Daddy (Ada) the tyrant

Ada was a lot of work today.  She is at that "terrible twos" age where she gets into everything.  She loves everything about the bathroom and regularly pulls it apart.  This includes unrolling the roll of toilet paper and sticking it in the toilet than taking it out again and smearing it on the floor.  She takes magnets off the fridge and puts the in the cupboards.  She grabs things off the counter and dumps them on the ground and she regularly climbs up the furniture to get at things we have deliberately put out of her reach.  Today was one of those days and Daddy had the misfortune of watching Ada for much of it.

Finally we reached the end of the day and I was quietly nursing Ada to sleep.  She looked quite pensive.  Suddenly she pulled off and looked up at me.  "Daddy said no,,,,"  she gravely informed me. "Daddy said NO!."

Halloween 2016

I've already had some requests for pictures from this years Halloween, so I figured I better make a Halloween post (because wanting to see pictures is the same thing as a desire to listen to me drone on).  The kids had a blast this year.  Max was a cowboy and Darwyn was a bride.  They have now totally figured out the process of trick-or-treating (a bit different from last year) and tore from house to house collecting candy.

At each home they offered to do a trick.  Max waved his lasso in circles, whipping anyone near by in the face.  Darwyn would look up with bright eyes and say, "do you want to see my trick?"  Then she stood there solemnly, while her audience looked on in confusion.  Darwyn's logic was sound, however.  She figured Cowboys lasso things and brides stand there.  So she stood there.  It was adorable.

Ada plays pumpkin.  This involved taking the
pumpkin lid off and putting it back on repeatedly.
She did this for a good half hour.

Eww...pumpkin brains.  Darwyn got right in there,
but Max still refused to touch the pumpkin brains
with his hands.

Ada and Darwyn work together

The finished products

The crew

Scary faces

Beep, beep, Bender.

I've started watching episodes of Futurama with Max and Darwyn.  Naturally, I exercise viewer discretion.  The kids love it, and so do I.  Darwyn asks to see "beep, beep, Bender".  Max likes the box that contains our own universe.  My heart melted when Darwyn drew this picture.  (Link to hi-res.)

Where's the baby?

Ada edition.

Ada's one true love

I bet you are thinking Ada's one true love is a soother, a stuffed animal or perhaps a blanket?  Maybe a family memeber or at the very least a beloved toy?  No.  It is her shoes.  Ada loves her shoes.  She has 3 pair and she loves all of them, but she is especially fond of her "duckies" as she calls them.  These are robbies with a picture of a duck on the top.  When she can find them, Ada carries her shoes all over the house trying to find someone who will put them on her feet.  When she spots you, she follows you around declaring "soo, soo" over and over again.  If you sit down to oblige her, she will rush to your lap with delight and literally giggle out loud as you put on her shoes.  I've never seen anything like it.

Darwyn also loved shoes, but mostly she just enjoyed taking out everyone's shoes and making a mess... now that I think of it, her love of shoes probably had more to do with her love of making messes then with the shoes themselves.  With Ada, it is different.  She also takes out the shoes, but she holds each shoe lovingly and tells you who each shoe belongs to.  She holds up Gus's shoe and says "Daddy soo."  Then mine, "Mommy soo".  Then Max's, "mama soo" (she has not figured out how to say Max in a way that doesn't sound like mom.  She says mama for Max and mommy for me.) And of course she follows these with "Da'n soo" and "Say Soo" for Darwyn and Jose respectively.  It doesn't matter which of the many shoes in the house you give her, she knows who wears it.

Anyway, I have posted a video of Ada's love of shoes for your viewing pleasure and to prove I'm not making it up.

I also posted this cute video of Ada on the slide, a much more commen obsession.  Ada also loves slides and dives down them with absolutely no fear, no matter how big they are.

Back to School

September marked the beginning of school for everyone in the family (ok...well not Ada or Gus...and Jose technically never left school).  Darwyn was trying Junior kindergarten for the first time and was beside herself with excitement.  Max was going to try grade 1 in french immersion.  And I was returning to graduate studies full time, which I hadn't done in years.  Jose would be taking on Ada full time, as well as running errands, taking the kids to and from school and cooking dinners.  I was very nervous the whole thing would fall apart like a house of cards.

Darwyn's first day of school - JK

Max's first day of school - Grade 1

We are 3 weeks in now, and everyone is holding up nicely so far.  Darwyn has started to complain about going to school, which I admit surprised me.  She has mostly complained that she is not getting a sticker....I think that may be the root of the problem, although she is also showing some signs of fatigue.  Max has NOT started complaining about going to school....this also surpised me.  He seems stimulated and excited.  He tells me new french words everyday as well as new games he is learning at school.  Ada and Jose have managed well at home and boy am I loving arriving home to cooked meals!

