Family STAY-cation '09

I. Am. Exhausted.

I need a vacation.

Oh, wait. I just had one.

Mr Earth took some time off from work coinciding with Canada Day, so that we could do things as a family. We didn't have the money or the energy to go somewhere exotic and new, so we decided to check out all that the Big Smoke has to offer. Well, not all. Not half, really. But a couple of things.

Big C was so excited to take Mr Earth to the Science Centre. The boys and I have been there a couple of times, but never with Daddy so it was very! exciting!. Big C took him around in a mad panic trying to show him everything there was to see. Little G and I hung out. It was overwhelming for him and he was racing around screaming at everything, but he really, really liked the ball drop area. They had a lizard and snake exhibition. I saw the biggest snake I ever want to see when I'm only separated by a thin layer of glass. Shudder. I personally will not go back to the Science Centre until school is back in session. It was a madhouse. Mad. House.

You gotta love a boy with balls.

Next we went to the Big Zoo. We brought the stroller, but Little G walked almost the entire 3 hours. He was falling-down tired by the end. I'm not sure what he made of the live! animals! He looked bemused half the time. We checked out the Kids Zoo area for the first time, and it was pretty neat, actually. Big C was disappointed that there were no animals he could pet.

Now doesn't the sight of brothers holding hands just warm the heart?

This photo is for Kgirl. It's the closest we get to matching outfits here at Casa Earth.

Big C and the baby Alpaca. I just love this picture.

Finally, after much deliberation, we decided on the CN Tower for our last excursion. Did I mention that Mr Earth is deathly afraid of heights? Fun times. Little G and I loved the aerial views. Big C was a little more hesitant. (Mr Earth would say SMART.) I'm impressed that Mr Earth and Big C did make a special trip to see the glass floor (from a distance), and even go outside.

Little G and I danced on the glass floor. (See my toes? I really was there! Even if I'm not in any photos.)

What a view.


A great time was had by all. And now I am so tired, I can't speak. I wish Mr Earth could stay home every day. But then we really would have NO MONEY. I like money. So off to work he goes. We will miss him during the day, though.

Like Stealing Candy From a Baby

Big C was absurdly pleased to be faster than Little G at finding all the Easter eggs. We hid them so well (see white chairs). In his defense, Little G was more interested in the truck. He did get in the spirit of things later on. He found five eggs with the "help" of his big brother (who was being reminded to let his little brother find some eggs), and obediently put them in his basket.

Now I'm too busy stuffing my face with Laura Secord mini-chocolate eggs to type. Mr Earth bought 3 bags of eggs, and we hid the contents of 1. What can I say? We're good parents. And it was a very good Easter Egg Hump. (Big C's words, not mine..)

With Me, It's All 'Er Nothin'

I'm having such a hard time blogging lately. I have ideas, snippets of funny things that make me laugh, but they never develop into full-fledged posts. The problem is, I'm a little bit obsessive. When I do things, I tend to do them 100%. Which can be a good trait. And can also be a very bad one. It means I can be very focused and determined. But it also means other things fall by the wayside. Not only that, I have a terrible habit of being distracted by Pretty! Shiny! New! And then whatever I was spending all my time and energy on gets dropped suddenly for something temporarily more interesting.

For the past few weeks, it has been a return to reading. I've developed a voracious interest in the written word. Not from the computer, of course, that's anathema to me right now. It must be a book. Books with pretty covers, and fragile pages. Books about anything and everything. But no books with movie tie-in covers. (Those are just plain wrong.) When I find a book a really like, I make time in my day to read it. Any spare second I get. And I don't have a lot of spare seconds these days. Watching two kids all day is time-consuming! You have to do stuff! And answer questions! And feed them! It's all too too exhausting.

Anyways... time that could be spent blogging, or reading blogs, is spent reading books. I can't stop. Which is a roundabout way to say sorry that I haven't been around more. I want to be. I do! And now I feel like a terrible person who can't be bothered to respond to an email. (It's so easy! Just type a few words! It doesn't take long! Even if all you say is you're too busy to write right now!....Okay, clearly I have issues on this subject. Moving on.) I find I have, at most, one post a week in me these days, and for the past few weeks, that time has been spent ranting about Storytime at Chapters, dishing the latest on House or casting books in my head. And we're back to books again. I'm nothing if not obsessed.

