Saturday, April 30, 2011

Royal fever

It appears Royal fever has officially taken over our house.  Perhaps it is all the coverage on TV.  Perhaps it is the fact I live in a house filled with women.  Perhaps it is the 16 hours of coverage we have PVRed.  At any rate, I'm even being overtaken by it.  I found myself showing Jorja and Ginny some stuff on the internet Friday morning while Julie was at work.  I couldn't believe how they both sat there for the whole 12 minute clip, completely enthralled.  I pointed out all the people to them, and Jorja was able to tell Julie what everyone was wearing when she got home.  "Princess Kate was beautiful and Prince William was so handsome.  The queen wore yellow..."  It was pretty impressive.  At one point, Jorja pointed to the screen and said, "Look, there's the flower girls and the grizzly bears."  "Grizzly bears?"  I asked.  Then it dawned on me, "Do you mean ring bearers?"  So close.

This evening Jorja said, "I wish I was a princess and that my Mom and Dad were the king and queen and I lived in a castle and could marry a prince."  It's good to have dreams I guess.

So I'm not sure why I'm getting so into the Royal wedding.  Maybe I want Jorja and Ginny to have the same type of memories of this that Julie has of Prince Charles and Lady Di's wedding.  Or maybe it's so they have the same kind of memories that I have of Wayne Gretzky and Janet Jones' wedding.  At any rate, it's pretty cool to see how into it they are.  Later.

Friday, April 29, 2011

CeCe

Being the least vocal of her sisters, I realize I don't write about her as often as the other two.  Here are a few pictures of CeCe doing some of her favorite things.  Sometimes I think if the only toys she had were toy phones, she would be happy.  She has also taken a liking to the girls' toy computer.  One day, she plopped herself down in this corner and proceeded to 'text' on her cell phone and 'surf' all at the same time.  I think we'll be in trouble when she's a little older.  Her other favorite activity is sitting in front of the toy box and emptying it.  She'll just sit there and throw stuff over her shoulder until it's empty.  If only she would put them back when she's done.



She has also taken a liking to Ginny's Handy Manny tool set.  She is particularly fond of the hammer named 'Pat'.  The only problem is that she likes to hammer the walls.  The walls that we recently had repainted.  So far I haven't seen any chips, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  She swings that thing pretty good.  I was actually going to video her the other day, but as soon as I got the camera out, she put down the hammer, walked right up to me, smiled and said, "Cheeee."  It looks as though we may have another poser.  Because we need another one of those.  Later. 

Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter

Where has the time gone?  I haven't gone without writing for over a week in a long time.  I guess it's been a bit crazy around here.  For starters, I had to work the evening shift at work this past week, so it was a bit different.  It's been a long time since I had to (my coworker is awesome) so my turn was long overdue.  Let me tell you, change is not something that the kids deal with very well.  It started out with Jorja in tears Monday morning, Ginny moping around at Dee's house and some very overtired, emotional girls.  By Wednesday, they were starting to get used to the idea, and then it was time for the long weekend.  We'll see how this week goes because I'm doing it again.

Thursday after school, we headed south to Julie's parents' place for the weekend.  The car ride down was long and painful.  It's only 3.5 hours, but it felt a lot longer.  CeCe was miserable, screaming on and off most of the was there.  No one slept at all, so it was after nine before anyone went to bed.  Not good.  Jorja and Ginny were pretty overtired all weekend, but kept it together fairly well for the most part.  Ginny had a couple of meltdowns, but when you stay up past eight and then get up shorty after six, these things happen.  CeCe wasn't feeling well all weekend, so her cold combined with sleeping in the playpen made for a couple of miserable nights.  So much so that we ended up coming home last night after supper instead of this morning.  The girls all slept in the car all ther way home and it was much more peaceful than the ride there.

Depsite the lack of sleep, we did have a good weekend.  Their church always puts on a Good Friday breakfast, which was really good.  The weather was beautiful and the girls got to play outside.  On Saturday afternoon, we went and saw Julie's grandma who is 89 and just got home after spending three weeks in the hospital, so that was nice. 

Jorja was really into the real meaning of Easter this year, which was great to see.  The Catholic school system puts a lot of emphasis on Easter, so every day for the past couple of weeks, she would come home from school and talk about the Easter story.  It was pretty cool.

