate a bowl of cereal and a PB and banana sandwich. This is just her *thing*. And I will tire her out and make her stop. This is night two of just escorting her back to bed everytime she gets up. As soon as its 'bedtime', life becomes very dramatic for our dear second-born.

Ivy she's in the crib in the kitchen, sucking on the foot of Dompy The Flying Horse. He's cool. Kit's at Ultimate, the first game of the summer season. I think sometime's I can measure my life by which season we're in and which night he therefore has Ulti. I try not to think about it too much. :)

This morning, I forgot which direction of the faucet would give me cold water. I kid you not. I stood there for about 10 seconds trying to remember, baffled that I had no clue. Then, since no answer was coming to me, I thought I'd find out via an experiment. I'd turn it on to one side and see what happened. Towards the toaster gave me cold water, and it stayed cold, so I figured that was the side for cold, my right. I have no memory of 'knowing' innately what side gives you what. This is not good. I've borrowed a friend's calculus text to see if I can jump start my brain. Otherwise, I'm screwed. Truly. I mean, who the hell forgets where you get cold water? Kids rot your brain.


So how about some pics of the darlings? :)




This is Leif's own set up shot. It's very avant garde.




Hannah's still in the more straightforward place of a 3.5 year old.


On Friday we celebrated May Day with the Waldorf Society at a local park. The kids made flower crowns and cool little bees out of pinecones and wool, and then danced around the maypole. Leif and his buddy Taro got silly with it, whereas Hannah was all about correct procedure.









To finish up on the whole 10K fabulousness, here's some pics of my number and my name in the paper. This is obviously a big deal to me. I took a week off afterwards, and got a crappy cold, and now the thought of running again on Friday is horrible. thank god my dear friend will force me to do it. Now revel with me in that great feeling of accomplishment.







Now, I need to tell you about the Yellow Dress. It was mine as a baby, and it is very cool and bright. Ivy's in her last days of wearing it, as it slowly morphs into a tunic and eventually a shirt. Either way, it's great. All the kids have worn it. How cool that I too was once so small. :)







Updates: Shona's baby is still getting it's finishing touches put on. And Melissa's dear son was born last Thursday. The very darling Cohen Peter, born to be Ivy's dearest friend, is also her buddy in wierdness. To Ivy's tailbone Simple Dimple, Cohen matches it with his own Mongolian Spot. When they're older they can compare asses.



kisses
C