I did find an awesome t-shirt online though, it read:

CDO

"OCD"

spelt alphabetically -

the way it should be.

Nope. I'm not obsessive. Not me. (I want to buy it.)

The weather has been sucky-ass sucky this week, but it finally cleared up and the boys and I had a playdate today with the Katie and Gigi. Outside! In the sunshine! For the whole morning! After the forced confinement of this winter, I'm not entirely sure it wasn't just a lovely dream. Gigi and Big C got along famously. The shared mini-Ritz crackers and talked about dogs. Gigi apparently gave Big C her phone number, but he can't remember it. Typical male. But he did tell me that if we want to visit her, we have to look for a building with a "J" and and "A" on it. Yeah. Way to be specific, Big C. I'll stick to Mapquest....

Wouldn't you give this boy your phone number?? All you have to do to win his heart is say the words "Oompa Loompa". Apparently, that's the funniest thing, evah.

Aren't you dying to have a playdate with us? We're a barrel of laughs.

Clearly, fresh air is not good for you. It's very tiring.

How are you doing? Tell me something good.

Hulky St Patrick's Day!

Proof I was in a show.

"And he's in a band. A rock band?"

"I know that. You were on your own. I really regret that, Katie."

"Catherine, I'm sorry, but I just find this very hard to believe."

"Can you tell me about it? The proof. I'm just curious."

"I would like to see a doctor called Doctor von Heimlich. Please, find one."

The Fantastic Four.

This is what I look like on chalk.

And the expression pretty much sums up my state of mind for tomorrow's Opening Night.

Gulp.

Full Story at 11

Extremely large baby attacks local garage. Motivation seems to be need to use tiny slide. Trail of drool daunting.

Extremely large baby continues trail of carnage -- attracted by helicopter at local airport. Fate of passengers not yet determined.

No one talks to the..

The next Star Wars movie will be...

Dark Vader and the Dinosaur

(May include a guest appearance by a dimunitive green man called: Yoga)

One

A birthday Haiku:

Laughing, kicking, loud

Wanting in on the action,

You make us complete.

The Time Warp

I'm finding it difficult to believe that this time last year, I was pregnant. AND little beknownst to me, I was about to give birth - NOT in three weeks as calculated by doctors and ultrasounds. Due dates, schmue dates. This year has gone by extremely fast, and ridiculously slowly. I'm finding it hard to be coherent when all I feel is schmaltzy, so behold some of the (very few) Hallowe'en pictures that are (sort of) in focus:


The Not-So-Spooky Jack-O-Lantern Pizza. Rule #1: Nobody gets to eat Hallowe'en candy unless they eat dinner first. (Best thing about being a parent? Making up crazy rules.) This pizza may become the new tradition at Casa Earth.

My lovely, sweet "Ninja" Turtle Boy. He refused to wear the mask, so that makes him a...turtle. Sans ninja. That worked out perfectly. Look at his poor cheek! His hand-holding partner in the daycare's Hallowe'en parade took a tumble, and the Boy came tumbling after. Apparently, he was very brave. He cried a bit, and then made sure that his friend was ok.

This is the last first holiday for my baby. My Little Guy is not so little anymore. Sniff. Excuse me while I get all googly...

Happy Hallowe'en from Casa Earth!

The Pumpkins, The Plan, and the Product

Little known fact: I'm just not that into Hallowe'en.

You'd think that a holiday centered around dressing up in costume and getting candy would be right up my alley (don't say it, Crazymumma). But I get my fill of costumes from the stage, and although the candy is great, I tend to eat waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much, and then I just feel guilty. Add to that having to closely monitor the amount of candy the Boy consumes before bedtime (he is my son, after all), keeping the Little Guy up later than he would like, having to stand outside in the cold almost begging kids to come and take our candy (What's with that? Don't kids want candy? Am I frightening them away with my desperate cry of "Candy! I have candy! Please come and take it"!?), and the whole thing kind of makes me go... Meh.