Full time school has been a bit of a shock to my system too - mostly I'm finding it tough to sit at a desk for so much of the day.  But I am enjoying thinking and getting back into my research.  I also have not received any stickers.   Perhaps they will give me one after I defend :)

Summer Travels

Summer has been insanely busy.  (Gus keeps quipping that if we lived in a place that had nice weather all year round we wouldn't have to jam everything into the summer.  I keep thinking, good thing we have winter, otherwise we'd be tempted to maintain this pace year round.)  We have been playing frisbee every available weekday evening and travelling almost every weekend.  I think we have maybe been at home for a total of three weekends all summer.  We are exhausted, but we have many stories to tell.

We finally visited Saskatoon after a five year absence.  It was a pseudo reunion with all 4 sisters back in Saskatoon and all the James cousins to play with.  The kids had an absolute blast and we also staged an amazing photo shoot (I don't want to pass along the link because I am keeping some secret for the Christmas calendar, but I've posted a few that capture the events of the trip below - all of which are courtesy of Uncle Mike and Cousin Anwyn).

The whole extended family

Me and my three beautiful sisters

 The most noteworthy part of our trip to Saskatoon is that the city seems to be riddled with faeries, much to Darwyn's delight.  Both Wendy and Liz have set up fairy gardens in their homes which my kids discovered instantly upon arrival.  Darwyn immediately started leaving presents for the fairies and was thrilled to discover they were gone when she returned in the morning.  The fairies returned Darwyn's enthusiasm, leaving her notes and small gifts.   The fairies continued to build their homes and Darwyn, Leora (Dar's cousin) and Aunty Lizzy all spent time building a fairy tree house.

The fairy home at Aunty Wendy's

On the day we were leaving, the fairies left both Darwyn and Max glass bottles full of "fairy dust".  Aunty Lizzy told them that if they sprinkled the dust in a special spot at family camp (a trip occurring later in the summer, which I will return to momentarily)  the fairies would leave them a big present.  Darwyn was delighted and danced around the room hugging her fairy dust.  Max stared at his jar skeptically.

Max: (tilting his jar from side to side)  This fairy dust sure looks a lot like sparkles.

Aunty Lizzy:  Well...they are fairy sparkles...magic fairy sparkles.

Max:  Is that an empty sparkle package beside you?   (pause) And sparkles on your pants?

I reassured Max that regardless of the origin of the fairy dust, it was redeemable for a present.  He seemed satisfied with this and stored the jar safely away.  When we returned home, Darwyn quickly took up making homes for fairies in our yard.  She and Max made a nice house out of scrap wood and painted it bright colours.  Darwyn faithfully leaves gifts for the fairies that do disappear a remarkable amount of the time (many of the gifts are bits of food - I assume animals, or Ada, eats them, but perhaps it is fairies).  These fairies seem to be lazy and much less generous than the fairies in Saskatoon.  They usually forget to leave anything for Darwyn in return.

Fortunately, we soon departed for family camp.  Of course, we forgot the sparkles - erm, I mean fairy dust.   Darwyn despaired and told Aunty Lizzy that they would never get the gift now.  Aunty Lizzy assured her that if she worked hard to give gifts to the fairies all week, she might still earn her present.  Together they built a giant fairy tree house that earned the interest of many of the other children at family camp.  The fairies left chocolate covered strawberries and cupcakes which the kid's shared.  And on the final day Darwyn discovered a real porcelain mini tea set, complete with gorgeous fairies on every piece.  Needless to say, Darwyn adores this tea set.  She treats it with reverence and both kids enjoy harassing me to make them bedtime tea (another tradition they picked up from Aunty Lizzy in Saskatoon).

Besides fairies, family camp was also a haven for Max's new favorite game - magic the gathering.  Max's interest has been vigorously encouraged by Gus, who loves magic.  Gus even took Max out to buy his own deck so the two of them could play together.  They brought these decks to family camp on a whim, and boy was that the right move.  Max and Gus took out their decks to play and within seconds their table was flooded with 6-10-year-old boys.  From that moment on their was a small gaggle of boys following Gus around camp, eagerly awaiting a magic game.  One sweet and very dedicated boy even stood quietly behind Gus through his entire meal because Gus had mentioned offhand that he would play with him after lunch.  Fortunately, the older boys were quite solicitous of Max and played games with him as well, taking care to help him read all his cards.  It was quite endearing.