The girls had an egg hunt Sunday morning, and it ended with them finding their baskets.  Ginny had a little stuffed kitty in hers that she was pretty taken with.  However, I think some of the sickness that has been going through the house recently has been weighing on her.  This poor little kitty seemed to be quite sick.  It started out that she had a bum 'fection'.  Yes, that is what I said.  Don't worry, I was just as shocked as you.  It doesn't sound very pleasent, but I'm pretty sure it refered to a diaper rash.  No doubt brought on by the 'diareenah' that the kitty was suffering from.  Yes this cat had problems.  I'm pretty sure the 'diareenah' was caused from the antibiotics used to treat the ear 'fection' though, so it should clear up soon.  Sheesh.

It was a nice day outside today and I dug the bikes out of the garage.  I thought I'd try Ginny on a two wheeler with training wheels this year.  That's going to be a process.  Sometimes I forget that she's barely three.  Its' like she said, "This bike is twicky."  Later.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Bathroom breaks with Ginny

I'm not sure if it's just the novelty of things, but Ginny seems to have to go to the bathroom everywhere these days.  This morning, I was just buckling her in the car for church and she said she had to go.  I asked her if she could wait till we got there and she said yes.  By the time we were there she had forgotten already, but I asked her and took her anyway.  I would sooner have that than in the middle of Sunday school.  At least the bathroom was empty this time.  It's always an adventure taking her.  The last time I took her at church, we had to wait for a stall to open up and someone was using the urinal.  "What's that boy doing?!" she asked in a rather loud voice.  This 'boy' was probably 60 and I just wanted a hole to crawl into.  Today the coast was clear though, so we just went in.  About two drops came out.  She said, "Sometimes there's a little, sometimes there's a lot."  I guess so. 

After church we went to Smitty's for lunch, and Ginny had to pee again.  They have a family bathroom there, so at least there's some more privacy.  She was all done and ready to wash her hands.  It came to dry, and she started doing a pretty good 'wax on, wax off' impression in front of the paper towel dispenser.  I realized she was trying to make the paper towel come out.  The only problem was that is didn't have a motion sensor.  Use the force Luke, you can get it.  Okay, I pulled some out for her.  Later.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

It's kind of a chicken

We had a little bit of excitement (if you could call it that) with the car yesterday.  By excitement I mean a big puddle of oil on the garage floor.  Not exactly a welcome sight.  It turned out it was the oil filter and we caught it soon enough that no damage was done.  In the meantime though, I had to catch a cab to work this morning.  I didn't think getting the whole house up to drive me to work for 6:00 am was a very viable option, so I went with the cab.  Upon hearing the news of this, Ginny asked, "Are you going to take a yellow one?"  Would you like me to take a yellow one?  She replied, "Yes."  So I called United.  She was quite happy this afternoon to hear that I had taken a yellow one.  I would have preferred it if he had been on time and not just finished a cigarette, but I didn't want to burst her bubble.

This evening we went out for supper with some friends.  We had a nice time, but noticed CeCe was kind of pulling at her ear.  There happened to be a walk-in clinic right there with no line up, so we whipped in to check if her infection had not totally cleared.  It turned out she was fine, but while we were waiting, Ginny decided she had to poop.  Really?  Okay, so off we go.  I took Jorja along with us because I didn't want to leave her in the waiting room by herself.  The was this big poster in the bathroom that said '100 things to do to live to be 100.'  Ginny doesn't really like to be watched while she does her business, so I would pick a number and make Jorja find that number and read what it said.  Sure enough, after a few things, Ginny had pooped, we walked out into the waiting room and there came Julie and CeCe.  A quick trip all around. 

One of the 100 things to do to live to be 100 was eat plenty of fish.  Julie has never been a fish-liker and I've never been a real fisherman, so needless to say the kids haven't had a lot of exposure.  Recently, however, we started to buy fish sticks once in a while.  The kids seem to like them (and so does Julie with enough lemon juice) so all is well.  Today though when Jorja said you should eat plenty of fish, Ginny said that if she ever ate fish she would spit it out.  Jorja said, "No Ginny, not a real fish, just chicken.  I mean, we call it fish, but it's kind of a chicken."  I couldn't keep a straight face after that.  I guess a fish stick bears a strong resemblance to a chicken finger.  Who knew?