I do love dressing up the kids, though. And I LOVE carving the pumpkin. I don't know what's gotten into me. I don't recall ever carving a pumpkin before we bought a house. Seriously. And now I'm all Pumpkin Competitor #1. So behold..

The Pumpkins

Poor $2.99 pumpkins from Loblaws. They don't know the seriousness of their fate. I spent a week trying to figure out how I would get two pumpkins, two kids and a stroller home from the Village, and I finally gave up. I snagged these while I was getting samosas for our regular Tuesday night Indian cusine. The backs are all flat and scarred, but don't the fronts look nice? It's all about appearances.

The Plan

I have this freakish new tendency to carve the pumpkins to echo the kids costumes. I may have created a whole new category of fetish. Moving on.

The Little Guy is going to be Cookie Monster. I created this design freehand based on a retro t-shirt that I found online.

The boy is determined to be a Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle. I didn't even know he knew who they were. And aren't they passé, anyways? Fashion-forward does not describe our family. Anyway, we compromised by buying him a turtle costume, and borrowing a blue mask from a work colleague of Mr Earth's. I'm hoping that the mask gets "lost" and he gets to be the cute plush turtle that suits his personality much better.

I totally stole this design from my favourite pumpkin carving pattern site, Zombie Pumpkins. They rock, but I refuse to pay money to buy a pattern when I can just copy it from the online site. So I look at the pattern they created and draw it freehand. But, one of their "new" designs for 2008 is Count von Count from Sesame Street, and I did that exact pumpkin two years ago, so maybe they're stealing from me..? Probably not. But it's nice to dream that I have some claim to fame.

The Product

They probably won't last till Hallowe'en, so I had to photograph them all lit up today. I highly recommend that you don't carve your pumpkins untill the day of, if possible, especially if they are intricate or delicate. They tend to wilt. However, with two small kids in the house, carve ye pumpkins while ye may. Babies don't nap for very long. At least, mine don't.

The Zoo Story

What a difference a year makes! My last memories of visiting the Toronto Zoo include being insanely hot (the weather, not me) and rather pregnant (me, not the weather). The Boy didn't want to sit in the stroller, but refused to walk, so Mr Earth and I took turns carrying him. He enjoyed the zoo. Our arms, not so much.

This year, the Boy, the Little Guy and I went with my very good friend and her two children. I was a bit worried about how it would all go down, but I was pleasantly surprised. The weather was fantastic - warm, sunny, cool breeze. I couldn't stop talking about how glad I was to be out of doors on such a nice day. I felt a bit giddy with the freedom. (Or was that the vodka in my Klean Kanteen? Hm.)

The Little Guy, Mr-I-Hate-the-Stroller-Don't-You-Dare-Put-Me-In-That-Thing, sat contentedly the whole time. The. Whole. Time. Unheard of. Perhaps he was as tired as I am of looking at the same four walls of our house? Methinks we should get out more.


Oh sure, he gave me some funny looks. But he sat there. The. Whole. Time. Have I mentioned that this is unheard of? I was starting to think that he had drunk some of the contents of my Klean Kanteen. Hm.

The Boy and his friend explored the giant fallen tree. It was pretty cool. Man-made? Not sure.

I would have crawled through myself, but was afraid of getting stuck. Besides, someone had to take the pictures, right? The perfect excuse. How would I explain getting stuck in a gigantic fallen tree? Humiliating.

The boys stopped to examine a caterpillar crossing the road:

Oh sure, twenty bucks admission and eight bucks for parking, and the most fascinating animal at the Zoo? A caterpillar. He was pretty darn cute, though. (Was it a he? How does one tell these things? Are there even He-caterpillars? You can see I got me a good education..)

More shocking than the live bat we saw (Live bats. Shudder.), was the peahen who jumped out of her cage, and came to the snack bar for a little treat. Or was she window shopping? Hm.

If you look in the window, you will see the faint reflection of the Boy. I think that's a pretty neat effect for a sucky photographer like me.