All and all it was a fun (and fairy) filled summer, but I am ready to relax and embrace fall.  Sadly that includes back to school for all of us except Ada and Gus.  Keep posted for the soon to come back to school blog post.

Most of the grandchildren with their beach day sand castle

Ada on beach day...sunscreen and sand make poor bed fellows.

A family photo from photo shoot day

A rare "couples" photo from family photo shoot day

Ada learned to walk while we were in Saskatoon.
She was so proud that any time whe was walking she was grinning from ear to ear.
She also always held one hand up as though she was carrying a serving platter.

Darwyn puts tailors out of business

Darwyn: I found a way to make my shorts fit.
Gus: Oh?
Darwyn: If they are too big you just keep adding pairs of underwear until they fit.
Gus:  (laughing) That's good.  How many pairs of underwear are you wearing under that pair of shorts?
Darwyn: (cheerfully) none!

Max loses his first teeth for fun and profit

Max has a pair of adult teeth coming in his lower jaw.  But instead of coming in directly under his baby teeth, they came in behind his baby teeth, giving him a shark-like second row of teeth.  The dentist warned us that this is bad news; those baby teeth need to come out ASAP so that the adult teeth can come in properly.  He (or was it she?) gave us three weeks to get those baby teeth out before they'd have to be pulled.

We diligently reminded Max many times each day to wiggle his two teeth to help get them out.  Each time he'd dutifully wiggle his teeth for a minute and then forget about it until the next time we reminded him.

After two weeks of getting nowhere I decided to conduct an experiment in economics.  I offered to pay Max $5 per tooth that he removes before the deadline.  After all, why should I be the only one to enjoy the surplus generated by not paying an expensive dentist to pull baby teeth?  Without the bribe, Max has no incentive to help me gain that surplus.

Max was fired up.  He stood to gain TEN WHOLE DOLLARS.  He wiggled those teeth with renewed ferocity... for a minute.  Then he forgot about it just like before.  We kept reminding him of how much money was on the line, but the tactic just wasn't working.

One night brushing teeth as the deadline approached, I noticed that one of his two offending baby teeth was very loose and ready to come out.  I half-jokingly implored him to just let me rip out the tooth then and there, expecting to be stonewalled.  But Max surprised me: "If I let you pull it now then I want both of the five dollars!"

My knee-jerk reaction was to refuse.  I'm boss around here, kid.  This is not a negotiation.  But I thought more about it while I brushed his teeth.  Time for a flip-flop, just to see what happens: "Okay, Max.  If you let me pull that tooth right now then I'll give you $10, and you can still earn $5 for the other one later."

Next thing I know, I'm now faced with the job of pulling a tooth from a willing six-year-old.  He stood there with his mouth open and his eyes shut tight, braced for impact.  I never thought it would get this far.  To be honest, I was getting cold feet.  What kind of six-year-old lets his dad pull a tooth for money?  When I was a kid there wasn't enough money in the world to convince me to let anyone pull out my teeth before they fell out on their own.

Anyway, the tooth came out quite easily.  Max was proud and fascinated by the new hole in his gums.  And boy oh boy was he happy with his $10.  But the story doesn't end yet.

The dentist's deadline approacheth.  So the very next night in the bathroom brushing teeth I said to Max, "Just let me pull that other one, too."  I thought for sure he'd refuse this time.  This second tooth was not as loose as the first; it would be harder to pull and might hurt a lot.

He didn't even bother to negotiate this time.  He was now an old hand at this tooth extraction thing.  It would be easy.

So once again I find myself tasked with pulling a tooth from a kid's mouth.  I think I was more nervous than he was.  What if it's harder to pull than I thought?  What if it really hurts?  Should I back out?

Never.  I'm not going to be upstaged by my six-year-old son.  So I pulled.  And pulled.  The tooth would not come.  It slid between my fingers and my nails were too short to get good purchase.  I grabbed a dry cloth for a better grip.  I pulled.  Again.  The tooth came out!

Max was solid as a rock the whole time.  Proud as a peach when it was done, and very happy with his additional $5.  I'm incredulous.  He is made of tougher stuff than I.

Hail damage up at the river

Looks like we'll need to re-do the kitchen roof.

Photo courtesy of Uncle Jeff.