Yesterday marked one year of blogging.  Crazy how time flies.  Later

Monday, April 11, 2011

Fiction

The other day I was doing 'this little piggy' to Ginny.  I have a real problem with this rhyme.  Pigs should not eat roast beef, so I always change it to something else.  After a couple times of doing this, Jorja decided she wanted to do it to me.  She got to the part about roast beef, and said roast beef.  No, I said, no roast beef.  Yes, roast beef, she would say.  No roast beef.  Yes.  No.  Yes.  Finally, she got a book of nursery rhymes and showed me, "See Dad, it says roast beef."  Well, it's wrong, I said, it shouldn't.  She was getting kind of frustrated with me by this time and said rather sternly, "Dad, that's what it says!  Maybe it's fiction!"  I must admit, I was shocked.  I had to agree, maybe it is fiction.  I hope nursery rhymes are anyway.  Otherwise you better hold onto your silverware.  Later.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Bloodwork

I was up early this morning to go and get some blood taken (just part of the yearly check-up).  I got there 20 minutes early and was the third one in line.  By the time the door opened, there must have been a dozen people behind me.  I think the last time I lined up outside so early in the morning for something was in 1989 to get tickets to ZZ Top.  This wasn't as enjoyable.

The girls did their shopping yesterday and were thrilled.  Jorja picked a white headband with a big flowery-bow type thing on the side that had a big heart-shaped jewel in the middle.  She thought she was pretty hot stuff.  We were walking outside later and she said, "Look, my headband changes my shadow."  Yes it did alright.  The way her shadow was, she could have had two heads.  Ginny picked out a necklace that had to have pink and purple in it.  Not quite as showy as the headband, but she thought it was pretty special too.  They were both a little put out by the fact that they didn't get any change back.  I had to spot them each a couple of bucks.  Another lesson in finances I guess.

Julie and I are going to a wedding dance this evening, so that should be fun.  A date!  Without kids!  Yes, it will be fun.  In the meantime, Ginny is at music lessons now and Jorja goes at noon.  Maybe a snooze after that?  We'll see.  Later.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Finances with Jorja

The past two nights have finally been fairly restful.  CeCe has been battling an ear infection and has not been her usual, happy self.  More if a little bear really.  Poor thing.  She is finally feeling better now and sleeping better too. 

There is no school today, so we are going to meet Julie at the mall close to her office for our 'usual no school on Friday lunch date.'  The girls have been excited all week.  They are both going to have subs with chocolate milk and a cookie for dessert.  That was decided on Monday I think.  Today there is an extra bonus though.  Julie's Dad ended up coming up for one night to go to an auction sale here.  When he was leaving, he slipped each of the girls $5.  We told them they could spend this at the mall today.  Well, you can feel the excitement in the air now.  Last night Jorja couldn't stop talking.  "We're going to go to Children's Place and buy maybe a bracelet, or a necklace or a headband.  I know where the headbands are.  They're near the front in this thing *makes a rectangle shape with her hands* close to some pink shirts.  Yeah, I thing I'm going to buy a headband if there's a headband for $5.  Do you think there will be a headband for $5?  That's what I'm going to buy.  Ginny, what are you going to buy?  I'm going to buy a headband..."  It should be interesting, to say the least.

Ginny didn't want to spend her money at first, but then she received some sound financial advice from her older sister.  "Ginny, if you buy something, they'll give you more, different money back!"  If only things worked that way.  That was all Ginny needed - she was then going to buy two necklaces and a headband.  Whoa there Ginny, I don't think you'll get more than one thing.  Yes, it will be interesting.  I must be crazy.  Later.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Some things never change

It's funny how the generation, gender and toys are all different, but the problems basically remain the same.  When we were little, the argument was over who got which matchbox car.  Every time we played, we took turns picking out our cars, very much the same way that teams get picked on the schoolyard.  I'm not sure how we decided who picked first, but I do remember usually having my favourite white 69 mustang with the two blue stripes going over the hood and roof.  There must be some benefits to being the oldest I guess.

Fast forward 30 some years.  This morning the girls were playing with Littlest Pet Shop animals.  They were fighting over who got some and who had more.  Jorja wanted one in particular, and that made Ginny want that one even more.  They each had a huge pile of them and were fighting over this particular one.  I asked them why they weren't even playing with the ones they had, they just had them in a huge pile.  They insisted that they were, they just wanted to keep them separated.  Ginny finally agreed to let Jorja have one of hers, so Jorja took one.  Ginny proceeded to look at her pile and then she stuck her finger in the hole where the missing animal was and said, "But now there's a hole in my pile.  I can see the floor."  Jorja quickly proceeded to push the pile together to fill in the gap.  This didn't really appease Ginny, so I decided to intervene.  I counted Jorja's pile and it had 18.  I then counted Ginny's pile and stopped at 18.  I put the remaining 12 in the middle and they took turns picking them, just like we used to do.  Some things never change.  I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.  Later.