One of my personal favourite parts of the Zoo (besides the weather, which really was phenomenal), was this poster:

I just think that says it all, don't you?

Report Card #4

I got handed an envelope at daycare as I was dropping off the Boy the other day. Being the good parent that I am, I went home, put it on the dining table and promptly forgot about it. This is what having a second child does to your brain. I neglected to remember that July brings the bi-annual "child development review" from our daycare. Let's have a look-see...

Language Development

The Boy often calls attention to himself, objects, or events in the environment: "Look, I wear number T-shirt." He likes to talk about objects and ongoing events. He enjoys participating in conversations and discussions.

I laughed and laughed when I opened it up and read the line "The Boy often calls attention to himself." He favourite phrase is actually "Look at me! Look at ME-E!" I don't know where he gets that from - xcoughx MrEarth xcoughx. The apple doesn't have very far to fall, I'm just sayin'.

Cognitive Development

The Boy likes to listen to age-appropriate stories. He makes relevant comments during stories. He enjoys drawing pictures and attempting to reproduce basic shapes. He is able to name the primary colours and he can count to 10.

[Pic. "Robot in a Box" by The Boy 8/1/08]

Okay, now this just begs the question - are they reading him age IN-appropriate stories? I didn't really think it was that kind of daycare.
And yes, he is able to count to ten, but after ten, it all goes to pot. Twelve-eleven-thirteen-fourteen-fiveteen. Fiveteen is just too funny to correct. In fact, he may just start a trend. It makes sense! You can't fault him on that.

Motor Development

The Boy is able to go up and down stairs unassisted. He enjoys jumping in place and pedaling a bicycle. He enjoys building with blocks and playing with playdough. He shows improved control of crayons or markers. He likes to make pictures.

Thank god for the stairs thing! I can't even begin to count the freakouts I've had about that. He used to start walking down the stairs, and would just forget to pay attention. I had vertigo on his behalf. It's so much better now. But who am I kidding? I still watch him like a hawk. I just can't let it go.
Yeah...about the bicycling thing. Really? When he "rides" his bike around the neighbourhood, I'm doing all the work. I'm the Boy's bitch. Or donkey. (Which is more flattering?)

Food Consumption / Sleeping Behaviours

The Boy has a good appetite. He usually eats 1-2 servings of lunch. He can feed himself independently. He is able to fall asleep by himself after settling down on the bed. He normally sleeps about one hour and a half.

The Boy has NO PROBLEM feeding himself independently. Unless the food is healthy. I'm willing to bet that those 1-2 servings consist mostly of bread and cheese. Possibly ice cream.

Social Interaction (peers / adults)

The Boy is pleasant and cooperative. He has a sense of humour we all enjoy. He likes talking and singing among his friends. He takes pride in his work well done. He often proudly shows the pictures he made to the teachers. He cooperates well and he is a good helper and model at clean-up time.

The Boy thinks he is VERY funny. I don't know if he is or not, but he amuses me to no end. He's developped this way of laughing at his own jokes by sticking his tongue in his teeth and sort of hissing through them. No idea where he got that, but it's kind of endearing. I tried to introduce the concept of Knock-Knock jokes, but he didn't quite get the reciprocal nature of it. Plus, he's the only person allowed to be knock-knocking at the door. If you say someone or something else is there, he just looks at you like you've grown a second head.

Inappropriate Behaviours to Monitor (if app.)

N/A

Hm. He's 3.5. I beg to differ. Surely he shares the whining and tantrums with others, and doesn't just hoard them up for home??

Additional Comments

The Boy has good performance at Rob's music class. He also enjoys working with Doris during art activities. He is happy and well adjusted. He has a good relationship with his baby brother, parents and grandparents. It is a pleasure to have him in the preschool room.

Obviously we have a good relationship - we dress him in trucker hats and wifebeater tanks. We're Parents of the Year. Now, if only we could convince him to fetch our beer, we'd be all set.

Robustious Periwig-Pated Fellow

For Wordless Wednesday *

*brownie points for the person who can identify the origin of the title

Bring Your Good Times..

Happy Canada Day from Casa Earth!