Ada's new tricks

Baby Ada is growing quickly and is doted on by everyone in the house.  She says mama, dada and da dun (all done).  There has been some discussion about whether she also says "Hi!".  The rest of the time she babbles nonsense that no one can understand...but it sounds like we should be able to. She also waves goodbye, claps and dances.  Occasionally she will sign all done, but most of the time when you ask her if she is all done she just looks at the ceiling fan.  She crawls, climbs up on furniture and wrecks havoc around the house (although baby Darwyn still has her beat in that regard).   She is just starting to stand on her own unsupported, so she will probably walk in the next few months. She loves to play peekaboo and be tickled and she has also just started playing chase.  She self feeds and tries to feed others as well.  She finally got two teeth at ten and a half months.  She continues to be very sunny and easy going.  Anyway, enjoy a few cute videos I captured on my phone of her milestones (and a couple cute photos thrown in for good measure).

Video of Ada first learning to crawl (sorry it is sideways):

Ada plays wears the baby:

Two videos of Ada with Cats.  Ada loves animals.  The second video is mediocre but includes nice audio of Ada babbling.

Baby Ada reads to herself

Learning frisbee early

Failed baby proofing

Ada loves babies.

Ada's cousin Tommy moves home.  More babies!

Ada "helps" empty the dishwasher

Happy Birthday Max (and the value of lying)

Max has turned six!  There was a time I truly believed that he would NEVER be six.  He had a great birthday party.  This year he wanted a pokemon party.  I know nothing about pokemon, so Jose helped plan things.  We played a couple pokemon games...had a pokemon cake and played the now obligatory chase dad around the yard game.  Chasing dad the super villain was so popular last year that it is now a staple party activity.  This year I had to participate (I did not have the excuse of being pregnant).  Dad and I were a pokemon team called team rocket.  We had a pokemon battle with the kids.  They had to tag us six times to win.  It was very popular.

Traditionally we have asked for no gifts at our kids birthday parties, but my kids have now caught on that other children get gifts at their birthdays, so this year things were different.  Max wanted presents.  I sat him down to talk to him about gift etiquette.

Me: If someone gives you a present Max, you need to say thank you and be grateful.

Max:  What if I don't like it?  

Me: Even if you don't like it.  You pretend to like it.

Max:  Isn't that lying?

I went on to try to explain the intricacies of lying.  How it mattered who you were lying to and why.  And that in this case, you were lying to prevent hurting someone.  

Me: Besides,  if you are grateful for the gift someone gives you, they are more likely to want to give you gifts in the future right?

The lesson really stuck.  Max definitely wanted more gifts in the future and "it will hurt others" is usually a very effective motivator for him.  He was careful to REALLY appreciate every gift at his party.  The kids sat around him in a circle.  With his first gift he received a beautiful homemade card.  To make the paper card shaped, it had been folded in half twice then illustrated on the front and in side.  But if you unfolded the paper the whole way one side was completely blank.  Max took out the card and unfolded it so he was staring at the blank side.  Then his whole face lit up in mock adoration.

Max : Oh wow!  I really love it!  

Later Darwyn offered Max a card.  She had gotten him a gift, but forgotten to make a card.  No problem, Darwyn is a big advocate of recycling.   A day or two earlier she had made a card for some new children she met in our neighbourhood named Oliver and Avery, but hadn't given it to them yet.  She grabbed this card and offered it to Max.  

Max: (slowing sounding out the words)  To O-l-i-v-e-r and A-v-e-r-y.......uh....Oh THANK YOU DAR!!!!  I really love it.  

Darwyn beamed.  Max may not be the best actor, but he is a sweet little boy and his acting was good enough for her.  

Max and his pokemon cake

"Oh wow!  I really love it!"

Genuine appreciation

And the obligatory happy birthday video:

The wrecked fort from Forest School

Greta took the kids tromping down the Laurel Creek trail this afternoon with other kids from another family as part of "forest school".  They took along some scrap lumber to make a fort or treehouse.  They found a great spot by the creek---a large, sideways growing tree.  They nailed a few pieces of plywood and two-by-fours into various parts of the tree to make a "cave", a fort, and a few other structures I never saw.

After dinner we returned to the site so the kids could show off their creation to daddy.  We arrived to see their construction completely destroyed only a few short hours after it was built.  Some pieces of lumber and duct-taped tree branches had been launched clear across the creek, the rest were strewn about on the ground.  Someone had littered a cigarette package along with numerous cigarette butts.

Naturally, the kids were upset.  Darwyn was melancholy but Max was especially hurt by the incident.  At first he seemed fine---perhaps he hadn't yet grasped the meaning of what he saw.  He burst into tears all of a sudden, saying, "If we rebuild it they'll just come back!"  It was another one of those moments in which a parent can see a piece of his child's innocence disappear.

