Off

Jorja and I went out to give blood this evening, and while we were there, she played a soccer game. Boy the mosquitoes are relentless, even with spray. Speaking of spray, it seems Off is sold out everywhere these days. Walmart was out, Zellers was out, London Drugs was out. We finally found some at Shoppers. But back to the soccer game. There was no goal this week, but she did have 'a few good kicks.' She's so tentative out there, even when a lot of the kids are smaller than she is this year. There were a couple of times when she chased the opponents and caught up to them, and then just kind of jogged behind them. So I told her that it was okay to try and take the ball away from the opposition. She just looked at me like I had two heads. Why on earth would you want to do that? Oh well.

The weather here has been decent the last couple of days (it is raining right now though). We spent most of the afternoon in the backyard yesterday. Julie had bought a sunscreen stick for the girls' faces and used it for the first time yesterday. I was talking to Jorja about it today. "Mommy put it on my ears, and my nose, and on my forehead." I asked if I could put it on my forehead. A look of shock and disgust came across her face, "No Dad, I don't want it to get all sweaty!" What could I say? I didn't really have a case against that. Later.

We're back!

We made it home this evening from the weekend at Julie's parents' farm. Things went well until we got to Rosetown (an hour from home) when CeCe decided to scream...and scream...and scream. There's nothing like a screaming baby inside a car with two other kids who are bothered by it to get the blood pressure going. She finally fell asleep about five minutes out of town. I suggested we should keep driving somewhere else then, but no one took the bait.

We arrived at the farm Thursday evening in time for supper. Both girls fell asleep in the car so bedtime was not going to come early. Jorja and Ginny went for a ride with Papa first in the tractor and then in the truck. They were having a blast. Jorja couldn't talk fast enough. "The tractor has three speeds slow medium and fast we went mostly in slow and a bit in medium but not too much and not in fast because that would have been too fast and we each got to steer and it has a loader that we got to put up and down and we had to take turns and it was a bit noisy but not too bad and it had three speeds..." Then they went for a ride in the truck to look at some land. They have some land with on old yardsite on it that they call the 'Huber place' (sounds like Hoo-ber). I asked Jorja where they went, and she said, "The Hooer Place." Where? "The Hooer Place." I was going to correct her, but it was just too funny listening to her say it.

On Friday, Julie, Jorja, Ginny and Nanny went to Medicine Hat. CeCe and I stayed back to get some rest. We napped for two hours in the morning. We napped for two hours in the afternoon. It was awesome!

Saturday the sun was finally shining, but the mosquitoes were sooo bad it wasn't funny. I made the comment that they were brutal. Apparently this was the first time Jorja had heard the word, because she kept saying it over and over. "The mosquitoes were bruuutal Nanny. The mosquitoes were bruuutal Papa. The mosquitoes were bruuuutal Mommy."

So that's the weekend in a nutshell. We made it home safe and sound and without any tickets (thanks to a very kind police officer just south of Kindersely that made a motion with his hand for me to slow down). Later.

The great balloon rescue

Today was Jorja's last day of preschool (except for the full-day year end party next week) and as part of the celebration, there were balloons. They each got to take one balloon home, which wouldn't be that bad if you weren't walking a couple of blocks in a strong wind. We were walking home and I was pulling the wagon with Ginny and CeCe in it and Jorja was walking, clutching her balloon. We were actually talking about the 'mortality' of balloons and that they are fun to play with for a while, but don't last that long. Sometimes they pop, sometimes they just go flat, but they don't last forever. We had no sooner finished this talk than the balloon got away from her, and it went flying (I'm lucky it wasn't filled with helium). Oh, the irony. For one brief moment, she looked as though she would be okay with losing it, and then the reality of the situation set in and she started to cry. I'm talking about the talk-show type 'ugly cry'. It was loud and it was strong. Then for whatever reason, I decided to abandon the two children in the wagon (don't worry, I told Ginny to stay there) and chase down the balloon. It was going pretty good, but I was gaining on it, until I saw the bus. It narrowly escaped and paused briefly and then took off in a wild swirl in the wake of the bus. Now it was in the middle of a busy street. Another truck was coming, but I went for it, and a couple of houses past the busy street, I got it. I then turned around and realized how far I was away from the wagon, which Ginny was still sitting in much to my surprise. I ran back, and held the balloon for the rest of the walk home. This same balloon is now wedged in behind the computer desk and virtually forgotten about. But I got it.

I fired up the rototiller during preschool today, and it worked great. I got quite a bit done, but three years of neglect makes for some pretty tough going. It looks good now though, ready for some veggies.

Julie made spaghetti and sauce for supper tonight (she make great spaghetti sauce). We don't usually eat actual spaghetti, it's usually rotini or something, but tonight it was spaghetti. The girls had way too much fun eating it. Julie and I were long done, the table was all cleared, dishwasher loaded, and the two of them were still sitting there picking up one noodle at a time, holding it up and sucking it in. They were laughing and giggling and having a gay old time. They were probably there 20 minutes after we were done.

Jorja, Ginny and I went for a walk after supper. We were talking about dandelions, and how they go from yellow to white and to seed. She found this quite interesting and then she switched the conversation to mosquitoes. She told me that you only had to worry about the girl ones, the boy ones wouldn't bite you. I asked her how she new this. She replied that it was just something she knew. Then she said, "One Thursday when I was three, me and Mommy were just having a talk about bugs and mosquitoes, so that's how I know." All right then.

Have a good long weekend. Later.