Max's words haunt me.  What broke him was not the fact that his fort was wrecked, nor the fact that it was wrecked by some idiot vandal.  Rather, it was the realization that he was trapped.  There was nothing he could do to recover.  He could build it again, but the vandals will just wreck it again straight away.

His words resonated with me because I have the same tendency to obsess about every bad thing that ever happens to me at the hands of some malicious jerk.  I'm a law-abiding citizen, so I cannot take revenge.  Even if some crime had been committed, it would be hopelessly impractical to seek help from the authorities.  The only remaining conclusion is that I need to pick up sticks and move somewhere else where I hope no one will bother me.  This line of thought turns even the most trivial of bad experiences into a feeling that I'm being oppressed by pure evil.  Talk about first-world problems!!!

Maybe my tendency to blow bad experiences out of proportion is not so unusual.  But it sure was eerie to see Max jump straight to the same feeling of helplessness that I often feel.  If it looks like heritable behaviour and it smells like heritable behaviour...

After talking it over as a family, we decided the kids would write a note to the vandals.  The note will explain that this fort was built by Max and Darwyn and their friends, and that they were very sad to see it destroyed.  We'll laminate it and tack it to the tree.

It probably won't have any effect on anything, but at least we'll feel like we did something rather than nothing.  We'll all hope that one or two vandals will see the note and feel guilty, and maybe our efforts will hasten them toward the day when they finally snap out of their herd delinquency phase.

Tunnel to Tarabithia

For those of you who have not read "Bridge to Tarabithia" the story features a magical land that two friends visit everyday.  To get to Tarabithia you need to cross a "bridge" which consists of a log across a stream.  The story has a heart wrenching ending that I won't give away, but the lasting impression from the story is the impact of the magical land the kids visit.

Last summer we blogged about a tunnel under the road where we saw a baby bird and got eaten by leaches.  The road we went under actually intersects a second busy road and there is another tunnel under that road.  We had never gone under it before because it isn't comfortable for adults to walk through (it isn't full height), but the kids liked to creep under it part way.  

A couple of weeks ago the region saw a massive ice storm.  The next morning was cold and sunny and the world looked like it was made entirely of crystal.  We decided to take a walk in this new magical world and we told the kids we were going to take the "tunnel to Tarabithia".  We disappeared into the dark  tunnel and emerged on the other side into a crystal world.  We found little streams, gnome paths and fairy homes.  We also found an entire hidden lake we had never known was there before!  The kids loved it and have begged us to return to Tarabithia.  Gus and I have dreams that one day they will be able to go through the tunnel themselves and enjoy the forest whenever they wish.  But not until they know how to swim!

Darwyn fording a tiny stream on a log (note the tunnel behind her)

Tarabithia

Tarabithia take 2

Close up of the ice

More Tarabithia

Darwyn turns four

Darwyn recently turned four years old, a long awaited event.  The theme of her party was after the movie frozen, something she has wanted since a month after she turned three.  Those of you with good memories might remember that she decided on a Elsa pinata at Max's party last year.  She had a long time to wait, but the Elsa pinata finally arrived.  In addition to the pinata, we played freeze dance, made a snowflake craft and had a frozen themed birthday cake.  Those who wanted it, got their face painted and there were many little kids dressed up as Anna and Elsa.  Also, this year Darwyn confidently declared that she wanted presents at her birthday....so there goes the days of the "no presents please" birthdays.  Ah well...it was inevitable.  Here are some photos for you to enjoy:

The cake

And unexpected party activity: Attack grandpa (the snow goon?)

All the best pictures

We have slowly been amassing many pictures and videos and never getting around to putting them on the blog.  I told myself I would write frequent small posts with just a few videos and pictures on each one (because large ones are so much work they never get done), but alas...that didn't happen.  So here is an encyclopedia of pictures.

Pictures from my phone:

some of baby Ada's first solids

Baby Ada's new toy.

A favorite nap spot

New chariot....That's right...we comfortably fit four kids

Baby Ada tries lettuce

Cousin Tommy visits....sorry about the red eye

Charlie and our very own bread bear

The kids bread bear designs

winter caves at the river

The secret tunnel to the conservation area

The drained conservation area lake.  The mud was so thick we got stuck.

muddy

Pictures from the good camera:

Baby Ada loves winter

Before

After

Max preparing for snow ball attack

Injury of the year.  Face, meet sidewalk.

Ninja moves 1

Ninja moves 2

Ninja moves 3